Friday is Toothday
Nathanael would like to announce that he has his first tooth. He didn’t have any yesterday, so that means that his first tooth arrived on 12 November, when he was just two days short of six months old. Nice work, Nathanael! 😛
Jim
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Hatch latch match
The days of constantly unplugging the car battery are at last over. The back hatch latch has been replaced (the mechanic found a hatch latch match), the interior light that I broke while trying to remove has been replaced (I did that one all by myself – are you impressed?), and the other minor repairs…well, they can wait for now (later in the week I’ll try to pull out my tools). Now we can load things back in our van, rather than stack them in all corners of the house, and hopefully we’ll be feeling a little more organized pretty soon.
Tomorrow Shari will be speaking at the Ladies’ Coffee Time at Garside Bible Church in Hamilton. We’ve been able to enjoy some time at Garside – it’s nice when we can go to church at the same place, and Hannah can go to the same Sunday School with the same children, and we can worship with people we know and hear God’s Word preached.
On the weekend we’ll be heading back west – well, a little west. To Kitchener and London, Ontario. I’ll be speaking to a group on Sunday night at the Stoney Creek Baptist Church in London. Next week we’re actually going to take a couple of days off – a rest we very much need and are looking forward to. So if you’re trying to get a hold of us in the middle of the week next week, and we’re strangely silent – that’s why! But keep trying (especially if you know of some ministry opportunities during the following couple of weeks)! 😀
For want of a latch
For want of a latch, the bulb was lost…
Isn’t it amazing how little things can be such a big problem. Yesterday we were just about to run away and visit Shari’s Grandaunts, Mary and Martha, when we discovered that we could no longer close the back van door. So we unloaded everything in the back and used some bungee cords to keep it all closed as well as we could. So far so good.
After a good visit we returned home and I headed out to do some errands, including finding some lubricant to see if I could repair the latch. Nope, these things are apparently beyond me. But praise the Lord, I stayed out until it was dark, and discovered our next problem. With the door not closing, the lights in the van weren’t shutting off. If we hadn’t noticed until the next morning, we would have needed a boost.
No problem, thought I, I’ll just remove the bulb! For most people, this would be a simple task, but not for me. In the end, I smashed the bulb by mistake, and found myself cleaning up broken glass in the van in the dark. Well, not quite dark. After the one bulb was smashed, I discovered two more.
But, no time to worry about that. We had an appointment in Toronto, so we headed out for supper at my cousin Jim’s. I just made sure that I kept starting the van while we were there to make sure the battery didn’t drain.
Once we got back home later last night, I disconnected the van battery and the lights went out.
Being a weekend, we probably won’t be getting it fixed until Monday or Tuesday. Today, however, we need to pack up the van and move to Beamsville. This could be tricky, because the van is so packed full it will be a challenge to find a way to keep the back door closed for the duration of the trip. So if you’re driving in Southern Ontario and you see a purple crate rolling down the road, or a teddy bear bouncing on the centre line, wave! We’re right in front of you! 😳
Wishing we could do it all…
We wish we could do it all. But we can’t! It’s a major frustration right now as we try to see people, but we’re having trouble seeing everyone we want to see. Perhaps some people are thinking that we’re ignoring them, or that they’re not a priority, but that’s not the case. We’re trying to get things planned but it’s very difficult.
We did have a good weekend. I had a good time in Cochrane at the First Baptist Church there. Thanks to all of you there for your warm hospitality and spiritual encouragement! Shari was back in Stouffville, and was able to celebrate her birthday on Sunday with some cousins, which was nice. We seem to be in Ontario quite often for Shari’s birthday, but always with different relatives! 😛
So we’re all back together again, which is nice. We find ourselves often busy with the unexpected – a flood in the place where we’re staying, the realization that we need to go and find a new car seat for Nathanael because he’s growing so fast, van repairs (you heard about that one), and so many more regular parts of life that refuse to be put off just because we want to stop by and see our friends.
So we just trust that you in Southern Ontario will be understanding, and that the Lord has a plan in all these frustrations of life! We will try to be faithful in the mean time – do what He has called us to do, and be what He has called us to be.
It’s hard to coordinate schedules, but if you have some free time to see us while we’re here, please give us a call or contact us from the website. That would be a help. Thanks for your prayers!
Better or not, here we come…
The van seems, for the time being, to be better (although there’s a windshield wiper issue which I simply will not get into here), and Shari’s neck is getting better, so this is a good thing. So after some good visits with folks in Stouffville and Newmarket today, we’re ready to go madly off in all directions over the weekend. I’ll be heading 681.1 km north to Cochrane, and then meeting with folks in Sudbury on the way back. Shari will be visiting with some folks in southern Ontario. And we’ll all meet together again on Monday night to compare notes. We’ll try to drop by to say hello to you sometime next week.
I’m writing with Nathanael here beside me. It’s a little distracting. He likes to roll over now, scoot around a little. His favourite word is “dlah” (no, we don’t know what it means either), and his favourite song is Meredith Willson’s 76 Trombones. He thinks it’s absolutely hilarious. No, we don’t know why. But if we could tell what babies were thinking, we’d be geniuses, wouldn’t we?
Complications
For a moment or so it seemed like we were more or less over whatever sicknesses we had. But that’s not exactly the case. Hannah is still rather sick with a runny nose, for one thing. A few days ago I passed the driving over to Shari temporarily because of a mysteriously sore neck. And today! Well today it was Shari’s turn to get a very sore neck – so sore, in fact, that we ended up at the doctor’s.
Don’t worry, it wasn’t a deadly, contagious disease. Shari was given some medication and special instructions, and sent home. So, being the healthiest driver I dropped off everyone at home and headed off to do some errands. I made it a few kilometers down the road before the van broke down.
A tow truck, mechanic’s and rental car later I was able to continue with the errands. This was the emergency stuff that we simply had to get done, until we had time for a proper shopping trip (and that will be when exactly?!). But I was able to go and pick up the cake. The birthday cake.
Yes, Shari’s birthday is coming up on Sunday. I’ll be gone for the weekend (assuming I have a vehicle, and assuming Shari isn’t incapacitated by muscle pain), so this was our last chance to sit back and celebrate. Of course, Shari needed to go to the doctor first thing in the morning (although it was later by the time we got there), and I had only returned from my errands in the mid-evening. So our day off turned into a half an evening off. But that’s ok! It was great cake (ice cream, you know. Dairy Queen). But please pray for the van repairs (for example, money to cover expenses like these – people who are committed to giving monthly to this ministry) and the health of all!
It’s days like this – or, weeks like this – that make you wonder – why are we doing this again? Oh yes. It’s the millions in Mexico who are in pain – all kinds of pain – but have no one to turn to for comfort and healing. It’s the millions in Mexico whose lives are broken down – they don’t know anyone who has the answers. They don’t know where to turn. It’s the millions in Mexico with no reason to really celebrate. In a few days many will celebrate the Days of the Dead, but they have no assurance and hope for the day of their death. Why do we do what we do? So that God can use us and you to bring hope to Mexico. When you look at it that way, it sure is worth it.