Salvogesis

We had a great furlough. Susan and Heather have been gone for about a month; Sarah-Grace and I flew out to meet them about 2 weeks ago in Winnipeg. We then all drove back across Western Canada. Today I am going to chat about a few lessons learned and/or things that were reinforced for me along the way. Lesson 4: Galatians 5:23-24: The Mark of God Upon Us With so many people in bathing suits, I also noticed just how many people have tattoos these days. I think the majority of people between 15 and 50 probably have a tattoo of some kind – and some have lots. The 15-year-olds, I hope they still like whatever it is that they have tattooed on their bodies when they are 50 years old. A lot will change for them between now and then but that tattoo will probably stay the same.  What my mind thought of when I saw this was… what are the tattoos, the markings of a Christian life? What are the things that when people look at a child of God they will see? What indelible marks does the Holy Spir...

We had a great furlough. Susan and Heather have been gone for about a month; Sarah-Grace and I flew out to meet them about 2 weeks ago in Winnipeg. We then all drove back across Western Canada. Today I am going to chat about a few lessons learned and/or things that were reinforced for me along the way. Lesson 3: Matthew 13:44: Heaven is a Great Treasure   After Winnipeg we were able to go to Regina, Moose Jaw and Swift Current in Saskatchewan. This is also very much a part of our children’s heritage. Not only do they have three or four great grandparents from Saskatchewan but Heather was born there and Rebecca and Sarah-Grace really grew up there. We celebrated the Riders (even though they lost); we were able to see the tunnels of Moose Jaw (a great tourist stop) and got to see a lot of old friends. It was good. Next we went to Alberta and stopped at the West Edmonton Mall. Heather really wanted to see the Mall. We went there on Susan’s Birthday. Susan and Sarah-Grace went shopping...

We had a great furlough. Susan and Heather have been gone for about a month; Sarah-Grace and I flew out to meet them about 2 weeks ago in Winnipeg. We then all drove back across Western Canada. Today I am going to chat about a few lessons learned and/or things that were reinforced for me along the way. Lesson 2: Deuteronomy 6:7: Teach your Children    We were able to see many other interesting things while we were in Winnipeg too: the Art Gallery, the Forks, the Museum, the Hockey Sweater the musical, St. Boniface, Booth College… and we even stayed in the same room there we stayed in when we first lived in Winnipeg for a couple of nights before we camped at Birds Hill Park. In between visiting Winnipeg and reminiscing about our time living there 15 years ago we went to pick up Heather from Ukrainian Camp in Gimli – this camp is why we were here. Heather has been learning Ukrainian, as you probably know. Susan’s mom has Ukrainian heritage, and she may have even gone to this cam...

We had a great furlough. Susan and Heather have been gone for about a month; Sarah-Grace and I flew out to meet them about 2 weeks ago in Winnipeg. We then all drove back across Western Canada. Today I am going to chat about a few lessons learned and/or things that were reinforced for me along the way. Lesson One: Philippians 2:3&4: Human Responsibilities     One place Sarah-Grace and I visited early in our adventure was the Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg. This is a big building with lots of ramps, and stairs, and walking. They seemed to have walking for the sake of walking, as a good portion of the museum was just long empty ramps to get from one floor to the next. There were a number of exhibits in the building – but not on the ramps. There was, of course, a big section on Germany during the second world war and the holocaust. There was also information about the Rwandan genocide and other terrible things from history. I noticed that many of the most horrible and violen...

The children went to and from camp this week. In the end I think we had 22 or 23, 7- to 12-year-old campers accompanied for their journey anyway by a number of chaperones. It was interesting. There were the usual challenges, of course, of some people not being able to make it at the last minute and people’s phones no longer being in service – but this time there was more, much more.   First, the bus caught fire. Truly. It was a real blessing that none of the kids were on it yet. We had to scramble to find enough cars and drivers to get the children to the ferry and we even had to press Remi (our Food Bank driver) into action, driving the cube van with everyone’s luggage in it. And remember that the camp is in Gibson’s so the children have to catch 2 ferries to get there; so we are under a bit of a time crunch. We race to Nanaimo (as fest as the speed limits will permit, of course). Almost everyone had made it to the ferry but one car was just not coming. We were waiting. We were wo...

I was at a board meeting for the Neighbourlink Society: a group that provides food for children in the schools. Many of the people on the board have been friends for years. They were telling a few good stories. John and Carol are very good friends. John was giving Carol a hard time about her cooking because apparently shortly after she fed him a grilled cheese sandwich he had a heart attack – he was saying, ‘don’t let Carol make anyone any food’. Carol then told us more of the story. John was coming over to mow her lawn and after he had a lunchbreak, he headed outside to finish the work… and he did have a heart attack. They called the ambulance. It was quite significant. Carol was quite concerned. They took him to the hospital and then they actually had to fly him out by helicopter. You have to really understand the humour of these two for the rest of the story. As he was going up in the helicopter with his family and everyone around Carol yelled out, ”and don’t think I’m paying you! Y...