Friday Mashup

August is almost half over! Summer is going by too quickly. Starting next week things ramp up for me at Pacific Life Bible College as we get ready for another year of equipping leaders for service to the local Church. It looks like we'll have the largest freshman class in our history so there will be lots of enthusiasm and lots of work!

On Saturday we headed over to my Aunt & Uncle's in Coquitlam for a Nelson family reunion. It was a great day filled with eating good food, swimming, and connecting with wonderful people. Angela and I consider ourselves super blessed because of the families we have. They are a family who have supported us so much with kind words, prayer, and fasting.  During the first leg of our journey with Angela's cancer I don't think there was a day that went by where one of our relatives wasn't praying and fasting for us. Many signed up for their 'day of the week' and are starting back up again for this next leg. Due to schedules and proximity we don't get to see each all that much, but when we do it is so much fun.

I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed our gathering on Sunday. Tony always does such a great job in leading our Church family in worship through song. Our kids had a blast in nursery and Sunday School. The Vanson's rocked the continental breakfast and I enjoyed interviewing Calvin W. I love hearing people's stories.

On Monday some friends and I surprised Angela with a small birthday party at the Hersey's. It was a fun evening filled with more good food, more swimming, and some karaoke! Mark and Katy are such gracious hosts and we were blessed to celebrate Angela's 30th birthday with such nice and loving people.

On Tuesday, Angela had a nice birthday lunch with her parents and then I "cooked" dinner... we had Prawn Garden (best Chinese in Mission), McDonald's, and slurpees. The kids thought they had died and gone to Heaven... so did I...

Wednesday night was filled with more nice people and good food. We spent the entire dinner laughing at our parents and their struggles with technology (sorry, Mom and Dad). When our friend's mom got her first laptop, she opened it up and then proceeded to speak slowly and loudly, "Email Linda".  When the computer didn't do anything, she repeated herself. This went on for a while until her kids broke it to her that it didn't recognize voice commands. We reminisced about watching our parents painfully figure out how to use a debit card... hoping they could find the chequing account button before the system timed out. I could go on, but it's a bit painful.

In my spare hours I'm working on taking apart an upright piano and converting it to be my home office desk. The monitors will go in the upper cabinet part and the keyboard will go in between the keys. It's proving to be more difficult than anticipated. Getting the cast-iron harp part of the piano out is a pain.

Today we have the annual Foursquare Invitational golf tournament at Redwoods in Langley. There's nothing like golfing for work! Angela's going away with a couple friends till Sunday morning so I'm on kid duty. We are going to weed on Saturday. Ruby is not excited. Charlie can't wait to use all the shovels.

I hope you have a great weekend filled with God's grace and power!

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.

Monday Morning Thoughts

I really enjoyed Sunday's gathering.  Karin and team did a great job of leading us in worship.  Catherine hit it out of the park with her message on Heaven.  I had lots of great conversations with great people both before and after the service... I love our Church family.  I am grateful for the work Jesus has done, is doing, and has yet to do, in and through us.

Some thoughts that struck me from Catherine's message on Sunday:

• Is Heaven a never-ending Church service?
• Success in our goals comes from clarity of vision.
• Ps. 16:11 (NIV) "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."
• Jesus is the master chef and is preparing a feast... I am drooling already.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait until Heaven!  New body, complete fulfillment/pleasure, complete love, no sin, no fear, everything good, and everything God.  God is good!

This morning we have CRA coming in to do an audit for the year 2009.  Usually the word audit sends shivers down the average person's spine, but I'm looking forward to it.  It's a chance to measure our fiscal operations.  It's a chance to affirm those in the office on the great work they do week in, week out.  It's a great opportunity to let another person that God created and died for know about the love and salvation we have in Christ.

I arrived home from Calgary at about 1:00am on Sunday.  The van ride with the Parson's was a good time.  I enjoyed talking with Dave.  I told a few lies to their kids so that I could get out of watching Hannah Montana (told them I was allergic to it and my ears swell).

Spent last night playing with my kids.  I play "Russia the Bear" where I growl and drool fiercely as they scream and run away (pretending to be squirrels).  It usually ends up with both of them riding me like a horse at the end, then I flop on the floor and "sleep" for ten minutes.  Angela and I watched a movie last night called The Fighter.  It was okay.  It was good to spend time with them after being away for four days.

I work at the college this week.  It's exam and graduation week, so it will be busy and fun.

Family Fun in the Snow!

I hope you took some time to have fun in the snow this week (because we don't get it very often).  This week our family went out and had some fun shoveling ours and some of our neighbour's driveways and sidewalks (my muscles are still store).  It was a lot of fun to watch Charlie (one year old son) struggle in his straight-jacket of a snowsuit... he loved every minute of it.  Ruby had fun "shoveling" and making snow angels.  At one point she asked me, "Dad, how did you get so good at shoveling?"  To which I replied,  "many years of hard and long days of back breaking labour."  She then asked me to remove all the snow from our backyard so that she could ride her bike.  Angela had fun taking pictures with a camera that didn't have its memory card it in :)

A number of families last Sunday afternoon hit Griner Hill for some good times sledding (see photo above; taken by Jim Watson).  If you want to see the before photo (looks of terror as they careen down the hill) you'll need to check out this Sunday's Newsletter.

Why Your Church Doesn't Feel Like A Family

Watch this video... however, it still doesn't give us an excuse to ignore our call to be generous, hospitable people :)

Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

Last night I decided to make today the unofficial bring your daughter to work day.  So at 6:30am Ruby and I headed out the door to work.  She did a great job of retrieving documents from the printer, reminding me to take breaks and eat cookies, as well as brightening up the office.  She made it until 1:00pm and then was ready to have Mommy pick her up.  Today has been a great day.

A Grandma With Faith

My Grandma died on Sunday, August 15, 2010.  She was the ideal Grandma... full of patience, love, and faith.  Although we miss her, we are also excited that she is with her Savior and now knows no struggles.  At her memorial service I read a poem she wrote and I hope it inspires you in the same way it inspired me.

Lord, take possession of my every thought
A heart of contentment, sympathy and love
for Thee be wrought.

May I look up, not down,
forward, not back,
out, not in.
You choose work for each of us
with your insight from within,

Your finger beckons me on & up.
You plan each drop that fills my daily cup.
Events of my life are in your hands, I say.
Appoint them in thine own best way.

May grace be given that I may walk therein,
on the path of duty that is shown so plain.
Doing His will as if it were my own,
Yet trusting not in mine, but in your strength alone.

You hold my hand & fears grow still,
I behold your face & yield my will.
To perfect truth & boundless love
Help me abide in the vine of my Father above.

-Kathleen Nelson, 2000

Soccer and the Heart of God

With the World Cup around the corner I've got soccer on my brain... so I enrolled my daughter in it to live out my unfulfilled childhood dreams of being the next Pele (I'm getting old... Beckham wasn't around then).  What I have discovered is that one of the side benefits of taking her to soccer practice is getting to know new people in our community.  Between working for a Bible College and a Church, I don't get to see very many 'outsiders' :)  So, I am enjoying meeting new people and allowing God's Spirit to lead and love as best as I can let Him.

Family is Good/God Thing

Last weekend we spent a few days on Vancouver Island preparing for the wedding of my youngest sister.  We had 9 adults and 5 kids (3 of which are under six months; one 3 year old; and one 2 year old) living in my parent's house for four days... while getting things ready and set-up for a wedding.  Needless to say, there wasn't a dull moment.  In fact, at times it was pure chaos, but it was also a lot of fun.  Reflecting on that time makes me believe even more that family is a God-thing and that because God is good, whatever He designs is good.

It seems tragic to me that family is for many people, the place where the most pain and misery exists.  Those that we love most can also hurt us the most.  Sins such as selfishness, pride, bitterness, unforgiveness, and envy are usually at the core of most relational hurt.  And that's why God hates sin... it brings death (a form of which is relational destruction).

The Good News is still Jesus!  When we follow Him (he connects us to the Father who designed us and the healthy way to live life) everything in life turns good.  Please don't interpret the good life as easy because it's actually harder (especially at the outset) to live a life that pleases God in today's world.  As we trust God by following His plan for life our relationships with others will grow and our families will become sources of joy, support, and life!

We can apply this to not only our biological family, but our spiritual family, the church!  My prayer is that both our biological and spiritual families will be a source of light for God's design and goodness.  May our neighbours see health in our homes.  May our community find a safe and life giving place in our church family.  May we live with less of us and more of Jesus.

"Family Hockey Night" a Ton of Fun!

Tonight we had our first family hockey night and it was a lot of fun.  Just over 40 came out to play an hour of noodle hockey (frustrating, but filled with a lot of laughs) and then an hour of ball hockey... man, am I out of shape!  Special thanks to Dave P. and the Clark's for organizing this night.

Scary Santa Claus

There is something about big old men in bright red suits that is scary (just ask our two year old daughter)!  From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!

And Then There Was Four!

On Saturday Angela gave birth to a beautiful boy!  We are overwhelmed and excited.  If it wasn't for Char (who helped with the labour) and Angela's mom (who watched Ruby and now is third set of hands [much needed]) I don't know how we could do it... I guess that's why we need friends and family!  We are grateful for everyone's prayers, support, and kind words!