A ‘special child’ responds to special care

Jim Bishop

Column by Jim Bishop Jenny Hummel of Weyers Cave, our daughter, won’t forget the time and place when she was told for certain – son Jacob, our grandson, has autism. She and husband Dallas knew for some time that “something was wrong” with their youngest son. He had difficulty responding to voices, seldom maintained eye…

Overtime

Chris Graham

General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline Under Article 4 of the Constitution of Virginia, “no regular session of the General Assembly convened in an even-numbered year shall continue longer than sixty days.” That means that the 2008 session should have adjourned for the year on Saturday, March 8. However, as the hours passed last Saturday,…

Our eighth week

Chris Graham

Column by Steve Landes Although there are just a few days remaining until the scheduled end of this year’s session of the Virginia General Assembly, events aren’t slowing down. This is the part of the session where delegates and senators meet to work out the final details on a wide range of legislation, and when…

Landes provides updates on legislative activities in Richmond

Chris Graham

Column by Steve Landes This last week in Richmond was one of the busiest and most eventful of the session, as the General Assembly has now reached the home stretch in completing its work for 2008. In a week that began with a federal holiday and ended with my attendance at the celebration of the…

A different kind of ministry

AFP

Story by Laura Lehman Amstutz Many people prefer to avoid hospitals and nursing homes, but many Eastern Mennonite Seminary graduates have chosen these places to do ministry. About a dozen recent EMS graduates are pursuing chaplaincy roles as their ministry field, partially due to the Clinical Pastoral Education program at EMS. CPE gives students opportunity…

House releases conservative budget

Chris Graham

General Assembly Report by Rob Bell With the worsening budget numbers, the House of Delegates released its biennial budget. Unlike the governor’s budget, the House budget does not cut $220 million in school construction and lottery money that was going to local schools. These cuts would have cost my four local school divisions over $3…

Budget Sunday

Chris Graham

General Assembly Report column by Del. Ben Cline This past Sunday was “Budget Sunday,” the day that the House and Senate appropriations committees released their amendments to the two-year budget that the governor introduced last December. Legislators, lobbyists and other groups with a stake in the budget waited in line for hours to get copies…