Role Flexibility

Sometimes roles change and it pays to be able to be flexible. Usually, in our family, if someone is traveling while the others stay home it is me who is going somewhere, while Edith stays home with the children. This weekend is the opposite. Edith has a nephew getting married in Montrose, Colorado. She left last evening to go to the wedding.

She stayed in Dryden half the night, then got the bus at 3:00 AM to go to Winnipeg. Her flight was scheduled to leave Winnipeg this afternoon and she should be arriving in Montrose this evening. The wedding is on Saturday. Edith should be home Tuesday.

This morning we managed to get everything done and the children got to school on time. It is a good experience for teenagers to realize all their mother does for them. The awareness of these things is lost on her husband either!

We went to Johnny's and sold school pancake breakfast tickets. We did pretty good. The pancake breakfast is tomorrow morning from 8:30 to 11:00 AM. I need to assemble the egg strata for the breakfast. Edith got the ingredients ready so I just need to put things together and get them in the fridge for the night, then in the oven in the morning.

It is kind of interesting being on this end of the travel. I get to answer the questions about what came in the mail and e-mail, talk about who phoned and what is happening around here. I more used to being on the other end of those conversations.

So, we practice role flexibility and look forward to Tuesday.

Anabaptist Foundation Haiti Savings Group Program

The Open Hands Fund committee of the Anabaptist Foundation has been researching ways to do economic development and micro-finance projects in the Third World, especially in communities where there are Anabaptist churches. Last year we did about 225 micro-finance loans in North-Eastern Haiti. These loans are now in their second six month loan cycle. The repayment rate on the first six month loan cycle was over 96%.

Our latest project is a savings group program in the Miragoane area of Haiti. Lyndon Swarey, from Stuarts Draft, Virginia, moved to Haiti about a month ago to supervise the program. Since that time we have been able to conduct a training session and interview seven Haitian Mennonite candidates for two positions as group facilitators.

We have hired two Haitian Mennonite men as group facilitators. They are beginning to speak to Pastors and churches about savings groups. They are beginning with the 18 Pastors and churches in the area around Cadiac. After that they will also make presentations in LaColline, Miragoane and Mesote. We are hoping to have about 200 participants in savings groups by the Fall of next year.

The vision is to help people to form savings groups in their church or community. Each group will establish their goals and objectives for saving. They will meet regularly and encourage each other in meeting their savings goals. There are a variety of types of savings groups. This has been done very successfully in other countries.

The neat thing about savings groups is that when people save, they gain an asset. When they take a loan in traditional micro-finance, they assume a liability. Savings group participants gain just a little slice of margin in their lives. That slice of margin can begin a process that leads to economic change in their family. It also operates without outside funding. So, it addresses the feeling that so often develops among people living in poverty, that their situation is hopeless and they are helpless to do anything about it.

Lutheran statement expresses 'deep regret' for Anabaptist persecution

The Lutheran Church has proposed a statement that would express deep regret for the persecution of Anabaptists almost 500 years ago. I don't know what you think about that, but as a Mennonite person it does mean something to me to have the persecution acknowledged and to have regret expressed.

You can read about the proposed statement of regret here.

I wonder what it would take for us as Anabaptists to acknowledge some of our failures and apologize for them?

Transitions-snails and tamaracks

When we were in Thailand, I was surprised to find this large, land snail in our veranda. I put my hand on the photo to give a size comparison.

Here you can see the full length of the snail better.

Another day, this little guy came in with my laundry!

Here Dallas is wearing a hat a Lisu pastor gave Merle. His wife made it.


The day we went to Myanmar/Burma, we stopped at hot springs on our way home. The water here was quite hot! That's why the ladies are holding their feet up!

I was glad to see there was still some fall colour when we got back to Ontario. I actually took this photo in 2008, and there was probably less colour than this left, but the Tamarack trees were still glorious!

~Edith

Staff Fellowship

The past week was a time of getting back into our routine of life here in Sioux Lookout. The children went back to school at Cornerstone Christian School on Monday. I got caught up on some things that have been waiting for my attention until we got home. The weather was warm for this time of the year so Edith got some things done outside.

Thursday we started our staff fellowship. The theme was Spiritual Care. We had three topics, Spiritual care for ourselves, Spiritual care for our families, and Spiritual care for our churches. Merle Nisly was the guest speaker. He had some very thought provoking input for us in these three areas. We decided part way through that we could have chosen just one of the three topics as the theme.

It was great to be together with the other Believers Fellowship staff. We had the Kevin Miller family from Red Lake staying at our house. We had a good time with them while they were here.

My hunting hasn't been successful so far. I saw a cow moose on Monday, but she was probably 400 yards away across the lake. I am not a good shot so I decided to work my way closer in the canoe so I could have a better chance of hitting her. Before I got close enough to shoot she had walked off into the bush. Since that I haven't seen anything.

Dallas and I went to Dryden for his dentist appointment on Wednesday. We saw a nice six point buck standing beside the road. I thought deer season didn't start until Saturday so we just drove by and complained that the deer showed up 3 days too early. Then on Friday I found out that deer season had actually started on October 10.

Saturday Dallas and I went to Dinorwic hunting. We saw some moose tracks but no moose or deer. Dallas did shoot a grouse, so that is all we came home with.

This is our food line at the staff fellowship.

Here is one of the mealtimes. We had staff fellowship at the church here in Sioux Lookout. It was nice that we didn't have to travel this time for staff fellowship.

On the left in this picture is Merle Nisly. He is the director of Living Hope Native Ministries in Red Lake and was the guest speaker for our staff fellowship. On the right is Darrell Nisly who is the director of Believers Fellowship.

Thanksgiving Feast - Early or Late?

Today we had a Thanksgiving feast at church after the morning service. It was two weeks late for Canadian Thanksgiving and about a month early for Thanksgiving in the United States. But then being grateful shouldn't have a season or a special occasion should it?

There were a number of people missing from church on Thanksgiving weekend, so the feast was postponed until today. We especially enjoyed it since we just returned from our trip. It was a good time to reconnect with people from church. One of the things I am thankful for is our church and the people there. We are blessed to be a part of the Believers Fellowship church here in Sioux Lookout.

It was a beautiful day today. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. We went for a walk this afternoon. The leaves are pretty much gone from the trees, but there is no snow yet.

The food and fellowship at the Thanksgiving feast were both good.

The desert table was a great place to visit!

Minneapolis

We completed our journey as far as Minneapolis. We arrived here on schedule at 10:20 this morning. We checked into our motel. We will be here for the IGo board meeting on Thursday and Friday.

Our main task for today and tomorrow is to figure out when it is day and night. We left our house in Chiang Mai at 9:30 AM on Monday. It was light until we left Bangkok. When we arrived in Taipei it was dark. We left Taipei in the dark Monday evening at 11:00 PM. While we were flying to San Francisco it got light and then just as we were landing in San Francisco it was getting dark again. It was about 7:30 PM still Monday. We left San Francisco in the dark at midnight. We arrived in Dallas at 5:25 AM on Tuesday. It soon got light. Now we are in Minneapolis. It is a little hard to tell what time of day it really is now. I'm sure we will get adjusted in a few days.

We appreciate those of you who were praying for us as we traveled. Everything went on schedule and all our lugguage arrived. When we arrived in San Francisco the American Airlines person said that China Airlines had changed our flight, canceled the American Airlines portion and did not re-instate it. She worked on it for 30 minutes or so and got it all fixed up for us.

I am looking forward to the other IGo board members arriving here Thursday morning. We have a full agenda and usually we also have a great time of fellowship.