That’s the Breaks

Doesn’t seem like a lot a lot happening this week but at the same time I seemed to be too busy to prepare a post.

Linda was sick all week with a cold and that threw our “routine” out of kilter. I have a number of projects on the go and I’m finding it difficult to keeping them all on track. But so far I’ve been meeting my commitments.
It also rained a quite a bit this week. In any case I spent almost the whole week “glued to” the computer – which is bad for my posture, left me with an aching back and disturbed Linda because, as I’ve mentioned before, I get too focused on what I’m doing and our communications get strained.

The main project for the week was scanning pictures from our albums -- for 2 reasons -- both related to the upcoming family reunion on October 7-9 (Canadian Thanksgiving). The first part was helping Linda get the pictures she needed for scrapbook pages – our family gift to my Dad is a scrapbook of family memories. I’m also planning a Powerpoint presentation to show at the reunion Monday evening my sister Goldie came by with a couple of boxes of album sand went through them so I could scan a few pictures to use in the Powerpoint. Linda finished the scrapbooking part Friday and I have a lot of stuff – but haven’t gotten to actually putting it together. Need to do that next week.

I have the regular demands of delivering my courses at AUC. On Monday at the department meeting I volunteered to supervise a student for a ”reading” course in Math -- something I haven’t done much of for along time. I think it will be fun – but also will require me to brush up on the material. I have to make the adjustment to realize that these commitments will require about 15 hours a week between preparations, lectures and marking.

Tuesday evening was the quarterly information session to review the various ministry efforts at Pinehill. Lloyd & I had committed to making a report from the elders as part of this communication and coordination process. Monday and Tuesday I drafted reports to cover the main activities we were involved with. Friday morning Lloyd & I met to cover over the reports and to discuss various ministry issues. Yesterday I finalized the reports and updated my notes on the things that Lloyd & I are working on. I also had to prepare my lesson for this morning. My monthly bulletin article is due Monday.

Wednesday was Linda’s birthday (and also our daughter(-in-law) Sarah’s). Since Linda wasn’t feeling well I didn’t plan anything that day. Her niece Alyssa who is boarding here this fall went out and got her a Birthday cake. She had a number of calls from family & friends including a call from Hunter & Camdyn that evening to sing Happy Birthday to her. Friday night we did “dinner & a movie” to celebrate. Well – it was a take-out dinner- whitefish from Sandro’s and DVD movie but we enjoyed our ”date” and spending the evening relaxing together.

We watched the “Great While” with Robin Williams. – a bit of a “dark” comedy - nothing great but had a few laughs. Then we watched “The unfinished life” with Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez and Morgan Freeman - a family drama about rebuilding broken relationships – I suspect that one could find many lessons about the “unfinished” parts of many of our lives—threads of hurt and disappointment that are dragging us down – and how we can - through restoring (or strengthening) our relationship with God we can also resolve those ”unfinished” things in our human relationships. I say “could find” because I tend to just enjoy and absorb movies – rather than spend a lot of time analyzing & discussing “what they mean”. I do find that some scenes & events in a movie "stick with me" and come to mind later as an illustration of a spiritual principle.

There was an ADnet Board meeting on Wednesday p.m. which required a little bit of prep work. At least I didn’t end up with any new commitments as a result of the meeting. After the Board meeting, I needed to go to Staples to pick up some printer cartridges and paper. On the way thereI realized that the brake pedal wasn’t holding. I managed to get home driving slowly and using parking brake (regular brakes still worked on 2 wheels because front & back are separate systems) ”

Thursday we had it towed to Art Taylor and got that fixed. We were thankful it happened here at home – not while we were on the road. But at the same time it was an expense that piled on top of other recent unexpected expenses. Tough on the budget but I’m trying to accept that I need to be content “with food & clothing (and I add shelter) (Matt. 6:19-34, I Tim. 6:8) (see also John Mark Hicks recent post on “possessions” - click HERE)

Anyhow – that’s my week and that's the breaks (or brakes as the case may be)

God Bless
Charlie

p.s. Pray for our friends the Stones. Their daughter is teaching in Thailand and they are concerned because of the military takeover. Pray for her safety and the well being of those people—of course there are many other problem spots .There were 2 Canadian soldiers from an area about 150 miles east of here who were killed in Afghanistan this week.