My Happiest Place on Earth

We just returned from a pretty amazing trip to Disneyland.  Angela enjoyed many special moments, our kids were in awe, and I restrained myself to only eating four churos!  We experienced some magical moments alongside some very real meltdowns (a couple by me).  All in all, it was a great trip... one for the history books.  We were spoiled like crazy with VIP status throughout our entire stay which gave us access to the front of every line and reserved seating at all the big shows.  We were met at the airport and returned promptly by the Williams', Patti, and Kelly (our new and gracious SoCal friends).  On top of that, friends and family blessed us with gifts that allowed us to do the entire trip for free.  I'm normally a scrooge, but the purse strings were open on this trip.  We stayed in the premier hotel which allowed us to simply walk right into the park and easily return for naps and breaks.  We are still a bit overwhelmed with all of the love and perks we received!

All of that being said, what I am most looking forward to is our gathering this Sunday.  Call me crazy, but the happiest place on Earth for me takes place with our Church family every Sunday morning at 10:00am.  I struggle to find words to describe the joy and hope that fills my life when we gather together.  I love seeing familiar faces and meeting new ones. I love knowing what good things have happened in our lives during the week and then together raising our hands in worship and gratitude.  My faith is strengthened when I see a loved one going through a difficult time and then joining with their Church family to worship, pray, and support one another.  I love seeing the little kids running around before, after, and sometimes, during ;) our gathering.  I love that we get to sing songs of our faith, words of praise, and posture our lives with a heart of worship.  I love that we take time to catch-up, pray, cry, and laugh together.  I love the moment that we open God's Word together... this moment always humbles me as I think, "Wow! All of these people got up on a sunny Sunday morning to surrender to God through His Son, His Spirit, His Word, and His Church!  We could be sleeping in, going to the lake, cooking a big breakfast, or heading up the slopes, but God has our heart and He wants to speak to us today!"  I love the sense of family and community that is experienced.  I love the way that God works through us in the formal and informal ways of our gathering.  Sunday morning really is the highlight of my week.  I've missed the last two and I can't wait for this one!

The thing that has helped fill a bit of the void created by my absence from our Church family on Sundays has been facebook.  It sounds weird to say, but our Church facebook group has given me a connection through out the week to our Church family.  It has helped me stay up to date on the lives of our Church family, informed me of prayer requests, given me things to praise God for, strengthened my patience when Jim or Chris post six of the same things :),  and encouraged me through others sharing what God has been speaking to them.  I was really encouraged by Val's journey this week as shared in our facebook group.  I was also encouraged by a scripture that Elisa posted on her own wall.  Thank you to everyone who is a part of this group.  Thank you for patience when sometimes it feels like you're being spammed.  Thank you for supporting one another through out the week with your encouragement, input, and support.  Thank you for taking it from the virtual world and applying it in the real world through prayer, physical help, and face-to-face support (still very much needed in life).

I hope I get to see you this Sunday.  I am eagerly anticipating our gathering.

Princess Ruby

This family is leaving for Disneyland tomorrow!  We are pretty excited.  It's been about 10 years since either Angela or myself last visited the happiest place on Earth.  It will be the first for our kids.  Many friends, family, and friends of friends have blessed us with this trip.  One friend hooked us up with the President of Disneyland so we'll get VIP seating/access and even a VIP Park Guide to guide us through the park.  We are 'just a bit' overwhelmed with everyone's love and support.

Last night, Ruby had a massive melt down over her princess dress.  One of the extras of this trip is a princess makeover (kill me now) for Ruby.  Needless to say, she's quite excited.  She envisioned herself entering the park each day in her princess dress.  Angela had made her one for either Halloween or a birthday party.  However, Ruby had it in her head that she needed an official Belle, Cinderella, or some other character's official dress.  The tears and "woe is me's" were a flowing.  After a quiet time and a perspective talk with her overly pragmatic father she came back to reality.  Then, this morning I went to take out the trash and saw a couple presents sitting at our front door.  One was for Ruby and the other for Charlie.  Charlie opened his and found a Woody (from Toy Story) costume.  Ruby opened hers and found an official Cinderella dress.  The gifts came from a friend who had no idea about the "need" for an official dress or last night's melt down.  I'm not sure what Ruby prayed about last night, but I hope this doesn't create a genie lamp view of God. :)

While there's lots of temporary good things on the mind right now, I've also been moved this week for the nine year old boy that was hit by a car last week.  Although they live in Aldergrove, he and his mom have attended our Church gatherings in the past.  Our Church has been praying for them and each day little miracles have happened.  One night, his mom prayed that upon her return in the morning he'd open his eyes.  The next morning, five minutes after her arrival, he did!   From being in a coma at BC Children's Hospital ICU to only a week later playing tricks on the nurses, his recovery has been steady and miraculous.  There are still lots of issues, including brain damage, so we must continue to pray for him.  In addition to our prayers, know that our Church is also sending a gift to help with their everyday expenses.

This gift comes from our Church being in a healthy financial place.  Thank you to all of our Church family that have given in faith over the past two years to get us to this place.  As a Church family we now look to grow in financial health so that we can not only continue to be a help to those in need, but increase our health and love!

We are also praying for a family connected to both a Church in Langley and one of our Church members that has a 10 month old twin with a cancerous tumour on his liver.  He is going through chemo and eventually surgery. Their Church has been very supportive of them and I'd love for our Church to join with them in praying for healing and strength.

All of this makes me think of how naive I was in my thinking a decade ago.  I thought I was so strong and self-sufficient.  Yet the journey God has graced me with has revealed my significant weakness, my need for His grace in Jesus, and His love as given through family, friends, and the Church.  God is good even though I act in ignorance, arrogance, and disobedience.

I also have to give a special shout out to my employers, the College and Church.  Over the past three months they have been overwhelmingly gracious and generous.  Between all the medical appointments, support for Angela, and help with our kids, I have had to scale back my work responsibilities.  There has also been times where I've been physically present, but emotionally absent.  In these times, other staff, students, and volunteers have helped to fill in the gaps by either taking on my responsibilities or extending patience.  Both the College and Church have been very patient with me, allowing for less productivity while continuing to provide for our family.  So, from our family to Pacific Life Bible College and Parkside Church, thank you!

I have also been meaning to respond to last Sunday's inter-Church worship and prayer night.  About double the number from the Fall gathering attended this one (about 40-50 folks).  I want us to work towards seeing this as a priority in our calendars.  It's good for us, the Kingdom, and our City, to gather in unity.  Thank you to Doug Dunbar of North Valley Baptist Church for organizing this initiative and hosting it!  I would love to see this grow to a place where Sunday's attendance of all the Churches in Mission is matched at this inter-Church event.  Can you imagine all of Mission's Christ followers joined together in worship and prayer!  We've been praying for more of neighbours to come to faith in Christ, for greater participation in the life of every local Church, and for an increase of finances.

Have a great weekend and week.  The next time you will most likely hear from me will be a week from now.  Continue to pray for your MY5!


Thanks to Katy of www.picturemefoto.com for taking our photo!

Death, Hospitals, and Disneyland

Another interesting week filled with all kinds of experiences.

• Sunday: We started off the week off with an encouraging gathering at Church.
• Monday: Worked at PLBC, really felt privileged to be praying for my "MY5", and had a good council meeting in the evening.
• Tuesday: Went to a naturopath doctor with Angela, heard my grandfather graduated to Heaven, and worked in the evening.
• Wednesday: met with the one and only Geoff Stewart, taught some great students at the College, and worked in the evening.
• Thursday: went with Angela for tests, completed a cancer counselling session, and then worked again.
• Friday: sat in the hospital all day with Angela for her procedure.
• Saturday: worked, had a nice family visit with Christina Williams, and then had dinner at the Parson's.

Grandpa Nelson
On Tuesday, I received word that my grandfather graduated to Heaven.  He has joined his wife in receiving his reward in Christ.  I'm really happy for him.  I took the above photo about ten years ago of his old shop and even though he hadn't lived on the farm for some time at that point, one of his old sweater jackets was still hanging up.

Grandpa Nelson was man's man.  He grew up in the prairies, was a farmer, served in the tank corps, became a welder, and raised six kids.  He could build and fix anything (although it never looked pretty). I wish I had a picture of his homemade cider press to demonstrate this.

I grew up on his farm, spending many Saturdays hanging out with him as he puttered around the barns and shop.  When I was younger, I'd sit on his lap or wheel well of the tractor and watch him go about his work. In my teen years, I was the one operating the tractor and he was the one yelling, "whoah, whoah, hey, hey, hey!!"  He would do various hand signals and assume that others knew what they meant.  For the odd job, he'd actually pay me to do tasks. I called them nickel jobs because that's about how much he'd pay me.

He knew how to hunt (usually from his back porch) and skin a deer. He knew how make some pretty tasty and spicy deer sausage too.  Although sometimes a batch of it would get lot in one his freezers and then turn up 15 years later.

One of his fingers was a knob (I think it was from a chainsaw accident).  It always scared me as a little kid and I would steal glances at it. Later in life, I came to respect it... especially when it worked to his advantage in crokinole.

The house I grew up in was about 1km through the woods from his and we always joked that even though he was on the phone, we could hear him with out it. He was an exceptionally loud talker on the phone. His calls were often accompanied by panicked pacing and head scratching.

I observed that he lived life in one of three modes: 1) chuckling; 2) panicking; or 3) crying.  Grandpa's chuckle was usually due to the cute and light side of life (telling a funny story, observing his dog, or watching his grand kids goof around). His panicking was due a lack of patience and a great desire to fix a problem as fast as possible (I wouldn't want him in charge of the 'red button' during a war).  His crying was due to moments of clarity where he saw his failures and weaknesses in light of Jesus and the many blessings bestowed upon him by God.

Some of my favorite memories include drinking water with him from an ice cream bucket, watching hockey games on Saturday nights, getting candy from his lazy boy compartment, watching him shower his food with "No-Salt", and hearing him start up his brake-less motorbike, hear it backfire along the road, then pull up unannounced to our house (he would use a stick to help stop the bike).

My least favorite memories include the time he volunteered to cut my hair with his rusty electric razor. I was hesitant, but my mom reassured me it would be okay.  It started out painful and then I knew it was bad when, through my tears, I saw a clump of hair attached to skin along with some blood.  I was young, but I seem to remember my mom stepping in and offering to finish it at home.  I still laugh and cringe thinking about that.  Then there was the time he caught me starting a "controlled" fire in his garage.  He wasn't very happy about that.  I can't blame him either.  He helped stop a number of our childhood fires.

I could probably write a book about my memories of him.  However, the most significant impact he and my grandma had on me and my family was their sincere love for Jesus and their service to the Kingdom.  He will be missed, but His legacy lives on!

Naturopath Visit
On Tuesday we went to see a naturopath doctor that specializes in cancer.  It was worth going to ease the mind of all options, but didn't offer too much different news.  His recommendation was to eat very healthy (i.e. whole grains and vegetables) and to go to Germany for chemo.  In Germany the have a clinic that dispenses chemo simultaneously with heating up the body.  In short, the heating process helps the chemo be more effective towards cancer.  He offered a few other options as well, but nothing that significantly increased her timeline or comfort.

Other Hospital Visits
Thursday, we saw the oncologist again and she didn't offer any different news.  Friday, we were at the hospital again as Angela had portacath installed.  The device is installed under her skin and connects to a vein much closer to the heart. It will help future chemo rounds have less side effects on the blood vessels in her arms.  The side effects of chemo on her vessels were already realized before the procedure as it took the nurses five tries to get an IV connected.  Angela was a good sport in spite of a hard day.  I think we need to buy shares in impark to get something back from the hours we've spent on hospital parking lots.

Disneyland
On a more fun note, we've also been planning a trip in February to Disneyland.  We had some friends of Angela's family give us our flights and hotel.  We feel so blessed and loved.  We are very grateful.  Ruby is excited.  Charlie doesn't know what is going to hit him.  Angela can't wait to share this experience with them.

That's been our week in a nutshell.  Thank you for your prayers and love.