In Recent News...

Well, it's cold. It's rainy. It's cold and rainy. They warned us it was coming. I knew it was inevitable. I'm thankful for the month we had that was a little milder. But, I'm pretty sure we have officially hit the "rainy season."

Most days, I can tolerate it, but today has been one of those days where I just wanted to take my toys and go back home. I woke up not feeling so great. I think I'm "trying to catch a cold," as my daddy always says. However, it's Wednesday, the day that I'm supposed to be intentional about getting out and trying to meet folks here in our neighborhood. So, despite the rain, I spent 5 hours out with Abe, looking for opportunities to converse with people. Because it was so yucky, I decided to take him to the local mall to play on the indoor playground. I waited for 25 minutes at the bus stop (they're supposed to come every 8-9 minutes.) Then, when one finally came, it was too full for us. By that time, I had already chased Abe's umbrella out into the road once, so what did it matter if we waited for the next one, right?

By the time I got to the mall, the last thing I wanted to do was talk with folks about spiritual things. However, I was able to engage two ladies in conversations that led to the main thing. Actually, truth be told, one of them engaged me. In fact, she informed me that despite Abe's color, he would probably be pretty smart because his head was so big that he had room for his brain to grow. And, how do you respond to that? She also expressed her opinions about kids and the large volume of plastic toys they have available to them as well as how they eat too much junk for breakfast and how a diet of oatmeal and raisins is what they really need. I won't even get into her explanation about why African men, um, shall we say, "have more needs," than white men, making the African orphan population so high. Thank the Lord that Ryan and I had agreed to meet up for lunch, so I was able to excuse myself after a while.

By the time I got over to the restaurant and finally met up with Ryan, I was soggy, frozen, and traumatized from another bout of chasing Abe's umbrella along a much busier traffic route. (Yes, I learned my lesson, took away the umbrella, and let him get waterlogged instead!)

By the time we finally got home this evening, I was DONE! My husband sent me to bed at 6:30, and after a 5 hour nap, a blog post seemed like the right thing to do. Now I just pray I can sleep again after this brain dump!

On a more positive note... we had a fun day last Friday. It was Canadian Remembrance Day, which is taken very seriously here. Nearly everyone has the day off, they all wear red poppies on their coats, and ceremonies abound. However, the ceremony that we planned to go to was scheduled outside, right in the middle of a freezing, wet morning. So, we opted out and stayed home for a couple of hours before heading out to explore.

The kids wanted to take us over to Lonsdale Quay (pronounced Key.) They'd been there on a field trip and thought we needed to see it too. It proved to be a neat place. One of the highlights of our day included riding the seabus, which is part of the public transit system here. Because it was Remembrance Day, the mounties were out and the kids got to finally see them! They were able to have their picture taken with these two.

Then, we explored the Quay, which is basically a cool market. The kids were really hoping to show us an octopus, which they'd seen on their previous visit. They were not disappointed. One cool thing was, we were spending the day with one of the TCK consultants from our company's main offices who had come to visit the training center here for a few days. She has actually served overseas in a place where octopus was not unusual, so she was able to tell us about the taste and texture. However, at $16.99 a pound, we opted to take her word for it.

The kids wanted to make sure that we ate a beavertail while we were there, which was delicious. It was a lot like an "elephant ear" only shaped like a beavertail. I'll just be honest and tell you, I have a real weakness for any type of fried dough. That's where I always spend my share of the snack money at the fair! So, I was happy to cave to this request.

Here we are, at the Quay, looking back across the inlet at Vancouver.

Here's the Lego Orca that sits on the Vancouver waterfront, Isaac loves this guy!

Vancouver is filled with these random sculpturish thingies all over downtown. The kids thought this raindrop was cool. Wonder why they chose a raindrop?!?

On Saturday, Abby and I went to a popular Christmas Craft show that is done here every year at the convention center. Let me just say, it was SO different from a similar type of event in the Southeast US. In 400 vendors, I never saw one piece of polka-dot grosgrain ribbon. Nor, did I see personalized, monogrammed goodies. No appliques and no ruffles. I did, however, see no less than 1,000 hand knit hats (priced $55 and up), tons of handmade jewelry (mostly silver), bushels of handmade soap, and an entirely different color palette than you would find back home. There was also an abundance of free gourmet food samples. Apparently, Canadians love fruitcake, salmon preserved in all sorts of ways, and berries covered in a variety of chocolates.

Monday was my birthday, and I had one of those "pinch me" moments. When I was growing up, I was a part of an organization called GAs and later Acteens, which are ministry programs that educate girls in SBC churches about missions. One of the things that we did, all through my growing up years, was pray for Ms on their birthdays. We had a little prayer calendar time where we read their names and prayed for them. I remember hearing a M speaker say once when I was young, that many Ms use their time very intentionally on their birthdays because they knew that literally 1000's of people would be praying for them on that day.

These days, the company uses e-mail to distribute those names and I get the list in my inbox each morning. So, Monday, when I opened my e-mail and saw the list for the day, my name was at the top! After years of praying for Ms, I was the one being prayed for! It was one of those, "I can't believe this is really my job" moments. By the way, if you're interested in subscribing to some of the prayer threads our company offers, you can do that here.

My sweet family gave me several gifts. My favorite was having Sunday "off." We went nowhere and they did all of the cooking and cleaning for the day. I will forever be harassing my husband about the Hamburger Helper he made for my birthday dinner!

Seriously, he made up for it in many other ways, not the least of which was walking in the rain to get a yummy chocolate cake from a bakery I've been eyeing since we first discovered it on Halloween. To make the gesture even sweeter, he even made sure it had orange icing, which has been a running joke between us for years. Actually, since the year that he totally tanked on my birthday, dealt with my wrath, and ended up buying me a birthday cake at Food Lion at 10p.m. when nothing was left but one with some hideous orange icing. That was before orange was trendy. Let's just say that since that time, he's done significantly better at the birthday thing.

We continue to covet your prayers as we move forward in our work here. We now have a group of folks meeting in our house each Monday night. Right now, there are just folks who are colleagues with our work, but we're very hopeful that soon it will include other folks who want to hear more about God's word.