Renovations

This is an exciting couple of weeks for me.  My wife and I are taking on our first REAL renovation project in our place since we moved in 3 years ago.  Over the years I've done minor-to-medium things to a couple rooms - painted, fixed leaky sinks, fixed appliances, stained furniture, etc, but this is different.

We're completely gutting our laundry room and rearranging it.  That means sawing wood and pcv piping, painting, filling in holes, building shelves, drawers, sliding doors, etc...  And we're hoping to do it on the cheap, meaning we're doing the work, and hoping to do a lot of it from scratch.

I love working with my hands, and my goal is to become a handyman around the house.  I've started with the projects mentioned above, and I'm hoping this project takes me to the next level.  My dad was a handyman and I thought it was really cool that he could fix pretty much anything.  I wanted to be like that too, but I unfortunately didn't learn very much because it was always so boring helping him - my job was always to hold the light..a necessary but incredibly monotonous task.  Now though, I'm excited to get my hand dirty and build something!  As it's the first real go around, I don't expect it to look perfect, but I'm excited for how it'll turn out!

Summer highlight

At the beginning of this summer I blogged a picture of what I was super excited about for this summer - lots and lots of kayaking!  However, my summer ended up taking a very different turn than that, and I was only able to get out about 5 or 6 times all summer (which was far less than I wanted).

One day after that blog post, I went for three-part interview to become a volunteer firefighter with Oro-Medonte.  A few days later I got the good news - I had been accepted!  BUT, it was going to be a long summer of studying and training, with a test at the end.  And essentially, that was my summer.  Most of my free hours were spent reading, and I was in training about twice a week - one of those days usually on the weekend.  It made for a long summer with long weeks, and as mentioned, I didn't get to do much of what I wanted like kayaking and day-long road trips...but I had my test at the end of the summer and it was all worth it in the end because I officially got on with the department last week!

It was a relief, and a reminder that if you want something, you have to work for it.  Yes, I missed out on a lot of the activities I was hoping to do this summer, but I think it was a pretty good tradeoff...

My son is pretty happy about it too

Vacation

I was on vacation last week, an oooohhh, it was a good one.  I told my wife that the sign of a great vacation is all the scratches, cuts, aches and pains from all the adventuring.  I'm not usually a guy who can sit still for very long, I'd much rather be doing stuff.  Last week was a great mix of hanging out and being active.

I was at Muskoka Bible Centre (MBC) for the week.  That was great in itself because MBC is really a neat place.  They bring in speakers in the morning and evening, and Dr. Steve West from a church in Guelph was there last week.  Brilliant guy, taught me so much, I really enjoyed his messages.  Additionally, the food at MBC is ridiculously good (I gained a few pounds...).  And they have activities like canoeing, kayaking, volleyball, etc.  I took my own kayak, but it was nice to go canoeing with my wife and son.  So yes, MBC was awesome...

Here's where it gets really good.  I made it my mission to do lots of stuff while we were there - and we did.  In fact, there were a few things on my list that that I couldn't fit in!  The highlights - golf at Huntsville Downs, climbing a waterfall, ATVing through some crazy terrain, sliding down the Port Sydney rapids (which this year are flowing very high and fast), and perhaps the highlight - cliff jumping!  A 38 foot cliff that was absolutely awesome!  I have pictures and video of most of this stuff but it was taken by different people on different cameras.  When I amass it all, I will edit this post to show some of the adventures.  Oh, and we went into Huntsville and walked around a couple of times.

Thanks Huntsville and MBC, I had a blast!

Pronunciation!

I don't know why it's a pet peeve of mine when people mispronounce words.  It's probably not fair of me to get annoyed because I'm likely mispronouncing the same word in their ears.  Also a lot of times it's just a dialect thing - Canadians and Americans pronounce certain words differently.  Nonetheless, here are some words that I commonly hear mispronounced, or that my wife and I argue over how to pronounce:

Syrup - I pronounce the 'y'.  Many don't.  Clearly there is a y in the word, it should be pronounced.

Sudbury - Similar to my issue with the pronunciation of syrup, Sudbury is spelled with a 'u', not an e.  It's Sudbury, not 'Sudberry'

Mature - this is a dialect thing I think, but it's probably the one I get most irritated with.  It drives me crazy when people give it the hard 't' sound, instead of a 'ch'.

Schedule - I pronounce it 'skedule'...which happens to be the right way (in my opinion).  It's not shed-ule'.  Again, probably a dialect thing, but still gets under my skin.

Athlete - notice how there is no 'e' between the h and l?  Hence, an 'e' should not be inserted when saying the word.

Lieutenant - 'leuiftenant?  Seriously, is there an 'f' in the spelling?

Garage - it's not a 'Gare-aj', it's a garage.

Thunk - that's not even a word!  'Thought' is the past tense.


There's a lot more, but those are the ones off the top of my head.  Whew...I feel better now.

Sunset

I had aspirations of kayaking a ton this summer, but due to some unforeseen circumstances I haven't been able to get out nearly as often as I was hoping.  However, I did get out last night.  The plan was to do some hard kayaking and get some energy out.  Instead I was captured by nature, and just sat and watched.

Unfortunately this video is really pixilated.  It shows up wonderfully on my computer, but won't upload in better quality.  You might have to use your imagination a bit.

I was out for about an hour and a half.  This is a bit of a succession of how the sunset took place.  Unfortunately it was just my cell phone camera, so it doesn't appear that stunning.  In real life though, much of the sky was red...it was beautiful.

Death Penalty

This is a pretty weighty subject...

My wife and I have been watching Prison Break on Netflix, the first time I've seen the show.  It's very well done, very entertaining, but I'm having personal difficulty watching it because it touches on a subject I have strong feels on...the death penalty.

What do you think of it?  I have always been against it, and still am.  I understand why it exists and why some feel that it's the proper course of action for justice, especially when it is a particularly heinous crime.  I also understand that putting someone in prison for life is a drain on taxpayer dollars.

However, in my opinion, who are we to decide when a human life should end?  A human life is a human life, and no matter what a person has done with that life, none of us has the right to make that decision - even if it's in the name of 'justice'.

It also seems like a rather large contradiction that we condemn the killing of one person by killing another.  Some would call that justice, but I'm not so sure I see it that way.  Yes, the bible says an eye for an eye, but what about grace in the new testament?

On the spiritual aspect of it, does not Christ forgive us over and over and over...and over?  We all deserve the death penalty if we put our lives at God's standards.  And yet, here we are still alive - and with life forevermore for those who believe.  We deserve the death penalty, and yet we're not getting it.

Another issue is wrongful convictions.  It does happen, despite our justice system's best efforts and intentions.  How many cases have we seen of people being wrongfully imprisoned for decades?  How terrible would it be to put an innocent man to death?

Finally, there comes the issue of remorse, of second chances.  I can't understand putting someone to death in general, but especially not when that person is remorseful and has turned their life around.  Think of the good that newly changed person could do, and how they could stop so many others from making bad decisions.

I realize that I have never been (and hope I never will be) a victim to the point that the perpetrator deserves the death penalty.  Perhaps it's easy for me to say all this when I've never been wronged like that.  That being said, I'd like to think that my stance wouldn't change.  I'd like to think that I would have God's strength to love and forgive.  The stories that stand out to us are not those of a a death row inmate being put to death. They're the ones when the families who are wronged plead for the life of the person who harmed them, instead calling for their head.  That's grace. That's forgiveness.  That's what Christ has shown us.

Some cool stuff happening

One of my jobs at LIFE is the Ministry Relations Coordinator.  Essentially that means building, maintaining, and growing relationships with churches.  Part of that sees me travelling around central Ontario and visiting pastors.  I love this part of my job.  Pastors are great people, and their passion to spread Chris is obvious. What I really love though, is seeing how churches are making a difference.  Yesterday I travelled to 89.3 and visited with 4 pastors.

I started at Victory Christian Centre in Port Perry and met with Pastor John Benschop.  He told about the amazing doors that have opened in Cuba.  He has been invited back several times by church leaders and country officials to teach them.  They've seen healings, miracles, amazing works of God.  In fact, he's going back later this year where he'll be meeting with the country's Minister of Religion.  He's asking for two stadiums to hold two MASSIVE outreaches.  Very cool.

I then went to Selwyn Outreach Centre in Peterborough.  Wow.  Like, wow.  They've given away over         $5 million in missions in the last decade or so.  They find a need and they fill it.  They've built ministry schools in South Sudan, churches and buildings in Kenya, Brazil, India...the list goes on.  On top of that, they invest locally - tens of thousands of dollars into reaching the lost in Peterborough every year.  Pastor Brian Mahood is a really passionate guy.  Really cool stuff.

On to Calvary Pentecostal in Lindsay.  Pastor Joel is new at the church within the past 4 months.  He's excited for what God has in store.  He's excited about local missions and reaching his community.  He's excited to move the church forward and do unique outreaches that sweep the city off its feet.  We talked about a few of them, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag too early.  I'll just say, it's some seriously cool stuff.

I rounded out my day over coffee with Pastor Anthony Does at Bethel Lindsay.  Such cool stuff in the works at Bethel, some really big plans.  They have an awesome piece of property, and what they're hoping to do with it is really impressive and could be a great outreach.  Again, I have to stay cryptic because it's not my place to say what's in the plans, especially when it's not set yet.  But again I'll say, very cool stuff.

It was an encouraging day visiting all these pastors and seeing what's happening.  Some neat stuff is going on in Port Perry, Lindsay, and Peterborough - and around the world through 89.3 churches!  Stay awesome 89.3.