Meredith

What is the Importance of a Name?

2012-01-30T18:51:00.002-06:00

They say that the sweetest sound in any language is the sound of your own name. I don't know if that is true, but it does make an impression when people remember our names. Names are a curious thing. We tend to give names to our children because we like the sound of the name, or because of positive emotional connections with someone with the same name. We don't tend to give names solely on the merit of the meaning of the name. Yet the meaning of a name is significant.

I noticed on Facebook recently that a number of people are accessing a site that assigns a Native American name to them. It seems to be quite popular, and I assume that people think that perhaps the Native American name a computer assigns to them might have some significance. I really don't think it means much.

For many years I was not very interested in having people know my first name. It seemed old fashioned, and I didn't like it very much. I was always glad that my parents chose to use my middle name, Merle, instead of my first name, Ezra. Well 9/11 changed all that, and I can no longer avoid the use of my first name. I need to use it on all official documents and airline tickets.

But along the way, I also have come to appreciate the meaning of my first name. Ezra means "helper". That really is the kind of person I want to be. In contrast to that the definition of Merle is, "blackbird". I'm not quite sure how to feel about that one. Also, the Biblical Ezra was a man of God and was an honorable person. So, that is a good model for my life too.

One of my goals was to learn to know the names of most, if not all, of the homeless people in Sioux Lookout in 2011. I pretty much accomplished that goal. I think that often we tend to see homeless people merely as "one of them". Yet they have a name. They are a person with real feelings and emotions. I think for them to be approached on the street and addressed by name, adds significance to their existence. I have enjoyed learning to know them not only by name, but also having a chance to visit with them, and hear their personal stories.

One of the side benefits of learning to know the homeless people by name, is that they have also learned to know me by my name. I consider one of my greatest achievements in 2011 to have the street people know my name. It makes me feel successful to hear them use my name. If I could choose the people who would know me by name, they would be high on the list.

One of the things I look forward to is receiving a new name. The Bible tells us that we will be given a new name by our Heavenly Father when we arrive in the place he is preparing for us. Obviously, as a father he has every right to give us a name. He already knows us better than we know ourselves. Somehow, I think that name is going to be the one that will fit me the best. So, I am not signing up to have a computer assign me a Native American name. I think I will wait and see what name my heavenly father gives me. Who knows, it might even be Ezra!

Cornerstone Christian School Benefit Auction

2012-01-09T20:17:00.003-06:00

The Benefit auction for Cornerstone Christian School will be happening the last Saturday of this month, January 28. The auction is held in conjunction with a spaghetti dinner at New Life Assembly on First Avenue here in Sioux Lookout.

We are gathering items to be sold at the auction. We have airline tickets from both Wasaya Airlines and Bearskin Airlines. We will have a good selection of baked goods. Also, we have a netbook computer donated by Wilson's Business Solutions.

It looks like we will have a good auction again this year. Every year we are grateful for the generous support of businesses and individuals. This year has been no exception. We do a live auction and a silent auction. I usually serve as the auctioneer for the live auction. It has some entertainment value for the people that attend.

So, if you are going to be in Sioux Lookout on January 28, you might enjoy attending the Cornerstone Christian School spaghetti dinner and benefit auction.

Here is a picture of a table that I refinished. This table will be sold on the auction.

The table has one board that can be placed in the top. This makes it oval instead of round.

Here is a picture of the spec sheet on the netbook computer that we will be selling too. It is a pretty neat little machine.

Homeless for the Holidays

2012-01-01T21:51:00.002-06:00

The holidays of Christmas and New Year are a time when we think of family and being home. There is a lot of time and effort made to be home for the holidays. We probably all have good memories of being home for the holidays.

The last few weeks I have been thinking of those who are homeless for the holidays. On the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, I was walking down the street in Sioux Lookout and met one of the men who comes to our Sunday evening meal for the homeless people in Sioux Lookout. It impacted me emotionally to think of the disconnect he has with his family, and his community. Being homeless at any time of the year is not pleasant. Being homeless over the holidays must be even more painful.

But what does it mean to be home? To me being home means being in a place where I belong to a group of people. I claim them as my own, and they claim me as one of their own. We belong together. It is a place where I am loved and respected for who I am, by people who know my faults and failures, but choose to love me and accept me anyway. It is a place where I can be, without fearing that I am staying too long, or coming too often.

What about those who have no such place? We can look at the homeless people and accuse them of making bad choices. We can find a way to tell ourselves that it is their own fault. They ruined relationships and walked away from opportunities. We can only do that until we hear their stories, and learn to know more about their lives.

The homeless people who come to the church for our Sunday evening meal, gradually begin to tell us their stories. Just today, I heard some things I never knew about one of the men. My heart ached as I heard another piece of his story.When I hear the life stories of the homeless people who come for the meal, suddenly it isn't very easy to to find fault with the choices they have made in life.

It seems to me that over the holidays the homeless people are more aware of their lack of connection with their family and their communities. I wonder what it would feel like to walk the streets of Sioux Lookout and see so many people getting ready for family events, and have none to attend yourself. What would it feel like to be out there today, on New Year's Day, when it is snowing and minus 13 degrees with a minus 23 windchill? Somehow I think the chill of lost or missing family relationships would be worse than the cold weather. What would it feel like to get no Christmas cards, have no Christmas meals, and not be with your own family during the holiday season?

I hope that our short time with the homeless people at the church provides just a little slice of connection with community, and people who care. I hope that over the holidays we have been able to communicate personal warmth and caring.

The other group of people who are homeless over the holidays are the children that are taken into care over the holidays. The holidays can be stressful times for families. Those who struggle with addictions may lose their will to stay free from substance abuse, and sink into dysfunction. At a time when children should be loved, and be the center of attention, they may be neglected and if things get serious enough, they may be moved from their family to a foster home.

Going into care has to be a difficult experience at any time. To be taken into care over the holidays seems even worse to me. Children are a treasure. They are the most vulnerable members of our society. Someone once said, "When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets hurt the most". When parents fight, or lose the struggle to stay free of addictions, it is the small people who get hurt the most.

So, over this holiday season, I have been thinking of those who are homeless for the holidays. I want to be part of making a connection for them, that ministers to their hearts during this season. I want to communicate that no one is alone. We are a community, we are a church, who cares, and we are willing to make connections with people who tend to have little or none.

Burma Shrimp Farm Project

2011-12-14T12:05:00.002-06:00

I will make no apologies about it. I love shrimp. In my opinion they are one of God's better food ideas. I know they are bottom feeders, but they are such delicious ones! So, when the opportunity came to have a part in an economic development project in Burma to provide funding for a shrimp farm, of course, I was interested.

In October of this year I traveled to the Irrawaddy Delta region of Burma, or Myanmar. One of the main occupations on the island we visited is shrimp farming. These families have been shrimp farmers for many generations. The island is a large island with ten Karen tribal villages on the island. There are hundreds of acres that used to be used for shrimp framing. This acreage has been reduced down to a very small amount due to the devastation of Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

After the storm the central government would not allow aid agencies to deliver aid to the island. It was a form of ethnic cleansing. It seemed that the government simply wanted as many people as possible to die. And die they did. The population in the village we visited, was 1,000 people before the cyclone and was reduced to about 240. Now there are many partial families in the villages. Finding households that are made up of combined families or partial families is not abnormal.

This led to much of the shrimp farming land ending up being owned by people who are not able to farm shrimp. It may belong to a widow lady, or a person who does not have shrimp farming skills. Then there are many shrimp farmers who have no land.

Shrimp farming is hard work. Acres of land are enclosed by building a mud bank around the perimeter of the land. This is all done by hand with no power equipment. Imagine building a four foot high dyke around 30 acres of land, and doing it with only a shovel in your hands! This takes several months of hard daily work. The entire island is very flat and only about 4 feet above sea level. When they build the dyke, they build gates that open to the ocean. Between the middle of February and the middle of March there are baby shrimp in the ocean. The shrimp farmers open the gates and allow the small shrimp in with the ocean water. Then they close the gates and the small shrimp are trapped in the shrimp farm.

The shrimp farmers then plant rice in the paddy they have created. The shrimp, crabs, and rice grow together until harvest time. When the shrimp are harvested in the morning. The shrimp farmers open the gates to the ocean and trap the shrimp in the gates. The shrimp that have reached the proper size are collected. They are shipped by boat for four hours to the town of Laputa. There they are put on an over night bus to Yangon. The next morning they are put on a plane and flown to Taiwan. From there they are processed and sent all over the world.

This project is what is known as a rehabilitation project. Relief is done when immediate aid, such as shelter, water and food are needed after a disaster. Development is done when there is little or no economy and people need to create jobs and learn new skills. Rehabilitation is when the skills exist, but there has been some event that has destroyed a specific industry. What happened on the island in the Irrawaddy Delta is that the shrimp industry was destroyed by Cyclone Nargis. Getting the land into the hands of the men who have the shrimp farming skills is what is needed to recreate the shrimp industry on the island.

Isaac, our coordinator for our trip to Burma has a plan to get the men with shrimp farming skills back to farming shrimp. With the help of investors he will buy shrimp farming land. Then he will put shrimp farmers on the land. They will repay the investors over a three year period.

God has provided investors who were willing to provide enough funds to purchase another 30 acre tract of shrimp farming land. The funds from the investors will buy the land, pay the wages of the farmers until they have their first crop of shrimp, and build the buildings they need to store they tools and equipment.

Out of their income they will repay the investors in three years. 40% of the income from the sale of shrimp will go to the shrimp farmers as their wages. 40% will go back to repay the investors. 10% will go to the local church. the final 10% will go to the community to help build a medical clinic in the village.

I am grateful for the compassionate people who stepped forward as investors to this project. It will be interesting to follow the progress of the project as it develops. The funds should be in Burma by the end of January and the men will be able to begin building the dykes soon after that.

Meredith Mitts

2011-11-19T20:43:00.003-06:00

Last year Edith started making mitts by recycling used wool sweaters. She has done a very good job of being creative, and producing a quality product that is also very attractive. She made her first mitts last November. I took 11 pairs to a craft fair last Fall and sold all 11 pair in less than an hour.

In 2011 she has been trying to average making one pair of mitts a day. She is still on target to do that, but it might be a little more challenging since she broke her wrist last week. I have been helping her with some of the things she can't do since her arm is in a cast. Maybe we can keep on schedule. We'll see.

She has been very successful in selling the mitts so far. She has two stores that handle them here in Sioux Lookout. They are at the gift shop at the Meno Ya Win Health Centre, and at Good News Books and Things. She also has them at Ella Lynn's in Dryden and at Egli's Sheep Farm.

This year she has sold over 250 pairs of mitts. We were at a craft fair last Saturday in Kenora. She sold 30 pairs there. Today we were at a craft fair in Dryden. She sold 22 pairs there.

She also makes stuffed puppies out of the scraps from the mitts. They are very nice too. She wasn't selling puppies as fast as she was selling mitts, so she made a few dog beds and stuffed them with sweater scraps. We sold one dog bed last Saturday and two today.

The mitts she makes are extremely warm. They are lined with polar fleece. The wool exterior and polar fleece lining both add to the warmth. Another unique feature is that there are almost never two pairs exactly alike. Each sweater is different, and when it is gone we don't have another one exactly like to it keep making the same color and style.

Today we met several people who bought her mitts at one of the stores that are selling them. Some of them bought more mitts to give to friends or family for Christmas. One of the nice things about being at a craft fair is that even the people who don't purchase mitts, give some nice compliments about them.

Here are some of the mitts that Edith made in the last year.

Here are two of the puppies Edith has made.

Plain Fear - The Amish Vampire Series

2011-11-10T21:25:00.003-06:00

With the Amish romance novels and the vampire novels, this was bound to happen sooner or later. Still, it seems so wrong!

Today Author Leanna Ellis is going to tell us about her story FORSAKEN, the first from her Amish-Vampire “PLAIN FEAR” series. Leanna has written this for a secular publishing house but the stories OF COURSE has a lot to say about spiritual matters. Here’s the blurb:

Hannah Schmidt,a young Amish woman mourning the mysterious death of her beloved Jacob, must decide between two brothers, between good and evil. When she learns her first love is now the vampire Akiva, she must forsake him and cling to a new love, a lasting love, one that will protect her soul.

Here’s Leanna and why she wrote this story:

“Amish and vampires? Really? Yes, really. I’m asked a lot how this book came into being. Forsaken actually began as a joke. I was at a book signing and another author and I made a joke about we should write an Amish-vampire story because those were the two genres that were selling so well. Well, it really was a joke. I didn’t rush home and start writing the book. But I suppose some seed was planted in my warped little brain and took root. Soon a character was speaking to me about her story and wanting me to write it. I resisted. But there was a very intriguing element that I couldn’t seem to ignore. To me, this was a Phantom of the Opera type story, with a love triangle, and a clear dividing line between good and evil. So I wrote the prologue and first chapter. Then I set it aside because I was busy meeting other deadlines. Besides what was I to do with an Amish-vampire story? I mentioned it eventually to a couple of writer friends.They laughed but in a good way and encouraged me to write it. Well, I wasn’t so sure although I was becoming obsessed with the story. I spent a lot of time in prayer over this book, because I don’t want to write something that God doesn’t want me to write. Also, I knew I’d have to leave the Christian market and sell it in the secular market. I wasn’t about to make that move without God’s clear direction. And he began to show me in more ways than one that this was the book He wanted me to write. More than a year passed, and I was at a writer’s conference minding my own business and not pursuing this story at all. An editor said the perfect submission would be…you guessed it! An Amish-vampire story. So I made an appointment to meet that editor and just talk about the idea.It almost felt like when an addict first admits she has a problem. I felt like I was teetering on the edge when I said, “I’m a writer and I’ve written an Amish-vampire story.” Well, she requested it. What I love about this story is that it shows the battle of good and evil. Evil doesn’t always appear with pitchfork and horns. Quite often, evil is appealing and attractive and hooks us in before we realize what has happened. Such is the case with my heroine Hannah. She simply loved a boy. But she opens her heart and her mind too easily and the consequences could be devastating. Even though this story is published in the secular world, it has a powerful spiritual message, a message the world needs to hear.”–Leanna

Myanmar Trip

2011-10-24T20:08:00.004-05:00

I returned from Myanmar to Thailand last evening. It was good to be back with my family again. We had a good trip to Myanmar. It was very interesting. We saw a lot of people, and places, and were involved in a lot of ministry.

We arrived in Yangon on Saturday the 15th. On Sunday we spoke at a church in the morning and then visited a orphanage in the afternoon.

This is a picture of the children in the Good Seed Children's Home. These children are from the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar. Their parents were killed in Cyclone Nargis. Burmese churches are providing the support for the operation of this children's home.

Sunday evening we took the overnight bus from Yangon to Laputta. We left Yangon at 6:30 PM on a bus with 44 seats. We counted over 70 people on the bus. The bus was so full that at one stop the driver climbed in through the driver's side window. After 3 hours we waited for an hour and then switched everything over to a truck. They said the road was "not so good". We traveled in the truck for an hour. Then we transferred everything over to the red bus in this picture. We drove 4 or 5 more hours and arrived in Laputta at 8:00 AM on Monday.

When we arrived in Laputta, we rested at a Baptist Center for an hour. We got a shower and then headed for the dock to get on the boat that would take us out to the Pyinsula Island. We went from the Baptist Center to the dock by trishaw.

We took a longboat from Laputta to the Pyinsula Island. It took us five hours to travel in this boat to the island. It was raining part of the way and was rather windy. We all got wet on our way to the island. I really enjoyed the boat ride. It was an interesting trip through the delta region. There were many Karen tribal villages along the river on the islands nearer to Laputta. the Pyinsula Island is a large island on the South edge of the Irrawaddy Delta. It borders the Bay of Bengal on the Indian Ocean.

We stayed at the deacon's house in the Waboegone village on Pyinsula Island. We had a good time of fellowship with the believers on the island. We preached in several church services, and had some meetings in homes. One young man accepted Christ as his personal Saviour. The family took very good care of us and fed us well. While we were on the island we ate lots of seafood. We had shrimp, crab, fish and so much of it. Then on Tuesday evening they made a special meal for us. We had a dog curry for dinner. This picture is the Deacon's wife cooking the dog meat curry. It was very good!

Wednesday we did the whole trip back to Yangon. Boat, trishaw, bus, truck and then finally a second bus. We got back into Yangon Thursday morning. Raymond Burkholder and I flew from Yangon to Mandalay on Thursday. The others went by bus. We arrived in Mandalay about 2:00 PM. We got settled in our hotel and got a good night's rest after our travel. Friday and Saturday we had a conference. Raymond taught from the book of Acts and I taught on the Fruit of the Spirit. The conference was attended by about 40 people.

This is one of the young men who attended the conference. He was part of a group of about ten young men who are studying the Korean Language. They will then go to Korea and work. They will send their wages back to the church in Myanmar to support Burmese missionaries who are going out to various parts of Myanmar to plant churches.

Sunday morning Stephan Burkholder and I attended a Burmese church in Mandalay. In this picture I am preaching and the Burmese pastor is translating for me. It is a small church that was started by this pastor two years ago. All the members are Burmese people who came to know Christ in the last two years. We enjoyed our time of fellowship with this church.

I loved the children in Myanmar. We met them in Yangon, on the Island, and in Mandalay. People in Myanmar grind up a root and spread the powder on their faces. I really liked this little boy from the island. I couldn't speak with him without an interpreter, but I thought he was really cute.

Our Third Week in Chiang Mai

2011-10-13T19:47:00.004-05:00

We are nearing the end of our third week in Chiang Mai. I am finishing my class at the Institute for Global Opportunities today. I will give the students the final exam. After my class I will need to get all my grading completed and submit my students grades to the office.

Saturday morning I am leaving with Raymond Burkholder to go to Myanmar(Burma) for a Macedonian Teaching Ministry pastor's conference there. We will traveling to the Irrawaddy Delta on Monday and Tuesday of next week. There we will be seeing a coastal village of Karen people and encouraging the believers there. They experienced a lot of devastation in Typhoon Nargis a few years ago and are still trying to recover from the losses they experienced. We will be seeing a shrimp raising project that they are developing there.

Then in the middle of the week we will travel to Mandalay and teach in then pastor's conference there. It will be a lot of travel in a week and many teaching opportunities.

This past week in Chiang Mai we did several activities. Monday evening we went to the Night Bazaar. We went to a fish spa. We placed our feet in the fish tanks and had the fish nibble the skin on our feet. I thought I would be way to ticklish to be able to do it, but I actually enjoyed it.

Wednesday evening we went to the Chiang Mai Night Safari. We had a good time there and enjoyed it very much. Amos and Verna Esh went with us to the Night Safari.

This is our entire group at the Chiang Mai Night Safari.

One of the things about Thailand is all the beautiful flowers. This archway was loaded with lovely blossoms.

With six people and a five passenger car, we took the car and the cycle to the Chiang Mai Night Safari. Elaine has been wanting to drive the cycle on the road outside the moobahn. This was an opportunity for me to ride with her on the highway and give her a little coaching. She did very well and we arrived safely back at our house!

Our Second Week in Chiang Mai

2011-10-08T08:40:00.006-05:00

This week was our second week in Chiang Mai. I finished teaching the second week of my Kingdom Theology class. I think the class is going well. I suppose you would have to ask the students in order to know for sure how the class is going. There is one more week left in this term. On Saturday of next week I will be going with Raymond Burkholder to Myanmar. We will be teaching in a pastor's conference there.

Here are some pictures from our week in Chiang Mai.

We went to the Tiger Kingdom. This is Edith with one of the small tigers. They were so cute, both Edith and the tiger!

Here I am with one of the big tigers. The guide said that they like Canadians. Canadians taste good, they are good white meat!

He really wasn't all that fierce. But it does look good on the picture!

We also went to an Orchid greenhouse. Elaine took this picture of an orchid.

We went to the Maesa Elephant Camp. Here Edith and I are riding an elephant.

We were able to sit on this elephant for a picture.

Here is a small elephant nursing from his mother.

This is Abby getting hugged by two elephants.

This is the dining room at IGo. The staff and students are gathered for lunch.

Here is the lunch ready to be served. There is Thai food served at the Institute. It is wonderful! We are really enjoying the food.

This is Rick Rhodes teaching in the classroom at IGo. This is the same classroom in which I have been teaching for the past two weeks.

Our First Week in Chiang Mai

2011-10-01T20:44:00.002-05:00

We have spent our first week in Chiang Mai. I think we are adjusted to the time change. At least we sleep until the alarm goes off in the morning, which is a good sign.

I have been enjoying my class at IGo. If the students are enjoying it as much as I am, then all is well! I am teaching a course titled "Kingdom Theology II". We are studying Jesus teaching on money, economics, and peace in human relationships. So far, are still on the economics part.

Friday evening and Saturday morning we participated in an IGo staff enrichment event. We enjoyed being with the IGo staff. God has blessed IGo with a wonderful staff team of committed and dedicated people.

Saturday evening we went to the walking street market. We had the timing just right. It started to rain just as we were getting ready to leave.

I was also able to get my visa for Myanmar this week. So, it looks like the pastor's conference in Myanmar will be a reality in a few weeks.

Wednesday evening we went to the Good Times Cafe for supper. This fish was delicious!

This is a picture of the walking street market. We enjoyed the evening there.

When we were on the mountain last Sunday we were able to get a picture of Elaine and Abby with this little tribal girl.

Arrival In Chiang Mai

2011-09-25T20:19:00.004-05:00

This past week Edith and I, Elaine and Abby Hochstetler traveled to Chiang Mai, Thailand. We left Sioux Lookout on Wednesday morning and arrived in Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon. We drove to Minneapolis on Wednesday. Thursday morning we flew out of Minneapolis to Chicago. There we got a Korean Air flight to Seoul, South Korea. Then we flew from Seoul to Bangkok. We had a nice long night in a motel in Bangkok Friday night. Saturday we flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.

We are at the Institute for Global Opportunities. I will be teaching a course titled "Kingdom Theology II". It covers Jesus teachings on economics and peace in human relationships. Elaine and Abby are attending Victory Christian School, which is an ACE school here close to IGo.

Here we are in the airport in Chicago. I know it wasn't a real upscale lunch, but even McDonalds is good sometimes.

This kind of portrays how it feels to have been traveling for about 24 hours! We are waiting for the hotel shuttle van in the Bangkok airport.

Sunday afternoon we drove up on the mountain. This is Edith and I at one of the lookout points over the city of Chiang Mai.

Abby and Elaine at the same lookout.

We went to the Winter Palace of the Thai Royal family and walked through the Queen's beautiful flower gardens. These are some pictures Elaine took in the flower gardens.

We then went to the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. This is the stairway leading up to the temple.

People carry lotus flowers and walk around the golden Chedi.

There are points around the golden chedi where people burn incense and candles. All this reminds me that God wants His glory to be known among the nations.

Alaska With Hans

2011-09-10T11:21:00.004-05:00

This past week I went to Alaska and spent three days fishing with Hans. We had a really good time, and were pretty successful fishing too. The first day we went fishing for silver salmon on the Kenai River. It wasn't real easy to catch them on Tuesday. Hans and I each caught one. Here is a picture of me with the silver salmon I caught.

Wednesday we went fishing on the ocean out from Homer, Alaska. We were on a boat with five people fishing. The captain said we would try first for king salmon then fish for halibut. Here is Hans fishing for halibut.

This picture shows all the king salmon everyone on the boat caught. We did really well catching king salmon. The captain said that the State of Alaska says that 100 hours go into every king salmon caught in the State. We each caught two king salmon in about an hour.

After we caught our king salmon we went fishing for halibut. Halibut are relatively easy to catch, but are a lot of work to bring in. We were fishing in about 200 feet of water. It takes a lot of work to pull them up from that depth. This picture shows the halibut all the people on the boat caught. The biggest one weighed about 50 pounds. The captain said the biggest one that was ever landed on his boat was 313 pounds.

This is Hans and I with two of the halibut we caught.

Here are Hans and I with two of the king salmon we caught.

The third day we went back to fishing on the Kenai River for silver salmon. The water was really muddy and the guide said the fish couldn't see the bait. We fished all day and caught one sockeye salmon. Here is a picture of the one lonely fish we caught that day. We got the fish processed, packaged and frozen. I brought a 50 pound box of halibut and salmon back with me.

MEMO Cuba Sioux Lookout Container

2011-08-31T18:40:00.009-05:00

This week we shipped our second container filled with used medical equipment and supplies to Cuba. We have several hundred thousands dollars worth of equipment and supplies in this container. We collected the things from the hospitals here in Sioux Lookout, Dryden, and Fort Frances. We had an appointment to have the container delivered to the CN Rail yard in Winnipeg on Tuesday of this week. The truck came to Sioux Lookout to load the container on Monday. Home Hardware sent two forklifts over to load the container. We had it resting on two piers built out of railroad ties. First the forklifts needed to lift the one end so we could take out the railroad ties so the truck could back the trailer under the container.

The name of our group is MEMO Cuba Sioux Lookout. MEMO stands for Medical Equipment Modernization Opportunity. We added Sioux Lookout to it because the main MEMO Cuba group is in Thunder Bay. They handle all the customs paperwork and the distribution of the things after the container arrives in Havana, Cuba. The MEMO Cuba website is www.MEMOCuba.org Our theme verse is Matthew 5:16. We are doing what we do to represent the Kingdom of God in the world.

We didn't have too much trouble getting the one end of the container lifted high enough for the trucker to back his trailer under it. The idea then was that the forklifts would lift the other end and push it onto the trailer.

We got the container on the trailer about this far and then ran into trouble. The forklifts couldn't push it and the truck couldn't back under it. We tried to have the truck trying to back up at the same time the forklifts were pushing, but nothing happened. It was so close but it wouldn't go on the trailer.

Finally, the truck driver suggested to the forklift driver that he back up and drive the forklift into the container, hitting it hard enough to make it move. That worked and we got the container on the truck. It was a relief to see it completely loaded on the trailer. It took us about two hours to get it loaded and ready to go.

And there it is going down the road toward Winnipeg. It should go on the train in the next few days to Halifax. It will be put on a ship in Halifax and then go to Havana. In a few months from now the things inside should be in a hospital in Cuba.

Men's Retreat

2011-08-21T20:58:00.003-05:00

The Believers Fellowship Mission staff men went to Red Lake for our annual men's retreat. We were planning to canoe for two hours, portage for a half a kilometer, and then set up camp. It was really windy when we arrived, so we camped at the boat launch. It was a lovely spot. The fellowship and camaraderie while fishing and swapping stories around the campfire was great.

The lake was lovely. This is right out from our campsite on the second morning. The wind had died down, and it was perfect for fishing.

This tent is the Taj Mahal of camping. It has two rooms and three entrances. We had ten men on the trip, so this tent slept over half of the men that were at men's retreat.

Here we are the day we arrived at the campsite. Obviously, we brought way too much stuff to fit into 5 canoes and to portage for a half a kilometer. It was definitely of the Lord that it was too windy to go down the lake the first night. Since it was Kevin Miller's birthday on Thursday, we even had two cheesecakes along. I have never had cheesecakes on a camping trip before.

This is another view of the lake. It was a beautiful location. We did pretty well fishing too. We didn't catch many fish Thursday morning. Then we found out that they were biting in about 50 feet of water. We went back out and caught some walleye then in the deeper water. We had been fishing in water that was too shallow.

Over all, this was a great men's retreat. I really enjoyed the fellowship and the time being with the other men. Getting out into God's wonderful creation was great too.

Baptismal Service

2011-07-27T19:48:00.003-05:00

This past week was filled with special activities. Last Saturday we were at Ojibway Park for the foster parent picnic. We had a really good time there. The weather was nice and we met other foster families that we don't get to see all that often.

Then on Sunday we were back at Ojibway Park for our Sunday morning service, lunch and then a baptismal service in the afternoon. It was raining a little bit in the morning, but by afternoon it was quite nice. It wasn't too cold for the baptism either.

We had three people who were baptized and received into church membership on Sunday. Samuel Kakegamic, Julian Cospito, and Abby Hochstetler. We held the baptismal service at 1:30 in the afternoon. It was great to see the support from the extended families of those who were being baptized.

Sunday evening Jennifer and Darren came to visit us. They have returned from China and are on their way to getting settled in their apartment in Seattle, Washington. We were pleased to have them with us for three days this week.

This is at the beginning of the baptismal service. Nate Hochstetler was sharing a meditation.

Edith had towels made with the names of each person being baptized and the date. They each received their towel as a reminder of their baptism.

Here Nate is asking the questions of each person before we went into the water for the baptism.

Here we are walking out into the lake for the baptism.

Abby was the first to be baptized, followed by Julian and then Sam.

Last evening we went to Chuck and Pat Abela's house for a pizza dinner. Morley and Reta Beardy joined us so they could visit with Jennifer and Darren. The pizza was wonderful and the fellowship was just as good.

The Truth Can Be Stranger Than Fiction

2011-07-21T19:42:00.002-05:00

I was thinking today, about how different the world is today from what is was 50 years ago when I was a child. I was also thinking about how different it is from what anyone would have thought back then, that it would be at this time. If someone would have projected some of the things that are happening now, they would have been thought to be very deluded.

This week is the 42nd anniversary of the first moon landing. I remember it well. My Dad and I spent the evening in our dining room listening to the radio coverage of the moon landing. I was 16 years old. Some people said that God would never let a man walk on the moon. They were convinced that the world would end before a person set foot on the moon. Of course, the distance from the earth to the moon is so small, in the scope of the entire universe, that God wasn't worried at all about that small step for a man.

I also remember the early space program and the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Many people were worried that the Russians had the edge on the Western world in space. The Russian launch of the Sputnik satellite, and putting the first person into space really gave the Russians an early edge in their space program. The United States did some major scrabbling to catch up to the Russians, and then be the first to put a human being on the surface of the moon.

This week is also the end of the United States Space Shuttle program. Atlantis landed this morning, and ended an era in the United States space program. There won't be any American manned space flights on American equipment for a long time. In order to go into space the Americans are now dependent on the Russians to take them to the International Space Station.

Who would have thought that the United States would depend on Russia to get American astronauts into space? That would have seemed like foolishness a few decades ago. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, we could have scoffed at the idea that a Russian spacecraft would be someday be needed to get an American astronaut into space.

Then there is the huge discussion going on in Washington D.C. right now about what to do about raising the United States government's debt ceiling above 14 trillion dollars. When I was a child numbers in billions were becoming more commonly used, but we almost never heard of numbers in the trillions. The national debt was not a huge concern to the average citizen.

The major concerns were the threat of war with the communist world, especially the Soviet Union and China. We did bomb raid practices at school. We would all crouch under our desks and wait for the "all clear" signal from the principal's office. Bomb shelters were commonly marked in public places. If there was a nuclear attack we were told to take shelter in the nearest bomb shelter. I really thought the world would experience a major nuclear war in my lifetime, and I kind of expected to die in it.

Mainland China seemed like a distant and mysterious land. It was isolated from the rest of the world economically and politically. As a teenager, I did read the Red Book by Chairman Mao. It didn't have a very positive view of capitalism. We tended to think that Russia and China were the greatest threats to the Western world, our economic system, and our way of life.

Who would have thought that by 2011 China would be the largest holder of United States government debt? Could we have guessed that China would be one of the largest trader partners the United States would have? I don't think anyone would have thought that the United States would be able to be 14 trillion dollars in debt, and owe a large percentage of it to the Chinese.

This all reminded me that many times we worry about the wrong things. We look at how things are, and project that into the future. We assume that things will go on in pretty much the same way they are now. We often do not anticipate some of the major changes that happen in our world. Because of that we worry about the wrong things.

Life really is more of an adventure than we often believe that it will be. The truth can be stranger than fiction. And, the truth is, that I don't know what the world be be like by the time our children are 60 years old. There could be some mind boggling changes just a decade or two away that I have no way of knowing anything about today.

At any rate, I'm not worried. If I was worried, it would probably be about the wrong things anyway. I don't know what will happen in the future. But I know that I serve a God who has promised to be with us. He is Emanuel, God with us! With that knowledge I can go with confidence into the future.

Solar Panel System

2011-07-07T11:09:00.003-05:00

We installed our solar panel system in April. It has been working now for almost three months. So far we are really pleased with the results. It is producing the amount of kilowatt hours they had projected that it would produce.

We are using the Enphase micro-inverters. There is an inverter for each solar panel. Using the Enphase Enlighten system we can follow online the production of each panel at any time. This gives us the information we need to detect any problems with any of the equipment.

I thought it might be interesting to others to be able to follow the production of our solar panel system, so I set up the page on the sidebar of our blog. Unfortunately, you can only see about 1/4 of the page and need to scroll sideways and down to see it all. I also put a link on the sidebar to "solar panel information". By clicking on that you can upload the entire page. I am thinking that having both of these is redundant. Which one do you like best? I will get some opinions and then delete one or the other.

Slate Run

2011-07-06T15:27:00.004-05:00

Last week we traveled to Pennsylvania for the annual Stoltzfus family gathering at Slate Run. We drove 2300 kilometers from Wednesday afternoon to Friday afternoon. We met Hans and Sharon in Jersey Shore for lunch on Friday. It was nice to spend some time with them before getting together with the larger group at Slate Run.

We arrived in Slate Run Friday afternoon and set up our tents for the weekend. It seemed really hot and humid to us Northerners. However, we were soon immersed in conversations, and interactions with people we haven't seen for a while. We missed the event last year, so we haven't seen some of the family for a few years.

All of Edith's siblings were there except for two brothers. Many of her parent's grandchildren, and great grandchildren, were also there. I don't think there was a count taken of how many people were there, but it must have been well over 100.

There is an old railroad bed that runs through Slate Run. It has been converted to a bike trail. It is a wonderful place to ride bike because there are no hills. Even an old man like me can ride for miles. Both mornings we were there I got up around 6:00 AM. I had breakfast, and then rode a twelve mile round trip ride from Slate Run to Cedar Run and back. It was cooler early in the morning, and I saw lots of wild life. Sunday morning on the ride I saw 12 deer. One of the groups of deer I saw was a doe with two fawns.

We left Sunday afternoon and arrived back in Sioux Lookout Tuesday evening. We had great weather for driving both ways. The trip was a lot of driving, but enjoyable in many ways. Now we are back into our routine here in Sioux Lookout and enjoying that too!

Here are some ducks that were preening themselves in the water of the Pine Creek that flows through Slate Run. They are part of the wildlife I saw on my morning bike rides.

This deer was crossing the Pine Creek. I was able to watch her for a while and got this picture through the trees.

There was clover blooming beside the bike trail. The bumblebees were busy finding nectar in the clover blossoms.

Here is a picture of Hans and Sharon. We enjoyed being able to spend some time with them during the weekend.

This is a picture of the food tent just before one of the mealtimes.

For lunch on Saturday we had roast pork. This picture shows the pig with the obligatory apple in his mouth.

Here are some of the men cutting the roast pork off the bone. It was wonderful good!

What was Your First Job?

2011-06-13T16:35:00.003-05:00

I supposed I started out on my first job being self - employed; well kind of anyway. I had a paper route. I sold the GRIT newspaper. It was a weekly newspaper printed in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I had to find my customers, sell a subscription, deliver the paper each week, and submit my payments to the head office. It was a good experience in sales and basic business management. Admittedly, it was on a very small scale.

Then when I was 13 years old I began to work a Summer job at Modern Concrete Products. My Dad was part owner of this business, which made it easy for me to get a job there. Actually, if the truth is to be known, I probably was expected to work there just to keep me from boredom. The first Summer I got paid 50 cents an hour, which seemed like a good wage to me. By the second Summer I think I got a raise to 75 cents an hour.

Of course, prices were much cheaper. I know gasoline was 28.9 cents a gallon. We had a cousin who had a small car. It was a Renault. It had a 10 gallon gas tank. He couldn't put three dollars worth of gas in his car even if the tank was completely empty!

Times have changed but Summer jobs for students are still part of the growing up and maturing experience. We are assisting our children in looking for Summer jobs this month. We are praying that God will provide a good Summer work experience for them.

I don't know what your first job was, but very likely it helped to prepare you in some way for life and the skills that you use today.

Do you live in a house?

2011-06-05T19:29:00.002-05:00

This afternoon we served a meal to the people who live on the streets here in Sioux Lookout. We had ten people who came for the meal. We often refer to them as the "street people". If fact, many of them spend the night at the Out of the Cold Shelter. Two of the men who were there today said they don't go to the shelter, but sleep outside.

I had a good time visiting with them, and talking about what they are experiencing in their lives as Summer gets closer. It is interesting to hear what they look forward to as the weather gets warmer.

Toward the end of the afternoon, one of the men asked me, "And you, do you live in a house?". It really got me thinking about how many things about my life that I take for granted. Yes, I live in a house. I also live with my family. I have a vehicle, and enough food and clothing. His question got my mind going with thoughts about the things that I enjoy and very seldom think about.

It reminded me about the current crisis in world food prices. We don't think about it too much, because food is such a small percentage of our weekly budget. A 10% increase in food prices is inconvenient, but not life threatening. However, for some of my friends in the third world it is a different story. For them food could very well be 50% or 75% of their weekly budget. If food prices rise even 10%, it almost puts an adequate supply of food out of reach for them financially.

For us the increase in gas prices is disturbing and frustrating, but we drive anyway. For the people in the third world it can be a different story. If the fare to take public transportation to market rises, they may need to purchase less food so they can pay the increased fare. All of these things combine to make the situation for the average third world family increasing difficult.

I am grateful for the opportunities I have had in life. I am grateful for those people who coached me, and taught me skills that have helped me in many ways. I am grateful to God that there is forgiveness for the stupid and wrong things that I have done. And, yes, I am thankful that I live in a house!

MEMO Cuba Container

2011-05-13T11:42:00.002-05:00

As promised, here are some pictures of the MEMO Cuba Sioux Lookout container arriving in Sioux Lookout yesterday. We now have the container in place. Our first loading day will be Saturday May 28, from 1:00 - 5:00 PM. If you would be willing to help, we would love to have you join us for that afternoon. The container is situated right next to our storage trailers between Bumper to Bumper and the Windigo Tribal Council office.

This is the Morgan Esso truck arriving with the container. They picked up the container in Thunder Bay and delivered it to the lot in Sioux Lookout.

Home Hardware sent over a forklift to unload the container. The driver was experienced with unloading containers and did a good job of getting it off the truck and into the position we wanted it to be placed.

Here we are placing railroad ties under the container to get it up to the level we wanted it to be.

This is the container after it has been placed in position. Henry Schellenberg, Clement Cospito, and Jared Schrock helped to get the job done.

Here we are opening the doors for the first time. It is a real blessing that Bob Durante allowed us to place the container on his lot right next to our storage trailers. This will save us a tremendous amount of work in loading the container. The storage trailer just to the right of the container is one of our two storage trailers on the same lot as the container.

MEMO Cuba Sioux Lookout

2011-05-10T20:54:00.002-05:00

We are expecting our second 40 foot shipping container to arrive in Sioux Lookout this week. We shipped our first container filled with medical equipment and supplies to Cuba in the Fall of 2009. Since that time we have been collecting more equipment and supplies.

Johnny's Fresh Market has been generous and given us access to two storage trailers. We have been filling them over the last year and a half. They are so full now that we probably can't get another box inside either one. We actually have some things we are waiting to pick up until we can put them straight into the container.

We were blessed with a good supply of used clothing to use as packing material. The local Salvation Army store gave us 300 bags of used clothing they were discarding. We have that in one of our storage trailers. We pack bags of used clothing into all the empty spaces in the container. When we are finished packing nothing is going to move.

It has been so encouraging to see the support we have received from so many people and companies for the MEMO Cuba project. The donations of supplies and equipment from health centres in Northwestern Ontario has been great. Morgan Fuels is providing the trucking to get our container from Thunder Bay to Sioux Lookout. Many people have given financial contributions to make the project possible.

I'm sure the hospital in Cuba will be grateful again for all the things that we will be putting into this container. We will be loading the container over the next few months. We plan to ship it before September. I'll try to post some pictures of the process as we get closer to shipping.

MicroFIT Solar Panel System

2011-04-25T15:49:00.002-05:00

Last year I heard about the Ontario Power Authority's MicroFIT program for renewable energy. It is a very attractive program for homeowners who are willing to install a small system to produce renewable energy. You can read about the program here.

We decided to install a small solar panel system. We made our application to the Ontario Power Authority last Summer. We received a conditional contract early in the Fall. With getting a building permit and everything, we didn't get it installed before it got too cold last Fall.

This Spring we purchased the solar panels and had the system installed. It went into service on April 14. We have 30 solar panels mounted on our house roof. They have a maximum output of 7.05 kilowatts.

We have been producing an average of between 30 and 40 kilowatt hours each day. That is more power than we normally use each day. We have two meters. The one meter measures what we use, and pay Sioux Lookout Hydro for using. The other meter measures what we produce and feed into the grid. Ontario Power Authority pays us for what we put into the system.

So far, it has been fun to watch how many kilowatt hours the system produces every day. It also feels good to know that we are producing more renewable energy than we are using at our house.

Jonathan Stoll (JR Contractor) installed the system on our roof. I am really pleased with how it turned out. I think it looks good. Below is a picture, so you can decide for yourself how it looks.

Signs of Spring

2011-04-08T17:09:00.002-05:00

I think Spring is coming, even here in Northwestern Ontario. I have been seeing signs of Spring. Here are a few of them:

The Sturgeon River is open now. The ice melted in the middle of the river. There is only a bit of ice left along the edge. Of course, there is still a lot of ice and snow on the lakes. The river opens earlier because of the current of the water. When we cross the bridge between our house and town we see ducks, and a few Canadian geese. Yesterday I even saw some seagulls in town by the town beach.

The snow is melting slowly. We still have snow that is more than knee deep, but it is a wet slushy snow. More of it is disappearing every day.

We are having a Federal election too. That must be a sign of Spring. We don't have flowers yet, but election lawn signs are springing up, and providing colour everywhere.

This afternoon the children and I put our snowmobiles is the shed for the Summer. We got stuck a few times in the snow, but eventually got them in the shed. We are going to Thailand this Fall, and will return the first week of November. We will get the snowmobiles out when we get back. So, they are in the shed until November.

I am planning to keep firing my outdoor furnace until Wednesday of next week. Then I will shut that down for the Summer too.

All these things are signs that Spring is coming. We are eager for warmer weather and are looking forward to getting the Summer things out of storage. I'm afraid we will have to wait another month or so for that. Our garden is still under a foot and half of snow. We won't be doing anything in the garden for quite a while yet.

I don't know what the signs of Spring are where you live, but I'm sure you are seeing them too. I talked to a man from Texas two weeks ago, and he already had his garden planted.

People From My Past

2011-03-29T13:19:00.002-05:00

I am on my way home from spending a week in Pennsylvania. Last evening I spoke at the LIFE Ministries banquet at Shady Maple. There were about 600 people there. I meet people I haven't seen for many years.

Some of my classmates from Lancaster Mennonite High School were there. I could recognize some of them. Some of them I haven't seen more than once or twice since high school graduation.

I also met cousins, and the children of my cousins, that I haven't seen for a long time. I knew what family they were all from, even if I didn't know what their first names were. It was fun to recall some memories from childhood with my cousins. For some of them we did a lot of things together and made some good memories.

There were also some work acquaintances from over 30 years ago. Those were a little harder. Yet after we talked a bit, I could recall younger faces and personalities from some of my workplaces in the 1970's.

Then there were the classmates from elementary school. I found it much harder to recognize them. Some of them I haven't seen since grade 6. We both have changed a lot since that time. It brings back some interesting feelings to meet people that I haven't seen for that amount of time. To think back to my friendships when I was 10 to 12 years old is certainly a whole different stage of my life.

The most amazing ones though, were a few ladies that lived next door to us when I was a small child. They remembered my sister Romaine pushing me across the road in a stroller to get milk at their farm. We decided that we hadn't seen each other for about 50 years. How can that be true?

But it is true. I am getting older. After the message last evening at least two people came, shook my hand, and told me it is good to see and hear an old man who is still passionate about life and what God is doing! I think they meant me!!! So, I guess I have to accept that I am getting to be an old man. But then, I am happy being where I am in life. I would rather be in my fifties than in my twenties.

Haiti Trip

2011-03-09T21:10:00.005-06:00

This is our Haiti Trip Group. From left to right Joe Cospito, Brent Bastone, myself, Mark Brailsford, Andrew Nisly and Sam Kakegamic.

We left for Haiti on February 27. Our group consisted of six people. We drove to Minneapolis and then flew to Chicago on the 27th. The 28th we flew from Chicago to Port-au-Prince.

Tuesday we toured the city and went to the lookout and the Baptist Mission at Kenscoff. We had lunch at the Baptist Mission and then drove out to Cadiac.

Wednesday we visited some savings groups. We also made a trip to LaColline. I preached at the evening service for the convention.

Thursday we hiked up the mountain in the morning to visit a family. We visited some savings groups in the afternoon.

Thursday was our 38th wedding anniversary. I phoned Edith from the top of the mountain. Although it may look like a mountaintop experience, it would have been better to talk with her in person that day!

Friday we went with a truck load of Haitians to the beach at Zanglais. We had 22 people on a Toyota pickup truck. There wasn't room for everyone inside or in the bed so three men stood on the back bumper and held on for the 45 minute ride to the beach. The water was lovely, but the waves weren't very big.

Here is the truckload of guys we took to the beach. There were five people in the front and 17 on the back. When we were ready to leave they closed the tailgate and three guys stood on the bumper on the back.

Saturday we attended the youth service. I assisted with the baptisms in the afternoon. We attended the convention service in the evening.

Sunday morning we attended the convention service. I preached the final convention message. We left right after lunch to return to Port-au-Prince. We were on Harry Truman Blvd when the traffic stopped. The police were making everyone turn around and go back the way we had come, or turn right. I didn't want to turn around so we turned right. I was planning to go up two blocks and turn left. However the street was closed for the Madi Gras Carnival. We drove around for about an hour. Finally Walcus Vital came and met us and when we returned to Harry Truman Blvd. It was open. We arrived at CAM in time for the evening service. I preached in the evening service. We had a fellowship meal with the CAM staff. I spent some time with Bethanie after the meal.

Monday we flew back to Minneapolis. Tuesday we drove back to Sioux Lookout. It was a good trip and I enjoyed the men who went with me.

Here I am with Bethanie outside the airport on Monday morning.

Outreach Ministry Conversations

2011-02-06T21:24:00.002-06:00

This afternoon we had our weekly outreach ministry to the homeless people in Sioux Lookout. We served coffee, tea, hot dogs, soup, chips, granola bars and apple juice. We had a good turnout and some interesting conversations. I enjoy interacting with the people who come. I learn a lot too.

Today a man sitting on my right ask us if we had ever seen a triangle. When we said we did he ask, "What does it have?". "Three corners", we replied. His next question was, "And do you know what is in each of those corners?". "No" we admitted, we didn't know. "Well", he informed us, "in one corner is faith. In another corner is trust. In the third corner is love. If you don't have all three, if even only one of them is missing, your bread isn't going to rise!" We acknowledged that what he said was true. He went on to tell us that even if you have faith and trust, but you don't have love, things can't work out. Basically, your bread isn't going to rise. The same is true if faith or trust is missing.

Then one of the men who has lived on the street for many years told me, "I can talk about religion with you too. I can talk about religion from a deck of cards. The number one reminds me that there is only one God. The number two reminds me that there are two parts to the Bible. The number eight reminds me that God saved eight souls when he destroyed the world. The Jack reminds me that the Devil is real. The Queen reminds me of the blessed virgin Mary. The King reminds me of Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

It was interesting to chat with the people who came about their lives, and what they think about religion and God. Their view of life and death, and what is important in life can be challenging to me. When one of the men was getting ready to leave I asked him if I could pray for him. He said that I could. When I asked him if there was anything special that he wanted me to pray about for him, he said, "No, nothing special. I have everything that I need." I think if I was in his situation I would be able to think of many things that I could need. He had a different view. I prayed for him and he shook my hand and thanked me before he left.

Little Things

2011-02-01T18:49:00.002-06:00

"A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in a little thing is a big thing." - Hudson Taylor

"I don't do big things. I do small things with big love." - Mother Teresa

Most of my life is filled with little things. The routines of everyday life. They can seem insignificant sometimes. It can be easy to wonder if they are really important. I think life is like that for most people, if not everyone.

Sometimes we look back the people we consider to be spiritual giants. We look at the people we see as being the ones who really accomplished big things. People like Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, Mother Teresa, and others. But do you know what? I think most of them simply got up every morning and did a series of little things faithfully. I don't think they made a decision at some point in their life to be a great person, or accomplish great things. I think they were focused on being faithful, and they did a lot of little things well.

If I sit around waiting for the big things to do, I will probably never have the opportunity to do them. The Bible says that the person who is faithful with a little will also be faithful with a lot. The question is: can I be happy, and fulfilled, doing little things faithfully?

The fact is that a lot of little things amount to a big thing. Think about a snowstorm. A really big snowstorm is made up of millions of tiny snowflakes. It is not simply one big storm. It is millions of little snowflakes all piled on top of each other. A sand beach can be a big thing, but it is made up of millions of grains of sand. In both cases it is a lot of little things all focused on one spot.

So, with life we have many deeds that may be small in themselves, but when accumulated together in a focused way become a big thing. I want to be the kind of person who is willing to do the small things. I want to find significance and fulfillment in the routine of everyday life and tasks. I have a feeling that the people who find real fulfillment in life, are those who find satisfaction in the little everyday events and tasks that they have to do.

In his book The Call, Os Guinness asks these questions: Are you blind to the splendor of the ordinary? Do you depend on the adrenaline of the impressive and the inspirational? These are questions that make me stop and think.

I love life. I love what I am doing in life. I look forward to most days and the things I have to do. I don't know that any of it is impressive or extra-ordinary. It is fulfilling and I want to enjoy it to the fullest. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." That pretty much sums up how I feel about my life, and what God has given me the opportunity to do.

Living By Faith

2011-01-24T15:28:00.003-06:00

We all live by faith. Sometimes faith gets interpreted as being the same as religion. It isn't the same as religion. Even non-religious people live by faith. We need to live by faith because we do not know the future.

We live by faith because we trust things, and other people, to be, and to do, what we expect of them. A few years ago a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. Vehicles with their passengers were plunged into the river. Yet in spite of the fact that bridges sometimes fail, I trust bridges, and have faith that I can safely cross them. I don't stop at Frog Rapids to inspect the bridge every time I drive into, or out of Sioux Lookout. I simply have faith that I can cross it safely.

The Bible says "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". Because we do not know the future, we hope for things, we have faith, or trust in certain things. Without faith a person would be paralyzed into inaction. Everything that had an unknown outcome would be off limits. When you stop and think about it, that would be most of life.

Faith overcomes our fears, and allows us to act on what we believe to be reliable and trustworthy. Sometimes we take steps of faith because we trust another person, or we trust that God will work everything out for the good of all involved.

Stepping into the unknown without prior experience, or a trusted guide is frightening. This is where the Spirit of God can guide us in the path that God has for us. We can enter into things that are new and different for us, because we trust God to lead us by His Spirit and His angels.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase". That is part of what creates adventure in life. If we could always see the whole staircase before we took the first step, life would lose some of its adventure. If I knew how everything that I attempt to do in life would turn out, my life would become boring.

So, I don't want to react to the unknown. I don't want to pull back from things I haven't done before. I want to be a person of faith. I want to take the first step, even when I can't see the whole staircase. I have some things in my life right now that feel a bit that way. We are beginning on some journeys that the end is unknown. But, who knows, it could turn out to be a real adventure!

Blue Monday

2011-01-20T10:07:00.002-06:00

According to the news media, this past Monday, January 17, was Blue Monday. It is called Blue Monday because it is the day of the year that people are the most likely to feel a little blue, or discouraged. The reasons given are that the holidays are over, the Christmas bills have all come in, the realization has already come that all the new year's resolutions have already been broken, the weather is cold, and there are very few hours of sunlight in the day.

Maybe I'm abnormal, but I didn't feel very blue or discouraged on Monday. Yes, it is true that the holidays are over. We had a wonderful time in Alaska with Hans, and I enjoy recalling the memories we made. The Christmas bills have all come in, and they are paid, so no problem there. My new year's resolutions depend more on the grace of God than they do on my own human effort. His grace is unlimited, so that should not be a problem. The weather is cold, that is true. We are now experiencing what could be the coldest week of the winter. But, hey, it is January. We expect this in January. The hours of daylight are short, but they are getting a little longer every day.

I know there are people who suffer from depression for a variety of medical or psychological reasons, and my heart goes out to them. They cannot simply think positive thoughts and snap out of their depression. I don't want to minimize that in any way. I do think, outside of that kind of condition, we do have a choice about how we feel about the world around us and our own lives.

What do we choose to focus on? All of us have enough reasons to be discouraged, if we stop and think about discouraging things enough. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that we should not be anxious for anything. He said that we should not worry about tomorrow because each day has enough trouble of its own.

We all probably have plenty of reasons to be joyful and grateful too. I was not feeling blue on Monday because I have so much to be joyful about in my life. I am a child of the King of Kings. He has redeemed me from the bondage of sin. My family loves me, and we enjoy each other most of the time. I have meaningful work, and enjoy the relationship with my coworkers. We have food, clothing and a suitable house. We have friends who care about us. We live in a country that has political stability, and we are not living in a war zone.

So, if the weather gets a little warmer, and the sun stays above the horizon a few more hours each day, that will be great. I won't object at all. However, I don't think I will spend a day feeling blue. There are too many interesting and exciting things to experience and do.

Home From Alaska

2010-12-29T17:26:00.004-06:00

We just arrived home this afternoon from our trip to Alaska. We had a great time with Hans. We did a variety of activities and enjoyed the beautiful scenery that Alaska offers. The last day we were in Alaska we went cross country skiing with Hans. It was a lovely day, although it was a bit cold. I think we would have stayed out skiing longer if it had been a bit warmer.

Our flight home was on schedule and the roads were good for our drive home. Now we get back into our normal life here in Sioux Lookout.

This is looking across Cheney Lake toward the mountains East of Anchorage.

This girl is skijoring. She is basically skiing with her dog pulling her. The dogs seem to love it. A family past us on the cross country ski trail. The father and younger daughter went by first. Then this older daughter came by. Lastly the mother came by with a dog that was still getting used to skijoring. We were standing by the trail eating our lunch. I was on one side of the trail and the others were on the other side of the trail. She was planning to go between us. The dog seemed uncertain of what to do. I tried to stand still so they could go wherever they wanted. The dog went on one side of me and the lady on the other side, which resulted in me getting snagged in the line between the dog and the skier. They both fell. I was fine. It did create some entertainment for those who were watching.

Here we are having lunch. At this point we turned around and headed back to the car.

This is the valley we were skiing in. It was a lovely setting.

This is just as we are getting started skiing. It was the first time for us to go cross country skiing. We enjoyed it, but realized that with more practice it could be a lot more fun.

Here is Elaine at Cheney Lake. We were working on getting more pictures for her to use for the ACE International Student Convention. I think she got some more good ones at Cheney Lake.

Christmas Day Activities

2010-12-25T19:59:00.002-06:00

Here is what some of us did today for Christmas Day activities:

Christmas in Alaska

2010-12-25T12:21:00.004-06:00

We are spending Christmas in Alaska with Hans. We had good flights from Minneapolis to Anchorage on Thursday. We arrived early in the afternoon.

Friday we traveled from Anchorage to Seward. The Seward Highway is a beautiful drive. The scenery is majestic, to say the least. There are mountains all the way from Anchorage to Seward. The ocean bays are right there beside the road most of the way too. We stopped many times to take pictures. Elaine is hoping to have some that will be possible entries for the ACE International Student Convention in the Spring.

In Seward we toured the Sea Life Center. They have many interesting displays of Alaskan sea life. Afterward, we did more driving around looking for spots to do photography.

Being with Hans for Christmas Day today is a blessing. It is good to be with him and get a bit of a glimpse of what his life is like here in Anchorage.

Here are some pictures from our drive to Seward yesterday.

The Homeless in the Winter

2010-12-14T15:40:00.003-06:00

This week I'm thinking about the homeless people. It has been minus 32 C for a few mornings this week. The last several days the afternoon high has been around minus 20 C. It is very cold, even if you only have to walk a few blocks.

Sam has taken the leadership to begin an outreach to the homeless people here in Sioux Lookout through the Believers Fellowship Church. Every Sunday afternoon from 4:00 - 6:00 we offer a warm place, sandwiches, or some other food, and coffee. The people who have been coming are very cold when they come in. Sometimes they are counting how many more minutes they can stay. The homeless shelter doesn't open until 8:00 PM. So, after they leave the church, it is still two hours before they can get into the shelter for the night.

About ten days ago on Sunday, December 5 there were four people who came to the church. I served them coffee and sandwiches. We sat at the table and talked about a wide range of subjects. D. L. was there. She talked about her children. I know them quite well. She talked about how she prays for them and tells them they should pray before they go to bed each night. She gave me four pennies to give to them.

D. L. also pulled a well worn sheet of paper out of her pocket. She wanted me to read it. The paper talked about the blessing that God gave to Moses to give to Aaron with which they were to bless the children of Israel. "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace". D. L. said she reads that paper a lot and thinks about what it says. I assured her that God knows where she is and remembers her, and wants to bless her.

Two days later D. L. tried to walk too far in the bush in the cold weather and died from exposure to the cold. This afternoon I attended the visitation at the funeral home for her. She was 38 years old. Her life story is filled with things that most of us will never know or understand. As I saw the homeless people at the funeral home, I wondered about some things in our society. Do we live such fast paced lives that we pass people everyday on the street and forget that they are our fellow human beings? They have a name. They have siblings. They have a mother and a father.

What is our responsibility to reach out to those that are not functioning well in our society? How can an economic system that has funds to pay multimillion dollar bonuses to some people, not have enough to provide better services to those who are not functioning well?

I don't have any answers today. I'm just thinking, and most of my thoughts are questions.

Snow and More Snow!

2010-12-01T15:31:00.004-06:00

Two weeks ago we had no snow on the ground. We had enjoyed a very long and warm Fall season. When the snow came it really came! Since Friday, November 19, we have had over two feet of snow.

It seemed like very two days we would get more snow. It created a lot of work to try to keep our driveway open. In the middle of all the snow, my snow blower broke down. It was kind of small for the size of driveway we have here in Sioux Lookout. I felt like I was always pushing it a little beyond what it was designed to do.

So, in the middle of all the snow storms in the last two weeks, I went to Dryden last Saturday and bought a new snow blower. This one is bigger and has no problem handling the amount of snow we have had. I am really pleased with it.

The last snow we received started on Sunday and ended yesterday. We had over a foot of snow in those days. The first 10 or 12 inches was wet and heavy. That makes it harder to move. By that time, I had my new snow blower and it handled the job fine.

We had two trees go down in the last snow. It was so wet when it came that it really clung to the pine trees. It got too heavy for two of them. One tree broke off about 6 feet above the ground. The other pulled up the roots and landed partly across the driveway.

I think the snow looks great. I still would rather blow snow that cut grass. So, I am happy. However, if it doesn't snow for a week, I won't complain!

This is what our driveway looks like now.

This is my pile of firewood for next Winter. I think I will have a little shoveling to do before we can cut it up and put it in the woodshed.

We went from no snow to this in just under two weeks.

Sweater Mania

2010-11-21T20:07:00.003-06:00

When I was with my sisters in Oct, I saw some of the beautiful mitts my niece makes from used wool sweaters. I volunteer at a Salvation Army store a couple hours every week. The wheels started turning in my mind...I wanted to try making some mitts.

I asked the sorters at the store to save woolen sweaters for me. The first bunch of sweaters they saved weren't all wool. They planned to pitch them if I didn't need them. I could hardly stand thinking of pitching them, so I decided to try making other things with them. My first creation was a comforter from 8 sweaters and some double knit material that came in to SA. I hope to sell it at our school auction in January. It measures about 82 by 92 inches, and is heavy and warm.

Then I used some scraps to make this puppy.

Finally I got my wool sweaters felted and bought polar fleece this past week. Saturday I finally was able to make my first mitts. It's fun and each pair is unique! The first pair was for Elaine.

Here she is modeling them.

I hope to sew several more pair this week to sell during the Christmas season. It's the reward I can give myself when my other daily work is finished!~Edith

It Is Winter Now!

2010-11-20T16:05:00.002-06:00

Winter has arrived in Sioux Lookout. We had about six inches of snow over the past two days. It was windy and turned colder too. This morning it was about minus 15 Celsius. It is forecast to be about the same tomorrow morning. We are supposed to get another 4 to 6 inches of snow tomorrow.

I got the snow blower started and cleared the snow out of the driveway for the first time this Fall. On the whole, I much prefer clearing snow to cutting grass, so I am pretty happy! I saw the lawn mower in the barn, and it didn't make me feel bad at all to just leave it there.

Then I got our snowmobiles out for the Winter too. I need to take one of them to Dryden to get it serviced, then we should be ready to go for the Winter.

With the snowmobiles out and the snow blower in use, it does seem like Winter. Yesterday when I was in town, I heard someone wish another person Merry Christmas. With the snow now, it does start to feel like Christmas is coming very soon.

Outdoor Furnace

2010-10-25T18:47:00.002-05:00

I feel like a boy with a new toy. They say that the difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys. This could be true in my case. We needed to replace our outdoor furnace this year. We got a new Central Boiler outdoor furnace. It is made in Northern Minnesota. I purchased it from a local dealer, who installed it.

He came and installed it while we were gone a few weeks ago. Last week we got all the plumbing connections made and I was able to begin using it. So far, I am really impressed with it. It seems to take less wood than the old one did. This is probably partly due to the fact that it doesn't have a forced air draft. Our old one had a blower on the draft. When the fan was running it would burn through wood very quickly. This one has a draft that opens, but no blower fan on the draft.

It is also quite a bit smaller than our other one in overall dimensions, even though the firebox is about the same size. That probably means that it has less water to keep hot, which of course, takes less wood.

We really like the outdoor furnace. It heats both the house and the shop. It also heats our domestic hot water. This makes our Hydro bill drop in the Winter months, which is nice.

Here is the new outdoor furnace.

Questions Asked And Questions Answered

2010-10-12T17:30:00.004-05:00

Last week in India we traveled to the Nuzvid village. We spent the day there on the grounds of a school. There were a number of students there who took an interest in us foreign men. One of the boys there showed me around the school. We spent a number of hours together. His name was Kalyan. He was 12 years old and in grade 7. His mother has died and now he, and his younger brother, live in residence at the school.

Kalyan spoke very good English with a bit of a British accent. He was very articulate and knowledgeable about many subjects. He explained to me, in quite a bit of detail, why it is better to eat a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit, rather than a lot of rice.

There was a pictorial display of the Holy Lands in the school yard that day. He took me around and explained the pictures to me. When the tour guides were giving their tours he would interpret from Telugu into English for me.

He introduced me to other boys in his class. One of them was called Obama. I told him I'm sure his mother did not name him Obama. Why do they call him Obama? He said it is because he is so black. Obama's favourite colour, by the way, was black. They laughed and told me I could go back to Canada and tell everyone that I had met Obama in India.

He asked me many questions throughout the day. What is my favourite colour? Blue. His is red. What is my favourite food? Spaghetti. His is rice. How old am I? How many children do I have? Have I watched Spiderman, Batman, and Superman movies? Do I drive a car or truck?

I really liked Kalyan. My heart went out to him. He seemed to soak up all the individual attention that he could get. He asked me one question that has stayed with me. We were walking over to see the dining hall where he was going to eat lunch. As we walked he asked, "Sir, are you rich?". I chuckled a bit and assured him, "No, I am not rich". But in a moment, I knew I had given the wrong answer in the context of the global situation. I am not rich by the norms of North America, or Sioux Lookout. But considering the global population I am rich.

This being Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, I was reflecting on this on the way home, and since I am home. I am rich in relationships. I am part of a family who love each other. I have a rich spiritual heritage. I have been blessed with salvation, and all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. I have a wonderful church family and meaningful relationships within the church. I have a job that is fulfilling, and allows me to be involved in things that are significant. I am blessed with Godly men as co-workers. They are men that I admire, respect, and enjoy being with. And lastly, I have more money and possessions than the majority of the world's population.

So, my answer to Kalyan was wrong. I am rich, and I am thankful to God for all He has blessed me with, and allowed me to experience in life.

This is Kalyan in front of the Holy Land pictorial exhibition.

This is Kalyan with his younger brother Revanth.

This is Obama!

India Driving

2010-10-10T14:51:00.003-05:00

I am on my way home from India. We had an interesting trip to Vijayawada, India. We were able to accomplish our goals for the trip and learned a lot about the country and its people.

One of the interesting aspects of the trip was the 7 hour drive from Hyderabad to Vijayawada. We did it again from Vijayawada to Hyderabad yesterday. Our host assured us that it was a four, or at the most, five hour drive. It was a seven hour drive each way. This drive was done at speeds varying from almost zero to 130 kilometers per hour. There were cows, water buffalo, ox carts, tractors, people, sheep, goats, cars, and trucks on the road. We would weave in and out of the line of traffic, often facing on coming traffic. We would squeeze back into the line of traffic at the last minute.

I could handle the driving because I am sure they do it this way all the time. The drivers seemed relaxed. My stress was on the way back to the airport, I was sure we were going to be late for our flight. Yet we stopped to drink tea and socialize. Our host assured us that we had lots of time. No problem, we were going to be at the airport by 7:00. I found out that, in India, drinking tea has priority over almost any other activity. We arrived at the airport at about 8:30.

We were in time for our flight, so all is well that ends well. Here is a video of the driving. This is one of the milder sections of the drive! At times, it got way more interesting than this!

While I am uploading video, here is a video of the opening exercises from the St. Paul's Christian school in Vijayawada. They have about 800 students. You can see about half of the group in this video.

Travel Update

2010-09-29T08:23:00.002-05:00

Edith and I are in Pennsylvania. We are enjoying our stay with Carol and Mary while I am preaching at revival meetings at the Living Water Mennonite Fellowship in Reinholds. We have been blessed by the people in the church. Their hospitality has been wonderful. We are enjoying learning to know the people at the church there better. It has also been good to see a few people that we haven't seen for a long time. Thanks to those of you who came to the church for an evening service.

We finish the revival meetings on Thursday evening. Edith is going to Virginia then to spend the weekend with her sisters. They are planning a fun weekend together and hope that all 11 sisters will be able to attend.

I will be speaking at the LIFE Ministries pastor's seminar on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday morning I will be at the Myerstown Mennonite Church for the morning service. Then Sunday afternoon I will meet Lester Weiler and Ken Burkholder. The three of us will drive to JFK Airport in New York and meet John Sensenig and Dennis Stoll there. The five of us will be flying to Vijayawada, India.

Our trip to India will be to conduct a feasibility study for a Savings and Credit Association program in India. Anabaptist Foundation Open Hands Fund has a program already operating successfully in Haiti. We are looking for other places to begin similar programs. The opportunity in India seems like a good possibility. After the feasibility study, we should have a better idea of whether it could work there or not. If it seems possible we will develop a business plan and likely begin the program early next year.

Cloverdale Marriage Retreat

2010-09-20T21:16:00.003-05:00

This past weekend Edith and I went to Hiawatha Camp near Deer River, Minnesota for a marriage retreat with the Cloverdale Mennonite Church couples. We know quite a few of the people there which made it nice for us, and helped us to feel part of the group. Also, the overseer for the congregation there is Doug Graybill, who is married to Edith's sister Leona. They were also there for the weekend.

The camp was a beautiful place. The weather was very nice, but just a little cool. The cabins were very nice and comfortable as well. The youth from the church served a banquet on Saturday evening. It was excellent.

On the way down the the retreat the US customs officer asked me where we were going. I told him we were going to a marriage retreat. He asked, "What is a marriage retreat? Is it like a wedding, or is a wedding taking place there?" I explained the concept of a marriage retreat to him and he was satisfied. I told Edith when we drove away from the customs booth that I think he had learned something new that day.

On the way back the Canadian Customs officer asked where we had been. I told him we had attended a marriage retreat in Minnesota. He asked how it had been. I told him it was good. He said, "Well, the two of you are still together, so it must have worked".

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Summer Projects

2010-09-11T10:36:00.003-05:00

This Summer I have been working on some outdoor projects here at our house. When my sisters were here in June my brothers-in-law helped me to put new vinyl siding on the shed, that we call the barn. It didn't have any siding on it before and was just plain chipboard. It didn't look very good. We couldn't see it from the house because of the brush between the house and the barn.

I have also been clearing out the brush between the house and the barn. After the barn had siding on it I could finish the brush clearing. This week I finished clearing the brush and hauling the firewood up to the wood shed.

Part of the reason for doing this is to create a firebreak between the bush and our buildings in case of a forest fire. I think it looks pretty good now that it is cleared out. Hans thinks that eventually I am going to turn this whole area into lawn. I am not. I don't like to cut grass and I don't need more lawn. I just want to cut the small trees out of it every year and keep it kind of the way it is. Maybe it will create a larger blueberry patch for us.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of what it looks like now.

Back To My Roots

2010-08-31T18:29:00.002-05:00

Our outdoor wood furnace developed a water leak during the winter last year. This Spring I had someone look at it and it was too badly rusted to be fixed. We are in the process of getting a new furnace. It should be installed before the cold weather comes.

The new furnace has a different configuration for where the water pipes enter and exit the furnace. Because of that I needed to pour an extension to the concrete pad the furnace rests on. I formed it up last week and yesterday gathered the things I needed to pour the concrete. Today was the pour day!

I rented a portable mixer and we set to work after lunch pouring concrete. It wasn't a very big addition to the pad so it didn't take very long to pour. Elaine and Dallas helped by shoveling gravel into the mixer. I added the cement and water. The job turned out fairly well in my opinion.

Pouring concrete brought back a lot of memories for me. When I was 13 I started working a Summer job at Modern Concrete in Pennsylvania. My father was in a business partnership with Jim Hess. Jim's son Robert and I worked together every Summer doing odd jobs around the concrete plant. Over the years I did many different jobs there. All of them had to do with concrete in one way or another.

My life, since my teen years, hasn't had very much to do with concrete products, but it was enjoyable to get back into it for an afternoon.

Here are my trusty helpers shoveling another batch of gravel into the mixer.

Here I am pouring a batch of concrete into the form beside the old furnace. This furnace should be gone in a week or so and be replaced by the new one.

Lovenise is a survivor

2010-08-29T14:32:00.002-05:00

It seems like Lovenise has a good chance of surviving. Here is an update from Wednesday from Bethanie:

Yep, the little lady Lovenise seems to be improving. Yesterday she was notably stronger, holding her back and neck while we were carrying her without flopping over. She was also strong enough to through a few little tantrums when she was disappointed with the food she was being offered. :-) It would seem that she would also be strong enough to smile in that case, but so far she hasn't.

Today she was showing some interest in playing which was good to see. Today she went for a two hour stretch without being held--the first in a week, I think.

She's allowing us to sleep 5-6 hours (interrupted)/night rather than 2 as she had the first 3 nights.

I'm pretty confident she's going to pull through.

However, her feet are still swollen and were probably more swollen today than ever. I'm attributing it more to protein deficiency at this point than to heart failure, but still don't know so we're still trying to hold back on giving her much salt.

Thanks so much for your prayers!

Bethanie

Pray for Lovenise

2010-08-21T10:04:00.003-05:00

Bethanie and Joanna have taken an eight month old girl into their care. Her grandmother brought her to the clinic. She weighs eight pounds and is close to dying. Bethanie wasn't sure if whe would make it through the first night, but she did. Following is an update Bethanie sent on the condition of Lovenise.

Well, Lovenise made it through the day yesterday and seems to be doing somewhat better. I think I could be certified as a waterboarder now. That's what I felt like as I was forcing oral rehydration solution into her with a syringe yesterday--30 ml every half hour.

Her diarrhea really slowed down yesterday after she started to eat some solids. Our clinic employees were able to get quite a bit of a porridge of ground rice and beans into her. She seems to be turning around. She had her first formed stool this morning.

She still has a nasty cough, but is on amoxicillin so hopefully that will soon resolve.

Joanna and are having short nights. The first night I woke her up every two hours to get fluids into her and then she'd sometimes take a while to settle down again. I think I got two hours of sleep that night. Joanna took charge of her last night and probably didn't get much more than 2 hours of sleep either. She wants to be held and carried most of the time. It is a real accomplishment to lie her down without her waking up and crying her weak, high-pitched, hoarse cry.

She's still very weak. She can hold her head up for a minute or two but then it flops over.

I wrote that this morning.

This afternoon I was more concerned about her again. She had slept most of the day away and although she had eaten some, it wasn't enough to make me feel comfortable. We're thinking her diarrhea may be associated with lactose intolerance so have stopped giving her Similac. We were giving her some herbalife soy based stuff instead, but her diarrhea worsened after that as well so we've stopped that. Now the question is how to get protein into a dehydrated baby who can't drink milk. Her feet seem slightly swollen today which may be an indication that she's developing kwashiorkor so we definitely need to be aggressive about protein intake. We ground up some meat and added it to the rice and bean mixture. She guzzled that down well this evening which makes me feel better.

Sometimes I can convince myself she's improving slightly other times I'm concerned we're about to lose her. Time will tell. We'll just keep on doing the best we can.

If you could join in prayer for the survival of Lovenise and for strength for Bethanie and Joanna, that would be great!

This is a picture of Lovenise with her grandmother just before Bethanie took her to care for her.

Haiti Trip August 2010

2010-08-19T17:49:00.005-05:00

Edith and I left home on August 2nd to travel to Haiti. We flew into Port-au-Prince on Tuesday the 3rd. Bethanie picked us up at the airport and we stayed at the SLM Ministries guest house that night. Wednesday morning we picked up Hans at the airport. We stopped in at the Christian Aid Ministries base near Port-au-Prince before heading for LaSource. We arrived in LaSource, where Bethanie lives, Wednesday evening.

We spent Thursday helping Bethanie in the clinic. Edith and I went through all their 20,000 patient records to assure that they were in numerical order. Actually, we didn't get through all of them on Thursday, so we finished it the next Monday.

Friday we hiked up the mountain behind the Christian Aid Ministries compound. The clinic was closed on Friday so we didn't help there.

Saturday we helped Bethanie with a remote vaccine post in the morning. We drove to the community on the Gator and took the vaccines and medicines with us. We had about 20 children attend the clinic.

Sunday we attended the church service in LaSource. We visited with the staff in the afternoon and attended the afternoon service too.

Monday we helped at the clinic again. Edith put together 100 kits for the midwives to use in deliveries. Each kit has a string for tying the cord, and a razor blade to cut the cord, as well at a few gauze swabs.

Tuesday we flew with MAF from the airstrip near Anse Rouge to Port-au-Prince. George W. Bush came to Haiti that morning so the airport was closed for 45 minutes, which made our flight late. Tuesday afternoon Kevin Hoover took us out to Cadiac.

Wednesday through Friday we had a teaching seminar in the church in Cadiac. Nathan Bange was the other teacher in the seminar. We haven't seen him for a number of years, so it was nice to be with him for the week.

In the afternoons we visited a number of savings group meetings that are sponsored by Anabaptist Foundation. I was really impressed and encouraged by the program. There are 12 groups with a total of over 280 members saving their own money for a variety of purposes. Each group writes its own policies and holds its own funds. There are two Haitian facilitators that work for Anabaptist Foundation and assist the groups.

Saturday Hans and I went with some of the young men from the church to the ocean. We had a great time with them. In the afternoon there was a wedding in Cadiac. It was nice to attend the wedding and see a young couple take the step of marriage.

Sunday I preached in the morning service in Cadiac. Three other men from Anabaptist Foundation joined us in Cadiac to do a review of the savings group program.

On Monday some people from Esperanza, in the Dominican Republic, came to assist with the review of the savings group program. Edith, Hans, and I left around 3 PM on Monday. The others stayed until today to complete the program review. We are very pleased with the program and the progress so far. We hope to expand the program in the next year and assist with the forming of many more groups.

It is still heartbreaking in Haiti to see the hundreds of thousands of people who are still living in tent cities. A hurricane would destroy the tents of hundreds of thousands of people. We can continue to pray that God will spare them from this added disaster. Some of the progress that had been made in the country before the earthquake has been lost. I think it will take some time to get back to where they were before.

On the bright side, there has been a lot of clean up of rubble from the earthquake. There is not a lot of big equipment working, but there are thousands of people with shovels and hand tools working on the fallen structures. I saw a lot of places that clean up work had been done since I was there in March.

There has not been a lot of rebuilding yet. I think they are just ready to begin rebuilding much more quickly. Christian Aid Ministries has 30 clean up crews, and is just starting some rebuilding crews. SLM Ministries has been doing some rebuilding and has rebuilt over a dozen houses.

On Tuesday of this week when we went to the airport we passed the industrial complex next to the airport. There were thousands of people heading in through the gates for work in the factories there. Before the American embargo in the 1990's there were over 20,000 people employed in that complex. Bill Clinton has been working to bring investment and manufacturing back to Haiti. I think he is seeing some results based on the number of people who are employed there now.

We enjoyed our time with Bethanie and our time with our friends in Cadiac. This is the first time Hans has been to Haiti in fifteen years. For Edith it has been eleven years since she was in Cadiac. She had been down to see Bethanie four years ago, but we couldn't go to Cadiac for security reasons. I always enjoy being with Pastor Paul and my friends in Cadiac.

Here is Bethanie in the kitchen of her house in LaSource.

This picture of Hans and Bethanie proves we did make it to the top of the mountain.

This is the tree nursery in LaSource. Nelson Schrock works in the agriculture program in LaSource. He has over 40,000 trees in this nursery. He is helping local people to plant woodlots to raise trees.

Here we are at the remote vaccine post. Bethanie and Hans are giving vaccines to the children.

My job at the remote vaccine post was to weigh the children. There were at least two complications that are obvious in this picture. First, the children really didn't want that much close contact with a foreigner, and second with my bifocals, I needed to get my head way back to read the numbers on the scales.

This is the parking lot outside the clinic. Many patients come to the clinic by donkey. Others come by motorbike taxi or walk. Some are even carried in on the beds by family members.

This is the clinic waiting room. While they are waiting to see the nurse they get their vital signs checked and listen to a devotional.

Here are three children that are enrolled in the malnourished children program. They come to the clinic, or to Bethanie's house, each day to drink a nutritional supplement. They are gaining weight nicely.

Here we are at the MAF runway near Anse Rouge. It is a gravel strip. The MAF pilot buzzes the strip before he lands to get the goats, and other animals, off the runway before he lands. It took us seven and a half hours to drive from Port-au-Prince to LaSource. It took us 40 minutes to fly back to Port-au-Prince.

This is a house in Cadiac that was rebuilt with funds we took to Haiti in March.

Another house in Cadiac that was rebuilt with funds we took in March.

This is the wedding ceremony on Saturday. Marriage tends to happen at a later age in Haiti. They asked people to pray for this couple since they are so young. The groom was 27.

This is Remy Jn Louis, one of the savings group facilitators teaching at one of the savings group meetings. He is explaining the importance of prayer in our lives and the use of our finances.

Church Picnic and Men's Retreat

2010-07-29T20:10:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday we had our annual church picnic at Ojibway Park. This year we had beautiful weather. We enjoyed the outdoor service and then a picnic lunch. It was a good time of fellowship and worship.

Monday I went with the other men from Believers Fellowship Mission for the annual Men's Retreat. We went camping on a lake North of Kenora. It was a lovely spot. We arrived Monday afternoon and got our tents set up for the night. Around 10:00 PM we had what the weather service called a severe thunderstorm. The wind hit our tents with a blast. We were huddled inside our tent trying to hold up the side toward the wind and keep the tent from collapsing. We managed to keep everything intact through the storm. There was thunder, lightning, and heavy rain throughout the night.

Tuesday we did some fishing. I caught 3 walleye and one bass. The bass was a lot of fun to catch and was 20 inches long. I have never seen a bass that big. We had a fish fry for supper.

Just before supper someone saw a big turtle by the canoe. We immediately knew that he was wanting to eat the fish we had there. One of the men managed to catch him in a net. We butchered him and ate the meat for supper. He had been eating our fish. He ate one entire walleye and parts of two bass.

I decided that turtle is something that I eat one time just to be able to say that I have eaten turtle. The flavour was good but it was very chewy. I think we should have boiled it for a few hours instead of frying it.

The fellowship with the other men was very good. I was encouraged to be with other Godly men for a few days. I respect and admire these men for their Godly character and the way they have committed their lives to serving God and others.

Heidi Hochstedler shared a story for the children at our service at Ojibway Park.

Hans was here for two weeks. We really enjoyed having him with us. Here Edith and Hans are at the church picnic.

This is our camping spot for the men's retreat. We had a great campsite. Steve Beiler had cleared the brush and cut some firewood. We had three tents set up on the site. There were 11 men attending the retreat.

Here I am with the bass I caught. I usually don't catch big fish, so this was an exception for me.

Here is the turtle meat being fried. Galen Miller is holding the shell of the turtle.

Signs

2010-07-14T13:59:00.003-05:00

For the past year Greg Wilson and I have been working on getting signs installed along Highway 72. We wanted to make a statement about the value of life. We realize that life is not protected by governments or legislation alone. It is a decision that is made by individuals.

Our application to place these signs was first rejected by the Province. Then through an appeal process and some prayer the decision was reversed and we were allowed to place the signs. They were put in place several weeks ago. If you are coming to Sioux Lookout on Highway 72 you will see them just North of Dinorwic.

Traveling

2010-06-29T16:35:00.003-05:00

I am on my way home from Pennsylvania. I spoke at the SMBI WATER training week last week. Sunday morning I was at our home church, Fairhaven Mennonite Church, in Myerstown. Yesterday we had an informational breakfast for IGo. In the afternoon I had a few meetings with the Anabaptist Foundation Open Hands Fund Committee related to our economic development projects in Haiti, and the possible new project in India. In the evening I joined the ministry from Fairhaven for their meeting.

I also visited a few friends throughout the week as well. I stopped for a visit with Tim Stoltzfus at the Anabaptist Foundation office. I had lunch with my brother-in-law Al Longenecker, and visited with my niece Gloria Croutch and her husband Jason. I had lunch with my good friend Dave Weber one day. I also had a wonderful few hours with Richard Newswanger.

I also visited my aunt Nora Weaver who is 96 years old. She has been married twice. Both of her husbands have died. She has spent 53 years of her life as a widow. When I asked her what she thought about life now that she was 96 years old, she said she has no idea where 96 years went to. She said they went by so quickly. She said some were uphill and some were downhill, but they were all heading toward where she is today. She said when she wakes up at night she remembers places she has traveled to and things she has seen. It was encouraging to spend a little time with her.

One my way home today one of my favourite comments from the trip was made by the Thrifty Car Rental shuttle bus driver. As he was taking us to the airport he said, "When I first went to the airport this morning, there were so many people there, I thought they were giving something away free! Then I found out that last night in the rain storm there were flights canceled and people were still trying to get flights out this morning. I tell you last night it was raining elephants, cows and horses! Yeah, it was way beyond cats and dogs for sure! It was definitely elephants, cows and horses!" Of course, the fact that this was all said with a genuine Philadelphia accent added to the cuteness what he was saying.

Elaine's Birthday and Other Things

2010-06-17T14:13:00.002-05:00

Last week we had the awards banquet for Cornerstone Christian School. Galen Miller spoke at the program, and the students received their awards. It was nice to see them reach the end of another year of accomplishments.

Over the weekend we had a prophecy conference at the Church. Bernell Burkholder Jr. was the speaker. He and his family stayed at our house over the weekend. The conference was well attended and people seemed to appreciate the teaching. We got a little fishing in with Bernell and Kyle too.

Tuesday of this week was Elaine's 17th birthday. Edith and I took her out for lunch. We went and bought her birthday gift after lunch. In the evening she had a party. We played volleyball at the gym and then had a snack at the church.

Here is Elaine getting an award. I'm not sure what award this was, but she did get the award for neatness. I'm am sure she earned it. She is an organized person.

Here are Dallas and Kyle with two of the walleye we caught. Dallas caught one that was 24 inches and Kyle had one that was just a little less than 20 inches.

This is the volleyball game at Elaine's birthday party.

At the church they played a game of trouble. Elaine won!

Here is Elaine with her cake just before she blew out the candles.

The Sisters Visit

2010-06-07T12:10:00.008-05:00

We were blessed to have two of my sisters and their husbands visit us over the past weekend. They arrived on Wednesday evening and left this morning. Romaine and Leroy Stauffer and Betty Ann and Marvin Landis were our visitors. We had a good time with them.

The men helped me put vinyl siding on one of the sheds at our place. We were able to get three sides finished. We would have completed the entire project, but it rained too much for us to work on it on Friday. Dallas and I can easily finish the last side.

Leroy, Marvin and I went fishing for part of three days. We pretty much kept our limits filled with walleye. We had to keep eating fish every day so we could go catch more.

The ladies finished a quilt that Edith had started working on a week or so ago. Sunday evening Edith and I took Romaine and Betty Ann for a canoe ride. We saw two cow moose and one calf. We watched them for a while, and then heard another moose on the other side of the lake. We canoed over there and saw a bull moose in the water. It headed into the bush before we got a good look at it. When we came back across the lake we thought the cows and calf had left. But, when we got to where they had been, one cow and calf were still there. The calf came out and stood in the water. We got a really good look at it. It was probably only a week or two old, and very cute.

This is what the shed looked like before we started installing the siding.

This is what it looks like after we did the siding.

Here is a picture of the ladies working on the quilt.

This is Leroy, Romaine, Betty Ann, and Marvin.

Here I am with my two sisters.

Hey, Fat Boy!

2010-05-15T10:06:00.002-05:00

I was always kind of chubby as I was growing up. Being raised in a home with rich Pennsylvania Dutch cooking probably contributed to that. My father grew up in a butcher shop family, and as a result meat was an important part of every meal at our house. I remember being at my uncle's house and seeing my Dad and his brother trim the fat off the meat. They would then put it into a sandwich and eat a fat sandwich. In case you are wondering, yes, they did both have heart attacks later in life.

I also remember being in the barn at my cousin's place and having contests to see who would weigh the most on the barn scales. We would wear coats, hold buckets of grain, or hay bales, in order to increase our weight. I haven't done that for about 45 years!

In school I was usually one of the chubby boys in my class. I occasionally got called "fat boy". When I went to high school I went out for the wrestling team and wasn't too bad at it. I would lose weight to try to qualify for the 138 - 142 weight class. It was quite a struggle to get my weight down enough to do that.

Over the years since high school my weight has gone up and down. I have said sometimes, that if I had all the weight I have lost over the years, it would be enough to make another person. He would be a little wobbly, and not have much backbone though. I always had an upper limit on my weight, and when I reached that limit I would declare war on the flesh and lose some weight.

When we lived in Haiti and changed our diet to Haitian food with very little meat and no deserts, I lost about 25 pounds. I weighed less than at any time since about grade 6 or 7. I still ate a lot of food, but not as much fat and sugar.

Last Summer and Fall I was at the upper limit of my weight. In the Fall I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I decided I needed to change my diet and lose weight. I basically have gone back to a diet similar to what we had in Haiti. I don't eat much meat. I don't eat snack foods, deserts, or anything high in sugar or fat content. From November to February I did the same as when we lived in Haiti. I lost about 25 pounds. I weigh the same as I did when we lived in Haiti. My cholesterol came back to within the normal range without any medication. My blood pressure didn't change without medication.

This past week I went to see my family doctor. He checked me out, and made this comment, "You shouldn't lose any more weight. You probably weigh what you did when you were 18 years old. Not many people do that when they are in their 50's. Many people say they are going to lose weight but they don't. My hat is off to you. But don't lose any more weight. You are healthy as you are now." That is music to the ears of a fat boy!

The Schnickelfritzes

2010-05-13T11:18:00.005-05:00

My mother was a firm believer that what you call children is what they become. Because I believed she was a wise woman, I tried to avoid calling my children names. However, now that they're grown and have become adults, I'm using the label Ilva gave them on facebook. She commented on the nicely posed photo of the family [see previous post], and said she just knows they were being Schnickelfritzes while they were here. She was correct, of course. That term is a Pa Dutch word that would be translated loosely to mean mischiefs. Nitchsnutsh [how DOES one spell that?] is a similar word. They are that too!

They pretended to be offended when I gave the younger set vitamins and not them. I told them they are adults and can eat their own vitamins. I had trouble with a disappearing pocketbook. That usually happens when Hans is around. Especially if he and Cathy Yoder are in Kahoots! [I wonder what the origin of THAT word is!]

They were all offended when I helped Darren with ideas on using his X in Take One. Of course, at the stage in life they are in, they don't understand MILs need to curry favor with SILs. Especially if the SIL is so good at taking photos the MIL wants, and helping talk the overly confident, but stuck 15 year old through the steps he needs to take to climb to security while rock climbing. It was best for me not to watch!

I listen to them talking and know they inhabit worlds of their own. When Bethanie shows Hans photos of wounds she encountered after the earthquake, and asks how he would have handled them, they use terminology I don't understand. Mattress stitches, etc. Jennifer talked about the AWFUL DOG that eagerly waited to eat or lick the fungus growing in a patient's hand because of it being too closed up. I wonder what steps she takes to help open hands like that.

I raised these people. They were my babies. In some ways it feels incredulous that they are the same children I nursed and wiped noses for, etc. I am so pleased they are in helping professions. They truly are healing arrows sent out from our home. But when they come home, they revert back to the adolescents they were here. I wonder what all they feel that they aren't saying.

When I get in a kitchen with other ladies, I feel the inadequacy I felt as the youngest of 5 girls in a row. When I get outside with people, I feel the surge of joy and exploration I felt as the leader of 5 boys in a row who came after me in my family. Family dynamics affect us all our lives. It's a marvel. A mystery to unravel.

This morning I wakened at 5 am, an hour before time to get up. I ruminated, reminisced and thanked God for the blessings of this Mother's Day weekend. I thought of the blessings from relationships we'd have for years. Clair and Clara gave money for fruit for the weekend. Morley and Reta included Jennifer in special ways in the memorial they had for Ruth Anne. Verna invited Bets, Jenn and me for tea on Monday. Henrys came over for Supper on Sunday night. Merle's usually good pizza had a burnt bottom because of putting both pans on one shelf and the heat not being able to circulate. However, it didn't matter. Instead we laughed at memories from Henry and Grace's wedding. Our girls wanted to go with them to see their house after the wedding. They were small then and didn't realize that could be inappropriate. Henrys graciously granted their request! What a source of fun and mischief they've been through the years!

I suppose if and when I am a grandmother, I'll marvel even more about the passing of generations and how quickly transition happens. For now, I savour the memories of our time together and release my first set to their "out there" lives again. My beloved Schnickelfritzes!
~Edith

Family

2010-05-12T16:27:00.004-05:00

We were privileged to have all of our children home here in Sioux Lookout from Friday of last week until Tuesday morning of this week. We had a wonderful time together. This was the first time they were all in Sioux Lookout at one time.

Saturday Hans and I went for a canoe ride in the morning. In the afternoon he and I took Elaine and Dallas to Dryden for the orthodontist appointments. In the evening we all attended the Ruth Anne Beardy Memorial service.

Sunday we had a Mother's Day fellowship meal at church after the morning service. Only non-mothers did the food preparation, the set up and the clean up. In the afternoon we climbed Sioux Mountain. In the evening the Henry Schrock family came over for a visit.

Monday Edith and the girls went to Dryden for Bethanie's dentist appointment and to do some shopping. Hans, Darren and I did a little carpentry work on our shed. I am getting ready to put vinyl siding on it and we were working on replacing the doors.

The children left Tuesday morning. We are missing them and treasuring the memories of our days together.

This is the canoe ride on Saturday morning.

Here is the Mother's Day fellowship meal after the morning church service.

We are approaching Sioux Mountain. We decided it was easier for two people to balance on the railroad tracks if they helped to support each other. It just proves again that two are better than one.

When we came down from Sioux Mountain, a train was coming through the bridge.

Yound Driver and Staff Fellowship

2010-05-01T18:42:00.002-05:00

Elaine finished her Young Drivers course last week. She is now ready to take her test for her Ontario G2 License. We hope that she will be able to get scheduled for the test early in June. She is actually a good driver. She likes driving stick shift and does well with it. I'd be ready to let her head out the driveway alone now.

We just returned from the Believers Fellowship staff fellowship in Sioux Narrows. We had a good few days together. I feel very blessed to work for an organization like Believers Fellowship. We had a prayer time together this morning as staff men that blessed and encouraged me.

We have a full day of activities tomorrow and then I am off on Monday to Pennsylvania for the Anabaptist Foundation board meeting.

Here is Elaine, ready to go for her last driving lesson!

Since it rained all weekend, our recreation times were indoors. Here we are playing Human Dutch Blitz.

Oh, and we had lots of good food too!

There were a lot of cute staff children attending. Here is one of them!

Taxes

2010-04-27T08:14:00.002-05:00

Today I am putting our income tax returns in the mail. I finished completing them over the past week, and they are now ready to mail.

I heard this past week that Canadians this year will pay 41% of their income in taxes of one form or another. My income isn't very high, so not a lot of money goes to the government in income taxes. However, sales taxes, gas tax, property tax, and user fees for services are where we pay taxes.

Personally, I don't mind paying taxes. I'm glad to live in a country that has a functioning system of government. We have fairly decent roads. We have police, fire and emergency services. We have a health care system that works rather well.

When I compare our system to a country like Haiti, I don't mind paying taxes. I could live in Haiti and pay no sales tax, no property tax, no unemployment insurance tax, or Canada Pension tax. I wouldn't have to pay an income tax either. But then the services that we enjoy here would not be provided by the government either.

For myself, I will pay my taxes, and be thankful for a government that works.

It Is Not Normal

2010-04-20T07:33:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was talking with an older gentleman in town and as we discussed the weather, he said, "It's not normal, that's for sure".

I have come to the conclusion that normal weather is a rare event. But this year, so far, has been quite different from the norm. I didn't use my snow blower after the second week in January. We just didn't have more than an inch or two of snow at a time since that.

During the time that I was in Haiti in March in got warm and really hasn't been very cold since that time. The ice went out on Pelican Lake here in Sioux Lookout last week. It has to be one of the earliest ice breakup dates ever.

On Easter Sunday we had the warmest sunrise service I think I can ever remember. We didn't have any snow on the ground either. Last year we had mounds of snow on Easter Sunday.

We have been enjoying lots of sunshine and warm temperatures for the last six weeks. It is nice to be able to get some of the outside things done early. Overall, it has been a very nice Spring. The only downside is that if this dry warm weather continues it could be a bad Summer for forest fires.

Anabaptist Foundation Business Seminar

2010-03-31T17:13:00.003-05:00

This week I was in Dalton, Ohio for the Anabaptist Foundation Business Seminar. I spoke on the subject of Incorporating Core Kingdom Values Into Business and Organizational Activities. There were about 240 people who attended the seminar. I knew some of them but many of them were people I had never met before.

There were several Old Order Amish men on the organizing committee. With their involvement there were a lot of Amish business people who attended the seminar. Many Amish people in Ohio are in the woodworking business in one way or another. Someone was telling me that the recession has been rather difficult for their community. They have seen their business sales decline. At the same time they have about 3,000 boys getting out of school in the next three years. These young men are all looking for jobs. One of the men said almost everyday a father comes into his shop with a 15 year old son who is looking for work.

Today we had a meeting with the executive committee of the Anabaptist Foundation board and the officers of the organization. I have finished all my meetings now and am ready to head home early in the morning.

This is a view of the main seminar room in Dalton. Richie Lauer is sharing information about Anabaptist Foundation.

Here are Tim Thomas, Merle Herr, and Tim Stoltzfus observing the seminar in progress.

Mennonites at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Culture Center

2010-03-29T17:52:00.004-05:00

This past weekend I was speaking at the Elnora Bible Institute mission emphasis weekend. It was the first time I was at the Institute, which is located in Elnora, Indiana. They have two six weeks terms each year. There are 43 students there for this term. I had a good time with the staff and students there. I really felt that they have some very good young people there as students. I found out, throughout the weekend, that I knew the parents of quite a few of the students.

The Institute is housed in a refurbished high school building. It is a very nice facility. They have a wonderfully large gym! The classrooms, library and chapel are all very nice.

On Saturday the choir presented a program at the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Culture Center near Bloomington, Indiana. I went with them to the center for the program. It was an interesting event. It was fascinating to see Tibetan Buddhist structures and worship in rural Indiana. I could easily have convinced myself that I was in Bhutan, except that there were no mountains.

Some of the students had visited the center and the leadership there had invited them to bring the choir to present a choir program. After the program, they gave those of us who were interested a tour of the temple and one of the stupas.

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

This is the gym at Elnora Bible Institute.

Here is the choir singing inside the culture center building.

This decoration was made of Yak butter. It took a lot of hours of work to do the butter carving to make this.

This is the teaching pavilion on the grounds of the center. This is where the Dalai Lama teaches when he comes to the center. He is planning his next visit in May of this year.

This lady was our tour guide at the temple. She said she was raised in the Church of the Brethren. She spent time in a Buddhist monastery in Asia and became a Western Buddhist Nun.

This is one of two stupas on the grounds of the center.

This is a prayer wheel on the grounds of the center. It is solar powered. In Bhutan we saw water powered prayer wheels. In Indiana they are using solar power to turn the wheel. They said this prayer wheel contains 678,635,000 mantras, which are said every time the wheel turns.

Praying for airport security people

2010-03-25T12:23:00.002-05:00

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." Romans 12:14

"Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." Matthew 5:44

I have a strong dislike for airport security. I don't mind traveling, but getting through airport security is a trial of my commitment to Christian values and character. Today, God must have known that I needed to learn a few more lessons in dealing with people who block my goals.

My goal today was really quite simple. All I wanted to do was get from Thunder Bay to Cleveland, Ohio. My flight was scheduled to leave Thunder Bay at 6:00 AM. I got up at 4:00, got ready and was at the airport at 4:40. I got through security there with no problem, and the flight was on schedule to Toronto. I arrived in Toronto on schedule at 7:35 AM.

I waited for my luggage to arrive so I could go through immigration and customs. My luggage finally showed up on the carousel at 8:15. I still thought I would make my flight at 9:00 AM. I went through immigration and customs with no problem.

Then I hit the line for security. My attitude starting heading South when the staff lady by the long line kept shouting at us. "Move forward, don't stop, move forward all the way!". Now this is rather hard to do when there are 50 people ahead of you in line who are not moving!

Eventually, I got to the front of the line. I obediently got my boarding pass stamped, and like a sheep went and stood in the line they indicated. I got myself half undressed and put my bags on the counter. They swiped my computer, my computer case, my Bible cover, and a book cover. After testing the swab they told me to wait before I push my things onto the belt. I waited, and I waited. They left and all went down to the other end of the line to look through some other unfortunate traveler's things.

After maybe 7 minutes, a new person came and took my boarding pass. He swiped my computer and computer case again. Then he asked me to wait, and sent two people ahead of me in line. After they were through he put my things on the belt and had me walk through the scanner.

I thought I had it made and would now be ready to collect my things. Nope! Wrong again. Now they wanted me to step into their brand new full body scanner. I still think the lady at the entrance to the scanner told me to hold my passport in my hand, which I did. I stepped into the scanner and placed my feet obediently on the footprints marked on the floor. I held my passport in my hands above my head, just like they told me to do.

The staff person on the far side of the scanner told me to step out. "Do you have anything in your pockets?" he asked. I told him I had no metal in my pockets. "That's not what I asked!", he informed me, "Do you have anything in your pockets?" "Yes", I said. He became very irritated. "The lady on the other side told you very clearly to take everything out of your pockets. Why didn't you do it?" he asked. I told him she had asked me to hold my passport. He insisted she told me to take everything out of my pockets. At this point I realized I was in a no win situation, and the quicker I let him win the sooner I could go. I tried to fade to humility and meekness. "I'm very sorry" I said. I emptied my pockets. "What do you want me to do?". I held the contents of all my pockets out for him to see. He got on his radio to the person in the back room who was viewing the images. "This guy has lots of stuff in his pockets. He refused to take it out. I got it all out where I can see it now. I'll check him out and then decide what to do with him". My heart sank.

After looking through the contents of my pockets he radioed back to the viewing room that I was all clear. He sent me back to the belt to get my things. Now I had to find the man who was still holding my boarding pass. I located him and retrieved my boarding pass as I was getting dressed again.

At this point he looked at my boarding pass and commented, "You probably should run, you are very late!". I told him I would do that. I headed for the stairway. Just as I was ready to head down the stairs a lady shouted at me. "Go to the back of the line" Sure enough there was a line to go down the stairway. She was looking at everyone's boarding pass again. I went to the back of the line.

I ran down the stairs and through the hallway. Down another flight of stairs and onto the shuttle bus that would take me over to the commuter airline terminal. As the bus was approaching the commuter airline terminal I saw a baggage handler taking my suitcase out of the airplane. I wanted to shout at him that I was almost there, but, of course, he would not be able to hear me. I got off the bus and ran to the gate.

The gate agent looked at me with an expression that was way to calm. "You missed your flight". That was it. She said she could put me on the next flight to Cleveland. I asked when that would be. "At 4:15 this afternoon". Then she smiled. "Will that be acceptable?". I tried hard to muster all my Christian virtues and tried to smile. I think it probably looked more like a grimace of pain. "I don't think I have any choice do I?", I replied. "No", she said, "that is the best we can do".

I went and stood in line at the customer service counter. When I got to an agent she looked at my boarding pass and asked what happened. I told her I had missed my flight. "Why?" was her one word demand. I assured her it was a long story that she didn't really want to hear, but it involved standing in a lot of lines for way too long. She gave me a withering look. I ask if they could get me anywhere else in Ohio before 5:30 PM. She said they could not. I meekly accepted a boarding pass for the flight to Cleveland at 4:15 PM.

Then I got the good news. They had already sent my suitcase back to the main terminal. I now needed to go back on the bus to the main terminal. Go through Canadian immigration and customs. Then reclaim my suitcase, go the the ticket counter and recheck my suitcase. After that I needed to go back through United States immigration, customs, and then back through the entire security routine again.

After another two hours I am now ready for the bus ride back to the commuter airline terminal. I am trying to pray for the airport security people. I did not curse them. I'm not sure if I blessed them. I almost told the security lady on my second pass through that I appreciate the service they provide for the traveling public. The thought was in my mind, but I couldn't get my lips moving. Would flattery, or lying, be worse than not blessing her? I guess I'll never know, because at this point, I am not going back to tell her. Then again, the day isn't over. Maybe God will give me a third chance to go through the same security checkpoint!

IGo Asian Bible Institute

2010-03-20T18:52:00.003-05:00

One of the annual events at the Institute for Global Opportunities is the Asian Bible Institute. Each March we hold a three week Bible Institute term for Asian students. This year there was a good group of students who came to Chiang Mai for the Institute. Val Yoder, Raymond Burkholder and Rick Rhodes are the instructors. Pastor Kiat is translating the teaching into Thai for the Thai students.

It is exciting to see the Institute reaching leaders from such a wide spectrum of countries in Asia. Many of these men are pastors or leaders in their home country.

Here is a picture of the students who are attending the Institute this term.

Left to right - Back Row: Pastor Daniel (India), Mr. Chanaporn (Thailand), Mr. Nang (Thailand) Pastor Isaac (Myanmar), Pastor Rupak (Bhutan), Mr. Stephen (China)

Second Row: Mr. Michael (Singapore), Pastor Peter (Thailand), Pastor Man (Nepal), Mr. Bun Na (Cambodia), Mrs. Rupak (Bhutan), Ms. Ang Ang (Thailand)

Front row: Teachers

Haiti Trip

2010-03-10T09:19:00.003-06:00

We returned from our trip to Haiti last night about midnight. The trip went well. The only real complication was that we couldn't land in International Falls yesterday because of fog. They took us to Hibbing and then sent us by bus to International Falls. That meant that we got home a few hours later than we had planned.

Haiti is a heart rending place to visit now. The number of buildings that are down in Port-au-Prince and Leogane. The government buildings that are down in Port-au-Prince is demoralizing for the people. The National Palace is destroyed. The National Legislature Building is ruined. The Central Post Office is down. It is hard to imagine how this has impacted the government of Haiti.

The thing that hit me the most emotionally was the thousands and thousands of people who are living in tent cities. These people have a small space created with blankets and sheets. Some have plastic or tarps. Many more tarps and sheets of plastic are needed. These tent cities are a disaster waiting to happen when the rains begin. I can't imagine what it would be like to be living in one of those places.

We were able to take some aid along with us. We gave some medical supplies to Christian Aid Ministries for use in their temporary hospital and medical programs. We gave tarps to SLM Ministries and Pastor Paul in Cadiac. We also had cash with us that we used to provide aid for people.

We were able to provide a two week supply of rice for 90 families. We hired local contractors to rebuild three houses in Cadiac that were damaged beyond repair. We also paid about one-third of the cost of sand and cement for another house in Port-au-Prince.

The group that went with me participated in the convention at the church in Cadiac. We also visited about half of the savings groups that are being operated by Anabaptist Foundation. I am really excited about the savings groups. We have two Haitian facilitators who are helping the groups to form and operate savings programs. Lyndon Swarey is there as a program liaison. At this point we have 13 savings groups with a total of 282 members. The potential for this program is very great.

Here we are packing our medical supplies at the church in Sioux Lookout the evening before we left for Haiti.

Here is our group at the airport in International Falls, Minnesota on our way to Haiti on February 27.

This is Clement Cospito helping to change a dressing on the finger of a man who had injured his finger.

This is the National Palace. It was a beautiful building, and a well known landmark in the city.

On the left is Lyndon Swarey. Lyndon is the program liaison for the savings group program for Anabaptist Foundation. He is talking with Johnson Jeudy who is one of the savings groups facilitators.

This is Johnson and Lyndon with the leaders of one of the savings groups. This group has already made six loans from their savings pool to group members.

This is one of the houses we are rebuilding. The right side of the wall crumbled in the earthquake. The rest of the house is very unstable.

This is another one of the houses that we are rebuilding. This house has major cracks on almost every side. It is also very unstable and I would not want to sleep in this house!

Here I am with Pastor Paul Vital on Sunday after the convention. Pastor Paul is an outstanding man of God. I respect and admire him immensely. I consider him to be one of my best friends.

Bound for Haiti

2010-02-26T21:27:00.002-06:00

The six of us men who are going to Haiti all met at the church this evening with our luggage. We got everything packed and weighed. The suitcases are all at the church and ready to go in the morning. The group includes myself, Henry Wall, Clement Cospito, Brian Rae, Chuck Abela, and Henry Schellenberg.

We will drive to International Falls. Our flights from there take us to Minneapolis, New York City, Santo Domingo and finally Port-au-Prince. We will arrive in Port-au-Prince at 3:45 Sunday afternoon. That is providing that everything goes according to the schedule.

We will spend a few days in Port-au-Prince. We will head out to Cadiac on Tuesday. We will spend the rest of the week in Cadiac, and return to Port-au-Prince on Sunday March 7.

Firewood Cutting

2010-02-25T16:28:00.002-06:00

The annual firewood cutting work crew was here this week. They came to our house on Monday. There were four men on the work crew. I was able to help them all day too. We started about 8:00 AM and finished the entire 16 cord woodpile by 5:30 PM.

I had purchased the wood in 16 foot lengths in July. It is now dry and ready to burn. I can tell you that it is a wonderful feeling to see all that wood cut and stacked in our wood shed! The men who came were an amazing help. I can't image how long it would have taken me to do it by myself. I really want to bless those men and their families for what they did for us.

Two days after the wood crew was here the motor on the blower fan for the draft on our outdoor furnace seized up. I took the whole blower mechanism off and now we have to manually open and close a plastic draft to let air into the firebox. I hope that the furnace repairman will be able to locate a replacement for it very soon.

Here is the wood shed, all stacked full of firewood. Most of this will be burned next winter.

School Benefit Auction

2010-02-22T07:07:00.001-06:00

Saturday we had the Cornerstone Christian School benefit auction. We had a lot of good items to sell this year. We also had a good turnout for the event. I think we had one of our better auctions. This was the fourth year we have done an auction in conjunction with the spaghetti dinner. It is a fun evening and provides entertainment as well as the opportunity to buy some cool stuff while helping the school.

We also have our flights arranged for the Haiti trip now. I had thought Delta Airlines had resumed flights to Haiti, but I was wrong. They just weren't keeping their website up to date. So, on their website it showed the flights as being on time, but actually they were canceled. It just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the internet.

We changed our tickets to go to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic instead of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Then we will fly on Tortug Air from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince. It all works out fairly well. We get to Port-au-Prince at 3:45 instead of 12:55. On the way home we have pretty much the same schedule as we would have had before. It just costs us some extra money to do it this way.

Haiti Trip

2010-02-10T10:52:00.002-06:00

I am planning to leave for Haiti on February 27. There are five other men from Sioux Lookout going with me. The six of us are planning to take our maximum luggage allowance and take medical supplies and tarps with us. We are also collecting funds to help people with food and repairs to their homes.

There is an article in the Sioux Lookout Bulletin today about our trip. It is on page 2. You can read the article here.

Birds

2010-02-09T15:24:00.002-06:00

One of the things we enjoy doing in the Winter is feeding the birds. Edith is very faithful in giving them a container of sunflower seeds every day. It is interesting to see the variety of birds that come to the feeder.

Today we had a partial albino Pine Grosbeak come to the feeder. It was not white all over, but had rather large white patches on it. I think it is the first time we have seen anything like it at our feeder.

Here is a normal coloured male Pine Grosbeak.

Here is the partial albino bird. You can see the white patches, especially around its neck.

Here is the partial albino bird on the left. In the foreground is a female Pine Grosbeak and in the background on the right is a male Pine Grosbeak.

Cornerstone Christian School Auction

2010-02-03T14:24:00.004-06:00

The benefit auction for Cornerstone Christian School is coming up on Saturday February 20. There will be a spaghetti dinner beginning at 5:00 PM and then the auction beginning at 6:30. We are getting together a nice variety of things to be sold on the auction. We have some airline tickets, hotel rooms, gift certificates, a flat screen computer monitor and lots of other good things!

If you are in the Sioux Lookout area I know you would enjoy the evening. It is a lot of fun. Both the dinner and the auction are going to be held at the Calvary Baptist Church. You can get tickets from any student of the school.

We have been working on making some things to be sold as well. Dallas and I made another toy train. We started on it over Christmas break and just finished it today. Elaine and I made a step stool. Both of these will be sold on the auction. By the way, I will take advance bids online for either of these items if you want to own them!

Here is the step stool that Elaine and I made. She did the stenciling on it.

These are a couple of pictures of this year's version of the toy train. I think we get a little better each year.

More From Bethanie

2010-01-31T16:54:00.000-06:00

"Do I smell like dead bodies?"

That was one of the first questions Stephen Shankster asked his wife, Suzanne, when she joined him here in Haiti. He had come a week previously helping to coordinate CAM's (Christian Aid Ministries) mobile medical clinics.

Suzanne thought he did a little. It was no wonder. CAM's base is located just a few miles from where the mass graves were located. On the daily drive from our base to Port au Prince where the clinics were held we would drive past the burial sites, catching glimpses of arms and legs poking out from an embankment of dirt along the road. The stench was potent.

Our clinical site was surrounded by collapsed buildings and their crushed inhabitants. As we worked to provide medical care to those who were injured others across the street from us continued to dig through rubble, gradually uncovering a hand, an arm, a body.

Carrying for the living brought its own smells. People with injuries came with home-made dressings saturated in pus that had not been changed for three days. There were wounds with gangrene and layers of dead, rotting flesh. Even the living seemed to be permeated by death--dead tissue, dead limbs, dead dreams.

Yet it was not the death that made the strongest impression on me. It was the life--the life of the body of Christ.

I saw it in the compassion and sensitivity of the men who had come down to help with search and rescue efforts. Within a few hours of when the earthquake hit they were making plans to come down. Instead of assisting with search and rescue they ended up helping in the clinics, holding the hands of those undergoing painful wound cleaning. They read books to children in an attempt to distract them from painful procedures. They put their arms around people facing yet another traumatic experience and stayed there with them until their wound care was completed. We helped to facilitate wound healing. They helped to facilitate soul healing.

Children who came shrinking in terror the first day and howling in protest over the slightest efforts at providing care came back the second day eager and smiling, trusting and calm.

I saw that life in the offer of a group of over a dozen men to come down to the Dominican Republic with suitcases loaded with medical supplies for us. They were willing to buy tickets to come with those supplies, drop them off in the Dominican and fly right back home without getting in an any of the excitment or adventure of what was happening. I don't think we took advantage of that offer, but wow, what an offer!

I saw it in the care the EMTs and paramedics provided to our patients. The wounds they were treating were often deep and severe, filled with the fine powder of crushed cement block, requiring a lot of time for proper cleaning. They spent hours sitting on the ground in front of a patient, cleaning out foot wounds, bending over them cleaning out arm wounds. They didn't rush through patients, but took their time with each one; picking out maggots, gingerly, carefully cutting away dead flesh with a razor blade, gently, ever so slowly working the big flap of loose skin on one man's scalp back into place after it had slid back about an inch and was beginning to heal there, overlapping with intact skin on his scalp. I was blessed by the patience, tenderness and dedication of those men.

Wednesday a fairly significant tremor shook us out of bed at 6:00 in the morning. It made us a bit more jittery and we expected it to have the same effect on our patients, especially since our clinic was situated on a porch beneath a two-story house. Sure enough, our first two patients of the morning seemed quite traumatized. One had a small, but deep cut in the side of her leg. Every time the EMT went near it she almost went through the roof, grabbing his hands, whimpering, protesting. At the same time we had a young lady with a severe wound to her foot and large burn-like blisters over both hands. We saw a number of burn-like blistering wounds. It apparently happens because of one layer of skin being rubbed and twisted over the other in abrasive wounds. This young lady, too, seemed so extremely traumatized. She was crying, a desperate look in her eyes, trembling all over, "They're going to cut off my hands!" The EMT trying to work on her was having a hard time. She was so apprehensive and jittery. We took a bit of time with both of these ladies. "It is okay. We will only do as much work on your wounds as you allow us to do. If you are having too much pain you can let us know. We'll take a break. We won't cut off your hands. They look like they'll heal." The EMTs continued to work gently, slowly. It was amazing to see the transformation in the ladies. Soon the lady with the blisters stopped trembling. She became relaxed and at ease, trusting.

Those men cared for people as if they were caring for a prince or for the Prince. That was Life at work.

Often free clinics in Haiti are characterized by chaos, desperation and crowds. The sense of peace, organization and calm that prevailed at our clinic is a mystery to me, but it was such a blessing, another sign of the presence of the Prince of Peace, I think.

Although our team may have smelled at least slightly of dead bodies and rotten flesh I like to think those smells were way over-powered by another smell. And I'm not talking about the Vicks some of us opted to smear underneath our noses at opportune times. I'm talking about the smell of a sweet-smelling sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.

On a more personal note, I'm grateful to have had the chance to go do the little I could out in Port. We only took care of a few hundred people among the thousands of injured, but I know those few hundred were cared for well. I'm grateful for the strength and grace God gave me and for such a supportive, well-functioning team. I feel blessed to have had all the medical supplies we needed to care for our patients when so many other sites were running out of supplies. I'm grateful for the ways God has restored my soul over the past week of being back in LaSource. I came back with a cold and a weariness of body and soul, but am feeling pretty much back to normal again. That is a gift.

Continue to pray for the thousands of homeless in Port-au-Prince and for CAM's staff team in Titanyen who have to keep going and going, giving and giving despite all the trauma they themselves have experienced in the past few weeks.

Thanks so much for your prayers and many e-mails. I'm sorry I haven't been able to reply to them all but I've certainly felt cared for and supported.

Bethanie

Men's Retreat and Dallas' Birthday Party

2010-01-30T08:47:00.004-06:00

Last week we had our Believers Fellowship Men's Retreat here in Sioux Lookout. We had a good time of fellowship. We went to the gym and played basketball and volleyball. David Herschberger and Steve Beiler shared some spiritual input and encouragement during our days together. We also had a Rook tournament. Jonathan Stoll and I were a team. We ended up being the losers of the losers match!

Saturday was Dallas' 15th birthday. We had a party for him at the Rec Center. We played some volleyball and then had the party in the meeting room. There were quite a few of his friends who came to help him celebrate.

This week we went back to more normal January weather. It has been between minus 20 and minus 30 in the mornings, with windchills down to minus 36 to 39. Needless to say, it feels cold. We had about six inches of new snow over the weekend. Edith and I had traveled to Northern Minnesota on Sunday and Monday to see John Martins and Doug and Leona Graybill. Doug was speaking at the Cloverdale Mennonite Church in Nashwauk. We came home to a driveway filled with snow. I went to Dryden on Tuesday, so it was Wednesday before I could do anything about the snow. I can certify that running a snow blower when the windchill is below minus 30 is a cold job. But do you know what? I would much rather do that than run the lawn mower when it is plus 30 Celsius.

Bethanie is back in LaSource now after spending almost two weeks in Port-au-Prince working in a crisis medical clinic. She was there during a crucial time. It sounds like aid is getting to be more available now.

I am looking forward to a trip to Haiti at the end of February. There are five other men from here in Sioux Lookout going with me. We leave on February 27. I am hoping by that time that the commercial airlines will be flying passengers into the Port-au-Prince airport again. If not, we will go to the Dominican Republic and travel into Haiti by bus.

Elaine is taking a Driver Education course. She has four Saturdays in classroom sessions in Dryden. She is there today for her second day of classroom lessons. She has 10 hours of online courses to do and 10 hours of driving lessons. She is looking forward to the day when she can drive by herself. She should be able to take her next drivers exam and get her level two license sometime between March and June. Then she will be able to drive without Edith or I being with her.

We had a lot of good food at men's retreat too. This is Nate Hochstetler and Steve Beiler checking to see if there is anything else to eat.

Here are Kevin Miller and Darrell Nisly checking something on Kevin's computer. I don't think it was Kevin's latest computer game.

This is the volleyball game at the birthday party.

Here is Dallas beginning to open his gifts.

Here he is after opening a few more gifts.

Here is the birthday cake just before all the candles got blown out.

Haiti Update

2010-01-15T21:49:00.000-06:00

Here is an update from Bethanie:

We got off to a late start today, but once we got started it went very well.

The team of 20 which include a few paramedics and EMTs arrived this morning bringing with them a bunch more medical supplies & splinting expertise.

We finally set up camp on the front porch of the walled-in mayors office on Delma 30. There were two ambulances there that were soon deployed to go fetch people and bring them to us. We were split up into three teams but worked in close proximity to one another so we could consult each other pretty easily.

The people we saw there were more severely injured than the ones we had seen yesterday---a lot of broken bones, crushed fingers--the tip of one's guys finger had actually been torn off completely, sprains, several people with mouth lacerations, broken teeth, etc. One young girl's foot looked like it had been crushed and gangrene and maggots were setting in. She had gotten it bandaged already, but it was high time it was done again. One little 7-year-old girl with multiple injuries--broken femur, broken teeth, abrasions on her arm was pretty lethargic and miserable. We gave her an IV bolus and it was fun to see her perk up. That family lost a three-month-old baby and some other children.

We took care of one lady who had been pulled out yesterday. Her two children were rescued along with her but her husband was killed. She had grabbed her two children, but before they got out the house caved in on them, pinning the two children on top of her, but not crushing them. She called and called for help, but no one could hear her. Finally she found some loose pieces of concrete and was able to dig a little hole through some of the rubble. After that people could hear her calling and dug them out. Her only injury was to her left eye. I imagine she'll be blind in that eye.

We passed several dump trucks hauling corpses out to Titanyen this afternoon on the way out. They have mass graves out here with arms and legs jutting out of the barren landscape not far from CAM's base here.

I sure am glad for the EMTs and paramedics here. Their experience in making splints is so valuable at a time like this. And they need our help in prescribing meds, so it works out well.

Part of the group that came searched through rubble for people today. They didn't find anyone alive, but I think it still meant a lot to the families to know that they at least tried. There were other professional search & rescue teams that were still pulling live people out and they were able to witness that. That was a highlight for them.

Haiti Earthquake

2010-01-15T15:47:00.003-06:00

As you know, there was a major earthquake in Haiti on Tuesday. It happened just before 5:00 PM. Before we even knew there had been an earthquake our daughter, Bethanie, phoned us to tell us she was not hurt. This was in contrast to when she was in New York City on 9/11 and we didn't know where she was most of the night. It was great to hear from her.

Bethanie is serving with Christian Aid Ministries at the Joshua Memorial Clinic in LaSource, Haiti. They are in the Northwest part of the country and there wasn't much damage there. Bethanie and a few of the Haitian nurses from the clinic headed down to Port-au-Prince yesterday in a dump truck. It is about an eight hour drive. They arrived yesterday afternoon and she has been busy treating people who have been injured.

Here is a bit of a report in her own words, "We set up clinic at one of the homes of the employees here. His house isn't very far from here in towards Port. I was impressed that most of the folks had already received medical care of some kind a day or two ago, but were not given any medications for pain or antibiotics. We probably saw around 40 people, did lots of bandages and wound cleaning, but didn't have anything extremely horrible. I had one guy who had sustained wide-spread 2nd degree burns when the flour mill he was working in collapsed. He had spread a mixture of motor oil and eggs over it. It was a grimy mess and we were almost out of gauze, so I couldn't clean it up that well."

Anabaptist Foundation has Lyndon Swarey living out in Cadiac as a liaison person for a savings group economic development project we are doing out in that area. He and one of the Haitian facilitators were attending a savings group meeting when the earthquake struck. They fled the building. After dark there were still a lot of aftershocks, so he and a few of his Haitian friends slept outside in an open field. There were no houses that collapsed in the immediate area around Cadiac, but there are houses that have major cracks in the walls.

Lyndon was able to get into Port-au-Prince yesterday and is spending some time with some of the other missionaries in the city. Cell phone service is almost non-existent at this point, so it is very hard to get in touch with anyone in the country. My heart is with our friends there. I know it is a difficult time for everyone.

This is how most of the people in the country are spending their nights. With the aftershocks it is not safe to stay in many of the buildings.

This is a house that collapsed. I feel so sorry for people who had so very little and now have lost even what they did have.

Travel Tales - The Sequel

2010-01-11T21:16:00.001-06:00

I arrived back home this evening around 8:00 PM. My trip went well. I arrived in Thunder Bay at about 4:00 PM and had a layover there until 8:20 PM.

At 7:40 Bearskin Airlines paged me and said that I am the only passenger on the aircraft. The pilots are from Sioux Lookout and want to go home. If I am willing to go early, they would be ready to leave. So, of course I was eager to get home early too. We left Thunder Bay at 7:45 EST and arrived in Sioux Lookout at 7:45 CST.

I had an 18 passenger aircraft to myself with two pilots. I'm starting to get used to this! And for the second time in my life, my suitcase was the first one on the baggage carousel.

Travel Tales

2010-01-08T21:26:00.002-06:00

I am in Pennsylvania for a meeting with the Anabaptist Foundation Open Hands Fund committee and an Institute for Global Opportunities board meeting. This weekend I am speaking at a mission conference at the Beth-El Mennonite Church in Belleville, PA.

I traveled from Sioux Lookout to Allentown, Pennsylvania on Wednesday. I flew from Sioux Lookout to Thunder Bay, then Thunder Bay to Toronto. In Toronto I worked my way through all the security checks and got out to the terminal for commuter flights to the United States. My flight was scheduled to leave at 3:15. About 3:00 they pages me by name and asked me to come to the gate. I didn't think that sounded like good news. When I got to the gate the agent told me that I was their only passenger for the flight.

When I got out to the aircraft one of the two pilots told me this was like having my own private corporate jet. They started the engines and prepared to go. Then they shut down the engines. They told me there was a mechanical problem and the flight would be delayed. I kind of expected them to cancel it.

About two hours later they paged me again and took me back out to the plane. This time we took off and did the over one hour flight to Allentown. I was the only passenger in an aircraft with about 24 seats.

When we arrived in Allentown, I asked the pilots if they were going back to Toronto. They said they were. I told them I hope they have passengers going back. They said because we were delayed, all their passengers had booked on other flights and they were flying back empty. So they did the entire trip to take me to Allentown. I had used frequent flyer miles to get my ticket, so they had no revenue from the flight.

The other great thing was that my suitcase was the first one to show up on the baggage claim belt. That is the first time that has ever happened to me too.

I was impressed that the airline kept their schedule and completed the flight, even though I was the only passenger. Amazing!

New Year's Eve

2010-01-01T16:23:00.008-06:00

Last evening we had our annual New Year's Eve fellowship and service at the church. We started to gather at 7:00 PM. We began with table games and snacks. Then about 10:30 we began a game of human bowling. This is basically done by setting ten 2 liter bottles of pop at one end of the church basement and then having a team of people send one of their team members across the basement floor on a skateboard as the bowling ball.

At about 11:15 we began a time of sharing and prayer. That lasted until about 12:30 AM. We cleaned up the basement after that and headed home. We got to bed about 2:00 AM.

I really enjoyed being with the people from the church who attended the fellowship and service. I was blessed by the sharing time, and enjoyed the games.

In some ways, it is hard to believe that it is already a decade since 2000. It doesn't seem very long ago that the world was in suspense wondering what would happen because of the Y2K scare. Now we are already 10 years past that. The past decade has been a good one for us as a family. I am enjoying life very much and feel blessed with the things that God has given me to do. I look forward to the adventure of this decade. I'm sure God has many exciting adventures ahead for us.

Even the children got involved in the table games.

Here is a game of Cranium in action.

Here is one team getting ready to send their team member toward the pins.

Headed toward the pins!

Here is Elaine ready for her turn.

Christmas Day

2009-12-26T09:10:00.003-06:00

We had a very nice relaxing day yesterday on Christmas Day. My sister Carol and Mary Sensenig were here. They arrived on Christmas Eve. In the morning I went and picked up Elaine and Dallas' brother Patrick, sister Charlotte, and their niece Angel.

Our Christmas meal was at lunch time. After lunch we did our gift exchange. The children went snowmobiling until Angel fell asleep on the snowmobile. It was a rather warm day and we had a few inches of new snow.

This is relaxing and visiting on Christmas Eve.

This is the Christmas lunch.

In the afternoon we spent some time looking at photo albums. Even Angel got involved in that.

Elaine, Dallas, Charlotte and Patrick played a game of Monopoly on the computer in the afternoon.

Christmas Feast and Caroling

2009-12-21T08:07:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, after the morning service at church, we had our Christmas feast. Then at 2:00 PM we starting our annual Christmas caroling. We had a nice time at both events. The food and the fellowship at the Christmas feast was great.

Caroling was also enjoyable. We went to the seniors homes and both hospitals here in Sioux Lookout. We haven't done outdoor caroling for a few years now. First of all the carolers freeze, and secondly, when we would carol for people, they would hold their doors open so they could hear us sing, and the heat would just be billowing out the door. We always kind of felt bad about that part of it. So now we sing at the seniors homes and the hospitals.

Here are the ladies getting the food ready for the Christmas feast.

This is our group caroling in the Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre.

Christmas Program

2009-12-18T20:39:00.004-06:00

Last evening we attended the Christmas banquet and program for Cornerstone Christian School. The banquet was great. There was a lot of good food. The program this year was not a long program. Each group of students sang a few songs. They did a really good job.

Today they had a half day of school. It was basically a Christmas party, I think. Since lunch time Elaine and Dallas have been on their Christmas break. Dallas and I went for our first snowmobile ride for this winter. We went in toward town to the landing where the winter road goes across the ice. It looks like people have been driving across the lake. We have about 6 inches of snow and it has been very cold for a week already. I don't know how thick the ice is, but it must be enough to support the weight of a vehicle.

This is the entire student body from Cornerstone Christian School.

These are the students from the senior learning centre. Nate Hochstetler the principal and senior learning centre supervisor is helping them sing.

Beef Butchering

2009-12-17T07:40:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was the annual Believers Fellowship beef butchering day in Sioux Narrows. Several of the men from here in Sioux Lookout went over to Sioux Narrows Tuesday evening after the Foster Parent Christmas banquet. We got to Sioux Narrows at midnight. By 6:30 Wednesday morning we were in the shop cutting beef.

We had five cows to process this year. Steve Beiler and Nate Hochstetler are experienced meat cutters, so that makes it very nice. We finished the cutting, wrapping and clean up by 5:00 PM. We are grateful for the meat. Especially since all my hunting endeavors for both moose and deer yielded zero pounds of meat in the freezer.

This was the meat hanging in the morning just as we were getting started.

This is where I spent my day. We were trimming the meat off the bones and then sending it to the hamburger crew, who ran it through the grinder and wrapped it. We had over 1000 lbs. of hamburger by the time we were done. I noticed on this picture that we are working on this mound of meat right in front of the poster that includes the command, "Thou shalt not kill"!

This is the hamburger table. It was great to have some of the youth there to help with the project. They did a wonderful job.

Ashawaabic Ministries Christmas Feast

2009-12-13T15:44:00.002-06:00

This weekend is the annual Ashawaabic Ministries Christmas feast and services. Edith and I attended last evening. Morley and Reta Beardy have been friends of ours for many years. They are doing a lot of ministry in First Nations communities with families who have experienced a suicide in their family.

It is also the beginning of the series of Christmas banquets and events that happen over the next few weeks. Tuesday evening we have the Foster Parent Christmas banquet. Thursday evening is the Cornerstone Christian School program. Next Sunday we have our church Christmas feast and Christmas caroling.

Christmas gives us an opportunity to share the story of Jesus in our communities. He is the one we are remembering and celebrating.

This is a picture of the hall where the Ashawaabic Ministries Christmas feast was held.

Here is Morley sharing during the feast evening.

Friends

2009-12-04T11:07:00.002-06:00

Friends are a treasure and really close friends are hard to come by. However, it does happen in a lifetime that we acquire a few really good friends. This is especially true when we leave our home community and live and work in places where we do not have family.

Jesus told his disciples that "everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life". I have found that while not living close to my extended family I have formed some friendships that have been very good. I believe that God has given me some brothers that are a gift to me. They have become a gift that ministers to my heart.

Dave Hostetler was one of those gifts from God in my life. He passed away last Friday and I miss him. I first met Dave in 1978 when we moved to Dryden. I was 25 and he was 30. In 1980 he became my supervisor. I learned a lot of things from Dave. I learned how a mature man thinks and acts, especially under pressure. Dave was a man who had the confidence to move ahead with the things he really believed in, even if others opposed his plans.

I remember Dave telling me one time that a man who is in leadership needs to see what others see as problems as challenges. He said if a man doesn't enjoy dealing with problems he will never survive in leadership. He said a leader needs to be willing to have problems for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Dave was the kind of friend who could tell you pretty bluntly what he thought. He expressed his opinions and he expressed his love and appreciation. I never questioned whether Dave liked me. He stood by me through some pretty difficult moments in life and helped me to find the way forward.

The last few years, Dave and I have been serving on the board of the Institute for Global Opportunities together. It gave us at least three times a year that we got to spend some time together. Dave was excited about the work of God around the world and wanted to be involved in making it happen.

So, I will miss Dave. I will treasure the other close friends that God has given me. I will try to be the same friend and mentor to other people that Dave was to me. I thank God for the opportunity to have been a close friend to Dave and to learn from him.

Andy Yodeling

2009-11-23T14:35:00.004-06:00

Sunday afternoon at John's house, we asked my nephew Andy, Pete and Mimi's son, to yodel. I like this video partly because of the children's fascination with his singing. On top of the refrigerator is Tyrell, Nick and Naomi's second son. Later, as Andy yodels faster, Slade comes out to the bedroom where the children had been watching a video. Slade is David and Julie's foster son they hope to soon adopt. Then AJ, Nick and Naomi's first son, comes out. Then Nevin and Elizabeth's daughter, Anne, shows interest too! "How can he do that?" they seem to wonder!

Infusion of Goodness

2009-11-22T19:28:00.006-06:00

My trip to my nephew's wedding in Colorado went well. Round trip, it involved 3 hours of driving, 8 hours of riding on a bus, and 5 flights. I wondered if all the hassle was worth it! But it was such a blessing to be there! I especially enjoyed it when my brother and 3 of his sons sang at the wedding. At the reception, the three brothers sang again with 2 of their wives accompanying. It was lovely. The next day, we were gathered at my brother John's place. They sang the songs again. This time I videoed my favorite one. I missed the first 2 lines of the Revelation Song. It starts out, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, Holy is He." It's written by Jennie Riddle.

In the video, David is on the left, Nevin in the middle and Nick on the right. Nevin's wife, Elizabeth, is playing keyboard. Nick's wife, Naomi, is playing guitar behind the men. My brother Pete and his family were there too, and all Marilyn's 4 brothers with their spouses. A cousin of Howard Weaver and her husband were also visiting. Johns had a houseful! There was lots to eat leftover from the wedding reception.

- Edith

Below is the bridal table with Karla and Nate, the bride and groom.

Singing at the reception.

Nick, Naomi and their younger son, Tyrell.

Role Flexibility

2009-11-13T17:59:00.002-06:00

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

2009-11-08T16:28:00.002-06:00

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

2009-11-05T17:21:00.003-06:00

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

2009-11-02T12:18:00.004-06:00

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

2009-11-01T15:37:00.003-06:00

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?

2009-10-25T17:32:00.002-05:00

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

2009-10-20T11:25:00.002-05:00

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.

Last Week in Thailand

2009-10-17T07:13:00.004-05:00

We are nearing the end of our time in Thailand for this trip. I finished teaching on Thursday. I gave the final exam to my students on Friday. I finished all my grading and turned everything in to the office late Friday evening.

Today we went with Collier and Nettie Berkshire to the village of Pang Klang. IGo has Craig and Rachel Miller serving there as church planters. We had a nice visit with them. Watching them cook lunch over an open fire and seeing their lifestyle brought back a lot of memories of our time in Haiti.

Pang Klang is a Lisu tribal village way up in the jungle mountains of Northern Thailand. There are about 100 families living in the village. The people raise food crops on the land that they farm.

We are getting ready to head back to North America. We leave Chiang Mai at 11:20 AM on Monday, which would be 11:20 PM Sunday in Sioux Lookout. Our scheduled route will take us through Bangkok, Taipei, San Fransico, Dallas, and then to Minneapolis. We arrive in Minneapolis at 10:25 AM on Tuesday. We will be staying in Minneapolis until Friday so I can attend the IGo board meeting on Thursday and Friday.

Last week we went with the Rick Rhodes and Rich Swartz families to the night safari. Here is a picture of the boys in the three families holding a white tiger cub. They said on a sign that there are only 300 white tigers in the world. Dallas said there are now only 299 white tigers in the world that he has not held!

Here are the girls from the same three families holding the white tiger cub.

This is a picture of the IGo students in the morning chapel service.

Here is one side of the classroom as the students are writing the final exam. There were 30 students in the class.

Here we are at Craig and Rachel's house eating lunch. The group consists of Edith, to her left Darren Sommers who is serving with IGo and GTO at the Compassion Home. Craig Miller, Rachel Miller, Nettie Berkshire and Collier Berkshire. In the Lisu villages they sit on the floor with the food on a low table in the middle of the group.

The Second Week at IGo

2009-10-11T02:11:00.002-05:00

I am finished with the second week of my teaching at the Institute for Global Opportunities. There are one more week of classes to go. I am enjoying the discussion and interaction with the students. This third week will have more grading and the final exam, so that will make it a little more challenging for me.

We had a good week as a family too. Elaine and Dallas are enjoying attending the school here and have friends among the students there. Friday they did a field trip to the zoo and a waterfall.

Last Saturday Dallas and I went to the zoo. We were hoping to see the baby panda, but we could only watch it on a video link. Friday evening we went with several other families to the Night Safari. It was interesting. Elaine and Dallas got their picture taken holding a tiger cub. I'll try to post the pictures when I get them.

Yesterday we went to the Golden Triangle area of Thailand. We crossed the border into Myanmar and spent a few hours there. We couldn't find a restaurant, so we hired a motorcycle taxi and he took us to a restaurant. The name of the restaurant was "Mother World". We had a good meal there, but since no one spoke English it took some imagination and lots of hand motions to get a meal ordered.

After lunch at Mother World we were able to get our passports stamped and reenter Thailand with permission to stay until October 24. Our flight is scheduled to leave on the 19th. On the way home we stopped a some hot springs. We soaked our feet in the hot water. Dallas bought some eggs and hardboiled them in one of the springs.

This morning we attended the morning service at IGo. We had lunch here and are enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon.

Here is a picture of the mother panda eating her lunch.

Thursday I went with a few other men to visit a village that is requesting that a family come and teach them from the Bible. There are 170 families in the village and no Christians. These are some of the village leaders that were talking with us. The man in the light blue shirt is a Lisu Pastor who would be willing to help with an outreach in the village.

This is the sign at the border between Thailand and Myanmar.

This is the Mother World Restaurant. Our taxi driver is at the table in the foreground.

This is the hot spring. This geyser is the highest geyser in Thailand.

It Is Headed For Cuba!

2009-10-03T01:21:00.004-05:00

The container we have been packing with surplus medical equipment and supplies is now on its way to Cuba! The men finished packing the container, and had it loaded onto a flatbed trailer to be taken to the CN Rail yard in Winnipeg. In Winnipeg it will be put on the train and sent to the port where it will be loaded onto a ship.

We have put a lot of time into getting everything packed into the trailer. At the last minute we were still short of equipment to fill the container. Since we heard that they do not have toilet paper in the hospitals in Cuba, we added 30 cases of toilet paper to the load. That filled the container right up to the back door.

With us being in Thailand, I was not there to participate in the celebration of seeing the container head down the road beginning its journey to Cuba. Still, I am pretty excited that it is on its way. Now, we will have to decide if we will do another one next year.

Here are a few pictures of the loading.

You can see a few cases of toilet paper. the garbage bags are filled with used clothing and are used for packing material.

Here it is going onto the flatbed trailer.

This is the truck with the container heading out the driveway.

Teaching at IGo

2009-10-01T22:31:00.002-05:00

I am now a teacher. Isn't that amazing? I realize each day that I am not trained as a teacher. I can share thoughts and concepts, but I have not been trained to do grading, assignments and testing. These are acquired skills that those of you who have teacher training have acquired. I am basically a story teller. I share from my life experiences the things that God has taught me and allowed me to experience. I trust that the students will pick up a vision of what God may want to do in their lives.

My class is from 2:00 to 3:00 PM each afternoon. I realize that most of your in North America are fast asleep while I am teaching. We are exactly 12 hours ahead of Central Time in North America. So, it is 2:00 AM in Sioux Lookout when I step to the front of the classroom in Chiang Mai. I am blessed to have the afternoon class. Some of the teachers refer to the afternoon class as the "graveyard class". With me not being a morning person, both the students and I can be grateful that I get to teach in the afternoon.

We are enjoying our time in Thailand. We live in a house in the same village as the Institute for Global Opportunities. We have a motorbike that we use for transportation from our house to the Institute. The children have bicycles that they use to go to and from the staff children's school.

Here are a few pictures of our life here.

This is the house we are living in here in Chiang Mai.

This is the living room in the house.

This is a view of the dining room. The kitchen is off to the left of the dining room.

Here Edith and I are ready to head off from the house in the morning.

Mount Everest

2009-09-27T23:21:00.002-05:00

On the way from Bagdogra, India to Paro, Bhutan we flew past Mount Everest. On the way back from Paro to Bagdogra the sky was perfectly clear and we had an excellent view of the mountain. It was amazing to see the beauty of this natural wonder. God is truly awesome, and He has shown us his power in His creation. What a privilege it was to see this part of His creation. Here are some views of the mountain.

Bhutan Trip

2009-09-27T05:07:00.006-05:00

Last week I went with Raymond Burkholder and Collier Berkshire to the country of Bhutan. We spent the week touring the country and teaching in some house church fellowships. It was a great learning experience for me. All of the Christians in Bhutan are first generation Christians.

We were able to travel to a few different parts of the country and spend time with believers in these areas. I was teaching from the book of Ephesians. There was a real desire for teaching. The Christians in Bhutan are eager for more Bible teaching and opportunities to acquire Bible knowledge.

It was great to be able to interact with the believers there. They have a real desire to reach their country with the Gospel. People are coming to Christ and the churches are growing. They are wanting us to pray for unity among the believers and that the government would take a favourable view of Christianity and lessen the restrictions on the churches.

Here are Collier, myself and Raymond at the airport in Paro, Bhutan. The landing in Paro is amazing. The plane flies down the valley, turning with the valley, then it crosses a ridge and makes a sharp turn to the right and lands. I have done that kind of approach in a Cessna before, but never in a jet this size.

This is a Takin. It is the national animal of Bhutan. It looks like it has the head of a goat and the body of a cow.

Here are Raymond, myself, our co-ordinator and Collier.

This is one of the church services we attended.

This is a group picture of the people who attended one of our conferences.

Here I am teaching at one of the conferences.

Here is another picture of my teaching time. The scarf is a special gift of honour that is given to a guest. It was requested that I wear it while teaching.

We Have Arrived

2009-09-18T03:54:00.003-05:00

We arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday just before noon. We had slept quite a bit on the flights, so our adjustments to the time change were not too serious. However, by 8 PM yesterday we were starting to fall asleep while talking. :)

Today the children went with the school children here on their school field trip to a paper factory and an umbrella factory. They enjoyed that very much.

Tomorrow I am leaving with Raymond Burkholder and Collier Berkshire for Bhutan.

Here are some pictures from the airports along the way:

This is in Minneapolis

This is Dallas in Dallas!

This is in Los Angeles.

Hey! Now we are in Taiwan.

And finally in Chiang Mai! Our our luggage arrived on the same flight we did.

Taiwan

2009-09-16T17:30:00.002-05:00

We are still enroute to Thailand. We crossed the Pacific Ocean and are now in Taiwan. We get our flight from here to Chiang Mai, Thailand in about 45 minutes. 13 Hours and 10 minutes in the air from Los Angeles to Taipei. I slept about 6 hours, and am feeling pretty good.

Minneapolis

2009-09-15T10:26:00.003-05:00

We made the first section of our trip yesterday. We arrived in Minneapolis last evening. We are getting ready to head over from the hotel to the airport. We have been weighing and adjusting the contents of our suitcases. They are all under the weight limit now.

Our flight leaves this afternoon. The route we will travel takes us from Minneapolis to Dallas. Then from Dallas to Los Angeles. From Los Angeles we fly to Taipei, Taiwan. Then finally from Taipei to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

We are scheduled to arrive in Chaing Mai at about 11:00 AM local time Thursday, which willbe 11:00 PM Wednesday in Sioux Lookout.