Big Yardage

No, I'm not talking about how much the Winnipeg Blue Bomber defense tends to give up. This is how you would acurrately describe our property behind the house in Red Deer. We built our house in 2001 but had no gumption (or finances) left to complete the back yard. Last year we finally got started on it. As you can see in this first picture, we put up the fence across the back along the alley. The gates are propped open in this picture which makes it look less impressive than when they are closed but I wanted you to see through to the back alley. If your trying to see the lawn clearly, you are not going to. There is sparse grass outnumbered by many weeds and even more bald spots. The strip running up the middle is where our service trench sunk and has been filled with dirt dug up from a patio spot (which is coming up in the photos).

In this second photo I have moved to the open gates. You can see that on the ground there is dirt filling in this corner. Much more of this fill needs to happen in the coming days. Whenever it rains this corner has always become a lake of water. The same was true of the service trench area before we filled it in. After we bring in more tops soil we will level and grade it all properly.













This picture shows that we did not build the fence right to the alley. With such a big yard, we decided we would leave some space behind the fence where a vehicle could park parallel to the alley. At some point we will likely make an opening in the fence to set the garbage and recycling out there. Currently I drive it around to the alley with the car (how pathetic is that?!). This area also is populated with volunteer grasses, weeds and dirt clods. In the foreground is the remains of a gravel pile which provided the base for our patio. The rest of this gravel will be raked across this space and be joined by a spread truckload of gravel so we don't have to try to make any lawn back here. The plan for this and the enclosed yard is to kill everything with spray. In the yard we will make a parking space of gravel at the back corner you saw earlier inside the gates. The rest of the lawn for now will be roto-tilled and seeded to grass (cross your fingers with us that it will germinate well).


Then standing where I was to take the first photo, I turned towards the back of our house and took this next shot. This is our patio which is 12'' x 12" textured stones laid to make a 12' x 12' area abutted to a 4' x 4' pad at the bottom of the back steps. When the lawn is done we will move the gazebo off the patio to the left so that it will be two spaces, one enclosed by the 10' x 10' gazebo and one being the open air patio. The ugly pallette leaning up against the wall will not stay, by the way. We also plan to close in the space under the back porch so we can hide junk there. On the side of the house that you can see just to the right we will put an archway with a mini-gate in it between our house and the neighbor's fence. That spot will be be covered with washed stones up to the side of the pad at the bottom of the steps.

Well, who really cares about all that. I do (and my wife even more)! One of the great features of building our house on this lot was that we would have the largest back yard in the subdivision. But to this point we have never done anything back there but mow weeds. By doing the fence last year and the patio and gazebo this year, we now feel pushed to get the rest of it done. Next time you come to visit us expect to sit out back and enjoy a barbecue. You may yet be overlooking a pasture but it will be better than it ever was.
Unless of, course, you come in the middle of January. We'll just go to the Steak House Restaurant.

Selina's Grad Guests

Grandpa and Grandma Floyd (Harold & Margaret) arrived earlier this evening from Edmonton where they were at Carrie's. Selina's ceremony is at 11:00am tomorrow and the banquet is in the evening. Will is fighting a bad sunburn. Ange was on the worship team at chapel today (Gateway Christian School). Jane and I are sleep-deprived. What else is new?!

Yes, I am actually blogging again. About 100 of us are gearing up for another mission in Zorrillo, Mexico with True North Helping Hands. Same school, more buildings, fence and a playground in the community. My daughter Angeline is coming again. So are 13 others from Red Deer. It is really quite exciting. My Spanish is still minimal but way ahead of last year. We'll see how it goes.
Why do I think this is so important, you ask. (Oh, you didn't? Well, you should have.) Being saved is great. Knowing I have a place in heaven is great. But lounging in the pew is not an option. God created me and all you other believers for good works. Not just random, whatever-we-think-is-cool good works. He has an actual plan for this whole planet (besides toasting it and taking the redeemable remains to heaven). His plan revolves around people and their lives. I don't know all the details but I do know that those of us who have (have food, clothes, education, money, hockey equipment) need to engage ourselves in feeding, clothing, educating and equipping those who have not. God sees something disciplinary in people suffering the consequences of their sins, but He sees something downright holy and spiritual in people overcoming the suffering of poverty. I got turned up by John Wood who left Microsoft to bring books and education to the third world. These things will at least raise the level of hope and standard of living for people world-wide even if Jesus said the poor we will always have with us. Who better to be vitally involved in such mission work that believers who can also bring the gospel mesage, the one about salvation from sin and death. In fact, how can believers talk heaven to people anywhere while multiple millions are suffering on earth. What do we say? "Some day it'll all be over and you'll go home to God." That's not much hope. Hope begins now with the world in which we live, the one that God has already created for us and placed us in. Jesus may come back at noon and end all this or He may tarry another few millenia. Whichever the case, the plan for human history was not that everyone would suffer their way into heaven through a miserable life on planet earth where things only continually get worse. God plans for this world to become a better place for people and the plan for transformation involves me (and many of you).
That's why I'm going to Mexico at the end of June... and to the seniors lodge to visit some lonely people at the end of this morning.
I'll enjoy heaven when I get there. In the meantime, Let's get this planet and its people going in the right direction. I seem to remember someone praying, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

It begins...

Ange and I packed today, bought travel insurance and various other errands. The photos show me with the luggage, Ange at the computer, then later saying good bye to her sister. Don't they look sad.
Tomorrow we rest up for the journey because we leave Saturday at 5:00am for San Diego (Ange's first flight). Sunday we meet up with the True North Helping Hands crew and drive down into Mexico to build a school in the village of Zorrillo. We're all very excited.
38 years ago I went to the Arizona/Mexico border town of Nogales with my parents and sister. It was a mix of adventure and shock. I remember standing in a two room house with thin towels hung for doors and a dirt floor. The family we visited were new Christians receiving relief help from the church in Sierra Vista, AZ. I didn't understand much of what was happening except that this was another world from how I was raised. The image has never faded in my mind.
Now I'm finally returning to Mexico and on a mission to help out a poverty-riddled village. How will I feel when I see families in destitution? It feels good to know that I have something to give this time, instead of being a little kid just staring in shock while half hiding behind my mother's skirt.
Somewhere back in that childhood of mine the radio was blasting out that song "If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning." It stuck in my head (the song, not the hammer) while I was packing tools for the trip.
There is a sense that I am on Jesus' mission. He saw people in their human need and had compassion on them. Not only that, He ministered to them. Not only that, He taught His disciples to do the same. Not only that, He said if you minister to people in need (sick, hungry, naked, etc.) you are actually ministering to Him. I've preached a lot of sermons in my years of paid and unpaid ministry. Somehow I have the feeling I'm about to learn a whole new way of communicating the gospel to people. I can't speak a word of Spanish. But I swing a fluent hammer!

Preparing for Mexico Mission..

Any Day Now

I'm not sure I can adequately describe what's going on in my soul right now. But (you guessed it) I'm going to try.
For months (over a year) I've been on a spiritual quest. The goal has changed over that time but the quest continues. At the beginning it was simply to renew my discipleship to Jesus. That's actually a poor choice of words. There's nothing particularly simple about it. The first lesson I learned is that renewal is never a result of my pursuit but always the fruit of God's will and action. So the goal changed from me pursuing to me being pursued. Since then I am busy running. He pursues me and I need to stop running off in other directions. God stirred up some people in my congregation to seek renewal in our assembly worship. Several months down the road I am revisiting lesson #1. Worship renewal is never a result of my pursuit but always the fruit of God's will and action. So now the goal is to stop just listening to these people but to help these people continue listening to God. Change is a necessary part of renewal but I have been too focused on the change and how it is affecting me/us. Change is going to happen as a part of renewal from God whether I try to manage it or not. I've decided, perhaps perilously, to stop trying to manage the change and just let God guide the process and, more importantly, the purpose.
So where (some concerned souls are surely asking) has that taken me. It's taken me to the place of questioning my identity and purpose as a church minister in the kingdom of heaven. If that is defined by anything less than the identity and purpose of Jesus, then I am ministering amiss. So now the goal is to help the congregation where I serve to be on a united spiritual quest seeking their collective identity and purpose. I'm not sure how much help I can be. Again, lesson #1 keeps popping up. The challenge will be for me to let God define the purpose and drive the process. Maybe I can lead by being firmly in the sights of God's pursuit.
I must sound like a sorry leader. That's because I am a sorry leader. I'm sorry about a lot of things. I can't tell you how many times I go back to the burning bush to to ask, "Could you please explain one more time how this is going to happen?" The answer differs a bit each time but it always is prefaced with "O ye of little faith..."
Stay tuned. In a month I leave for Mexico on a mission to build a school. I'm excited but I'm also scared. I sense that God is up to something more than I can imagine and for which I certainly didn't ask. That whole scripture (Eph. 3:20) used to be a favorite but now I'm reserving judgment on it.
I know, it's true... O me of little faith.
I've grown used to the uncertainty of where all this is going and beginning to feel comfortable with that. But it seems God will soon show me what He's up to. Any day now! And I might not be so comfortable anymore.

Connecting the Dots

Last night I shared with my Red Deer congregation the journey that has brought me to the place where my daughter and I are going to Mexico on a mission this summer. A whole pile of random events in my life were just like scattered dots on a page. I had forgotten a lot of things that God has done in my life and now that I see them coming together into a picture that God is creating by connecting the dots... wow!
I am first of all humbled by it all. That God has been so into the details of my life since I was just a lad gives me pause because He is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. It seems all so unreal that such a Being could be that interested and involved in one of His billions of creatures. When it hits me with such clarity that He has been working a masterpiece of His grace in my lowly life I actually start to weep in unbelief.
Not only do I feel humbled but also very convicted. God having a plan for my life places demands upon me that I didn't see before. Not in a slavish kind of way. But I do feel very compelled to attend to His will and obey. Was I just blind to what was going on all this time or did He wait until the timing was just so before turning the lights on? At any rate, there is a driving sense of responsiblity to embrace and engage in what God is calling me to do. I call it conviction.
But the feeling is more one of inspired. I am inspired by God's regard for me. Inspired by His vision for meeting the needs of hurting people. Inspired by the doors of opportunity He opens to me for service in Mexico and doors here in Red Deer that are flying open in conjunction with it. God's kingdom mission on this earth is awesome. I love what it's doing to my heart right now. I pray it spreads around the church in Red Deer like a fire. I happen to know that God is just as busy painting brush strokes on the canvasses of everyone else's lives.
Every now and then we just have to stop and take time to connect the dots. Get the picture?!