Family

19 May 2020

Birthday Party – Online

Eleven years ago, Hannah and Nathanael’s birthday parties were small family affairs. Everyone was concerned about the swine flu pandemic, and so big parties were out of the question.

In 2020 we found ourselves in the same situation again, but this time with significant advances in technology, and advances especially in people’s comfort with and ability to use that technology. The other difference – Hannah was in Canada, Nathanael in Mexico. So – the party went online!

Often Shari has made a cake with matching cupcakes. This year, Shari and her Mom schemed together – the cupcakes were made in Canada, the cake (cheesecake this time) was made in Mexico. Matching chocolate-peanut-butter flavours, matching colours, and matching themes – unicycles.

It was a family party again, but this time expanded to grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. Not everyone could make it, but we had a good group, spread out from Alberta to Ontario to Mexico. Everyone was encouraged to bring their own cake – and some indeed did!

This was the first joint party in quite a few years. As was mentioned, unicycles was the theme. Decorations went up. And the party began. GoToMeeting was the app of choice.

We had some activities – a get-to-know-you type game, and then a how-well-do-you-know-Nathanael-and-Hannah type game. And of course some time to chat and hang out.

Of course, not the same as having everyone together. But far, far better than not getting together at all!

In these days of being so disconnected – every once in a while, you get a little bit more connected than you would have otherwise.

Happy birthday Hannah and Nathanael! May this be a year of unexpected God-ordained connections!

20 March 2020

COVID-19: Closer to Home

Jim Family, Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

So far I’ve written a little about COVID-19 in general, and then more about COVID-19 in Mexico. Today I’ll continue talking about Mexico a little, but I want to bring things a little closer to home.

First of all, when I say “closer to home” I’m not hinting that anyone in our family is sick. Our family, and extended family, is healthy at the moment. Well – as healthy as normal!

Walmart cart attendant — A “cart-wiper” doing his job at Walmart

Here in central Mexico, things still appear mostly normal on the surface. I’ve seen supermarkets, markets, banks, highways – even a medical lab – all in the past couple of days. Yes, every employee at the lab was wearing a face mask (I don’t think I saw anyone wearing one correctly – so I doubt they did anyone any good!). And at the supermarket, there were friendly (and not-so-friendly) attendants who freshly wiped your cart with something supposedly anti-bacterial before giving it to you.

There are very few shortages – one has been the ubiquitous face masks, and the other anti-bacterial gel. But if you go to buy something, you’ll find the shelves mostly stocked as normal.

We are trying not to be envious of those who are looking for things to do during isolation. Isolated or not (not, at the moment), we have more to do than ever – and that isn’t likely to change.

Yes, we still have mountains of TP. – Oh, this is the store, not our house!

So, like everyone, we’re adjusting to the new reality.

This weekend we will be doing some “online ministry”. Today we ran a test on Google Meet to see if we could use it for our Bible study tomorrow night. So far, so good. So our study will continue via live video chat.

We reluctantly decided to go online for our Sunday service as well. I won’t go into all the reasons why, but lets just say these are difficult and complex decisions. And we see this as a temporary step. Depending on how long this continues, we may move at least to small groups again. The assembly of the saints is a “necessary service”.

I’m curious to see what happens on the internet when thousands of churches try to go online Sunday morning. We shall see! But Lord willing they will at least have a sermon (my turn to preach) that they can watch or listen to sooner or later.

Hannah is facing the new reality, in her grade 12 year, of having a grad dress and no grad. Well, of course the students will graduate, but friends in the dorm are quickly saying goodbye and moving out, as the rest of their instruction continues online.

So earlier than normal, Hannah is thinking about a place to live in the months ahead, getting a job to pay for it, and all the things that we had put off dealing with in detail until graduation in June.

And Nathanael, the lucky home school student, is struggling to keep up with school while his parents are overly distracted with everything else that’s going on!

So we’re staying in touch with family and helping where we can, and also carrying on with ministry here in Mexico. The need is great here, and it’s likely to get greater in the weeks ahead. So we’re trying to figure out, day by day, how to best minister to our community in times of great uncertainty and change. We’re all fine, but everything that’s going on is a significant strain, so as usual we appreciate your prayers.

Our friend Oscar preaching at last week’s service

15 March 2020

Retro: Kids in the Pass

Jim Family, Just for fun, Retro 0

March 2010 was a busy ministry month. We held the very first service for the church in the community of JesÃºs MarÃa – ten years ago this month!

But everyone needs to get away – and we did, about two weeks earlier. We went up to the Paso de CortÃ©s (CortÃ©s Pass) between the volcanoes. And we got this classic photo of “the kids” – our kids, the Fry kids, and the Valtierra kids (a family we worked with in the JesÃºs MarÃa church plant).

So here they all are – 10 years ago today!

28 February 2020

Back from Colombia

Jim Family, Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

As you probably know, Hannah got back from Colombia about 10 days ago. With delayed flights on the way back, everyone had a lot of sleep to catch up on – and they probably have a lot of school to catch up on too!

Anyway, Hannah told me to thank everyone who prayed for their prayers! She says specifically, “It was a great and edifying experience for the whole team. It was really cool to see God at work in the various ministries we visited and served at, and we learned a lot from them.”

I’m sharing a video from the team below, so you can see some of what they did for yourself! You can also see their blog posts here, including one that Hannah wrote.

7 February 2020

The Colombia Team Lands (and how to find them online)

Jim Family, Missions, Other missionary blogs, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

Well, if they’re on schedule, the Prairie Christian Academy team has just landed in BogotÃ¡, Colombia!

If you received our recent newsletter (and if you haven’t, you should soon, if you’re on our Support Team), you know that Hannah is part of a team of women who are on a missions trip to Colombia. They will be involved mostly in children’s ministry, especially in poorer areas.

We would appreciate your prayers for Hannah and her team mates! They’ve had a long trip, and after a rest tonight they’ll hit the ground running tomorrow (Saturday). They leave Colombia on the 17th, arriving back home on the 18th.

Interestingly enough, BogotÃ¡ is almost 400 metres higher than Ixtapaluca, at 2640! So even though it’s further south than we are, it’s actually slightly cooler at this time of year (down to 6â„ƒ / 43â„‰ tonight). But that’s better than Three Hills at -9â„ƒ! So I’m sure they’ll be enjoying the climate change.

If you’d like to follow the adventures of the team, check out:

The Adventures of the 2020 Colombia Team (Facebook)
pca_colombia_teams (Instagram)
PCA Colombia Teams (blog) (you can also read posts from previous teams here)

20 January 2020

Water – can’t live without it, can’t live with it?

Jim Family, Practical matters 0

I haven’t posted for a while, but frankly, we bin busy! A little too busy in some ways … we’re trying to find ways to carve a little rest into the schedule.

Some of the “busyness” is trying and failing to catch up on things that weren’t done over the holidays … some of which should have been done before the holidays … but hey, like everyone, we’re given 24 hours a day and we just have to ask God for wisdom on how to use those hours! 🙂

You may know we’ve had our adventures with minor flooding in the house. For example, if the water jug has a small hole in it, it will leak and cause some big enough problems in the kitchen. Shari caught one leaking the other day, before it did much damage.

Lately, it’s been adventures with toilets. One “exploded” this past summer, one in December. Due to our financial situation, we of course bought the absolutely cheapest toilets we could find. This worked out great the first time, horrible the second time.

Our friend Ismael installed the new cheap toilet, and then returned to fix the new cheap toilet during the holidays (after flood #2 – thankfully, we were home and awake both times, or it could have been much worse than a lot of mopping!).

Then Shari again noticed water pooling on the floor – not like the previous disasters, but enough to require some plumbing. At first she thought it was just water leaking from the ceiling (a semi-regular occurrence – water leaking from the draining of the washing machine on the next floor). But no, it was the toilet again.

So this time I put on my plumbing hat and did the repairs – replacing some ridiculously cheap parts on this toilet with something more normal. It took a couple of tries, but it looks like it’s actually working again. How long it will last, we do not know!

We’ve had fewer roof leaks, because it’s dry season, so that’s nice. Although we’ve had a wee bit of rain the last few days, which is unusual for this season.

But all these things remind me of things to be thankful for. For one, as I mentioned, we’ve been at home when these floods occurred. Even a couple of hours could have caused some damage.

Second, our water has been fairly reliable lately – we’ve had fairly good and consistent pressure (for those who remember some of our problems in the past). It hasn’t been 100%, but usually we have running water – which is a major blessing many do not have!

So there you are, the ongoing story of the toilets. Just what you wanted to distract you on a Monday! But there is much more to be thankful for. We had a good service yesterday, with lots of people and even some new people. It was an encouragement to us all. And God continues to use His Word to speak to us.

And to conclude – to prove that we’re trying to rest once in a while – we enjoyed trying out a new board game called Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty), a game about the Mexican Revolution. Fun, and educational! Here are a couple of pictures (because, after all, who wants more pictures of broken new cheap toilets?).

«‹ 9 10 11 12 ›»