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The spirit of Christmas

/ edebock / 4 Comments

“A very Merry GIFTMAS!” proclaims the latest Canadian Tire advertising flier. Really? Is that what this season is all about?

Sadly, for too many people Christmas has become little more than a commercial frenzy and a time of ever increasing stress. We mouth the words to traditional carols announcing peace on earth, goodwill to men as we rush from store to store and bills pile up. Perhaps young families feel it the most. Mounting costs and time constraints make it difficult for them to find any peace and joy during this season.

My daughter’s latest Facebook status and her sister-in-law’s response say it so clearly.

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Over the years, we’ve tried to focus on the reason for the season and keep our Christmas preparations simple but obviously we need to look for ways to make it even less stressful; less about the gifts and the preparations and more about the CHRIST of Christmas.

Sharing our Christmas preparations with Sheila this year is making me more conscious of the things we do simply because we’ve always done them that way. There’s nothing wrong with traditions. In fact, they often make life easier. Planning Christmas dinner is simplified by the fact that we prepare basically the same meal year after year, but if those traditions become a source of stress and anxiety, perhaps they need to change.

I haven’t done a lot of decorating yet but, as always, the first thing to come out was the beautiful olive wood nativity set that my parents sent us from the Holy Land the year they spent Christmas there. As we put out each piece, Sheila, who had absolutely no idea why we celebrate Christmas, and I read the accounts of Jesus’ birth from Luke 2 and the visit of the magi from Matthew 2.

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But then, out came Santa Claus and I had to try to explain his role in the story.

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For that, I used another favourite ornament, my kneeling Santa. Perhaps he best symbolizes what I’m trying to say today; we need to find a way to ensure that the spirit of GIFTMAS bows before the true spirit of CHRISTMAS!

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Remembrance

/ edebock / 16 Comments

Imagine looking out the window of the family farmhouse at Seba Beach, Alberta and seeing the military vehicle pull into the yard. Pearl’s heart must have pounded as the men in uniform came up the walk with a telegram in hand. It was 1944 and three of her sons were in the midst of battle in Europe. Which one was it? Had she lost one of them?

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Glen was my father-in-law. He enrolled in the army in October of 1943 and was deployed in early January of the following year. He was just 18 years old.

We don’t know a lot about his wartime experiences. Like many who saw the gruesome face of war firsthand, he didn’t talk much about what he went through over there. We’ve only been able to piece together bits and pieces from the few things he did say and more recently, from his military record which our son requested from the Canadian Archives in Ottawa. We do know that he once spent several days in a foxhole behind enemy lines waiting to be rescued and we know that he probably suffered from what is now known as post traumatic stress disorder. According to Mother, for the rest of his life he would occasionally wake up cowering on the floor beside the bed. He was back in that foxhole terrified that, at any moment, an enemy soldier would find him and his life would be over.

Father had been in Europe for only nine months when he was seriously wounded and unable to return to action. A second telegram dated October 19, 1944 brought the incorrect news that the nature of his injury was “bomb fragment wounds to face and head.” A letter dated November 27, 1944 contained more accurate information.

“I am directed to inform you that official information has now been received from Canadian Military Headquarters Overseas advising that when your son, M-8247 Pte. Glen Marion DeBock, was wounded in action on the 6th October 1944, he suffered a bullet wound to the right orbit into the sphenoid sinus resulting in the loss of the right eye.”

He was lucky to be alive. Imagine taking a bullet to the head and surviving! He spent the remainder of 1944 in hospitals in the UK followed by another three months in Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver before finally being discharged with a prosthetic eye.  Life would never be the same for this young farm boy, however. He often suffered excruciating headaches and like many of his compatriots, he took to drowning his vivid memories in alcohol. It wasn’t until the final years of his life that he gave up drinking and found peace in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

On November 11, as we pause to remember, we give thanks for so many young boys who went off to war with high ideals and ended up paying for our freedoms with their lives; many making the ultimate sacrifice and others, like Father, surviving with shattered dreams and broken bodies. In reality, these are the men who gave us freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and all the other freedoms that we take for granted in this great land.

Let us never glorify war but let us remember those who were willing to go and fight on our behalf and those who continue to do so.

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Letters from the past, final installment

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As I continue to read through the letters from my father’s university classmates, I feel as though I’m getting to know some of “the boys” personally. They’re becoming real to me through the words they wrote more than 60 years ago!

I especially love John’s wacky sense of humour. Like many of “the boys”, he obviously enjoyed teasing my Dad about his height. Shortly after my oldest brother’s birth, he wrote “Congratulations Old Man! (Dad was all of 27 at the time.) Please share these best wishes with your wife. The few minutes of thought I have had time for since receiving your announcement have made me realize what a brave girl your wife is – why the chance that she might be the mother of an almost infinite length of child – I can almost see her wondering if when he leaves her for his first day of school if the roles will not be in the somewhat reversed position of CHILD looking lovingly down on her and patting her on the head. Ah! Well! since I was not able to get to your wedding and warn her of these things I suppose I must carry my guilt with me these long years.”

A few months later, Oz, who was by that time living on the island of Curacao in what was then known as the Netherlands West Indies, wrote “Our congratulations on your recent expansion from partnership to company. I know without asking that Don Jr. is the best six-month old baby that you have ever seen. When he gets to the walking stage, may I suggest a small weight on his head lest he have any notions of growing taller than his ‘old man.'”

As time went by, wives, children and family vacations began to crop up more and more often in the letters. In August 1951, Gordon wrote “The only ‘big’ news, at least from my point of view, is that I am going to be married at Christmas to a girl I met at Oxford. From your letter, I see that you and most of our classmates are miles ahead of me in this sort of activity but better late than never.”

In 1955, shortly after the birth of my younger sister, we moved into a waterfront house in Powell River. The beach became our playground and I could hear the sound of the surf from my bedroom window at night. My father must have shared this news with his classmates as John comments “The new house sounds most intriguing – view, beach, swimming in April – even if it is salt water. When we visit you I will join you in a dip as long as you can provide a good garden sprinkler to wash away the crystals of NaCl.” (They were chemical engineers, after all!) John and his family did make that promised visit but not until the summer of 1959. A letter written in April of that year fills my father in on their holiday plans. I vaguely remember a family with two children visiting us but I was only six and I didn’t recall who they were until I read this letter.

I’ve learned more about my father through these letters too. In September 1950, John congratulated him on achieving “the status of professional engineer – the first of Chem ’46 and the second of Science ’46, I believe – very good.” Dad didn’t talk much about his work while we were growing up so I was completely unaware of the fact that he published research papers but in August 1951, Gordon wrote “Congratulations on your publication. I can see that you are thriving in this Engineering business.” and a short note from Norm in 1958 says “Many thanks for your gift of a copy of your paper on groundwood from sawdust.” That shows how little I really know about my father’s work; I had to look up the meaning of the word, groundwood!

The final letter in the packet was written in January 1963, almost 17 years after my father and “the boys” graduated from UBC. Though letters became fewer and further between as years went by, I’m sure that some of them continued to correspond for many more years but those letters have been forever lost. How thankful I am that, as I sorted through everything in my parents’ apartment, this little pile of correspondence caught my eye and I decided to set it aside for a closer look when the job was done!

More letters from the past

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Though I’m not sure if I ever met him, I remember the unusual name Oz from my childhood days. His Italian surname had a musical ring to it. His early letters to my Dad were fascinating. On July 20, 1947, he wrote “I’m just writing a short note to tell you that I’m on the move again, this time to jolly old England. The okay to hire me came over last week and before I knew it, they had reservations for me on the Empress of Canada, sailing this Saturday. In case Dorothy didn’t mention it in her letter, its Shell Oil that I’m to work for. I’ll train for a year in England and then go out to various refineries in the far corners of the world. I think that I’ll enjoy the work because the more I learn about oil, the better I like it. We certainly have not enjoyed our brief stay in the ‘fair’ city of Toronto. In fact, our opinion of it is quite unprintable. Vancouver has grown in our estimation by leaps and bounds. We have decided to retire in Sechelt as there is obviously nowhere on earth half as nice. Dorothy is returning there now, because Shell has a nasty rule that says wives cannot accompany newly-hired husbands for approximately 3 months. Therefore we must part till about October. However, we decided that the job was worth a little inconvenience, so Dorothy leaves for home on Thursday.”

A second letter written from London two months later told of an upcoming move to a refinery near Liverpool and gave a fascinating glimpse into life in post war England. “One of the poor features was that Dorothy couldn’t come with me when I came over, but the company will bring her to me as soon as I get settled at the refinery, i.e. about the end of November if all goes smoothly. Actually, it’s just as well because it will give us a chance to get fully prepared for what will probably be a very tough winter. I keep Dorothy posted on all shortages here so that when she comes, she can bring along whatever can’t be obtained here, and believe me it makes a good-sized list. The clothing ration is pitifully small, and what one can get is poor quality and high priced. No doubt you’ve been reading about our crisis. It’s been going on for some time now without any noticeable improvement and from what I can see, the people here are in for a hell of a tough time for years to come.” All was not woe, however. He went on to say “In the meantime, I’m enjoying myself and making full use of my opportunity to be in a huge place like London, although so far its the country around L that has impressed me most. You just can’t imagine the orderly beauty of it.”

Comments about my father’s love life continued to crop up in the letters from his classmates. In December 1947, Gordon wrote “You probably also know that the Dowdings now have a son. This sort of thing will probably become more frequent now.” and a little later in the letter, “Furthermore, how deep are your roots in Powell River now? Nobody is supposed to be able to stay single there that long you know.”

The letters provide other glimpses into my father’s life before I knew him. In February 1948, Rhys wrote “You really seem to be enjoying things. I can just see Skip Stewart at the helm putting up and down the coast – god it sounds interesting.” Some of my earliest memories are of being out on my father’s boat. In the early days of their marriage, my parents spent lots of time touring the coast on it but they sold it when I was about six. By that time, the family had grown to include four children and there wasn’t time or money to keep it up.

I laughed out loud when I read the opening of John’s letter to my father written on October 25, 1948, less than a month before my parents’ wedding. You may remember that it was John who threatened to sue my father if he left his bachelor state behind. “Goodbye forever! Donald Stewart, Bachelor of Applied Science. Welcome! Donald Stewart, married and in Enforced Silence. Seriously – Congratulations old man. I am very happy for you.” He went on to express his regret that he would not be able to get time off work to attend the wedding and act as my father’s best man. Another classmate, who was also working in Powell River at the time, took his place.

Over a year went by before the next letter arrived. “The boys” were obviously settling into their careers. Some were marrying and starting families. Regular contact with their university buddies began to dwindle but I do know that Dad kept in touch with a few of them for many, many years and that he attended a reunion of his few remaining classmates last year.

This seems like a good place to take a break as there are other things I must attend to around here but there are still more than a dozen letters to be read so you can expect a final installment sometime soon!

Letters from the past

/ edebock / 13 Comments

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Among the many interesting and strange things that we found as we cleaned out my parents’ apartment in Vancouver was a little pile of handwritten letters addressed to my father. The earliest ones dated back to 1946, the year he graduated from the University of British Columbia as a chemical engineer and moved to Powell River to begin his career working in the research lab at the local pulp and paper mill.

stampI first decided to keep the letters because I knew that the postage stamps would interest my brother, an avid stamp collector. Many of them are 4 cent stamps bearing the image of King George VI. Later letters, written in the 1950s, bear 5 cent stamps with the picture of a very young Queen Elizabeth II on them. A few, written on thin air mail paper, have foreign stamps.stamp 2

After looking at the stamps and the postmarked dates, I began to wonder about the letters themselves. Who wrote them? What did they say and what glimpses might they give of life in a different time? Some people might not approve of me reading my father’s mail but I couldn’t help myself!

This evening, I opened the first letter. “Dear Lofty,” it began. I hadn’t heard my father’s university nickname for years! As a six foot six inch bean pole, it suited him well. The letters started shortly after his college graduation and came from his classmates who had scattered across the country in search of employment. They were obviously a close knit group who referred to one another as “the boys”. They contain lots of job talk that only a fellow engineer would understand but in between there are fascinating glimpses into life in the late 1940s. Come along and snoop with me!

On June 2, 1946, George, who went to work at B.C. Plywoods in Vancouver, wrote “My salary will be $175 to start. ” On August 20, he wrote that the men in the plant were receiving raises as the result of a strike and his monthly salary was going up to $190. Others reported similar incomes. Of course, the cost of living was similarly low compared to today’s prices. On July 3, Rhys wrote from Hamilton, Ontario saying that he hoped to move to a cheaper boarding house soon. “At present I am paying $1.50 per day for room alone,” he complained.

In early August of that same year, Steve described the butyl (synthetic rubber) plant in Sarnia, Ontario where he landed a job doing research. “The plant is the real McCoy. It’s a 50 million dollar, 185 acre affair. It turns out about 1 000 000 pounds a month of various types of G.R.S. and is one of the 3 butyl plants in existence. It’s design and construction is the best, and you can get any equipment you want for research. The boys taking their Masters would be green with envy if they could see some of it. Control of temperature to 1/50 of a degree is commonplace, and absolutely essential in this field.”

John, who went to Trail, BC wrote, “I am in the Zinc Plant research lab on steady day shift with Saturday afternoon and Sundays off – the hours are 8 to 4:30 with lunch from 12 to 1.” In a later letter, he complained about “some guy from the Central Research who got his job by marrying the right person’s daughter.”

I chuckled when Rhys asked in his second letter, “How is your love life progressing? I hear Powell River is quite the place for an old wolf like you.” My father was 23 years old at the time and if I’m not mistaken, the letter was written the week he met my mother as it was dated October 30 and they met at a Halloween party!

Less than three months later another letter from John said, “Your statement about finding PR not so entirely devoid of young women as at first you thought has me worried – steady old man – who will be left in our bachelor league if you fail me now? You can’t do this to me, Stewart! I’ll sue you for breach of promise – that’s what I’ll do.” I wish John’s letters included his last name. I wonder if this is the same John who later built a cabin on the shore just north of Powell River; a cabin where we stayed several times and made many wonderful memories.

Not all of “the boys” wrote as intimately as John did. Though Norm wrote three pages all about his job at the Development Lab of the Paint and Varnish Division of CIL in Toronto, he slipped in just one sentence of a more personal nature. “About myself, I suppose you know that I was married on June 1st.” No details; not even her name!

Jim wrote a long and interesting letter shortly after the New Year. He was at the University of Toronto “instructing in Chemistry, first year general and second year organic.” He was working 19 hours a week for $180 a month and though he didn’t plan to stay there permanently, he clearly enjoyed what he was doing. “The organic lab is Home Ec – 60 girls!” he reported. I was surprised to learn that there were that many girls studying science in the 1940s.

In the same letter, writing about a visit to Princeton University, Jim says, “I also had the great pleasure of seeing (at very close quarters) our good friend Albert Einstein of Relativity fame. He looks just like his pictures. I recognized him first about two blocks away by the terrific halo of white hair.”

Jim clearly got around as he also wrote about a visit to New York, a city that obviously didn’t impress him. “What a complete nuthouse,” he wrote. “There’s no real life there, just pure existence if the taxis don’t hit you, and just pure existentialism if they do hit you. The civil engineers certainly had a heyday in putting New York together. What a city! Nothing but city! It cost me $1.20 to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Reminded me of being on Crown Mountain back home. The subways are an engineer’s nightmare, but still very efficient; you can disappear from sunlight all day for just 5 cents!”

There are 35 letters in all, carefully numbered in my father’s hand. Most of them were written in the late 1940s and early 1950s but the last one was postmarked January 4, 1963. It’s clearly going to take me more than one evening to sift through them all and more than one post to share their secrets. I hope you’ll come back for more!

What about Halloween?

/ edebock / 10 Comments

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We went to church with a dinosaur this morning; a bright orange Tyrannosaurus Rex named Sam! To the left of us, there were two little pumpkins and to the right, a ladybug and a monkey. A spotted leopard sat in front of us and as I looked around the sanctuary I spotted a ballet dancer, a fireman, a pirate, and a clown. R2-D2 and Princess Leia were there too but there were no witches, ghosts or ghouls. “Let’s be more creative than that,” parents at Cap Church were told last Sunday when it was announced that the Cap kids could wear their Halloween costumes to church today.

Whether or not we should participate in Halloween has become a great debate within the Christian church. There is no doubt that the celebration has its roots in ancient pagan rites and superstitions and it’s also a holy day for those who practice Wicca, a modern religious cult that engages in witchcraft. For most people, however, Halloween is simply a secular day of fun. It has religious significance only to those who give it religious significance. To my mind, if some people feel uncomfortable participating in Halloween activities, then they should refrain from doing so but the rest of us should simply be discerning and avoid those activities that might detract from our Christian witness. It also behooves us to avoid judging those who make decisions different from our own.

Personally, I applaud the approach taken by Cap Church. In an article published in recent church bulletins, Pastor Emeritus, Paddy Ducklow, wrote about what he called “the issue of how our faith impacts our culture and neighbourhood, or how surrounding values harm our kids.” He wrote first of safety, urging parents to teach their children how to be safe in an unsafe world. He also advised them to show the closeness and care of God by being with their children. He encouraged Christian men to exhibit a “father’s heart” during a potentially scary time by going door to door with their children as they trick-or-treat. He recommended that parents use Halloween as an opportunity to help their children make righteous choices, staying away from images of witchcraft, death and violence. I especially appreciated his recommendation that parents make Halloween an opportunity to know and enjoy their neighbours. Rather than being aloof, avoiding contact with our neighbourhood on a night when many are out and about having fun, Halloween is a great opportunity to engage with them.

I would love to know where you stand on this contentious topic. If you do choose to comment, however, please show respect for those who express an opinion different from your own. I’d love to see a lively conversation develop but no personal attacks.

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.