Why I love small towns :-)

So Kev usually leaves at 4:30ish in the morning. This morning, he had to get up obscenely early because there was a worldwide conference call -- generally the eastern hemisphere is the one put out by middle of the night phone calls, but this week they had it in the middle of our night. So he's driving through the county middle of the night ... and here's his story ...

Left home at 2:45 this morning. Got pulled over by a police officer. Officer: "is everything OK, sir" Me: "yes, why?" Officer: "we have our regulars, and we don't normally see your car until quarter to 5" haha!

This is why we love living here ... even the police officers are watching over us, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! :-)

And yes, I've been blog post deficient. I suspect no one will read this since I haven't posted anything for months and my readership is down to zero lol. I might have to get back to posting. It's been hard though .. so much of what is going on in our family since February involves two lovely little girls who are staying with our family -- however posting photos/info in a public place is not allowed. I will say that there is a court date in June, and whether they stay with us (and their future BEYOND us) is currently resting on that court date. I would covet prayers from those of you that do :-).

Any may I add, just briefly, that I love fostering. Those of you who know that I'm not a "kid" person will laugh at this ... but I am a "parenting" person and these little ones need LOVE and parenting. We're all over that ;-). This can be really, really hard, and I've had moments of frustration (and I suspect June will be the real test) but I'm so glad we're in this place doing this thing.

Belleville Christmas Parade, November 13 (!!!) 2009

Our family volunteered to help with the UCB float, passing out candy canes. Despite the incredibly long wait, and sore feet, we had a lot of fun. So much so, that on our way back to the van, Kevin was stopped by a police officer who told him that our group was the most cheerful and "Christmas-like" bunch in the parade. She asked him "So what is UCB Canada?" Smile.

One photo for now ...

Kevin took about 100 photographs .... which would be 20 separate entries here. I'm looking at alternatives since that's a pretty time-consuming endeavour :-). But I leave you with this to start:

Kev was able to take a raft trip upriver from Chaing Rai and visit the Karen tribe village of Ruammi. The Karens are considered a "long-neck" tribe; the women wear rings around their necks with numbers increasing as they age. A child may have four; a women would have many more. He did get photos of this, but I won't be posting more pics until later.

Thanks, Kev, by the way, for checking in to the blog from Bangkok ... I now have Thailand on my map of readers :-). Since this is a private blog, that's a big deal!

This is getting almost funny ... poor Kev ...

So there was an earthquake in Tokyo this morning at 5ish o'clock (acted as an alarm clock). It was 5.9 on the richter scale but luckily the epicentre wasn't right in Tokyo but a couple of hundred clicks away so it was just a rattler.

And now, they've changed his flights and he is heading to Los Angeles rather than Vancouver. Oh my. He is VERY tired of the trip at this point, and will be getting home even later than he was. Poor guy.

And here, of course ... it continues to snow. I spoke with one of my farmer neighbours today and heard one more time of winters past, and how this winter reminds them of winter 50 years ago. This is a perfect winter, for the right transportation. Our over-dependence on cars is what makes it challenging. All the old-timers get a faraway look in their eyes, and tell you about their favourite team, and hitching up the sleigh to go in to town, and how snow in their days wasn't something to be feared but made transportation easier. As we drove home tonight from helping our pastor and family settle in to their new house, it was more "magic" snow ... glittery diamond dust snow covering everything. Magical and beautiful. Mmmmmm.

Updates on Kev and snow :-)

... who is now stranded in Tokyo. Good things: he is with his boss, not alone. The sushi is truly amazing, and he never imagined eating sushi in Japan. They get a day trip into Tokyo today (tonight our time) which was unplanned but should be fun.

Bad thing: He is now truly desperate to get home.

WE continue today to help move our pastor in ... and blow snow. Expecting 5 cm today and possibly 15 cm on Monday. Yikes!

Here are some "ladies-in-waiting" and snow photos:

Our flower box before snowfall number two:


Jasmine breaking snow in their paddock. The sheep have maintained a path to their feeder; otherwise the snow is untouched. It reaches right over their fence in some parts, however they are not particularly interested in leaving.


"Why are you dragging me through this, Alison?"


Rosemary's first winter. I don't think she's so sure about this!


Now I know she's not sure ... bawling for help! (Or food)


"That's better!"



Okay, only loosely a snow photo ... Iain carved this polar bear out of ivory soap as part of his unit on aboriginals. I'm sorry it's blurry, but I though he did a great job.

Update on Kev

Kev is having a great time meeting with people from all over the world, riding on elephants, river rafting and meeting Tribal groups such as the Karen tribe (lol) from Northern Thailand. What a rush! This has been a great opportunity for him. I'm hoping he'll come home energized, despite the jet lag :-). He has also promised lots of photos, which is amazing for him because he is not one to naturally remember to document his life that way.

A great link for a map of Thailand and geographical information ... here.

Kev leaves for Thailand today ...

He was asked to attend International Marketing Meetings along with James, the COO of UCB Canada (his boss).

His agenda runs something like this ...

Tonight: Drive to Toronto and stay overnight with the Cylka household (yay!)
Friday: Depart 8:30 a.m. and arrive in Vancouver at 10:29 a.m. (1:20 pm our time)
Depart Vancouver 2 hours later and arrive in Tokyo at 3:30 pm Saturday Jan 24
(which is 1:30 a.m. Saturday Jan 24 our time!)
Depart Tokyo 5:30 pm (now 3:30 AM our time ... poor Kev)
Arrive Bangkok at 10:50 pm (bedtime in Bangkok, but 10:50 a.m. in the morning for Kev)

He will be staying at Xen Suites Bangkok hotel evenings of January 24 and 25 (click on the link for English translation amusement lol). He hopes to go here and play tourist during the day on the 25th of January. We suggested he bring us home a monkey and some tropical fish for Iain's tank lol.

On Monday, January 26, he departs Bangkok at 6:20 pm. (all times are now in Thai time; our times are 12 hours earlier that day) and arrives in Chiang Rai at 7:40 p.m. In Chaing Rai he is staying at the Laluna Hotel and Resort (4 nights until January 30). There is will be mostly meetings, although they have one afternoon planned with a raft trip expedition to visit an elephant sanctuary!!! So fun. I believe in Chian Rai they are actually not that far from the border of Myanmar.

On Friday January 30, he flies out of Chiang Rai at 8:20 p.m., arriving in Bangkok at 9:35 p.m. and does another overnight at Xen Suites.

On January 31 he departs Bangkok 6:40 a.m., and arrives in Tokyo at 2:15 p.m. He then leaves Tokyo 3 hours later and arrives in Vancouver at 8:40 a.m. By now I'm not even sure which time this is but I assume it's Vancouver time. He then departs Vancouver at 11:00 a.m. and arrives in Toronto at 6:19 p.m. ... and drives home. Or, given how tired he might be, perhaps he will instead stay overnight in TO again :-).

So pray for my hubby, that he's not in a walking fog the whole trip and remembers to take some photographs! Our camera is missing, so he is taking Claire's cute little pink Samsung for the trip lol. Kev has been doing a lot of research into customs for the trip; for instance, because he is tall he must crouch down whenever he enters a room so he doesn't appear haughty and overbearing to the Thai people.

It should be an interesting experience all around. We're praying for political stability in Bangkok :-).




.

Guess what Kev is doing in January???

Here are his travel plans:

Leave Toronto 23rd Jan @ 8:30 am

Via Narita/ Tokyo

arrive Bangkok 24th @ 10:50 pm

Have a day (2 nights) in Bangkok and fly to Chaing Rai on the 26th

Return Leg

Leave Bangkok on the 31st @ 8:35 am

Arrive, via Tokyo to Toronto at 6:25 pm

Kev is representing Canada at the International Marketing Manager's Meeting of UCB International in Ciang Rai, Thailand. Cool, huh? (It's spelled incorrectly above). Claire is beyond jealous, because she has a HUGE heart for Asia. She's planning to slip in to his suitcase :-).

ReFuel '08 Entry No. 2 (still adding video)

Here is the band "... to tell" ... Kev was excited to find out that they are originally from Brockville, which has a UCB repeater station. They are considered a London band because Zach is currently at Fanshawe College doing Broadcast Media or something like that. They have an incredibly fun, innovative sound and do really neat things with timing; haven't heard music with timing changes like this since listening to my dad play old Brubeck tunes on the piano :-).




I'm having problems trying to put up Britt Nicole's video clip :-(. Keep checking back and hopefully I can get it to work.


Casting Crowns ... "If We Are the Body":





Casting Crowns ... "Praise You in This Storm":




It started raining about half way through NewWorldSon ... Kev, the girls and I were busily packing up the UCB display during this time, along with the rest of the ministries and vendors. It continued to rain through the majority of Casting Crowns' set ... and it was AMAZING! I never realized how much storm and rain imagery peppered their lyrics. Standing and singing along with this song in particular was an awesome experience. And although I've heard almost all the songs before, I heard them with new ears at the concert; in particular "The Voice of Truth". Casting Crowns lead singer, Mark Hall, grew up with learning disabilities (dyslexia and ADD) and his testimony was amazing. Really, the most exciting thing about this band is that, first and foremost, they are youth pastors with a HUGE, LOVING heart for youth. The music is only a tool to reach youth. They are truly just an average bunch of people, with a huge love of the Lord and kids.


Likely more to come ...

ReFuel '08 ... wow. Entry no. 1.

We had a phenomenal time on Friday, working at ReFuel '08. Some background; Delhi, Ontario, has a population of 4,000, about the same size as our nearest town of Picton. Delhi has two elementary schools and a high school, some businesses, and it's plunked in the heart of a truly rural area of south-western Ontario; an area that in the past became wealthy growing tobacco, but is exploring new crops such as ginseng.

A youth pastor in Delhi contacted the agent for "Casting Crowns", outlining his plans for a concert for the unchurched kids in this community. This was a BHAG (a big hairy audacious goal) for Chris, and he was completely blown away when the agent said "Yes, Casting Crowns will come to Delhi! And, so will Britt Nicole." Chris had to scramble to get this event set up, and he did an amazing job. Basically, the population of Delhi doubled last Friday the 13th.

The first thing we saw on our arrival:


Wow. This certainly brought home the magnitude of what Chris and his ministry were able to accomplish!

Here are Alison and Claire standing in front of the stage during set-up and sound check:

We were able to set up a couple of chairs right behind the red line (VIP section) - awesome seats, although we didn't spend too much time in them.

And on a smaller scale ;-) ... setting up the UCB display ...


We were only able to anchor two of the panels ... the winds were high and the panels were responding like sails. This necessitated a quick trip to two stores looking for patio stones, another table and rope to help brace everything! The lovely folks at the Gideon booth next to us lent us some good rope and tent pegs, which helped considerably. Here's Claire:


and the UCB display in-progress (we added a second table for copies of "The Word for You Today"):


I'm not even sure where to start ... the day was fantastic. So many neat moments. I'll try condense it to a few highlight here.

*Kev was able to get in a few interviews. He had his trusty MP3 player with him, and spent some time with Mark Hall (lead singer of "Casting Crowns"), and Joel from NewWorldSon. He also interviewed Zac and Andrew from the up-and-coming band "To Tell". This was their first gig, and they were beyond thrilled to be asked for an interview. I LOVED their sound. They are recording their first demo in the next couple of weeks and will be sending it off to UCB when it's complete.

*Had an amazing conversation with a Jamaican migrant worker who spends 8 months a year up here. Have you ever met someone, and there is this instant connection? It was an honour to have him share his story. I am also feeling a little "pricked", because off and on I have thought that a ministry to migrant workers in the County would be a good thing. (Lona, subject for another time; how could we serve these people who work so hard up here, in a way that would also bless their families back home? So often mom and kids end up losing their husbands and providers in this situation ... hmmm).

*The girls were pumped to hear Britt Nicole. Britt was actually quite sick, and almost cancelled her appearance. Her choice to continue to perform spoke almost as loudly as her words and her music, and really impacted the listeners. "Set the World on Fire" ... just, wow.

Much more to write, but I must prepare for substitute teaching tomorrow and must go ... look for another post at some point.

I am mortified ...

and thankful that not one of my blog readers would have been listening to "The Edge" radio show on UCB last night.

The announcers called for Kevin ... live on air ... (not completely true; prerecorded a few minutes before play) ... and asked for him. He had just raced in the door to visit the little boys' room ... which I alluded to strongly in my conversation. And then all these voices yelled "Gotcha! You are live on UCB 102.3 The Edge!"

At which I responded, "Oh, crumb." I thought it was a friend of his. Truthfully, it WAS a friend of his, with the added dimension that the whole conversation was recorded.

After I'd hung up, of course, all this back-and-forth banter about how I wasn't very happy with them (uh huh) ... yes, let's just emphasize over and over again to 20, 000 listeners that my hubby's in the john and I blabbed on him. (Edited to add: major exaggeration here; The Edge show turns off most of the station listenership. In reality, probably about 100 teens who wouldn't really care were listening . But still! Besides, they're all on Facebook. Should I be scared??? :-D)

**sigh** Alison's response to these shenanigans? "I just love our family!"

(And SHHHHHHHHH, don't tell Steve, one of the announcers responsible for my radio premiere, but I have the capacity to make his life ... well, inconvenient, to say the least ... his company hosts the website I work on ... I'm contemplating a flood of tickets containing pointless questions to his attention ... hmmmm.)

Starting today on UCB, the morning show emphasis is on practical jokes. Needless to say, I warned Kev last night that our phone number could not be involved in any of them :) !