......2010

The last day of 2009 is going out with a vengence... it was -31C this am but the sun is shinning so brightly that you would not think it was COLD outside... don't believe it!

We are having a married couples party and game night starting at 7:00pm tonight and that should be fun.

December 11th was our Christmas banquet and the food was so delicious and the fellowship center was decorated so beautifully. Thanks to the ladies who worked sooooooooooo hard to make the evening special for us.

December 13th was the Christmas concert during the morning worship time. Betty Hale did such a good job leading a team of ladies. Our program was entitled "The Indescribable Gift". Our Kindergarten and Grade One children did the welcome and sang two songs and then it moved into scene one of the manger with children dressed as Mary, Joseph, shepherds, angels, cows, sheep and a donkey. This scene was about The gift of JESUS. The next scene was of Jesus as a child at his home in Nazareth and the arrival of the Magi with GIFTS of their own for Jesus. There was even a STAR (with Ashley inside) showing them the way to the house. Ray then spoke on the GIFT of Christmas and several of the youth and young marrieds came out carrying their specific gifts for Jesus (like a cardboard testimony). Two of the youth were dressed as presents beside the Christmas tree. My class finished with "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and handed out candycanes. My class is made up of 2-4 year olds and trying to corral them through the entire presentation was a job in itself! (Nine of them)

On December 18th Ray and I had our 43rd wedding anniversary. We traveled to Grande Prairie and saw a great movie that we would recommend to you: "The Blind Side" which is based on a true story. GO SEE IT. Then we went to The Keg and had the absolute best dinner and reminisced about our years together. He is a keeper for sure! Having two wonderful sons, two beautiful daughter-in-laws and five precious grandsons is a large portion of our memories and future. We have peace knowing that God has us in Canada for a season and we pray that many will come to truly know our Almighty God.

Our Christmas Eve service was attended by around 80 folks. Many of these were from our community and that was our intent when we began having the service in 2006. We lit the last of the Advent Candles on this night looking forward to the celebration of the birth of Christ the next day.

We celebrated the birth of our Savior at the Boshoff home with South African fare on the table and Tiaan & Ciska making a gingerbread house and trying to find WALDO. Lovely friendships is what makes the "body of Christ" so unique.

Ray has been busy with hospital visits and counseling as well as sermon preparations. He is at his computer a minimum of 8 hours a day - either reading, writing, or keeping in touch with folks. He writes a weekly article that goes out to a lot of pastors and friends all over the US and Canada. His Northern Exposure is very enjoyable for him. On the 27th we had our "turn" at the service at the retirement home and handed out candycanes to the folks there. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits and ready for another year to begin.

As we prepare ourselves for 2010 I am reminded of something that I read this week - Isaiah 43:14-21 Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? (v 19)

Becoming a new creation in Christ is a thorough, ongoing character reorientation. We have been conditioned by the religious, cultural, and social values of our time. Attitudes, reactions, goals, and thought patterns have been inadvertently ingrained into the fiber of our natures. When we become Christians, everything is suddenly exposed to Christ's scrutinizing renovation.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Identify the evidence of the new creation in YOU.

From God's Best for My Life by Lloyd John Ogilvie

As I go into and through 2010 I want to daily see the evidence that I have a new life in Christ. I want to look like Him and have His same attitude. Let's make that our goal.....

Until we all look like HIM..... Hope

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas!

More and more Christmas lights come on most every day but you have to understand! Our lights have to go up in September or October....you can't just go outside and climb up on your house with our temperatures and the snow. No putting it off until the week of Christmas where we live. We will present our Christmas "concert" or program this Sunday morning and our first REAL rehearsal was last Sunday....which we did not even get through....so we had another practice last night. This is a BIG deal with blackouts and costumes and even candycanes. My 3 wisemen are the biggest challenge - not just their heights - they just have too much fun!

In the midst of the stage being ready for the program - we had a memorial service today and lunch for all afterwards. The family did an excellent job with a slide show and as usual Ray did a great job with the scripture. Ray had a counseling appointment tonight so he is wiped out.

Tomorrow is our Christmas banquet. We will have it at church and I offered to help with the clean up...yep I did...what was I thinking - obviously NOT! We are also having a potluck after the program on Sunday and young married Bible study following that.

Heather sent us some of the pictures from Thanksgiving. (#1 above left to right is Paul, Caleb, Jacob, Laura and Luke. #2 L to R is Matt, Heather in back and Cole & Peyton in the front. #3 on the right above is Nanny & Papa with da boys.) We were so excited to get them....

I am going to put one from our College/single Bible study from last Sunday - we got the kids to work on a gingerbread house after their study on finances - they did a great job...a couple of them had to leave early so were not in our picture.

It is after midnight and Ray just turned in and I am freezing so will take a hot shower and turn in too. Good night and we will keep in touch.... pray for the upcoming events at church and our program especially. Thank you for holding our arms up. (See Exodus 17:8-14) Hope

A Texas Thanksgiving

As I mentioned in the last blog - we headed SOUTH to Texas for the US Thanksgiving on November 24th and returned the 3rd of December. We arrived in Grande Prairie last night and then drove home in snow. We had actually gotten more snow while we were out of town. I shoveled the driveway today and it had about 4-5 inches but there were some deeper drifts around the house and yard.

We stayed with Matt & Heather the first four days in Texas and Paul & Laura and boys joined us for Thanksgiving day. We had turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, ham, sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole and Mammaw's rolls (but they were not as good as hers). We had pumpkin pie, coconut pie, chocolate pie and pecan pie. Some of us drank eggnog and Laura, Heather and I drank coffee with peppermint whipping cream - YUM! Before we ate we headed off to the Old Alton Bridge in Corinth and took a million and one pictures.... ok, maybe not that many but poor Matt did not get a day off. I hope he sends us some real soon. Pictured above is Luke (11) , Peyton (7), Jacob (15), Cole (9) & Caleb (13) on the bridge. This was taken on Laura's camera and I emailed it to myself.

That night Matt & Heather went to her parents and Paul & Laura went to the Marriott in Ft Worth and Ray and I had the grandboys all to ourselves. We got us all jammies and took more pictures - the boys were real troopers about the picture taking. We got a gingerbread kit with 5 small houses and each boy decorated one. Each house had its own personality. We watched Elf and had a discussion on families afterwards. Ray, Luke, Cole and Peyton played Monopoly and Jake & Caleb got into the electronic games. I was the banker. It was such a fun evening and I will remember it for a long time.

Saturday Matt drove us down to Arlington and he, Paul & Ray played golf. I shopped at Kohls (I did this several times while there) and rounded up some items for our Christmas program. I got the 3 gifts for the Wise Men to take to Jesus and then tried to figure out how to get them back to Canada!! (They all made it.) We ate dinner that evening at Red Lobster - yummy cheese biscuits and coconut shrimp. On Sunday we worshipped at LABC and got to see a lot of our friends. We enjoyed our time in Adult I Sunday School the most. It was great to visit with such sweet folks that we love. Sunday night we attended a 60th birthday party for Rick Hale and got to see a lot of our friends.

On Monday LaRue had made me a dental appointment and Dr. Wallace was kind enough to fix the little chips in one of my front teeth! I enjoyed working in his office prior to moving to Canada. After the appointment Laura, LaRue, Emily, Kathy and I had lunch at Fuzzy's (a new Mexican place).

We tried to take the boys to school as much as we could to be with them. It is fun to pray with them while driving to their schools. Jake & Caleb were about a foot taller than me which was a shock - just since we saw them in March!! Monday night we drove back to Corinth and surprized Cole & Peyton and ordered pizza. The look on their face when we rang the doorbell was priceless. We played Clue and watched Matt win both games! It was so good to say goodnight prayers with the boys. As we drove back to Arlington we listened to the Saints beat the Patriots - yeah.... I bet Joni (my sister-in-law) loved it! She is such a Saint fan.

Tuesday we picked up Janice & Max at the airport (usually they are picking us up but they celebrated Thanksgiving in California with one of their sons). We had been using one of their cars since they were gone.

Tuesday night we enjoyed a Braums sunday...I had a Pecan Caramel Cinnamon Crum Cake Sunday....

Wednesday we got to visit with Linda & Larry Carter for a while in their home. We would have loved to have seen others too but our time was so precious and we wanted to be with the family as much as possible. Caleb had a basketball game on Wednesday night and we were glad we could watch him play. We told them goodbye after the game and spent the night at the Grabers. It was soooooooooo hard to say bye - we do not know when we will see them again.

Max took us to the airport on Thursday morning and we got home around 8:30pm.

I am getting ready for the pastors/wives that will be in our home tomorrow evening. Ray has helped me clean some (mainly putting away all the costumes, etc for the Christmas program that were laying EVERYWHERE in the living room) and I made pralines, vinegar cookies and fudge. Also made a run to the catholic church to pick up a bread order, visited the dollar store and bargain store for last minute details for the party and the program and then went to the grocery store. You ALWAYS have to go to the grocery store after being gone on a trip. The roads were quite slippery.

Ray has a couple to baptize this Sunday and that will be an exciting time for us. Ron & Kim Hart have been a part of our church since we have been here. Ray performed their wedding on the 7th of November. We will practice for our Christmas program and then have college/singles on Sunday night ( I will prepare the 7 bean soup recipe but since one of the girls is a vegan I will leave the meat out of some of the soup). Off and running here we go. Can't wait to see what all God has in store for us and our church. He is so awesome and as we celebrate His birth I pray that each of us will make more room in our lives for Him to live through us. MERRY CHRISTMAS Hope

This is our 4th Fall in The Peace

May I tell you how glorious this fall has been so far? We hardly have any snow! The temperature has only gone down to -10C! The sun is shining! I am loving it ~ actually had on shorts and short sleeved top while cleaning house on Wednesday.

Wednesday was Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in US). Ray attended a service at The Legion Hall with standing room only. The stores were all closed and everyone had on their red poppies.

Fall has been busy for many reasons:

1. We had revival October 25-27

Ray's brother Terry with wife Darlene above lead music)

2. Ladies Bible Study on Wednesday mornings. (see note at end of blog)

(Yeah Mona for leading the Tuesday night study and Christine Z

for leading the "country" study.)

3. College/Singles Bible study on the 1st & 3rd Sunday nights

4. Young Married Bible study on the 2nd & 4th Sundays

(now moved to right after church with a bite of lunch).

5. Ray had trip to Cochrane for National Leadership Board meeting. (2nd-4th)

6. Ray is leaving Tuesday (17th) for Coaching Clinic (brand new and he is excited about this).

7. We have had a lot of folks in the hospital with illnesses and surgeries.

8. One of our members passed away, Mr. Bob Little, and we had a very large funeral at church.

9. We had a wonderful wedding at church, Ron Hart & Kim Horner, on November 7th.

10. The ladies have their annual tea and silent auction next Friday (20th) and I serve on that

committee with Hester (our fearless leader), Wanda and Bridget.

Christine Z will head up the auction.

11. I also serve on the Christmas Concert committee that Betty Hale chairs and she has done

an amazing job getting us ready for the program which will be on December 13th.

12. Our Christmas banquet is on the 11th and thanks to all the hard work of our ladies we have

new dishes and cutlery for the tea and the banquet!

13. The fellowship hall and kitchen floors were stripped on Monday (9th) & what a FUN time

Patty, Dawn, Christine Z and I had!! Sliding all over the place but what a difference our

efforts made. Then two ladies each day for 4 days have gone in and added a coat of wax.

14. We are trying to not get too excited about our trip to Texas for US Thanksgiving!! Woohoo!

Grandboys ~ here we come. We will fly out of GP on the 24th and return on December 3rd.

I know I am leaving out so much but wanted to just let you know we will be at LABC on the 29th and hope to see many of you then.

NOTE: I wanted to also let you know what a great Bible study I have been doing this fall. It is called Discerning the Voice of God by Priscilla Shirer. There are so many voices calling out to us for our time and attention. How do we hear the gentle whisper of God's voice? Pray, read His Word, worship weekly, listen to your "Eli" and God will CONFIRM what He is saying to you. Now, after you hear Him what do you do? OBEY!! We as believers cannot be trying to decide IF we will obey ~ it's all in our name, CHRISTIAN. Love you all, HOPE

A Season of Thanksgiving

It is Pastor Appreciation Month and our folks at Cornerstone Baptist Church have the biggest hearts. The ladies ministry presented us with a Canadian Maple Leaf quilt in beautiful fall colors. I am the high peak in the middle behind the quilt!! Betty Hale is President of our women's ministry. They also had all my former and present Sunday School classes walk in and bring us a gift (cookies - very good) and sing songs and read some verses. A couple of them said they wanted to be like Pastor Ray.

It is almost Thanksgiving and I want to wish all my Canadian friends a Happy Thanksgiving. We will be having some folks over to help us with the ham and turkey. October is also a busy month for birthdays:

Aunt Marme - October 9th - Happy 85th

Niece Susie - October 12th Canadian Thanksgiving too!

Daughter-in-law Heather - October 14th

Nephew Connor - October 15th

This is wishing each of you a very blessed day to commemorate your birth. You are loved!

We had more snow last night and it was quite icy today. It did not get above freezing. Mr. Bob Little passed away and we are having our first funeral for a church member since we have been here. There was an amazing team of ladies at church tonight helping make lunch for tomorrow. I hope the weather will not keep folks from honoring this special gentleman.

I am glad that Ray and I drove to Grande Prairie yesterday. We needed some supplies for church and the bridge at Dunvegan was closed for 3 hours today - due to the weather.

I am trying to catch a cold and think I will head to bed - it is almost midnight here and hopefully Ray will have the bed all warm!! We have been looking for an electric blanket - you would think it would not be that hard to find one up here in the far north....... Sleep good, Hope

Fall in The Peace

FALL in the Peace Country means our Ladies Retreat. Our team of young ladies did an excellent job in planning and carrying out our fun day. You will notice that we had a "What Not To Wear" show with Stained Up Stella, Raisin Wrinkled Rosie and Mismatched Molly (alias Carmen Enns, Bridget Zylstra and Christine Parker). MC's for the show were Stacy Lou (Rae Hale) and Quintina (Mona Wilson). The theme of our retreat was "A Fresh Brewed Life" which is also the title of a book that our speaker, Teresa Rilling, referred to while speaking. We enjoyed coffee and tea tasting (talk about a caffeine HIGH) and a judging of the cups that the attendees had brought as their favorite coffee/tea cup/mug. We ate, laughed, cried and fellowshipped the day away. Thanks youngins!!

Sunday we had a good day in worship, fun singing with the folks in Harvest Lodge and our Young Marrieds were looking over "the goal of marriage". Another full and rewarding day.

MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL - we know of one couple that loves football up here in our neck of the woods and since they are dyed in the wool Carolina fans and Dallas was playing the Panthers - we had a party. We grilled steaks and ate baked potatoes, caesar salad and yummy bread - followed by peach cobbler at halftime. Josh & Katie both had on Carolina Jerseys - so Ray and I need to step it up and get Dallas tee shirts anyway!! First half was awful but the second half was better (sorry Josh).

Ray and I took off to Grande Prairie to make a Costco run on Tuesday after I kept Alexis for a while (her brother goes to speech therapy here in town and she has more fun with me). It was a rainy day but we did get some pictures of the beautiful leaves and the Dunvegan Bridge. We enjoyed our time and as always the trip to and from GP is filled with plans for church and Hope making lists. When we stopped to pick up our mail as we got back to Fairview - I noticed that the rain had turned to something a little lighter..... ugh. SNOW on September 29th!! I think I may develop SAD (seasonal adjustment disease) before this winter is over. Just north of us they were blessed with 11" of snow.

Here is hoping that you are having a good Wednesday and living your life full of purpose and for eternal value. This time on earth is only temporal you know.. Get your voice tuned up to sing praises for all eternity. Love you, Hope

A Trip to Edmonton

Edmonton skyline

HARVEST time in THE PEACE

Thursday, September 17th - my baby brother's birthday, Ray and I drove to Edmonton. It was pretty much raining the entire way but we sure enjoyed our time together. We made a stop at Costco when we got into town and then checked into our hotel. We met Dennis Rempel and his fiancee for supper at Moxie's. Ray is to do their wedding next May so he began their counseling in our room. There were actually two rooms and I escaped to the bedroom and read while they got in 2 or 3 sessions since it will be long distance to do counseling.

Ray had an Executive Board Meeting on Friday at 12:00 (which is why we went to Edmonton). We had a chance to go to the Education Station which has great Sunday School supplies and I did some shopping for a blouse.

I just read while Ray was in his meeting - now if I had had a girl friend along I would have been shopping so it is good that I was on my own!! After Ray was free we drove home through Slave Lake for a different view. It was after 4:00 when we left Edmonton so if you count a six hour drive we should have been home around 10:00.....when we were outside of Wanham we were being very mindful of "animals" on or near the road and we saw a light....it was a young girl hitchiking. Of course we stopped and picked her up. She asked if we had any water and had been walking for some distance and still had about 50 km to where she was going. She was 16 and had been ON HER OWN for two years and had just lost her job at a SLAUGHTER HOUSE. She was walking to a friends house in Woking. We told her we could take her to Rycroft and then we would turn north. Please remember I had been sitting in the car for 4 hours BEFORE we started home BUT was not surprised when Ray told Jaycie that we would take her to where she was going. Neither one of us could stand the thought of her walking all night in the dark! We shared the Lord with her and gave her some pamphlets to read - all she had was the clothes on her back.... but you do understand that she was not an exception - there are many "kids" in the same position she is in. Our hearts were heavy as we arrived home at almost midnight. We are praying for protection for our young friend.

Sunday was quite the change of pace and Ray and I both had itchy throats. I did my Sunday school class with 8 two/three year olds and my helper was working....ugh! Ray preached and then we had a church business meeting and he talked a lot more. It was also the day that was scheduled for our service (singing) at longterm care. OK - three down and one to go.... we had college Bible study at the house with sloppy joes (Sorry Tabitha - did not know we had a vegetarian in our midst - but will plan for next time). It was a good study time even though there were only 7 of us. It is always good to be in the WORD and talking about how great our God is and always will be. Yeah we made it and accomplished all the Lord had set out for us on this day. I was tired and Ray was totally wiped out. Almost like those COWBOYS!!!

I kept 3 kids for about 2 hours yesterday and worked on a puzzle to settle back down after Sunday... it was a great puzzle with 9 large colorful Mexican plates on shelves. I loved it and Ray actually helped me some.

Ray is at prayer time with some of the pastors in the area but we have been invited by our friends Mert & Ivan to go camping for tonight. Not the rough stuff - they have a 5th wheel that is about 35 feet long. We were going to Figure 8 Lake but decided to go camp at the Hines Creek Golf Course and maybe get the last game of the year in. The temperature is to start dropping and continue until next spring! I do not think I am ready - NO, I KNOW I am not ready.... and for sure Ray always says he is not. Ready or not cold/snow is on the way.

Well, I am going to get ready to play some golf and camp/eat. Love you all, Hope

(Next Sunday we only have church, Harvest Lodge and young married Bible study!!)