Uncle Nick

It's a cloudy, rainy day and I am having a hard time focussing on the work I should be doing.  God  has really been putting an uncle of Henry's on my heart.  He shared such a beautiful testimony with me at a family campout 2 or 3 years back.  I had been visiting in Lethbridge and Henry's parents were bringing me to the airport in Calgary.  On the way, we stopped where his dad's siblings were camping and that is where I heard Uncle Nick's story or testimony.  I was so moved.  Then last fall Uncle Nick & Auntie Ann came to visit when they were in Kelowna.  We had such a good visit and he ended up sharing his story with both of us.  I am so glad to have heard it not once, but twice...how God became so real to him.  I was just as moved the second time.  Who knew then what this past year would bring because he is now dying from cancer...such a cruel disease.

I am thinking today of a song he said we should listen to because he thought it was so good and one he loved.  I do remember looking for it and listening after they left. Today I was trying to remember and find it and I am pretty sure this is the one.  What really whacked me is not only the words but that the singer in this song passed away from leukemia a few years ago. The song really moved me today.
 http://youtu.be/pj--TuTkjuY

And so I find myself praying this day for uncle Nick, auntie Ann & their whole family.  God has really put them on my heart.  Maybe God has put him on my heart so much because his story reminds me of my own story.  Maybe I'll share that another time.

Who are the people in your neighbourhood?

We're pulling weeds and filling the green bin (compost recycling)  and some neighbours that live behind and over a couple of houses walk by and stop to chat.  He has either an Australian or New Zealand accent and is super friendly. Their little girl, Alexis, has the cutest red curly hair!  He checks our bin and tells us "good, you are taking the dirt off the weeds".  Turns out he is one of the guys that picks up these bins!  We've met several people in the neighbourhood who all do jobs that we see.  Our mail lady lives down the street and around the corner.  Another neighbour runs a snowplow that comes through here in the winter.  The guy 2 houses down is a fireman, his wife is a nurse and now this neighbour picks up the green bins and his wife is also a nurse.  I wonder who else we might meet.  Makes me think of the song, "Who are the people in your Neighbourhood" from Sesame Street  :)

While we are talking to our neighbour, his phone rings and it turns out it is his grandma calling from Saskatchewan.  He shows us his phone and there is his grandma on the screen. He tells her he will be home shortly and will skype her.  Then he tries to introduce me on his phone and she tells him, "you don't have your camera on".  Too funny!   Apparently she is like 86 or 87 and is very computer savvy.  Whoa...I think I'd better get with the program and learn how to do some of that stuff!  If she can do it, I should be able to  :)

Ensenada

Funny how the random direction of a conversation can take you to places you had not thought about for a while.  Talk with a few people after our church service this morning went from someone needing a table & chairs to moving furniture to unique ways of moving that furniture to someone else having moved a pile of mattresses on top of a van from Ensenada to Tijuana, Mexico.

 Ensenada...that jogged a memory!  Henry and I were part of a team on a mission trip there with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) back in 2000.  The team included one of our sons. Our team built 2 houses for families in Ensenada.  An awesome experience!  It was that trip where God really began to grow in me a passion for prayer.  I saw an incredible answer to prayer when all of the team leaders and YWAM staff prayed together for the 3 year old daughter of the leader of another team, after she was seriously injured in a fall at an orphanage nearby. It was a powerful time of prayer...one I won't forget. 
 

 

It is good to remember once again how God was already working way back then to prepare us for what we are involved in now. 


I will never, ever  forget this sight.  At one of our house dedications the youngest team ever (grade 6) to come to the base was signing to the song "Shout to the Lord"  standing on the hillside above the house.  The presence of God was so powerful!  I picture them every time we sing this song! This was the team that almost went home because of that little girl's accident, also the team that many of the high school age kids did not think should be there at first.  Yet this was the team that ended up ministering to us all during that trip in a very powerful way!!





We added a Canadian touch which the kids of the family loved...there were 7 of them!



on an aside...Henry got a ticket for going too fast over a speed bump...yup, a speed bump, on our last full day there.  Thankfully we had the translator in our van but there were a few tense moments.  We were worried Henry would get thrown in jail or something because we did not know what he was stopping us for.  Once the policeman found out we were Canadian and what we were doing, he was actually pretty nice.  We did have to pool all of our money to pay the ticket though.  Good thing we had some money on us as we were on our way to a market area...and the ticket was not US dollars but Mexican...whew!



Saturday

Henry and I worked on our back yard today.  We are finally ready for some sod.  Imagine that, soon there will be green grass instead of the dirt we have been looking at for the past year and a half!  I am so excited!  We got some much appreciated help from friends...one of the blessings of this day!

Most of the plants in the borders were planted in late spring or early summer.  Some of the plants are blooming for the first time.  I love this time of year in the garden.

Bits & Pieces

This blog is about the bits and pieces that make up my life; from the ordinary, everyday, simple things to possibly the extraordinary.  All the bits & pieces that together make a whole.  A quilt is put together from bits & pieces to make something beautiful.  Looking at the right side is beauty, but the back side of the unfinished top can be messy.  Our lives are a work in progress...there is beauty, there is mess...there is laughter, there are tears...but all together the bits & pieces make us who we are. 

Bits & pieces of fabric waiting to be cut up and put together.  Endless possibilities...
Bits & pieces from life, the ordinary to the not so ordinary.  Endless possibilities...