Happy Valentine's Day

Moose at Visitor's Center

Hoarfrost 2/13/2009

So, did you do "something" in the name of LOVE today? Don't you love the way that the greeting card companies make up things for us to celebrate. Of course Valentine's Day has been around for a long time and we can choose to have fun with it or make ourselves miserable when we do not get something we wanted...especially from our significant other. If you have done any reading from Gary Chapman's book "The Five Love Languages" then you know that GIFTS is one of the languages than can determine if a person feels lovedl loved. Boy, am I glad Ray and I neither one have that as a heart language!! We just enjoy being together...makes it quite easy and cheap.

We are having a Family Game Night at church with spaghetti supper tonight. I am looking forward to spending time with friends and just being silly. I even "bought" a cheesecake to take but WILL make a salad. Ray will tell you that I always feel compelled to bake something whenever we are having a get together at church or in our home... maybe I am outgrowing that trait.

We drove to Grande Prairie yesterday and picked up our glasses (hopefully Ray will hold on to his good and tight this time since his last pair are on Maui somewhere). We are both adjusting to progressive lens and the distance away we need to be from our book to read something....this may take a few days.

On Thursday morning we got a call about a member's house fire...thankfully it only damaged the family room and garage. It is a scary time of year to think of being displaced from your home. When driving home from GP we stopped in to see the damage to the house. They own Dunvegan Gardens and as we pulled into the Visitors Center there was a moose standing at the door - it looked like he wanted in...then he walked over to the pay phone and it looked like he wanted to make a call. Ray and I pulled the car as close as we could get and watched him for a while. They are quite interesting creatures. As it turns out the folks were most blessed as a passing motorist saw the fire in the chimney and called them to alert them. God is good!

It snowed some yesterday and today but the most spectacular sight was the "hoarfrost" that we received yesterday - which is still hanging around today. I will try to attach a picture showing some of the effects. The fog moves in and just freezes to everything...a picture cannot begin to show the magnitude of the scene.

I pray that this will find each of you living each moment of your life in a state of God consciousness or God awareness. My brother mailed me a book "A Testament of Devotion" by Thomas R. Kelly (Quaker missionary, educator, speaker, writer, and scholar 1893-1941). The premise is to be AWARE of God's presence every moment of your life. I am working my way through it with the knowlege that I know that is the kind of relationship that God desires from each of us that call Him Father. Think about that and we will talk about it soon.

Loving each of you and thankful for your input into our lives and work here in Canada. Hope

I'm thankful that Ray is hardheaded!!

What a beautiful day we had in Fairview today. It is Saturday the 7th of February (Happy Birthday Ed Peterson) and it was +5C today. We had a few snow flurries but no more accumulation. Our week has been a little bit different though... Last Sunday as Ray was walking out of church to go drive the car closer to the door to pick me up - his feet went out from under him on the "glare ice" and the first thing that hit was the back of his head. He was knocked out for a couple of seconds and then attempted to get up and he could not get his legs to move - now that was a scary time for him. On his second attempt he was staggering up with dizziness and blurred vision. One of our members who is a fire and rescue volunteer, Josh Zylstra, came along side Ray and got him to our car - yeah that's right put the man behind the wheel of a car in his condition..... Ray drove to the door and when I got in someone had told me that he was hurt and I noticed the large abrasion on the back of his head - "one way to cover up that bald spot". We had two families over to our house for lunch so we just continued like nothing was wrong... I tried to get Ray (in front of witnesses) to go get himself checked out at the hospital....but I AM FINE was the reply - now all of you ladies know how the men are about doctors... He still had some blurred vision and a bad headache. We had more company that came over to watch the super bowl and so we had company all day and I did not get to really question Ray like I would have liked to. His headache continued (and he still has one) into the next day with him doing all the regular activities - except NO WORKING OUT. The ladies started their spring Bible studies this week on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. We got a call on Tuesday morning that one of our member's dad had passed away and Ray went immediately to the home. Then he went to pastors prayer time that several of the Fairview Ministerial pastors are involved in. He did some discipleship on Tuesday evening.... all the while with his headache. Finally Wednesday AM he went to the hospital here in Fairview to get it checked. They did several X-Rays and determined from the symptoms that Ray had a concussion. He was told to stay off the computer, to not read and not to watch television and to mostly SLEEP. OK - trying to keep that man off his computer was not something that was going to happen. He studies close to 8 hours a day!! I did manage to get him to agree to no more than 30 minutes at a time and then he had to take a rest/nap. That has helped to decrease his headaches to bearable. The doctor said he would have headaches for a few weeks and if he followed orders the time would shorten.

I managed to squeeze in a birthday this week - the big 62. I enjoyed many phone calls, emails and facebook wishes. We decided to celebrate when Ray was feeling better.

We spent most of Friday involved in the funeral which was in Worsley (about an hour away). I think Ray would have loved to preach the service but this task fell to the United Church's lady pastor. We love Mel & Lisa and were glad to be there to lift them up in the death of Mel's dad. When we were driving home from Worsley we did see two moose...they were our first this winter!!

We got to visit over lunch with Darla & Ken Ponath today. Ken is over our Canadian Baptist Builders and Darla is carekeeper of the Missions House in Cochrane and works closely with Ken in Disaster Relief. What a blessing for us to spend some time with them.

Tomorrow is a busy day with Ray having regular Sunday school with 20 Something, preaching and then service at the longterm care at 4:00PM and our College Bible Study tomorrow evening. I am fixing pancakes and all the trimmings for them.

Ray just came in from spending some time with one of our deacons and his headache is better....praise you Father God.

I would love to thank each of you who pray for us and continue to ask the Lord to bless our ministry here in Fairview. We are excited to have Bett Hale working on music for Palm Sunday and Easter. She is a joy to us.

We are excited to be going to Texas to see the grandboys for their spring breaks. We will be a little late for Luke's birthday (2/9), Caleb's birthday (2/28) and Jake's birthday (3/6)....but we will surely CELEBRATE while we are there. We love them and do miss them - of course we miss Paul & Laura AND Matt & Heather too... we will have the privilege of seeing RAY baptize Peyton on the 22nd of March - that will complete our heavenly family. We hope to visit friends at LABC especially on the 15th of March. We will hopefully catch some fish with the older grandboys at Cedar Creek Lake and then do some hiking and picnicking with the younger two... just so excited!!!

We want you to know that you are loved and that God is indeed blessing us here. He is our strength and source - hope He is that for you as well. H O P E & R A Y