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Why in the world did they keep THAT?

/ edebock / 2 Comments

This is without a doubt the funniest thing we’ve found while cleaning out my parents’ apartment! Do you have any idea what it is?

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In the winter of 1975-76, my father fell on the ice and broke his hip resulting in a partial hip replacement. The surgery wasn’t entirely successful and he endured many years of chronic pain before it was redone. This was his first prosthetic implant! I have absolutely no idea why he kept it but like many people of his generation, he had a hard time throwing things away. When my sister and brother were here a couple of weeks ago, they found income tax receipts dating back to 1948, the year my parents were married!

Needless to say, sorting through everything our parents accumulated over nine decades of life and 65 years of marriage has been somewhat overwhelming. It’s difficult not to get sidetracked as we sift through the memories. Dad’s extensive collection of Inuit art, purchased directly from the artists in the various northern communities that he traveled to during his years of working for the government of the Northwest Territories, already went back to Alberta with my siblings but we’ve found other bits of art that they obviously treasured too; cards and drawings made for them by now grown grandchildren and carefully kept all these years!

Reminders of their world travels are scattered throughout the apartment. Today I came across a list of the 66 countries that they visited written on the back of an envelope. I also found the itinerary for their tour of China taken almost 30 years ago, so similar to the trip we took just 3 months ago. The old slide projector and boxes full of slides also went home with my sister. I look forward to looking at their pictures and comparing their experience to our own.

Yes, it’s easy to become nostalgic and to get caught up in reminiscing but we’re working against a deadline here and I’m beginning to panic! The apartment has to be completely cleaned out by the end of the month and I have to be back in Alberta for a medical appointment on November 1. I also have a huge urge to clean out my own stuff when I get there! Otherwise, someday our children will be doing exactly what we’re doing now and asking the very same question:

Why in the world did they keep THAT?

One in a million!

/ edebock / 7 Comments

I received an email this morning telling me that I’m one in a million!

“Kiva just hit the 1 MILLION lender mark! You are now officially one in a million inspiring changemakers, pioneers, and poverty fighters! We can’t thank you enough for helping Kiva get to this point.”

Since I don’t want every post I write to be about living with cancer, perhaps it’s time for another one about this amazing organization. I first learned about Kiva in 2010 when I read the eye opening book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows a person to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in one of 72 countries around the world. Though Kiva provides loans to both men and women, I choose to lend to women who are borrowing money to purchase specific items that they will use to generate income to help them support their families and educate their children.

Since March 2010 when I made my first loan to Rann Sar, a Cambodian mother of four who wanted to purchase two cows to begin a breeding program, I have invested in a variety of livestock, numerous sewing machines, some hairdressing tools, two restaurant refrigerators, two stoves and a portable food stall like the ones we saw on the streets in China. But how can $25 purchase a cow or a stove? It can’t. Many lenders pool their resources to fund each loan.

Over the past three and a half years, I have made a total of 22 loans but I’ve only invested $125. How is that possible? As each borrower makes a monthly payment on her loan, my share of that payment is deposited in my Kiva account and I receive an email notifying me of my updated balance. I could withdraw the money at any time but instead, as soon as my balance reaches $25, I search the Kiva database and choose another woman to lend to. I can’t begin to tell you how excited that makes me! This truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

I recently heard it said that people around the world are praying for things that we take for granted. That really impacted me. We are so blessed and we take so much for granted. With Thanksgiving just around the corner (this weekend in Canada and next month in the US), perhaps this is the perfect time to think about helping someone else achieve their dream, feed their family or send their children to school. It’s as easy as clicking on the logo below or the Kiva banner in my sidebar and investing $25!

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Apron prayers

/ edebock / 8 Comments

When we directed Vacation Bible School a couple of weeks ago, we taught the children to fold their hands and close their eyes when we prayed; not because there’s any magic in these things but because folded hands are less likely to get into trouble and closed eyes shut out distraction.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “pray continually” but how do we do that? How can we make prayer an integral part of our busy everyday lives? Obviously, we can’t sit around all day with our hands folded and our eyes closed!

I have been humbled and quite overwhelmed by the response to my last post. Promises to pray for us as we walk this road called cancer have flowed in from around the world! I especially loved one friend’s practical approach. “I’ll put your name in my apron pockets,” she told me and went on to explain that she wears an apron at work and reaches into it’s deep pockets many times throughout the day. When she wants to remember a specific prayer request, she writes it on little pieces of paper and puts them in her apron pockets. As she finds them throughout the day, she stops what she’s doing for a  few moments and prays!

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How do you remember to pray?

Kids helping kids

/ edebock / 5 Comments

We went on our second Mission to MARS this week!

That’s right! Two years ago, on the island of Saipan, we directed a Vacation Bible School program with an outer space theme. This week, we brought the same program, Mission to MARS (Meet A Risen Savior), to our own local church. Every morning approximately 30 excited children between the ages of 5 and 12 gathered for games, crafts, songs and Bible stories.

One of the verses that they learned was 1 Chronicles 16:29 which speaks of bringing an offering. With this in mind, we wanted to incorporate a Missions project that the children could identify with and contribute to throughout the week.

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The escalating civil war in Syria has left an increasing number of families in chaos. According to the United Nations, an estimated two million refugees have fled into Lebanon, Jordan, and surrounding countries while more than four million people have been displaced within the country itself.  Schools across Syria are closing as children and families flee dangerous areas, and the public schools in Lebanon and Jordan are overcrowded. They simply can’t continue to absorb the number of refugee children who are flowing in. Many Syrian children have already lost a year of school due to violence and transition.

The Church of the Nazarene runs four schools in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. These schools are in neighborhoods where Syrian refugees and internally displaced people are struggling to survive but they can’t operate without funding. Many displaced, traumatized families have little or no income and are unable to pay school fees.

With the beginning of a new school year just around the corner, this was an issue that our VBS kids were easily able to identify with and they amazed us with their compassion and generosity.

  • $400 will enroll a Syrian child in a Nazarene school for an entire year
  • $100 will provide books and clothes for the school year
  • $45 will support a child’s school fees for one month

My faith was small. When I made up the poster shown below, I set $100 as our goal for the week but with the help of the church’s mission committee who agreed to match the children’s offerings dollar for dollar, we surpassed that amount on Wednesday! I was going to add another column to the poster that evening but one of our older girls suggested that I’d better make that two. Even that wasn’t enough! After taking this morning’s offering and adding in the matching amount from the missions account (shown in teal on the poster), we had raised $335.10!

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In a country where we take so much for granted and where most children will soon go off to school wearing brand new clothes and carrying backpacks stuffed with shiny new supplies, it was gratifying to spend the week with kids whose hearts were touched by the plight of boys and girls in a faraway land whose lives have been uprooted by the tragedy of war.

Small talk

/ edebock / 2 Comments

After a two week hiatus, I’m finally back in the blogosphere! We spent part of that time enjoying Family Camp at Camp Harmattan, the Church of the Nazarene campsite  located between Olds and Sundre in southern Alberta. Down in the valley of the Little Red Deer River, we had no access to internet and I must admit that it was a nice break.

While telling his story, one of the speakers at camp made a statement that startled me. Dr. John Seaman and his wife, Linda, served on the mission field for 27 years. The last 17 of those years were spent in West Africa. John said that when he was elected to his present position of district superintendent of the Michigan District of the Church of the Nazarene, he felt completely overwhelmed. West Africa had become his comfort zone and Michigan was not!

That got me thinking. Over the past several years, we’ve stretched our comfort zones until, at times, it feels as if they have no boundaries. As I’ve thought about this over the past few days, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that my comfort zone has nothing to do with geography. I feel completely at home walking the streets of Asia but there are times right here at home when I struggle to step outside my comfort zone.

That’s where the book that I’m currently reading comes into play. I can stand in front of a class of any age in any part of the world and feel at home. I have no problem with public speaking as long as I’ve had time to prepare and I can put on a costume, even a very skimpy one, and act on stage before a full house but I dread social events where I’m required to mix and mingle. I’ve worked hard to overcome my incredibly shy nature but I still feel tongue tied and wish that I could disappear into thin air when I’m in a situation that requires conversation with people I don’t know well. I’m sure I often come across as a total snob! That’s why I’m hoping that The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine will help me stretch my comfort zone in a new direction.

booksFine begins her book with a “Winning at Small Talk” worksheet. If you find yourself responding no to more than a few of the questions, this book is for you, she says. I answered every question with a no!

“If you generally wait for someone else to take the initiative in a conversation, you have been self-centered,” she says in Chapter 2. Ouch! That would definitely be me.

The book is an easy read but putting it’s principles into practice will likely take a lot more effort. Fine suggests having a repertoire of icebreaking questions to use to engage someone else in conversation. I can’t actually see myself using many of the ones she suggests but maybe I should try “Have you ever read The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine?”

Do you have any favourite conversation starters?

Busy day in Beijing

/ edebock / 4 Comments

I prefer to blog as I travel while the images and impressions are fresh in my mind but our whirlwind tour of China didn’t allow time for that. Now that we’re home and recuperating from jet lag, I’ll do my best to recap for you over the next few days.

As we walked toward Tiananmen Square on our first morning in Beijing, I felt completely overwhelmed. Many times during our months in China, we commented on how surreal it felt to actually be living there but in early June of 1989 when tanks rolled into that square and mowed down hundreds of protesting students I couldn’t possibly have imagined that I might someday stand on that very spot. The exact number who died that day has never been officially confirmed. The reality of being there brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. When I mentioned my feelings to our tour guide, she quickly changed the subject pointing out the Great Hall of the People where the nation’s government meets, the China National Museum, the Monument to the People’s Heroes and the Mausoleum in the centre of the square where Chairman Mao’s embalmed body has lain in state since his death in 1976. I was later told that tour guides are not allowed discuss the Tiananmen massacre with foreigners.

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Tiananmen Square

Joining a throng of visitors, mostly Chinese, we passed beneath the gigantic portrait of Chairman Mao and through the Gate of Heavenly Peace into the Forbidden City. It was from high on this gate that Mao proclaimed the formation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949 and we truly felt that we were at the heart of the country.

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The Gate of Heavenly Peace

Our Beijing guide chose to pack too much into our first day there making our tour of the Forbidden City, so-called because it was off limits to the ordinary people for its first 500 years, a rushed one. Originally constructed over a 14 year period in the early 1400s when China’s third emperor, Zhu Di, moved his capital from Nanjing in the south to Beijing in the north, the Forbidden City is China’s largest and best-preserved complex of ancient buildings. We would have liked more time to explore it but fortunately, it is not unlike many other similar complexes that we’ve seen in Asia.

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in the Forbidden City

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Next on the day’s agenda was the Summer Palace, a huge park complete with gardens, pavilions, temples, bridges and man-made Kunming Lake. The soil that was excavated to form the lake was used to build Longevity Hill which overlooks it. The Summer Palace was vandalized during an Anglo-French invasion in 1860 but rebuilt in 1888 as a palatial summer resort for the Empress Dowager Cixi, also known as China’s Dragon Lady. She spared no expense even using money that was earmarked for a modern navy to build an enormous marble boat at the northern edge of the lake!

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Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill

Our third historical site for the day was the circular Temple of Heaven with its three levels representing God, the emperor and the people. Sally, who we dubbed the “reluctant tour guide”, dismissed it as unimportant because “we have no God anymore”. She told us that Mao gave the Chinese people “freedom from religion”. She didn’t appear to share the hunger for something to believe in that we sensed in many of the young Chinese that we were acquainted with.

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

Again, we would have liked to have had enough time to explore the peaceful park surrounding the temple but that was not to be. These are only a few of the highlights of a very busy day that ended with a Kung Fu show that was a fantastic combination of martial arts and dance.

In one way, we were very blessed while we were in Beijing. Did you notice the sky in the photos? Beijing is usually shrouded in heavy smog. It reaches such dangerously high levels that some people actually wear gas masks outdoors but just before we arrived, the air was cleansed by heavy rain and we enjoyed clear skies and unusually fresh air!

Spring… definitely worth waiting for!

/ edebock / 8 Comments

I’ve been waiting for spring ever since we arrived on campus at the end of February. It’s been like looking at a drab cocoon and waiting for the beautiful butterfly to emerge. Though the grass was brown and the trees were bare, we could see the potential for so much beauty.

Now, suddenly, spring is upon us and it’s even more beautiful than we imagined. It began a couple of weeks ago when the grass seemed to turn green overnight. Then the magnolia trees alongside one of the lecture halls burst into magnificent bloom. Before we left on last week’s holiday, I expected to see leaves on the trees when we got back and I wasn’t disappointed.

This afternoon, as we walked across campus on our way to pick up a few groceries at the supermarket, we recognized the unmistakable smell of lilacs in bloom. We soon found ourselves wandering parts of the campus that we hadn’t bothered with before! There were blossoms everywhere; bright splashes of red, white, pink, and vibrant purple. I wasn’t the only one with my camera out!

China’s on vacation

/ edebock / 8 Comments

Today was the first day of China’s annual three day Labor Day holiday but we get the whole week off so we boarded a plane early this afternoon and flew to Jinan, the capital city of Shandong province, southwest of Dalian. Jinan is nicknamed the City of Springs because of the vast number of artesian springs that are concentrated in the downtown district which is also circled by a moat.

Our hotel is located in the heart of that area but we had a little difficulty locating it because we didn’t realize that it’s located on the upper floors of a building with only an unassuming elevator entrance at street level. The streets were filled with people in a festive mood so it was easy to find someone to ask for help. I randomly chose Michael who turned out to be a first year university student studying tourism management. He was absolutely delighted to assist us, leading us up to the hotel lobby, helping us with the check-in procedure and walking us to our room. There, he gave us his cell phone number and suggested that we call him if we needed any more help or if we wanted him to act as our guide. He wanted nothing more than the opportunity to practice English with us.

After settling into our room, we headed out to explore the area on foot quickly discovering the moat directly across the street from our hotel and wandering along it until we arrived at the city’s central square which was one big party. It was crowded with people frolicking, flying kites, and shopping at the many booths that had been set up.

Deciding that it was time to find some supper, we left the square and continued walking turning in at nearby Furong Alley, a pedestrian street festooned with hanging lanterns and bright red banners. I immediately recognized it as the street of restaurants and food booths that I’d read about in our Lonely Planet guidebook. It was absolutely packed with people! As we made our way through the throng looking for a place to eat, who should appear out of the crowd but Michael, the only person we knew in the entire city of 2.27 million people! He and two of his roommates had just finished their supper but they happily led us to a restaurant, helped us order a delicious dinner and left us to eat it telling us that they’d be back in half an hour to continue showing us around! We spent the rest of the evening with them enjoying the party atmosphere of a country on vacation and seeing some of the sights of beautiful downtown Jinan.

Home improvements

/ edebock / 2 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, we live in a very old building. The apartment seems to be falling apart around us but each time something’s gone wrong, it’s been quickly taken care of so the place is improving all the time!

We’d only been here a few days when Richard opened the cupboard below the kitchen sink and noticed that we had a problem. There was water where there shouldn’t be water and lots of it! A call to the school resulted in the caretaker showing up that same afternoon to fix the leak. When he left, the kitchen faucet was no longer loose and we haven’t had a problem with it since.

Then there was the electricity issue. You may have read about that in my post entitled An electrician’s nightmare. In the week since the breaker was replaced, we haven’t tripped it once!

That doesn’t mean that nothing else went wrong though! Late yesterday afternoon we received a text message from the school informing us that our downstairs neighbours had called the landlord to report that there was water coming through their ceiling, presumably from our bathroom! We’d noticed a small amount of water pooling beneath the pedestal sink lately but when your entire bathroom is a shower stall, water on the floor is commonplace and we hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it or determined where it was coming from. We gave permission for the caretaker to come into the apartment while we were out teaching our evening classes and when we got home, it was easy to see that he’d narrowed the problem down to the connection leading to the washing machine. Now there’s some shiny new plumbing under the sink and no more water on the floor.

I can’t help wondering what’s next. As long as it isn’t the gas line, I guess we’ll be okay!

[Home, home improvements, plumbing, electricity]

[China]

More family drama

/ edebock / 6 Comments

There’s nothing like a late night phone call to get your heart racing and the adrenaline pumping! I had just crawled into bed at about 11:45 last night when the phone on my bedside table rang. It was our son, Matt, calling to tell us that Dad’s high rise apartment building had been evacuated a couple of hours earlier and Dad’s whereabouts were unknown!

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photo credit: Vancouver Sun

While conducting a search warrant for drugs on the 11th floor of the 29 storey building, Burnaby RCMP officers found more than they were looking for… 10 sticks of dynamite and several small bombs! As soon as Matt heard the news on Twitter, he headed over to Grandpa’s to make sure that he was okay.

Dad is a distinctive looking man. Though slightly stooped by age, he once stood 6 feet 6 inches tall and only weighs about 170 pounds (yes, that’s definitely where I got my skinny genes!). He’s fairly frail and walks with a cane. The officer that Matthew spoke with knew immediately who he was looking for and told him that he had seen Dad waiting in the lobby earlier. He assumed that he had had gone to the nearby community centre that had been opened as an evacuation centre and directed Matthew there. Dad wasn’t there nor was he at the care facility where Mom lives. Unable to find him, Matt headed home and called me.

I assumed that Dad might have called someone from his church and that they had picked him up but I had no way of knowing for sure. I called my sister who agreed that that was a likely scenario but neither of us had a name or a phone number to call. We discussed the fact that Dad is of sound mind and wouldn’t just wander away into the night. We agreed not to panic and I crawled back into bed.

That’s when the phone rang a second time! It was Matt’s wife, Robin. The evacuation centre had called. Dad was there and Matt was on his way back to pick him up. Their plan was to bring him back to their place for the night but when Matt got there, he was told that the order was about to be lifted. He waited with Dad then took him back to the apartment. All was well!

It wasn’t until this morning that I learned that when Matt went over the first time, Dad was actually sitting in a warm bus outside the building waiting to see what was going to happen. He sat there for an hour and a half before being taken to the evacuation centre.

Dad doesn’t carry a cell phone and he probably wouldn’t have called anyone if he did. He knew he was okay and had no idea that anyone was worrying about him. As my niece pointed out, he doesn’t understand how fast news travels these days. We’re just relieved to know that he was in a safe, warm place where he was able to sit and wait in relative comfort! We’re also very grateful that something of this nature didn’t happen while Mom was still living at home. That would have been a much greater ordeal.

I think I’m going to escape all this family drama and go to China! We leave later this afternoon!