Growing patience

I've mentioned several times that Linda loves her garden. One of the annuals she plants is called "impatiens"

This picture isn't from her garden but it looks a lot like some of the ones she has grown.

I don't know if the root of the name has anything to do with patience or not but when I hear it always reminds me of "impatience" which I have a lot of.

This summer in our children's Sunday school the theme is "The fruits of the Spirit".

My blogging friend Bobby Valentine recently (a month or so ago) suggested a process of listening to God by praying through Romans. I tried his suggestion and found it to be a useful experience and so I thought I might do something similar with the Galations 3:23 passage . I started by looking at what the Bible had to say about each of those fruits and then spending time in prayer asking for growth of that fruit in my life. I made a good start and got through love, joy, peace in the first week of doing this.

However, when I got to patience - my patience failed me and I got diverted onto other things. This morning sitting here in a campground I have been listening to couple of John Dobb's "podcast" sermons and meditating on the subject of how fruit grows - not of its own effort but through its' connection with the tree. Roger gave a lesson a few weeks ago on that theme --that we are able to love our enemies - not of our own doing - but through our connectedness to the vine

So my thought is that we can grow the flowers of "patience" in our lives through our connection with Jesus.

Here are the results of my search for "patience" - May reading and praying about this be the seeds and fertilizer for a garden of patience that the Spirit grows in your life

Patience – (patient, bear with) – 333 times in NT including

Patient with each other (in context of forgiving and overlooking faults)

1. Matthew 18:26, 29 Parable of the ungrateful servant – Master forgave large debt; fellow servant owed small debt and asked for patience; but he didn’t "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.'

2. Romans 15:1 We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

3. Ephesians 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

4. Colossians 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

5. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

6. 2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

Patience in listening

7. Acts 26:3 (Paul with Felix) and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.

God’s patience -

8. Romans 2:4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

9. Romans 9:22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

10. 1 Timothy 1:16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.

11. 1 Peter 3:20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,

12. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

13. 2 Peter 3:15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.

Our Patience (as a "flower" grown by God's spirit)–

14. 1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

15. Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

16. 2 Corinthians 6:6 (Paul speaking of himself and how he has lived “in Christ”) in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love;

Waiting for God or enduring hardship with patience

17. Romans 8:25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

18. Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

19. 2 Corinthians 1:6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.

20. Colossians 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, …

21. 2 Timothy 3:10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,

22. Hebrews 6:12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

23. Hebrews 6:15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.

24. J ames 5:7 Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains.

25. James 5:8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near.

26. James 5:10 Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

27. Revelation 1:9 I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus

28. Revelation 3:10 Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth

29. Revelation 13:10 If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

30. Revelation 14:12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Feeling like a king?

Proverbs 17:6 says "Children's children are a crown to the aged, …"

We spent the weekend “grandparenting” two of our grandchildren, Hunter & Camdyn, I don’t know if the writer of Proverbs meant that grandchildren would make us feel like king’s and queen’s and I certainly am not yet prepared to classify us as “aged”—however, “children’s children” are a blessing and we felt like royalty having them with us. However, we also re-discovered how much energy it takes to keep up with a 6& 8 year old.

We took them camping in the ”BBB” at Point Des Chenes. This park which is at the “head” of the St. Mary’s River as it enters from Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior takes its name from the fact that the beach has about 20 feet of small rocks before it turns into sand. It is quite shallow and you can go out a long way wading. There is one section of beach that has mostly sand all the way to the shore which is great place for the kids to play.

We went out Friday afternoon and came back in for Sunday services. Tammye picked the kids up after lunch and we went back out for the night and came home yesterday. We found out last night that Tammye had a flat tire in Michigan and had to stay overnight at Marinette WI since she needed to get a new tire and she didn’t want to drive all the way on the “doughnut”. God was gracious to them because the section of M-35 from Escanaba to Menonimee has some fairly long stretches that are sparsely populated. However, there are a lot of summer residents along the lake, In any case, the tire went right at the end of a driveway and they were able to find a man at home who kindly helped change the tire so they could make it to a motel for the night. Thank God for this angel of mercy.

Back to the weekend. After getting setup Friday afternoon, we went to the beach. After supper there is a wagon ride and then ”Hank” blows his bugle to call the kids to an evening soccer game which Hunter played in (both nights).

Hank is Henry “Dutchy” Van Deutzen. He is retired from the Engineering department at Algoma Steel and I knew him from those days. He spends his summers at the campground and “coaches” soccer games for the kids twice a day combining his love for soccer with a desire to provide the kids with some recreation.. He also has set up several protected areas of milkweed along the beach since this is a spot where the monarch butterflies come on their migration. The world is full of “amazing” people with interests and a devotion to service that we often don’t even realize when we only see them in one context.

Linda’s niece (her sister Carol’s oldest daughter) Lee Ann is a “seasonal” camper and has a trailer at the park all summer. After the wagon ride, she came by for a visit with her 2 kids Amanda and Noah.

Amanda is 10 and Noah is 8—he is just 3 months older than Hunter. The kids had a great time getting to know their cousins and playing together. We had a fire and roasted marshmallows (both nights) .

Saturday late morning the kids went to the beach with Noah & Amanda and had a great time together. We were grateful for the other kids since it is difficult to keep them occupied.

After (a late) lunch, they had a “Kid’s fear factor activity.

Hunter dove right into this while Camdyn decided she would just observe. They had things like picking marbles out of ice-filled water with your toes, passing egg yolks, standing in minnow filled water to sing a song, retreiving pennies from wormed filled mud and the finale –which was Hunter’s favorite was eating “gummy-bear” worms covered with whipped cream with no hands.

Proverb’s 13:22 says "A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, ..."

If the writer of the Proverb’s was referring to money I don’t think I will qualify - although I guess it doesn’t say how large an inheritance a ”good man” leaves his grandchildren. However, the more important inheritance we would like to give them is a love for God and his people.

Linda had the pleasure of having them in her Sunday class this week. Actually, she was complimented by her “regular’ kids because when Hunter and Camdyn told them Linda was their grandmother – the kids she has been teaching said “No way-she’s not old enough to be a grandmother”.

To-day we head out on the “second leg” of our summer vacation. It seems a little strange to talk about vacation when you are retired but we have been busy – in any case we will be visiting my sister Ruby& her family who have a cottage near Iron Bridge(80 miles east on Highway17). Then we will be going to Kingston ON to visit Melissa. On the way home we hope to visit Linda’s youngest sister Stephanie. We have been playing telephone tag with her and haven’t firmed that up yet. ( Linda is the oldest of 10 and Stephanie is the youngest --and she is younger than her nephew Chris our oldest son. Lee Ann is about six months older than Chris so they both have an aunt who is younger than they are.)

I probably won't have INTERNET except at the KOA in Kingston --so entries may be sporadic over the next week or so.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

A gate that doesn’t open

To-day was a great day. It was a beautiful summer day with relatively low humidity and low--80’s (28C) . Linda & I started our day with a walk and ended it with a visit with Roger& Sandra & Kyle. We went there to install a trailer hitch on my truck – Roger had the same F-150 truck a few years ago and had kept the hitch when he traded it in. He gave it to me to see if I could get more on the sale of my truck with the hitch installed.

Afterwards we were looking at pictures of the house that Roger & Sandra have bought in Troy and the semi-detached that Kyle had bought in Thunder Bay last weekend. (Kyle has his own website and the pictures are in Gallery/Our new home at http://www.thelansdells.com/ It was sad for us to have the reality of their moves brought home but at the same time we enjoyed sharing in their excitement of facing “new horizons”.

In between the walk and the visit with the Lansdell’s I worked on several documents – some describing the changes in ministry roles related to filling the “gaps” when the Lansdell’s leave and some planning documents for ADnet that were due last Friday.

Then we had Hunter& Camdyn here for a couple of hours. I took Hunter to the playground and wore myself out playing with him on the monkey bars (actually he was swinging along like Tarzan-I on the other hand just pretended since I could reach the ground and walk along from one bar to the next – but even that was tiring when you are trying to keep up with an 8 year old!!

We also attended the Wednesday study “Life Lessons from the Andy Griffith show (click HERE) which we are running again this summer.

So what’s this about a gate? Several times I’ve mentioned Linda’s passion for her garden. One of her creations was a winding path that leads to a gate that doesn’t open. I often refer to it as “ the path to nowhere”.

Sometimes we joke about leading someone down the garden path but it got us nowhere. I’ve tried to think of a useful metaphor about Christian living that would go with this feature but so far all I can come up with is that is represents what it means to try to live without God. I do know that Linda’s concept was simple— it doesn’t mean anything -- it just looks neat.

The path (in the picture you cans ee it in the foreground -it winds around behind the oak tree and ends at the gate) we made by pouring cement into a “stepping stone” mold.

At the end of the path in the corner of our back yard is a trellis that Dad & I built after the usual dialog with Linda about how what she was envisaging wouldn’t work –but as usual her confidence in my ability to give form to her “impractical” ideas proved to be right despite my initial sceptism (“You want me to build what? Are you crazy- that can’t be done" is a typical first reaction when she comes up with these brainstorms)

The gate itself originally was the headboard from our old crib with the legs cut off. We had used the crib for all three of our children and Linda had decorated it with cartoon figures. It wasn’t useable as a crib anymore because it didn’t meet current safety standards so Linda thought it would make a good gate. –permanently mounted on the trellis.

We originally installed this 6 or 7 years ago and by this spring the paint had peeled and the veneer was separating. I brought it in and we were looking at how to repair it. Linda said – “Well we still have the foot board for the crib –would it fit?” . Sure enough it did.

She decided to have Arliss (her sister) paint the one side with a floral decoration (bottom inset) and leave the Snow White picture (top inset) facing the neighbor’s yard since they have a small child. Installing the new gate was one of my projects last week.

We have a chipmunk who likes to sit on the garden bench and he was there several times last week but by the time I got the camera he was gone and wouldn’t come back until I had given so that’s a picture ‘ l hope to get another time.

Perhaps the real message of the “gate that doesn’t open at the end of the path to nowhereis that” Life’s a journey” to be savored at each step and not a destination to be rushing towards –and if you do try to rush to a destination you may find your self nowhere with the road ahead blocked.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

p.s. I have some pictures for this but blogger isn't cooperating to-night so I'll try again in the a.m.

The stormy North

Monday we went to Thessalon to help Linda’s sister Arliss celebrate her birthday. Actually Linda’s job was to ”lure” Arliss away from home so her daughter’s could prepare for a surprise party. So we took her out to their “camp” at Big Basswood Lake. Linda & I both got into the water for a swim – first time in a while that we’ve done that.

It has been quite warm (32C or 90F). When we were leaving the Sault the sky had gotten really dark looking like a thunder storm was blowing in. When we got to Thessalon we had just went into the house when It started to pour rain with hail mixed in – along with Thunder & lightening but it only lasted about 10 minutes and by the time we got to the lake the sun was shining again. . However, when we got home last night we had an email from Karen Morin with pictures showing a tree that had blown down in their yard when the storm had blasted through their area.

Linda’s sister Theresa told us at the party that a couple of barns were blown down in the Desbarats area and there were pictures of one of those in the Sault Star (click HERE)

Roger had made a trip to Sundridge to return some canoes to his uncle Steve May and he told us this morning that he nearly got blown off the road due to severe winds and near tornado like conditions. In fact the storms in the Mattawa area (Click HERE) were so severe that a national emergency was declared in that area.

One of the comments that I often hear (and have even made myself) after we returned from Mississippi has been that we may have snow and cold in the North but we don’t have to worry about floods and hurricanes and tornados. I think this was just a small reminder of the power that exists in Nature and that no one is exempt.

Of course –this damage is small in comparison to the wide spread devastation along the Gulf Coast. You would have to take theseisolated cases and multiply them millions of times over to get anything closetothe damage doneby Katrina. However, it still is no less serious for those affected and certainly devastating to those families where there was loss of life. Our prayers are with the victims ofthese storms.

Well this is a short entry— I have had a fairly busy day. Made trip to Sault Michigan this a.m. to pick up a replacement light for the bathroom in the “BBB” that I had ordered last week. When I got home I iinstalled itand did some other odd jobs. Tammye & the kids are in town but are staying with her sister to-night. Hope to see them tomorrow

God Bless
Charlie.

Getting personal

Another week begins. I am enjoying an early morning watching the sunrise. This week begins a “vacation” period for us. Tammye will be here with Hunter & Camdyn from Tuesday evening until next Sunday. We will take the kids “camping” in the “BBB” this weekend. Next week we will be at Clear Lake Campground (near Iron Bridge which is about 80 miles east of the Soo). My sister Ruby will be there for the week and we look forward to visiting with them. We will then travel to Kingston, Ontario to visit our daughter Melissa and her friend Alexander. We are also hoping tobe able to see Linda’s sister Stephanie on our way back. So we are basically ”off” until around August 6th.

I have previously mentioned my friend John Dobbs in Pascagoula, Mississippi. On Friday He posted a comprehensive review of the ongoing relief efforts on the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans -primarily focused on the efforts of the Churches of Christ and Christian churches in the area. It brought back the bitter sweet memories of our time there in March. Tears as I visualized the pain of Marlene & Bill Kelly trying to come to grips with having lost almost all of their household belongings after 50 years together. Tears from seeing people without homes and food because they had lost everything and then had been lost in the system that was supposed to be helping them recover. But joy of making new friends, of getting to know Robbie and John, and John and David (x5) and Elaine and Ann and Harry and …. The joy of giving and making new friends is such a rich blessing. It is a paradox that to experience real joy we have to feel the pain of compassion. His previous post about “never being homeless” is a powerful example of how “God works in mysterious ways”.

Last week I had a good email “conversation" with my cousin Wilma. (I mentioned her in my July 2 posting). She had been going over some of the recent entries and concluded that I was a certain personality type. Her assessment was based on a book for Christians written by Florence Littauer. Being a person that needs to dig a little deeper before accepting someone else’s analysis (which probably says something about my personality) I did a search and cameup with a “self-assessment” for the “four temperaments” which are close to but not identical to the four personality types referred to in the Personality Plus concept provided by the Littauer’s.

There are of course a “gadzillion” approaches to personality assessment (Meyers-Briggs) is one of the more popular ones that I am familiar with) This is not my field so anyone who really wants to use personality assessment as a tool to improve their lives and relationships should do their own research or consult with a professional. My sister Ruby and my son Kevin both have backgrouns in psychological testing so this will make a good topic of discussion with them.

Anyhow, I found an on-line Personality test that uses the four temperments approach. I am familiar with a variation on this called the Five temperments (FIRO-B by William Shultz) since it was used at one time where I worked to “screen” potential managers.

Linda and I had some fun Friday night doing this test for ourselves and for each other. It was also an opportunity to continue some “tutorial” work on building Linda’s comfort with using the computer. As often seems to happen when showing someone how "easy” it is to do things, we were frustrated by the fact that the results for her tests (done on different computers by both of us failed to arrive by email so we don’t have a record of her results) (My results ,done the same way on the same computers, both arrived by email – go figure!!) . The thing I found most satisfying was that our assessments of ourselves matched our assessments of each other. (Although with different % ages). So I guess after (almost) 40 years of being a “couple”(45 if we count our “courtship”) we do know each other quite well.

Anyhow – bottom line –best I could figure with allowances for the differences in the “classifications” Wilma was probably pretty accurate in her evaluation. Her point in all this was that one of the characteristics exhibited by “my” personality type was a strong desire to please other people and her encouragement to me was to “just be myself” -

All this reminds me of 2 “favorite sayings – “God accepts and loves me as I am but he loves me to much to leave me this way”- and “ I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Phil 4:12) - These are favorites of mine because I realize that so often they are not true in my life -- so a part of my “new found” passion for “just do it”— is
- to accept “I am who I am” ,
- to know that “I don’t have to give up being me to be accepted by you”
(from the book "Do I Have to Give Up Me to Be Loved by You? by Jordan & Margaret Paul) "and
- to realize that any change in me will only come through the transforming work of God’s spirit in my life.

Just doing it includes "letting go (of being in control) and letting God (take care of my life)

Thank you Wilma for this conversation.

There were some other things in that conversation about living out our faith in Jesus that are ongoing and I will cover in another post. I also need to cover the “gate at the end of the path to nowhere” and “partying with the neighbors” and “Friday night at the movies” so if circumstances allow I hope to post everyday this week.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

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Living by the Nike creed?

The world is full of slogans – many originated by companies in hopes of “burning their brand onto your brain”. One of these slogans that has stuck with me is the Nike "Just Do It" slogan introduced in 1998 (click Here to see the Wikipedia description of Nike) .

This along with their “swoosh” symbol have come to be synonymous with Nike in my mind. (Mind you I seldom buy their products as a result of this “branding” success)

So why am I plugging Nike? For a long time Linda & I have had a difference in our approach to doing projects. I am analytical by nature. I like to have a “plan” about what we are going to do. I like to have a list of all the projects that we might be doing, agree on which ones are most important and then work on those until they are done. (and unless I have taken the time to make checklists and detail what needs to be done I tend to lose focus and get distracted on other things that come up that need to be taken care of and I may not get back to finish those projects—so there have been situations where there was a (long forgotten) list of incomplete things sitting around the house and yard. (and in the computer).

(As an aside this is made worse by the fact that I have the “buffet” table syndrome when it comes to making promises about what I will get done -my “eyes” (saying Yes I’ll do that) are lot bigger than my stomach (the time it’ll really take to get it done exceeds the time available) . I’ve previously mentioned the advise from my friend Terry Miller about managing commitments and I have been doing a better job of that. However, it has come with the price of seeming to want to avoid Linda’s projects “because they are not in the plan”).
Linda is more “intuitive” – she has a “vision” of some final result and , while she may say that is what she wants us to work on she will often start out by doings something else because it needs to be done first or it needs to be done to prepare for some other project down the road – or whatever. Since these things aren’t” on the list” it tends to frustrate me – and she has never mentioned those things a list of prerequisites that need to be done – e.g. paint the railing first. She “knows” what needs to be done and she just wants to get on with it. On the other hand she sees me as a prime example of “paralysis by analysis” using my need for things to “be in the plan” as an excuse for not doing the things she thinks are most important. Regardless of the “correctness” of these “perceptions” it has been an ongoing source of frustration for both of us.

So where I am going with all this --- Sunday afternoon we were doing our group study on the “Barnabas” factor (See http://www.gospeladvocate.com/gabkbod.htm)
and at the end of the paragraph is the “Nike statement” -- not quite but close.

The actual quote is “Quit talking about it. Stop replacing action with incessant planning. Just get out there and do it” (End quote). Of course this was talking about “small acts of kindness” that would encourage other people” and I believe it requires more than just our “willpower” to transform our behavior if this is something that isn’t a ”natural” characteristic on our part – but that’s another story.

Anyhow, the whole group heard Linda say – “Charlie – that’s talking about you” and so I thought maybe I should try to adopt a little of that “Just do it” approach in our daily lives.

Monday a.m. I made up my usual list of projects that I thought were the most important to do and the things I was committed to doing this week. Instead of asking Linda for what else she wanted to add to the list, I simply made the commitment that I would ask here what she was going to do Monday and how I could help. And then I committed to Linda that whatever (one thing) she wanted us to be doing I would “just do it”(and as best I could work on that until it was done. (subject to meeting other commitments that I had which I would inform her about”up front”.

So far this week it has been working fairly well, although we have been doing ”independent” projects. (not working to-gether on the same thing), so it has been easier to fit the “just do it”concept inwhile still takingtime to meet my commitments There haven’t been asmany times that we seemed to be “fussing” about “never starting or never finishing things”. Or “always wanting to change the plan 5 minutes after we have agreed to it) I guess time will tell if I can really adapt the “just do it” approach into my need for a ”plan” to manage my commitments. I certainly accept thev validity of the fact that it is easy to “overplan” to the point where you really don’t have a ”focus” on getting things done –

I have so far Cleaned the carpet in the "BBB", cleaned the roofon the "BBB", started to repair a bathroomlightin the BBB andordered the replacement part. Run several errands and generally have "just done" everything that hascome up.The pricehas been less time to do thingslike this blog and readingotherblogs which I like to do but are on the "just do it" agenda' I did exchange several emailsabout my blog with a couple of people who sent me comments and I had an unexpected need tomeet an inspector fromthe insurance company towalkthrough the church building (because Rob who normally handles these things is on vacation). And with allofthat I have still had a fair bit of" downtime -- so maybe there is something to this "just doing it" idea.

As for the “Barnabas factor” quote-- I do think that the “just do it” concept is a sound one when it comes to “Godly living” - if we accept that the Spirit will “move us” to do good – then we need to respond with action rather than vague plans that “I should do this or that”. So often delaying those impulses means that we end up with the regret of “wishing we had done it” rather than experiencing the joy of doing.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

A "Berry" good day

One of the things I like most about being retired is having the time to strengthen and build relationships. One of the most frustrating things to me about being retired has been having the time to build relationships. Ponder that contradiction for a while and it may drive you crazy.

“Curbside stop”( = an aside to talk about something else that is not directly related to the topic at hand) - I am by nature a very analytical person. Linda is more of an intuitive “just do it” kind of person so when I get into one of my long involved dialogs – pushing & prodding to look at something every which way it drives her crazy and she sometimes has to say “Will you just stop and get on with it?”. I say all this to tell you that I’m not going to subject you to a “blow-by-blow” of how I arrive at the contradiction above)

Just let me say that I have experienced many positive things in my personal relationships over the past 2 years. In particular, my relationship with Linda has grown to a much deeper level of communication and partnership. This has not come without some “pain" but, in balance, I feel very good about the “Whitfield’s journey” together. I look forward with anticipation to a continuing growth. I can say the same about improvements in my personal walk with God and a number of personal friendships.

However, the “most frustrating” thing is in the area of developing closer relationships with others as a couple. For many years we have been busy with a wide circle of relationships at church, within our family, and through work , –but had no “close circle of friends” that we “did things with” as a couple. This “gap” in our lives was previously masked by the “no time” excuse but now I see “that the problem with us is me (not time)” With my analytical nature, I could write a “book” analyzing this reality but I won’t burden you with that.

Suffice it to say that the “most frustrating thing “ is understanding that I need to change but not knowing how to do it. I am doing my best to put that in God’s hands. While he does his work , I’m trying to be more relaxed, to just be myself and to let the relationships build (or not) as the opportunity arises.

I say all of this to say that the past couple of week has given me a glimmer of hope that we are making some “breakthrough’s” in that area.

So Wednesday & Thursday were full of “taking care of business”. Linda worked on several of her “house & garden” projects. One of those was removing the old paint and re-painting the wrought iron railing on our patio. I helped some with cleaning of the old paint. Shelly Slawson, Laura & Jessica dropped by on their way back from a bike ride to the park. During their short visit , Linda enjoyed “showing off” her garden to the girls.

Wednesday, I met with Lloyd H. to discuss something’s related to the church, took my Dad to a doctor’s appointment, took care of some banking and other business and went to Algoma U to place orders for the textbooks for the courses I am teaching this fall.

I am teaching an adult Sunday school class this summer and I spent several hours consolidating my thoughts on the series of lessons that I plan to present. One requirement is for each lesson to be “self-contained” since there is alack of continuity of participants during the summer due to vacations. I also spent awhile writing up the results of the congregational meeting from the prior Wednesday.

Wednesday night was the first in our summer series “Life Lessons from the Andy Griffith show” led by Roger. We had a good turnout including a number of folks from the community who don’t normally attend our services – many of them had been there last year and found it of sufficient value that they have returned again.

Thursday morning I went golfing with my Dad and his friend Don Holmberg. In the p.m., I finished washing the exterior of my truck and placed an ad in the paper. I had to send in a picture so I took it to the little park near our house to get a better background. One of our neighbors came by walking her dog and said “I’m sure there a reason for that ….” which I took to mean “I wonder what on earth is that crazy fool up to ..”

Friday, we left early to drive to Thessalon (our hometown – actually we were raised in the country near there) to meet up with Linda’s sister Arliss. Linda is the oldest in a family of 10. Arliss is the 3rd youngest and 20 years younger than Linda. Arliss was born after Linda left home but they seem to have a special bond as sisters. (Picture shows Linda & Arliss at their nephew Max's wedding in July 2004)

Arliss is married to ”Coe” Bizier and they have 3 kids – the twins Michael and Alyssa - and Hillary. (the picture below shows them 2 years ago at a family wedding - left to right is Rebecca (one of their cousins), Michael, Alyssa and Hillary) Alyssa will be staying with us next fall while she attends Algoma U.
Anyhow, we went to Flood’s strawberry farm and between us we picked 50 lbs of strawberries in about an hour. (You bring your own containers and they weight them before & after to figure out how much you picked. They were very delicious and we did sample a few while picking. . Later in the day we were talking to an acquaintance from our high school days about the strawberries and she asked “So did they weigh you before and after?” I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes but I had a good laugh when I figured out that she was suggesting that hthet needed to do that to get paid for the “samples”. (I forgot my camera so I don’t have any pictures of this event - but the berries are awesome.

Afterwards, we returned to Arliss’ to clean the berries and put them in the freezer (aside from a healthy amount to we kept to eat fresh). Around 3 we went to their camp (Northern Ontario term for cottage) at the lake (Big Basswood) . The kids had a great time in the lake. I enjoyed just sitting quietly enjoying nature and listening to Linda & Arliss visit.

Coe came after work and we had supper there at the lake. It was one of the few times we have had a chance to have a meal just with them—mostly we see them at larger family gatherings. It was a great time and we got to know Coe a lot better. He talked a bit about his upbringing and family background – things I hadn’t heard before even though we have had many conversations during the 20 plus years they have been together.

After supper Coe & I took the canoe for a short paddle along the shore to see some of the other camps (and a few “mansions”) in the area. I hadn’t been in a canoe for several years and somy paddling wasn’t so great —but we did OK -- I enjoyed it and Coe seemed to as well. On our way home we dropped by to see Linda’s Mom. While we were there one of Linda’s nephew’s Jamie (her sister Theresa’s son) came by with his partner Renita and their kids Hayden (2) & Chastity (aprox. 6 mos). Cute kids. We seldom see them and it was the first time we had seen the baby.

When we got home we had a nice big dish of fresh strawberries with milk – A “berry” good ending to a “berry “ good day.

God Lives

How did you read this title of this posting – God is alive OR Lives filled with God?

Well I’ll leave you to ponder that for awhile and come back to what I used this title later on.

Monday, we slept late—refused to answer the phone and had a great day doing whatever came to mind as the most important thing to be doing at that moment. Linda did a lot of clean-up, fix-up, paint-up work around the yard. I did a little of that but mostly I spent my time cleaning the interior of my truck. July 1 was the 2nd anniversary of my retirement so I was a little chagrined to discover that I hadn’t cleaned out the truck since then. Perhaps spending 6 months of thattime (that's equivalent to 1 day in 4) traveling in the BBB helps explain it but it still seems unbelievable. Anyhow, my hardhat and boots have now been stored away in the garage , all the accumulated “junk” has been removed and disposed of , the carpets vacuumed, armor-all on the vinyl, windows washed and the insides of the doors and doors post all washed. When I went to get in this morning I had to look twice to be sure I was getting in the right vehicle!! (JD – it reminded me of the van except I didn’t find a camera)

Karen & Rene Morin dropped by Monday while on a bike ride. They had been talking to Linda about the fact that they hadn’t ever seen the “BBB” so she had offered an open invitation to come by for a look – They were both off work since many businesses were closed yesterday as an alternate holiday because July 1 (Canada Day) was on Saturday. We sat and visited for a whilebefore they headed off. I have mentioned then before and there is a picture in my May 1 entry. See http://candlw.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_candlw_archive.html

Today (Tuesday - July 4 - big day in the US) we continued working on our projects, talked to Melissa about her weekend camping trip and had a nice walk this evening.

We also had a pleasant surprise this week when Dave McMillan called from Thunder Bay Sunday night and asked if he& Heather could stay here last night enroute to St. Catherines. We have known them since the mid-80’s. Although we hadn’t seen them for over10 years , We have followed some of the major events in their lives via email and through contact with mutual acquaintances.. They are from Saskatchewan. When we first met Dave was moving to Ontario to teach at the Bible College at Great Lakes Christian College. He and his family stayed at our place a couple of times in the mid 80’s as they traveled to/from Saskatchewan to visit family. I also got to know David during that period because I was on the Board of GLCC and was on campus several time a year. I was deeply engaged in conversation with Dave this a.m.and had to rush out ot meet Roger for breakfast so I forgot to take apicture. Hope they comeback soon so I can rectify this (Maybe we'll haveto go toMexico to do it - only problem is getting the "BBB" into thevillage where they workmight be a bit tricky)

In the 90’s David’s journey of faith led him to become involved in a house church and faith community that was quite different in many ways from the practices prevalent in the “Churches of Christ” where we both had our roots and had begun our walk of faith. For the past several years David has been teaching in public schools on short term contracts. During the summer he & Heather have been using their savings from their teaching jobs to go to Mexico and help meet the basic living needs of poverty stricken people. As they go about meeting the physical needs they are also showing the love of Jesus and proclaiming his word. We enjoyed their visit and we had a very interesting and challenging dialog about the different “directions” we taken in our mutual commitment to following and serving Jesus.

In particular he was able to give me some insights into the (so-called) post-modern philosophy that describes the “way of thinking” that many people under 50 use to ”make sense” of life. I still don’t get it I value knowledge, logic & reasoning as the way of understanding the world – which I’m told means I think like a modernist. And isn’t valued by “post-modernists” – They value experience and relationships as the basis for making sense of things.

I do know that the church needs to be able to communicate with people who think this way and that in the absence of a relationship that has meaning to them, many words we say to them are just like that TV commercial where the guy is eating cereal and people are talking to him telling him he is fired or other things and he just keeps on eating and nodding because all he hears is “a roaring noise”. –
(Hey guys I’m trying but you are going to have to have a little ( a lot!!) of patience with me if we are going to learn to ”hear” each other.

It was a “spiritually uplifting” dialog as we shared some of our questions about our faith and had an honest conversation about what we thought was missing in various lines of reasoning related to topics that are “hot” with the mainstream Churches of Christ today. At the end I felt that God was working -- in sending them here and in the conversation we were having. I was glad to find “my brother” and to be in strong fellowship with him despite large differences in our understanding of what it means to “be the church that God has called us to be” God has called us by His grace to love & to faith in Jesus. We are united in those areas of central importance --- and that is enough – for now - but who knows what discoveries lay ahead in either of our journeys.

So God lives – God is living and active in the world- I thank him for sending me people who are very different in some of their thinking and yet the work of God in their lives is so evident. I’ve been thinking of GOD LIVES as a “vanity” plate for the “BBB” . both as a declaration of the belief that God is alive & well and that the owners on board are committed to God(ly) lives. Might be a good conversation starter?

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Canada Day (+1) - A busy week

My last posting was on Tuesday June 27 – featuring the Lansdell’s and the impact that their moving away would have on our church family.

It seems like a long time since last Sunday afternoon when our longtime friends Len & Tracy Roetman were over for visit. We have been involved in each others lives for almost 30 years ever since they moved here to Sault Ste.Marie. We are older than them but they started their family at a young age where we delayed a little so (some of) our kids grew up together. Tracy was one of several younger women that Linda grew close to as a “mother/nurse/friend”. Their daughter Christie was especially close to Linda. Our daughter Melissa was recruited at the last minute as a bridesmaid at Christie’s wedding last August. (Len & Tracy are at the back of the picture. Len Jr. is at the left, Heather & Christie (bride) in front center and Rachel on the right with Rachel's 2 girls are to her left)

Tracy is confined to a wheelchair due to spinal injuries suffered as a result of a serious automobile accident more than 15 years ago. Len is on disability due to injuries suffered in an industrial accident several years ago. Tracy has a passion for helping people with disability get fair treatment from insurance companies, government agencies and the like. She has recently become an expert on accessibility issues and is a spokesperson for that issue within the community and is advocating in the political arena for better legislation to level the playing field for those with physical disabilities. Len is an excellent carpenter an, while he has to work at his own pace and can’t take on “paid projects” that required a sustained effort- he continues to enjoy working in his shop and fixing up their home. Len also has a real heart for people and is a good listener when you need someone to bounce things off of .

Anyhow, since Tracy’s accident it hasn’t been easy for her to participate in church assemblies. We have attempted to provide a telephone connection but that has had sporadic success. For a variety of reasons, we had hardly ever seen or talked to them during the past 6 months. SO it was great to visit and catch upon each others lives.

Monday morning I went golfing with my Dad. Monday afternoon was filled with telephone calls to/from people who were concerned about “what would happen when Roger left?”. That plus normal household chores and starting to put together an “agenda” for the congregational meeting planned for Wednesday was more than enough to fill up my Monday. Monday evening we had Lloyd & Barb Hotchkiss over for coffee and some conversation about how our lives might be affected when Roger left.

Tuesday was devoted to planning an agenda and preparing some “discussion papers” about how to fill the gaps in our ministry efforts that are currently being filled by one of the Lansdell’s.

The day included at breakfast meeting with Lloyd & Roger to be sure we had a current understanding of where he had been spending his time. Tuesday afternoon Linda met with Marilyn (our sister-in-law) and Sharon Seeler to discuss teaching materials for Sunday school over the summer.

Wednesday, I worked on the plans for the congregational meeting, reviewed them with Lloyd and finalized them. The meeting itself was well attended (31 people) with a good cross section of the various “demographic” factors . We got lots of valuable feedback and a number of people volunteering to take on various “projects” and “ongoing tasks” that need to be done to ”fill the gaps.

I also made my second run as a Red Cross volunteer driver. Linda spent much of the day painting some things that we had brought in to the garage from the “garden” and doing other work with her flowers. ”. I will need to re-install these next week.

Thursday we had dental appointments in the morning (cleanings) and then in the afternoon we had the privilege of attending Jessica’s graduation (from White Pines CVS). Jessica has received a $3000 scholarship at Lakehead and, in addition, she received several awards for her academic efforts and school participation. We went back to the Lansdell’s for a BBQ supper and had a good visit with Roger’s parents (Clyde & Wilma) (1st picture) and Sandra’s parents (Weyford & Wilma Smith)

Afterwards Linda went to help Travis with the twins so Tracy (her niece) who is a high school teacher could attend the graduation dance at her school (Sir James Dunn).

I’ll confess I crashed and didn’t do much that evening (although I had been stymied by FreeCell game 1941 for a couple of weeks so I looked on the INTERNET so I could at least find out what the first few moves were. With that help I finally cracked that one – one less frustration in my day. (I know- I know, -- What should I be frustrated? After all what’s the difference if I’m spending (wasting?) time on one miindless attempt after another on a single game or the “same mindless routine” on several games that just happen to be easier to complete.

Friday was devoted mostly to yard work and other house work to get ready for dinner with Steve & Shelly Slawson. As I mentioned in my posting about Vicki & Kirk’s wedding, we first met Steve & Shelly last July. .We had gotten to know them a little bit through contact at various church activities but this was the first time we had had a chance to have them over. We really enjoyed visiting with them and finding out more about their “life journey”. We discovered that we knew some of the same people and it was encouraging to hear about their commitment to following Jesus no matter what life has thrown at them. This short visit deepened our emerging friendship and we look forward to future visits.
(Picture shows Shelly & Steve with Sandra at Vicki & Kirk's wedding a week ago)

Friday was also the 2nd anniversary of my last day at work as I entered retirement. Time has really flown and I realized Friday that for the first time in a long time I really wasn't missing it. We havespent over 6monthstravellingin the BBBover the2 years so we certainly have taken advantage of the new-found freedom.

At the same time I was appalled at how little progress I had made on these big projects that I was dreamingabout accomplishing when I retired. But in balance I am very happy that I left when I did. This was especailly hammered home afew weeks ago when I learned that Michel who had followed me in the IT Director's job had had a heart attack and was off work for a few months.

Saturday was July 1 (Canada Day). Linda was out to a shower for Anna in the morning and I spent the morning “browsing” the INTERNET looking at some “discussion groups” on religious topics that are of interest to me. I saw some very open and loving discussion of issues where there were strong difference of understanding about what God I wants of us in certain areas of becoming and being a Christian. I also stumbled into some debates were some people were a lot more focused on “being right” than on “being loving”. Since exhibiting loving attitudes (patience, kindness, etc. – I Cor. 13:4-7) is at the top of God’s hit parade (I Cor. 13:13) I sometimes wonder how people with such a passion for truth in some areas can fail so badly in this most important area. Truth is important but efforts to show truth to others must be done in love or we condemn ourselves by the very truth we are trying to promote.

Marilyn had asked us over for a BBQ Saturday evening. Linda had suggested we could do it here (but to bring their hamburgers) so we had Marilyn, Rob, Ken & my Dad here last night..
I sometimes “complain” to Linda that we spend too much time “doing stuff” and not enough time ”visiting”. This week that wasn’t a problem .In fact by Thursday we had decided to reserve Monday “for us” to do whatever came to mind—likely finishing up some projects in the yard and maybe getting my truck cleaned up for sale. We did find time to talk to Meliss and Chris during the week. We’ll be calling Kevin to-night.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Changes

Sunday morning Roger announced that he & Sandra would be leaving Pinehill in September after almost 11 years of full-time service as a part of the Pinehill work.
(Roger is the "ugly" guy in the suit marring an otherwise lovely picture takenSaturday after Vicki & Kirk's wedding)

They are going to Troy Michigan. I think the old cliché “our loss is their gain” best sums it up from my view point This added to the sadness (for us) and joy (for them) that we were already feeling because knew that their son Kyle & his wife Anna would be leaving in August to move to Thunder Bay to attend Medical school AND their daughter Jessica would also be leaving to attend Lakehead University.

I have spent a lot of time in the last week in discussions with Lloyd about the process we will follow to address these needs. The first step is a congregational meeting on Wednesday evening to obtain suggestions and ideas about what to do and to begin selecting people to take charge of various things that need to be done. I have also spent a lot of time on the telephone receiving and making calls to people who I felt might have strong feelings about this situation so that I could listen to and understand their concerns. I’m not by nature a good listener – I’m more inclined to move quickly to problem solving so this has been an exercise (with Linda’s help) of trying (again) to make it more of a habit to follow the Stephen Covey principle of “seeking first to understand rather than to be understood” . Those who I have talked with are the ultimate judges of how successful I was but it seemed tome that in general I did manage to do more listening to what others thought than “telling” them what I thought.

Their leaving will affect the preaching, teaching (Roger with adults, Kyle with the youth and Sandra in the children’s classes) and other areas of where they are active. It will also have a large impact on our singing because the whole family is musically talented. Overall it will have a large impact on our efforts to serve Jesus and proclaim the gospel to others – even though we have many others involved in ministry efforts.

We have capabilities within to do most of the things that were being done – but we certainly don’t have the capacity to maintain the quality and energy that Roger and the rest of his family were providing. It will be a big hole to fill and we will need to remain committed to each person doing their part to keep us moving forward in our journey of faith as we figure out how to fill these holes.

Roger, Sandra Kyle and Jessica stayed with us for a few days when they moved here from Alabama in 1995. Over time they have become an integral part of the fabric of our lives and when they leave there will be a big hole . However, we believe that God has been at work in this and that they have been called to go to serve him in Troy and we must continue our calling to serve Him here in Sault Ste. Marie. (The picture of Jessica was taking (almost) 3 years ago on theoccasion ofKyle & Anna's wedding.

Roger,s mother Wilma is my first cousin. – so technically he is a “first cousin once removed” – however my parents both came from large families and I have more first cousins than I can ”shake a stick at” so that relationship isn’t the reason Roger & I developed a deep friendship. In fact, Roger & I both have similar blood relationships with many of the congregation and sometimes that relationship can present obstacles to our desire to be united in Christ regardless of who we are. Sometimes when you are a preacher or an elder in a situation where there are blood relationships – those related can be seen as receiving special treatment—or the inevitable “family feuds” can spill over into our relationship with each other in Christ

Roger is a bit over 15 years younger than I am and I never really knew him until he joined the work here at PineHill. He grew up as a ”preacher’s son” in places like North Bay Ontario and the Bayview congregation in Toronto. His father Clyde baptized Linda during a series of meetings held in Sault Ste Marie in the early 60’s and he officiated at our marriage in 1966 so we do have a long connection with Roger’s family- aside from Wilma being my cousin. Clyde & Wilma are retired and live in Meaford.

Sandra’s parents are from the south (Oklahoma or maybe Texas) and had moved to Ontario to work with the church in St. Thomas. They are retired now and live in the Beamsville area.

Kyle is very active in sports as well as being strong academically. – he played hockey & football while in high school. Last year he graduated from Harding (magna cum laude as I recall ) and returned to the Sault when his application for medical school fell through. We have employed him as a part time youth minister since last September and he has generated some good results with the small “core’ of kids that we have here. He met his (now) wife Anna while in high school. She grew up in a Christian family from a different “heritage” and we have enjoyed having her in the “church family” for the past year. Anna & Kyle are expecting their first child in late July so they'llhave their handsfull as he movesonintomed school.

Jessica is a very lovely young ladyand has been a leader in the teen/youthgroupfor several years. She has done wellin school- president of the student body -- and worked part-time for several years. This yearshe invested in herowncar and has been "proudly" chauferring" her parents andothers to services - at least someof the time.

Roger has been the preacher at Pinehill for almost 11 years. Serving as a the “minister” always has its challenges and rewards and his years here have had their share of both. I believe (with allowance for our human frailties and foibles– he handled the challenges in a Godly fashion and handled the success with grace and humility. Others may see it differently and such is life in churches.

(I think that the absence of challenges is a clear sign of an absence of effect teaching and preaching – the real issue is not that “problems exist” but rather how do we handle them. We are called to love and to possess a certain hope through our an obedient faith in Jesus ( Gal. 5:6; I Cor. 13:13, John 14:15).

In my view, churches can fail in 2 extremes – they can have a sense that loving means not challenging tomake changes regardless of what they believe and how they live (which violates the idea that love is acting in the other person’s best interests)

OR

they so focused teaching people to know and obey commands that they lose sight of the overriding importance of love (See I Cor 13:4-7) and faith (trusting God to keep his promise of grace when we fail to obey). What seems tome is better is for us to accept that when we fail to love – to obey – to trust - we accept that failure – and find a way to move on in spite of our weaknesses and differences – united in our common commitment to Jesus. -- allowing God’s spirit to continue his transforming work in our lives and thanking God for his grace & forgiveness.

Well as often happens I’ve gone to “preaching” and that’s not really the purpose here.

To the Lansdell’s - I am glad we have some time before we have to say “Farewell”. “May God bless you richly each day as you prepare for and then embark on this new phase in your journey of faith.

To those of us who remain – we need to do what we can do but always remember

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (I Cor. 13:13)”

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Wedding Joy

To-day Vicki Muhlholland and Kirk Smith were married at our building.

We first met them about a year ago. Our preacher Roger (Lansdell) had started a Wednesday evening series over the summer based on the Andy Griffith show (see http://www.barneyfife.com/) Roger & Sandra invited their neighbor's Steve & Shelly Slawson and they came to "check it out". Shelly invited her friend Vicki. She & Kirk and her mother Patricia also started to come. In the fall, they all started attending our services and over time they have become a part of "the family".

Early in the year they approached Roger and asked if he would marry them. He has studied with them about God's purpose in marriage and how they need to let God be the creative force in building a solid marriage. To-day they have begun that journey of faith together and we pray that they will be one "until death do them part" (poor english I know!).

Roger conducted a very nice ceremony. His son Kyle who has been serving as our part-time youth minister sang the songs. The first song was "I will be here" by Steven Curtis Chapman (a song I confess I'd never heard but I thought was very powerful).

The third verse seemed to speak to me in my marriage and I said to Linda afterward that I would very much want that to be always true in our lives -- but I also realize that I blow it a way too often. It goes ..

"I will be here...When you feel like bein' quiet
When you need to speak your mind
I will listen
And I will be here
When the laughter turns to cryin'
Through the winnin' and losin' and tryin'
We'll be together'
Cause I will be here"

Vicki's girls Kendra (left) & Katie were in the wedding party. They were part of the reason Linda started her class during the sermon time and are now part of the group we refer to as "Linda's kids".

Kirk's son Kyle (not a good picture due to the backlight from the windows but it's the only one I got!) was also a member of the wedding party. He lives in Michigan but is spending the summer here. We have enjoyed meeting him and having him at services for the past few weeks.

After the wedding there was a lunch catered in the church basement and we enjoyed visting with Vicki's father Larry and her aunt Kathy. It turned out that Linda knew Kathy from when she was working and they enjoyed catching up on what was happening in each other's lives.


Anna (Kyle's wife), Kyle, his sister Jessica and Sandra are sitting across from each other at the first table.

It was an enjoyable time and brings back memories of similar events in our lives. Yesterday - 5 years ago -- in 2001 our son Kevin and Sarah were married. Happy anniversary to them!!
God Bless
Charlie & Linda

A beautiful morning

As I sit looking out over Linda’s garden in the moments before sunrise I am reminded again of the beauty and tranquility of God’s creation. It is a cool morning – 5 deg C (41deg F) but clear and promising a very nice summer day.

Soon things that need to be done will press in on me. Soon the realities of what we humans have done with God’s “good” creation will press in on me and challenge the Spirit in this job of producing this fruit of joy peace and soon in my life. But for now I will simply watch the sunrise, listen to the birds and commune with my God as I pray and prepare this entry.

The last few days have been busy. I did my first run as a Red Cross volunteer driver taking a lady to the Group Heath Center for a procedure and then picking her up to return her home 2 hours later. Tuesday I vacuumed and cleaned out the car so it would be a little more presentable for a stranger. We also made reservations for a few days camping at Point Des Chenes for when Tammy & the kids are planning to be herein July.

Wednesday, I replaced a solenoid on my truck in hopes of resolving an intermittent problem with getting the starter to “kick-in” . The battery terminals had some corrosion so I decided to clean them as well—and in the course of doing that one of the cable terminals broke off. I got a replacement part from Canadian tire, rigged it so I could get the truck started and then took it to Art Taylor’s garage yesterday to get it properly installed since that requires a special crimping tool. I also took the car in to have them see if they could fix the leak that has returned despite two prior(expensive) repairs. They didn’t find anything- although they tightened all the clamps and didn’t charge for the work. I now have to wait until I fill the tank and the leak occurs and then take it in so they can see exactly were it is coming from. (Maybe I’ll get lucky and the problem will just go away!

Wednesday (June 21) was also Melissa’ birthday—can’t believe that my “baby girl” is 28 but she is. We tried calling her several times (early morning and in the evening) but only got the machine. Turned out she was in Toronto planting her pumpkins (a whole other story that I might talk about another time). When she called last evening she had just gotten back and was tired, dirty and hungry – and anxious for bath, food and bed.

Wednesday evening we enjoyed a ”webcam” audio/video conversation with Chris & Camdyn and then with Kevin & Will. Kevin had to do an upgrade to MS messenger so we text messaged back& forth a bit while he was doing that. Will had discovered the “emotions” figures and so we had some fun exchanging various “smiley” faces and other pictures until we could get the video up & running. It is such a great thing to be able to see & hear them in this way.

Linda was out being “nanny” to the twins for a couple of hours yesterday and I spent a couple of hours with Lloyd Hotchkiss discussing things we needed to be doing in our role as elders for the Pinehill church.

Tuesday through Thursday I spent a quite a bit of time preparing for an ADnet Board Development session which was held last evening. I was working with Tom Marinelli (via email since he is in Toronto) to develop the agenda and a presentation on our assessment of the Board’s effectiveness and some suggested approaches to improving our ability to meet our obligations as a board. Last evening I presented the material and facilitated a “brainstorming” session on “what can we do to make things better?”

For me it was an enjoyable evening since I haven’t had much opportunity to do this kind of work lately and I like doing it—although it also reminded me why I retired because it can easily become stressful and I can easily “over commit” and end up under extreme pressure at the last minute trying to juggle doing “10 things at once”.

Enough of the “mundane” things about ourdailylives

Have you observed the number of times in Genesis 1 that “God saw that “it” was good” (vs. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) –And then very good (v. 31) – this was highlighted for me in the Creation song that Linda was teaching to her Sunday morning class last fall -- I haven’t been able to discover the source and so I hope that my putting it here doesn’t violate any copyright’s . It is sung to the tune of the song about the days of Christmas (On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me .. and a partridge in appear tree)

The creation song

(Tune: The twelve days of Christmas)

Oh God made the world for us in only seven days
and the Lord saw that what he made was good

On the 1st day of creation, the Lord God made for us: Light to light the earth
and the Lord saw that what he made was good

On the 2nd day of creation, the Lord God made for us: Skies so very blue,
Light to light the earth and the Lord saw that what he made was good.

On the 3rd day of creation, the Lord God made for us: Land and sea and plants
Skies so very blue, Light to light the earth and the Lord saw that what he made was good.

On the 4th day of creation, the Lord God made for us: Sun and moon and stars;
Land and sea and plants; Skies so very blue, Light to light the earth
and the Lord saw that what he made was good.

On the 5th day of creation, the Lord God made for us: Fish and birds that fly;
Sun and moon and stars; Land and sea and plants; Skies so very blue,
Light to light the earth and the Lord saw that what he made was good.

On the 6th day of creation, the Lord God made for us: Animals and people;
Fish and birds that fly, Sun and moon and stars; Land and sea and plants;
Skies so very blue, Light to light the earth and the Lord saw that what he made was good.

On the 7th day, God rested from all the work he did; it was very good:
Animals and people; Fish and birds that fly, Sun and moon and stars, land and sea and plants,
Skies so very blue, Light to light the earth and the Lord saw that what he made was good

God Bless

Charlie & Linda

Wild About the Bible

Saturday June 17 was the big day. For the past 2 months we have been preparing for a children’s activity day. Sharon came up with the theme” Wild about the Bible –.

We wanted, in a way that would capture the imagination of the children, to instill an excitement about the Bible & Bible things.




We also wanted to help them to have confidence in the truth of the Bible accounts that include miracles (the story of Balaam – Numbers 22-24) while acknowledging that people use these accounts of miracles along with some of the difficulties with translation (use of the word unicorns in the KJV) and the more exotic prophetic visions (the wheels within the wheels of Ezekiel) to claim that the Bible is full of myths or, as Erich von Daniken claimed in his best seller ”Chariots of the Gods”, the Bible stories are records of aliens visiting earth.

The teaching material was based on a book by J. Stephen Lang called “Talking Donkeys and Wheels of Fire: Bible Stories That Are Truly Bizarre!.

Linda & I (really Linda) had Grades 1 & 2 and introducing these somewhat “philosophical” concepts at that age requires creativity, which - if I can brag a little -Linda has in abundance. (The picture shows Linda with Jacob, Katie & Tammy)

She decided to stay away from the “ET” question and focus on the true story of Balaam as an example of God’s power & love for his people.

She also dealt with the issue of unicorns in the KJV by reading the passages (one at a time) in KJV and then in NIV. She then asked the kids if they knew any words that sounded the same but meant different things (the technical term is homonyms). They came up with things like read & red, right & write and she covered about 10 or so of these “sounds the same” words to make the point that it is something difficult to understand meaning without context and that , while it is a different issue translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek also resulted in some translating difficulties which don’t take away from God’s truth but do require us to be cautious in using isolated words and passages to draw conclusions about “truth” vs .”myth” vs. “speculative interpretation”.

One of the more creative things Linda did was to get a copy of the Irish Rover’s song that “speculates” that the reason there are no Unicorn’s today is that they didn’t come on to the ark when Noah called the animals. She used the song to introduce the segment about the Unicorns.

It was a fun day. We had 16 children in total ( would have liked more) -- of which 7 were kids that had not been coming to our Sunday school (and 9 who had).

Linda had invited Riley to come. When Travis & Tracy dropped him off they brought the twins. We gave them a tour so they could see what Linda & I had been doing in the classrooms.

We did teaching and crafts from 9:30 to 11:45, had lunch (hot dogs and chips) and then Kyle took them out for a number of activities including the “water balloon” toss which ended with a “water balloon” fight—it was a hot day and those that got soaked seemed not to mind it at all.

I know that I will miss someone but I do want to mention the people who worked so hard on Saturday (I’ve already talked about the many people who helped with the cleanup and redecorating of the classrooms to provide a brighter and “friendly” environment).

Sharon Seeler coordinated the materials and supplies and got it already to go- despite having to deal with Mark’s heart attack in the previous 2 weeks. Doris Ann Ray (with help from Randy) set up the jungle “ambience” that greeted people as the came through the door. She also made the “Balaam and the donkey” with the place for a face so we could provide each child with a picture to remind them of the day.

Barb & Vicki were on the registration table, Vicki took pictures and helped with other: logistical” things. Steve was there helping as well.


Sandra, Shelley, Linda (& Charlie), Marilyn & Rob, and Kyle taught the various classess. Doris Anne helped Kyle with the crafts and had a crafts table available after lunch for any that preferred not to be involved in the outdoor activities.

Verna, Cora and several others helped with the lemonade and cookies for break and helped with serving lunch. Lloyd, Roger & Randy ran the BBQ’s to cook the hotdogs.

It was tiring but the reward of happy smiling faces and children’s laughter made it more than worthwhile. Jesus tell sus that we need to become like little children to enter the kingdom – and we certainly need to bring the children to Jesus feet so they can learn of him and retain that passion for staying at his feet for the rest of their lives.

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Celebrations

The rest of the week has been relatively uneventful. Thursday morning I went golfing with my Dad and Lloyd Hotchkiss. Did some yard work and other household stuff in the afternoon. Today (Friday) I did some cleanup work in the yard and catchup on the household accounts. Linda spent the day preparing for the Children’s activity day on Saturday. I was the “researcher” looking up things on the INTERNET when she wanted a picture or in one case she was looking for “homonyms” (words that sound alike but mean different things).

This afternoon I went to do the final orientation to allow me to act as a volunteer driver for the Red Cross - taking seniors to& from doctor’s appointments, shopping, etc. and earlier this evening I went to help with final preparations for the Children’s day to-morrow. Linda is helping baby sit Tracy’s twins.

Anyhow – Monday I wrote about a bunch of “bad things” that were happening to people I know. Quick update: Mark Seeler is home—the tests didn’t show anything that required surgical treatment – the heart attack was very mild and he is recovering quickly – expecting to start back “light duty” at work next week.

Mrs. Ward is still in hospital with what has turned out to be gall stones rather than heart attack.

A couple of birthdays this week leads me to the topic of celebrations because June seems to be a particularly busy month in our family. To start Linda’s Mom celebrated her 82nd birthday on June 5th.

We were there on June 3rd to help her celebrate (just before we left to go to Aurora for the week).
Linda's sister Carol is on the right. Carol and her husband Jim celebrate their anniversary in June as well.

June 14 was my niece Debbie’s birthday.

In addition to going out for a family dinner we had a celebration for her at the church after Bible Study.

June 15 (Thursday) was my nephew Ken’s 25th birthday. That evening we went to his parent’s (Rob & Marilyn) place for supper to help him celebrate. (I forgot my camera but there is a picture of Ken with his parents and his sister in a post “A birthday & some anniversaries” a couple of weeks ago.)

Ken cooked the meat on the BBQ – a little unusual to have to cook your own birthday supper but he did a great job with the steaks and chops. My Dad and Jack & Barb King were also there. After dinner we enjoyed watching a DVD of some of my parent’s home movies from the 60’s which Barb hadn’t seen before. In addition to showing Rob& I & Dad as we were 40 years ago it had pictures of Barb’s mother and grandmother in that same time period. Lots of laughs and lots of memories.

June 18 is my sister Diamond’s birthday – I won’t mention her age but the youngest in our family (Lawrence) turned 50 in May (see earlier posting called “A birthday & some anniversaries”).

June 21 is our daughter’s Melissa’s birthday. This will be a special celebration for Melissa because yesterday she took and a passed her “orals” (comprehensive examination) about her knowledge of the area she is researching for her Ph.D. in environmental sciences. “All” she has left now is to do her research, writeher dissertation and defend it but still this was a major milestone. Of course her Mom & Dad are bursting with pride.

June 23 is our son Kevin’s 5th anniversary. He & Sarah were married in the chapel at Balls Falls Ontario on a beautiful June day. They now live in Coquitlam BC where Kevin is pursuing a Ph.D. in Neuropsychology. Sarah called today to tell us that they had taken our grandson Will for a consult with a dental surgeon about a broken front tooth. Their dentist had recommended that it either be extracted or capped. However, the dental surgeon thought it was best to just leave it and keep an eye on it- which was a big relief to them & to us – the idea of a 2 and a half year old having a general anesthetic wasn’t very appealing. We are grateful that our prayers have been answered this way – at least for now.

Of course my favorite June celebration comes this Sunday – Father’s day. It really doesn’t take a special day for me to realize how much my children care for me but it is still a neat thing to receive those special calls.

The question that these celebrations and special days brings to mind is whether we realize that every day is special - or has the possibility of being special if we are placing our trust in God. "This is the day the Lord has mad. I will rejoice and be glad in it" Psalm 118:24

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Daily living (June 12-14)

So far this week we’ve been concentrating on projects around home.

Monday Linda finished up removing leaves and other debris from the back garden. Speaking of the garden we came home to lovely blooms on the rhodies and to lilacs. – they bloom late in the shaded area of our back yard. It is a lovely time of the year to sit at the table that we’ve put in the middle of the picture window which looks out over the back. – for breakfast or lunch.

I cut the grass and then got up on the roof to blow the “fallout” from the maple trees off the gutters. We have had an incredibly heavy amount of a yellow “fuzzy” pollen from one type of maple and then a snowstorm of keys from another. No one around here can remember anything like it in recent memory. While I was up there I trimmed a bunch of branches from the trees overhanging the roof (which took a lot of Tuesday morning to cut them up into bundles for pickup with the trash next week).

I had my truck towed to the garage to get the steering fixed. (I mentioned June 1 tthat it had broken down) – it turned out that it was a tie rod ends that had let go. Ended up that in addition to 4 tie rod ends, it needed a ball joint and new brake pads/rotors all around – the bill was north of $1500 – Ouch. I intend to sell it soon since we really don’t need to have 2 high cost vehicles on the go.

We also spent a fair bit of time on the phone talking to Roger about the situation with Nick and his girlfriend Tammy. Roger spent the whole day with them at bail court and then was back Tuesday a.m. before it was resolved.

Late afternoon I dropped Linda off at the grocery store , picked up my cable modem and then came back to help finish the shopping. Monday night I did some preliminary checking to confirm that my wireless bridge could be “seen” throughout the house from the planned location in the basement.

Tuesday - I had coffee with Roger before he went back to court. Dealing with the realities of losing a skirmish to Satan is always difficult – how to be the most support to Nick & Tammy was high on the agenda.

When I got home I was back doing yard work when the cable guy came and did the installation for the high speed INTERNET.

I made a trip to the police station to pickup my police check and dropped it off at the Red Cross needed to allow me to be a volunteer driver to take people to Doctor’s appointments. I stopped at Staples to pick up a router to allow me to connect my desktop and wireless bridge to the modem. (Actually, I was in a hurry and I ended up getting a switch and had to go back later to exchange for a router and to return the NIC card I had bought for the desktop and then discovered I didn’t need – for someone who is supposed to know about this stuff I wasn’t very efficient with my preparations!!).

Late afternoon I had a meeting at Sault College with Peggy Storey and Tom Marinelli (by teleconference) to discuss the agenda for a board development session for ADnet. I dropped Linda off to look for annuals for her planters and then stopped on the way back to help finish this and bring them home.

I spent a fair bit of time during the evening (until after midnight) connecting the components and configuring the desktop and laptop to set up a LAN and to get the INTERNET connections working. It was fun doing this since I hadn’t done any “hands on” IT stuff for quite a while.

We had an email from Sharon Seeler saying that Mark was home after having a procedure done in Petoskey – she says he is recovering and very glad to be home.

Wednesday: This morning Linda took me out to pick up my truck. When we got back she moved her flowers into the planters and I trimmed the shrubs in the front.

This evening we went to a family dinner to help celebrate my niece Debbie’s 50th birthday. We also had a small party for her at the church building after Bible study. I’ll try to include more about that - with some pictures in my next post.

Well – a busy week so far – lots of variety – nothing earth shattering but lots to think about as we focus on a daily walk with God – whether trimming trees, setting up networks or prayerfully seeking to help repair broken lives.

God Bless
Cahrlie & Linda

Living by Faith

I believe in the God revealed in the Bible and I believe the Bible is the source of God’s truth for our lives. I have faith that God will keep his promises if I place my trust in him.

Having said that many things happen in between faith and the reality of our daily lives that require me to daily “let go & let God” and some days that commitment to faith doesn’t even last until I’ve gotten out of bed (I think there’s a story about a prayer that end’s with “I think I’m going to really need your help today because I’m just about to get out of bed”)

I had a good week last week with my grandchildren – spent a lot of time on the deck watching them play in the pool and with their friends. Of course they often had small problems where grandpa had to intervene and help them – As you watch them play and think about what lies ahead in their lives you wish that you could be sure that they have only good things – that you could shield them from the drugs and pornography and criminal behaviors that a selfish “me” oriented society will put in front of them. Of course I know that is impossible -- what I need is the faith that let’s me pass on God’s wisdom to shape and guide their behavior.

Last week seemed like a week of reminders that faith isn’t a “vaccination” against bad things.

On Wednesday, Richard H. (see story about their anniversary a few weeks back) had a very unfortunate incident where he hit the accelerator rather than the brake while maneuvering out of a parking spot. Before it was over he had had an “encounter of the worst kind” with 5 parked vehicles. This was devastating to him as he had a very good driving record and he couldn’t understand how this had happened. While he was thankful that no one was hurt, when I talked to him Sunday he was still struggling with all the concerns that flood in and make it difficult to just let it go and move on with trust in God to work it out for good.

Friday, Mark Seeler experienced a heart attack – he seems to be recuperating but it reminds us all of our mortality. Mark had been a big part of getting the classrooms fixed up and was planning on more work around the building later on. His wife Sharon is spearheading the Children’s activity day planned for the 17th. We praise God that this wasn’t more serious. We pray for the wisdom to see ways to help them through this and that God will bless the plans for Saturday despite this setback. but we have to admit that it makes us wonder Why? …

Saturday, Florence Ward (Russ’s mother) also experienced a heart attack, She is one of these “ageless” seniors who never quits – always wanting to do something to help others
Then , we found out yesterday that Barb Hotchkiss has to have major surgery as soon as a slot is available in London Ontario.

Finally, on top of all that, Nick – who had been overcoming his past addictions and criminal behaviors and building a relationship with Jesus through faith -- was overcome by his demons and is now in custody for cocaine possession. How it hurts when we see people fail – can we understand that his failings are similar in nature to our own lapses – a lack of faith – albeit – the consequences may be more severe. We pray that he won’t give up on Jesus and that we won’t give up on him.

The gap between what we know is true about God’s love and care for us and how we behave in the face of life’s realities is real and sometimes very large – thank God for his grace, which helps us through these lapses in faith and for the renewal and the strengthening of faith that often comes as a result.

Well on to another week. I’m hope to have my high(er) speed INTERNET access set by tomorrow evening and that may help me be a little more regular in making these entries

God Bless
Charlie & Linda

Lucky or Good or…?

When we were working on the class room project we discovered that Mark Seeler has a number of sayings that he likes to use. Early in the project he had cut some door casings too short for the door he was working on. When he got down to the last door he was out of long pieces and he thought he would have to splice it together out of shorter pieces but it turned out the last door was enough shorter that the one he had cut too short was just right for it. He said “I’d rather be lucky than good anyday. Now when it comes to working on trim he is very good but that doesn’t take away from the pleasure we feel when something we did that seemed to be a mistake works out in the end.

In any case, I was reminded of this saying this morning. We are in Aurora Illinois “grandparent-sitting” with Tammye & the kids while Chris is away on a supervisory training course related to his new job as a Sergeant on the Aurora police force.

This morning while we were having coffee on the deck before Tammye left for work I said “So do you have any repairs or fix-up projects that I could do for you while I’m here?”. She said that their oven still wasn’t working. When we were here in February Chris said he thought it was the ignitor but he had gotten a new one and put it in and it still wasn’t working.

Now I am fairly good at troubleshooting and repairing appliances as long as it doesn’t get too deeply into the electronics. However; I don’t have much experience with gas appliances. So I started to look at it. Without getting into too much detail the first lucky move was that I decided to pull it out from the wall to see if I could see anything there. It turns out that these appliances are generally designed to be serviced from the front so I might not have done that if I was “good” with gas. The second piece of luck was that when I saw there wasn’t anything back there I decided we might as well clean the floor before putting it back. The third piece of luck was that while I was doing that I found this little small plastic handle that Linda looked at and saw writing that said ”Off when down”. The 4th piece of luck was that there was an envelop taped to the back that had a schematic showing how the oven igniter worked and showed a picture of an oven gas shutoff valve that had a small handle to turn it on and off.

I located this valve by removing the oven drawer and sure enough the handle was missing. It is a spring loaded valve so it had closed which explained why the oven wouldn't light. The tough part was that it in the back corner at the top. I could barely get my hands on it and I couldn’t see it and touch it at the same time.

If I had been “good” I probably would have disconnected the gas lines and removed the part but I really didn’t want to do that. So I came up with this scheme of using a loop of fishing line to pull the valve out so I return the handle to the slot in the valve. After about 5 tries, 15 minutes later I managed to drop the handle into place. The oven is now working fine and so I say along with Mark “I’d rather be lucky than good any day.”

We made good time on the trip yesterday despite a slow start --We left house shortly after one and pulled out of the US side of the bridge plaza onto I-75 an hour later(This is a distance of less than 5 miles we usually expect it to take 15 to 20 minutes. The US border checks had traffic backed up well over half way across the bridge although once we got there we were waved past with very little delay. We arrived here 8 hours after we got on I-75 which is about 30 minutes less than average so it worked out. Probably most of the time was gained because we didn’t stop to eat – we grabbed some wraps at Subway and took turns driving while the other ate. But the other thing was that the usual traffic jams along the south end of Lake Michigan and on the Tri-state didn’t materialize.

The expanded I-Pass lanes at the tool booths really seem to be helping on the Tri-state. Of course the incentive of charging twice as much for cash as that for those using the I-pass transponders has really increased the use of automated toll collection which means a much smaller number of vehicles that need to even slow down . For us out-of towner’s it has doubled our cost to use I-294 & I-88 but we have little choice unless we want to spend 3 hours in stop & go traffic .instead of 45 minutes on the toll road.

So were we lucky on the trip or not? I’m not so sure—in fact I wonder sometimes what luck really means – when things don’t work – even when there is a strong ”causal” relationships to our choices or our “clumsiness” we blame it on “bad” luck. When things go well we may either take credit because of our “brilliance” or we may say it was ”good luck” or we may credit it to God's looking out for us. What do others think – Do you feel lucky?

God Bless
Charlie & Linda