30 is a nice number

Today, October 27th, Harry and I have been married for 30 years.  It's been a good 30 years and we haven't tired of each other's company yet -- even after 5 weeks together in a very small space!!.  We agreed to sign on for at least another 30 years.  Traditionally we celebrate our anniversary with take-out East Indian food and baseball.  Sadly, there is no baseball game tonight.  But I think East Indian cuisine will still be on the menu.  

In other news:  for those who have been asking, I'll try to do some updates to iowanorth.ca in the next week or two.  Thanks for the recipe contributions and I'm planning to add some new knitting patterns, too.  It's kind of low on my priority list right now, but I'll do my best.

My Brilliant Career

This week marks the beginning of a new role I have taken on at church.  My term as a Council Elder ended in May.  I have stayed on as a Shepherding Elder and have begun my work in the newly-created position of Care Coordinator.  We have a Pastoral Care model that is quite similar to the Stephen ministry.  I will be the "go to" person for coordinating care needs with district elders, journey partners, and the pastoral staff.


A lot of the work I'll be doing is purely organizational, data management, flow of information and coordination kind of stuff.  But I'm most excited about the work I'll be doing with District Elders.  All of our elders are assigned a "district" of 10-12 people/couples. My district was the test group last year for developing the group into a "village".  Rather than individual visitations, we met together twice as the whole group in an informal social setting to develop community.  And on a regular basis we now have emails flowing between us notifying me (the Elder) of prayer needs, physical needs, celebrations, etc which I pass on to the whole group when appropriate.  We made a covenant with each other to take notice of each other.  If a need arises in our group -- for instance, someone is hospitalized and meals for the family need to be coordinated -- rather than a general plea going out in the bulletin on Sunday, as our District Elder, I notify the group  and we fill the needs.  Our "village" takes care of our villager's needs!  


It has been an amazing experience to introduce the concept to my district, see them sign on enthusiastically, and then see it actually working throughout the year.  We are not a "small group" that meets for Bible study, etc.   We have simply agreed to take note of what's going on with each other and take care of pastoral needs.  In November, Pastor Koot and I will begin working with the other District Elders to help them get the village concept working in their districts.  I'm really looking forward to it.  It's really putting the day-to-day pastoral care of the church into everyone's hands.


On Sunday, Harry will be installed as a Service Deacon so we will both be in office for the next year.  When we were in Las Vegas on our trip we joked that perhaps this was not the ideal place for Elder Karen and Deacon Harry to vacation!  We had a good laugh over the sound of that statement.


I don't know why God keeps putting these church leadership roles in my path.  It kind of started with my push to get a relevant Seniors' ministry started.  I worked at that for 7 years and am still quite passionate about it.  I thought that with my Council term ending I would be returning to the Senior Adult Ministry program this fall.  I guess God had something else in mind for me.  I hope He provides me with clarity of mind and the necessary compassion to effectively do the job (not to mention the time to do it well).


-K


www.riverparkchurch.com

Mommy ... it's over

As I typed the title, I realized that some of you may not get that pop culture reference.  (If you happen to catch "Just for Laughs" on the comedy network you'll recognize that as the closing line.)  For me, it's also a reference to the completion of our long holiday and a return to work.

We spent our last week just mucking around the house.  We canned applesauce and cranberry sauce ...

(24 half-quarts of applesauce and 6 pints of cranberry sauce)

Went shopping at a new "outlet plus more" mall that just opened (scooped up 2 pair of shoes each) ...

(boots were the preferred choice)

Watched movies ...

(Louise actually watches TV -- even when there are no dogs on the screen!)

Had the grand-boys for a stay-over from Saturday to Sunday ...

(Jacob in post-pasta glory proclaiming "Good Job!")

And spent Thanksgiving day at Linda and John's house
eating turkey, playing ping-pong and just hanging out.

(Jacob and Anthony demonstrating their drumming skills)

We are rested and settling back into the work routine.  It's been a good 6 weeks.

P.S.  If you haven't heard the news yet, grand-baby #3 is on his/her way.  
         Expected arrival:  April 15

Week 4

A lot of road passed under our tires this week.  We started out from the Grand Canyon and headed for Page, Arizona.  The drive took us through some of the canyon lands which were beautiful.

We drove through a Navajo reservation and stopped at an artisan's market where you could buy Navajo jewelry and pottery and weaving direct form the artist who made the wares.  I splurged on some jewelry and pottery.  What was most interesting was the artists' willingness to explain the various sybols incorporated in their work and the meaning of the symbols.  So interesting.

Once in Page,  Harry went off to play the Page-Lake Powell National Golf Course, while I tried to keep myself and the dogs cool.  The campground in Page was terrible.  Only bad one of the whole trip.  It had all of the amenities one would like, but the staff was incredibly rude.  I thought it was just me.  But they herded a bunch of us Canadians in one area of the campground and while talking to our neighbours, found out they were also treated rudely and were only going to stay the night rather than the 3 nights originally planned.  Whew ... at least it wasn't just me they were rude to!  As we left Page, we visited our 4th and last dam of the trip:  the Glen Canyon Dam.  Yeah, yeah ... we're weird!  Anyway, it proved a nice little hike and some pretty scenery.

While having dinner in Page, we both agreed we were ready to head home.  We looked at the calendar and the map and made a plan.  We really wanted to try to make it home for Jacob's 1st birthday (Oct.4) and found we had plenty of time to make that .  So off we headed to Anaconda, Montanna -- just outside of Butte.  Harry re-played a golf course that he had played 5 years ago when it was just new.  I toured around the town because I had almost no recollection of our stay there 5 years ago.  That was the occasion of the fateful riding accident that resulted in a bad neck injury and so much pain I had little awareness of my surroundings.  I opted not to return to the scene of the accident and ride there again!!

Next stop was Great Falls, Montanna.  Again, Harry golfed and I opted for some last minute cross-border shopping while still in the Land of Cheap!  Ah ... how I wish we had Target in Canada!  In Great Falls we were warned about the impending bad weather ahead of us.  Cold temperatures and s--w.  Yikes!  We set out early on Saturday morning for Calgary.  The air was brisk, the skies were both clear and grey and leaked on and off.   We only drove through rain, but the scenery  was white with snow at times.

  It was kind of a long day, but we arrived safely back home in Calgary late Saturday afternoon.  We unpacked some of the RV and then I took a long hot bath.  You don't get those when you're on the road!  :-)  A good night's sleep in our own bed again and then off to Linda and John's house for Jacob's 1st birthday party.  Surprising LInda was so much fun.  Her face was priceless and she was so happy that we came home in time for the celebration.  Big hugs from Jacob and Anthony also made it worthwhile.  The birthday boy enjoyed his special day ...

So, our trip was great, relaxing and refreshing.  We'll spend our last week of holidays here at home puttering around here.  We'll clean and winterize the RV, clean out the gardens, make applesauce and get ourselves ready to go back to work next week.

I hope I haven't bored you with our trip journal.  :-)  -Karen