Rick and Cheryl on Adventure

  THE REAL SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS “He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked” (Psalm 146:7-9). We are currently staying at my dad's in Langham, SK This blog post departs from describing our ongoing adventure developing our land on Pincushion Trail and attempts to share with you our experience spending time with the amazing souls that comprise the global workers (formerly known as missionaries) of the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. These are Romans 12:1 people who daily offer their bodies as “living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,” for whom “true and proper worship” means giving up wealth, convenience, status, health, and family in service to the least among us. In November, we spe...

  WATER IS THE LIFEBLOOD . . . For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. (Isaiah 44:3) We discovered a natural spring feeding a cattle trough high up on the mountain. Too bad we don't have one of those on our lot. Isaiah 44:3 is a verse I would like to claim both with regard to water on our dry land and the living water that God would pour on our offspring. From the moment we purchased this property, water has been on our minds. The problem of water has taxed and frustrated Rick’s thinking capacity and challenged Tim’s dream of growing grapes. So I thought I’d begin this blog with some perceptive thoughts and quotes about the absolute indispensability of water: “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. – W.H. Auden 1 “We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” -  Jacques Yves Cousteau 1 “If there is magic on this planet, it is ...

  CHOOSING PATHS I instruct you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. (Proverbs 4:11) If you view a map of our 10-acre property, it’s more than a little confusing. There’s a paved parking lot at the base of a rough road which zigzags up the mountainside, carving our land into three separate parcels. The parking space and road easements are actually cut out of our private land, but we own the terrain surrounding them. We quickly learned that the road is gazetted and appears on Google maps, so anyone can use it. It serves as an access road for Telus vehicles as there is a telecommunications tower above us. The parking lot was built and paved because it is such a popular hiking trail that vehicles were lining the road and impeding passage. We counted a group of 14 hikers one day If you know where you’re going when you climb the trail, it eventually leads to an amazing geological formation called the Keremeos Columns. There’s a small provincial park up there as we...

FOUNDATIONS   He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure (Isaiah 33:6).   We were at the beginning of week #4 of our sojourn in the Similkameen, and it didn’t look like we’d accomplished much. Passersby glancing up at our lot from Pincushion Trail would have considered it vacant. BUT that’s because Rick had been laboring on the cottage foundation, and you usually can’t see foundations. Foundations underlay everything that you CAN see later, both with buildings and with lives.  I’ve been receiving an education in construction as I hold the ends of boards, read the bubble in the level, and watch cement scٰhlop out of the mixer. And wow – there are a multitude of finicky but necessary steps involved in laying a solid and dependable foundation. For those who haven’t been witness to the process, here’s a quick summary with illustrative photos:  1) Create a piece of fl...

  A THIN PLACE "Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?" (Psalm 24:3) Development is progressing slowly but steadily here on Pincushion, accompanied by a similarly slow and steady drain on our bank account. While Rick’s wheelhouse is sequencing consultations with contractors, foundation preparation, cement pouring, and sewer system planning, my sojourn here may be more of a spiritual one. My thin place I’m sure many of you have heard of the concept of “thin places” I can’t remember exactly when I first came across it – probably at our Regina church when learning more about contemplative prayer. A short time later, I encountered the term while visiting the isle of Iona off the coast of Scotland, learning that Iona is considered one of the world’s best known thin places. It is described as the birthplace of Christianity in Scotland, site of a Benedictine Abbey and Augustinian nunnery where monks and nuns lived, worked and worshipped for three a...

Welcome, family and friends, to a reinstatement of our blog. Previous entries detailed our experiences in international development work which has been suspended for now as we lean into a new adventure! PINCUSHION PROVIDENCE "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." (I Corinthians 2:9) One might wonder why Rick and Cheryl, Prairie born and bred, staunch Saskatchewan supporters, find themselves defecting to British Columbia at this stage in their retirement years. Well, sitting here in a borrowed trailer at the foot of a mountain, sometimes sweating, sometimes buffeted by spasmodic wind gusts, sometimes gazing out at a star-filled sky, we ourselves have plenty of time to ponder what we are doing here. Literally and figuratively.  It didn't happen overnight, but once the game was put in play a year ago, the dominoes have fallen rather quickly! It's one of those things that began with the sharing of a drea...