Laryngitis

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been on the air the past two weeks...well the title of this blog post says it all - I've had laryngitis.  There are few worse things for a radio dj to get then laryngitis.  My voice is my job, and without it I can't do anything.  The good news is that I've started to get it back, hopefully it'll only be a couple more days.  But it's been a long week.  I've been under doctors orders to completely rest my voice, meaning no talking at all.  Living a week without being able to talk teaches you a few things....

1) Having a spouse that is on the same page as you is crucial.  I've always known this one, and that's one of the big reasons I fell in love with my wife - we have always been on the same page, and we have always known what the other person is thinking before they say anything.  We're on the same wavelength, we think the same way, etc.  Now with laryngitis this past week, this has been a saving grace.  It's been tough not being able to speak, but my wife has almost always known what I was trying to tell her.  Sometimes it was just me pointing at something, or a look at each other, or just mouthing a word and she would know exactly what I was saying.  It made this week a lot easier.

2)  This past week has taught me how tough it is for persons with disabilities.  So many people have thought I was a jerk this week, simply because they would talk to me but I wouldn't (couldn't) talk back.  At the store you bump into people, or someone asks you a question, or they say a quick joke in passing, and you can't respond...and they give you this weird look like, "Wow, you're a jerk....you can't even acknowledge what I'm saying."  Or the look is them thinking, what's wrong with this guy?  And you can't explain yourself, and it's brutal.  This week I've carried around a dry-erase board wherever I go.  That's helped, but what a hassle!  It's been eye-opening.

3)  You can gain so much by just being silent and listening.  Again, I've always known this one, but I've noticed it much more this week with my son.  I always make noise when I talk, play, discipline, and laugh with him.  This week I've had to do that without words.  It's been tough, especially when you want to acknowledge something great that he did, or stop him from doing something bad.  But instead I've learned that just watching him is a joy in an of itself.  We still play, but I hear a lot more of his laughter and his 'words'.  It's been fun.  Long and difficult, but fun.

4)  God's timing is perfect.  On Monday my wife had an unexpected and rather significant medical issue that required us to take her to the emergency room.  Thank God, everything is fine.  However, this week has been a week of rest for her, staying in bed most of the time and making sure she doesn't overdo it.  And with a 15 month old bucket of energy running around, I don't know what she would have done if I was at work all week.  However, God's perfect timing allowed me to be home to take care of both her and our son, and allowed her to rest.  She's convinced that I got laryngitis this exact week so that I could stay home and help.  Looking back, I think she's right.

So yes, I've learned at lot.  It's been an interesting week...but a long one (have I said that enough?)  I'm thankful for what I've learned, but I'm looking forward to getting my voice back and being able to speak.  And with Sharathon this week, it can't happen a moment too soon!

Sick

This has been an abnormal winter for me.  I used to be an iron horse - I never got sick!  If I did, it was for a day at a time and mostly a head cold.  I'd sleep it off and feel better the next day.  A fever, cough, sore throat - I'd get that type of sickness every few years.

This winter though, this winter...*sigh*...  I got sick three weeks ago and spent a few days in a row in bed.  That started with my son getting sick, passing it to my wife, then to me.  All three of us were down for a while.  I eventually got over that and then a week ago I started to get that feeling again...that feeling where you know the sickness is coming.  And sure enough the next day my throat was scratchy and I've been coughing since.  I've been to the doctor a couple of times, I'm taking vitamin C, cough syrup, Advil, drinking hot water with lemon and honey, etc...doing all the things your supposed to be do when you're sick, and yet this cold is taking its sweeeeeeeet time.  And because of my cough and sore throat, my voice is shot.  I sound like a kid going through puberty...not very good when your job is being on the radio.

So what happened?  Why can't I fight off a cold now?  I think I figured it out...

I have a kid!  Don't get me wrong, I love my son and by no means am I blaming him, but things change when you have a kid.  He gets sick and his germs are EVERYWHERE.  He doesn't quite have the same etiquette adults have - no covering of the mouth for a cough, no wiping of the nose, no washing of the hands, etc...  So he passes it on.  On top of that, he doesn't sleep well at night because he's not feeling well...which means, yep, parents, you're not sleeping either.  Deal with that for several days and nights in a row while working full time and doing everything else you need to do...and your immune system eventually wears down.

Again, I'm not blaming my kid, but I think it's just reality.  I've had a few parents tell me that the same thing happened to them when they had kids, so it's nothing new.  And it gets worse when he starts going to school because he can pick up so much more from the other kids!  We're not there yet, but this winter has been good preparation for that I think - I realize that I need to be more proactive in making sure I stay healthy.  That means vitamin C more often, ekanasia, no running out to the car to grab something without my coat on, washing my hands more often, etc...

Experienced parents, if you have any more tips, lay'em on me!

Gold!

On February 11, Dara Howell made Canadians everywhere proud - she won a gold medal in the first ever slopestyle skiing event at the Olympics!

This past Friday night the town of Huntsville celebrated their hometown hero.  And what a celebration it was!  5,000 people crammed into Rivermill Park to celebrate Dara's victory.  Fireworks, music, and special messages from the mayor, MP, MPP, even the Premier!  But I'm jumping ahead of myself a little bit.  Let's start at the beginning.

Being a Huntsville station, LIFE couldn't miss this amazing local celebration.  I was the lucky representative who got to go.  It started out with a press conference where we got to ask Dara whatever we wanted.

Dara answering a question, and Dara with Mayor Claude Doughty

She then posed for pictures...

She let me hold the gold medal - it's heavy!  (notice her gold nail police...nice touch)

And perhaps one of the coolest parts of the evening for myself...

Then after all the picture taking, I got a chance to sit down with Dara and chat one-on-one.  What a cool, down-to-earth young lady.  She's only 19, so she's just starting out here career.  It's neat to see how much she loves Huntsville, and how excited she was to hit the slopes again (it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks!) . I'll try to post some of that interview here, but you can also here it on LIFE today at 4:45pm and 6:45pm.

Then it was on to the actual celebration...



Dara was just beaming as she was brought in on a fire truck, escorted by police and the RCMP.  She beamed every time she took them mic and spoke to the crowd.  And the crowd loved it - they loved her, the home town girl!  And perhaps the biggest honour - as a permanent memorial to Dara, the town is renaming the street in front of River Mill Park as 'Dara Howell Way'.  (She also got a very nice Audi SUV for winning her gold medal...not to shabby!)

I think though, that perhaps the best part of the evening was what happened afterward.  Dara promised to stay and sign autographs for everyone who wanted to meet her.  And she kept that promise.  The line was SOOO long..and 20 minutes later when I look back, it had not shortened at all...and then 20 minutes later again, it was still just as long...and Dara stayed and met every person and signed every autograph.  Classy.  And humble.

I'm looking forward to seeing more from this young Huntsville gold medalist, who is just full of potential.

The week it's been

You may remember from my last post that my son was quite sick (croup).  Well that sickness jumped to my wife, then to me.  All three of us were sick for several days, making it a rough few days.  I stayed home in bed the past three days, trying to get better.  Not fun being sick - and not fun being sick on your birthday! - but at least there were a couple of bright spots.

One was being at home with my family for a few days.  Again, we were all sick, so it's not like we were playing games and going out and having fun.  We stayed at home, did nothing, and tried to get better.  But it was still nice to be together.

The second thing was that I got to watch a lot of the Olympics!  Sick at home in bed, what else am I going to do?  I love sports and the Olympics, so I wasn't complaining about this part.  In hockey, the quarterfinal game between Canada and Latvia was amazing, and the women's gold medal  game was fantastic.  Seeing Jennifer Jones win gold was cool too, as was the gold for the women's bobsleigh team.  It's great to see Canada doing so well, and it's really fun watching the Olympics...and yet...constantly in the back of my mind is the fact that they spent $57 billion in setting up these games.  No matter how fun and exciting the games are, can we really justify spending that much on sports when that money could be used to do SOOO much good around the world?  There are starving people who need food, wells that need to be built for clean drinking water, homeless people who are just trying to stay warm at night, and thousands of other social issues...  These are matters of life and death, and we spend $57 billion on sports??  Yes, the Olympics are a global stage, yes they are about uniting mankind and humanity on something we can all enjoy, yes they are about dreaming big and striving for your goals, yes it's about inspiration.  Yes, clearly it's about more than just sports.  But are we really uniting mankind when half the world's population is too poor to have a TV or internet to follow the Olympics, and when many countries aren't involved?  Is someone who is wondering where their next meal will come from - and if they'll even last till then - really going to be interested in who the best skier in the world is?

I wasn't intending to write a blog on social conciousness when I started this post, but it's near and dear to my heart, and as much as I love watching the Olympics, I can't separate it from the bigger picture of a broken and hurting world.  It just seems like we have our priorities off-kilter.  Imagine half that money was used for social good - $28.5 billion.  How far would that go??  Now imagine you were one of those starving/thirsty/homeless people, and you found out that $57 billion was being spent on sports while you were on the verge of starving to death...  Changes things a bit, doesn't it...

The pain of fatherhood

I know I talk on the radio and blog about my son a lot, but I can't help it, I'm a proud papa.  But what happened last night showed me that I REALLY love him.  I mean, I always knew that before of course, there was never any doubt, but last night just made it more real.

Yesterday my son (13.5 months old) had a pretty bad cough.  We decided that if it got worse we'd take him to the doctor.  Well last night, it got worse.  He had that cough that sounds like a seal barking...that really painful cough in the back of your throat and in your lungs.  But what made me really nervous was hearing him breathe.  He was labouring, especially when he was coughing.  Every time he inhaled, it sounded like he was struggling for air.  It was killing me, I couldn't stand to hear him like that.  So there I was in the middle of the night, trying to comfort him and get him back to sleep while my wife was surfing the net looking up what kind of cough he had.  We found that it sounded a whole lot like whooping cough, and then I found out that that's potentially fatal for young kids...and at that point sleep was out the question for me.

You might be wondering, "If you were so worried and it sounded so bad, why didn't you take him to the hospital right away??"  Simple.  Because it wasn't actually that bad.  I'm a first-time parent who was over-reacting a bit, and I knew it.  He only had one or two short coughing fits throughout the night, but the rest of the time he was sleeping well, breathing fine, and not coughing.  Deep down I knew it wasn't as life-threatening as I was making it out to be in my head.  But those couple of coughing fits...some of the worst sounds I've ever heard in my life.  I was just wishing I could help, wishing I could do something, anything to make it better, wishing I could take it for him so he could just sleep and not be struggling or in pain.

And then I realized...that's how much God loves US.  I'll let you take that one to think about.

For those that are curious, we took him to the doctor this morning.  He has a respiratory infection, maybe slight signs of whooping cough, but nothing that won't go away with the use of an inhaler.  He should be okay in a few days.

Festival of Hope

This past Wednesday I was privileged to go to a very cool event in Toronto, the launch of the 'Festival of Hope'.  This will be a three day event at the Air Canada Centre, September 12-14, where Franklin Graham will preach the gospel message.  His father did it in 1995, now he's doing it.  His father brought DC Talk and Michael W. Smith.  Franklin is bringing Lecrae, the Newsboys, Michael W. Smith (for round 2!), Kari Jobe, Thousand Foot Krutch, and the City Harmonic.

There are three different reactions I think we can have as Christians.

The first is that I'm sure many of us will feel a draw to attend - after all, it's Franklin Graham and a bunch of fantastic Christian artists!  But we have to remember the biggest thing - this event is not for us.  It is for us to bring our friends, family, neighbours, co-workers, hockey buddies, etc...  It is an opportunity for them to hear the gospel message in a clear and unintimidating way (it's at the ACC, not at a church).  If we show up as Christians without bringing someone who needs to hear the gospel message, then we're just taking up a valuable seat.

On other other end of the spectrum are those who will be cynical.  For a lot of Christians, myself included, it can be easy to think of this as 'one of those cheesy televangelist/crusade events that don't work anymore".  But that's not the case.  First off, it's not just a weekend event.  There is a whole slew of events and activities planned for the months leading up to the September weekend.  You can find it all at www.festivalofhope.ca.  The goal is to get as many churches as possible to be active in this, to reach out to their individual communities, and to work together...and that's a pretty great way to spread the gospel!

Secondly, it's Franklin Graham, with the Billy Graham name behind him.  It's not about him of course, because it's God that will change people.  But let's be honest, a name garners attention, and the bigger the name, the more interest it generates - for Christians and non-Christians alike.

Thirdly, I loved what Franklin shared.  His father Billy always says that there are three keys to any major event like this - prayer, prayer, and prayer.  This event is being doused in prayer from thousands of people across the GTA, for months.

The third reaction would be the perfect one - we're excited about the event, and we're already thinking and praying about who we can invite.  If you fall into this category, NICE!  Inspire others to follow your lead!

This is going to be huge, with lives won for Christ.  I'm excited.  It's great to see churches coming together to work on a huge initiative like this.  It's great to see so much prayer happening for the lost.  It's great to see Christians excited about possibilities.  It's great to see a big scale event that you know will have a wow-factor happening at the ACC.  And I encourage you and your church to get involved and pray.  Check out the Festival of Hope website.

One last thing, a sidenote.  I arrived early on Wednesday for a press conference.  As we were sitting waiting, a gentleman walked in and started shaking everyone's hand and getting their names.  I was sitting closest to the door so I was first.  As I looked up at the man, I thought, "This looks a lot like Franklin Graham...but it couldn't be...could it?"  I was just so surprised that he stopped and chatted with each one of us instead of going straight for the mics to make his big announcement...especially as he was SO busy that day.  That's something that will stick with me for a long time, and it says a lot about Franklin's character.

Grief turns to joy with God

This was a tough week.  Last Sunday, an incredible young woman from my church was involved in a car accident and she passed away.  Talented, athletic, literally brilliant, infectiously warm, and a lover of God.  Amazing girl from an amazing family.  It was a jarring, heartbreaking loss.  There's so much to say about her, but I want to focus on a bit of a different aspect below, so you can get a brief synopsis about Amanda here - http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2014/01/07/amanda-kelsall-killed-sunday-in-vehicle-crash

I went to the funeral today, and it's amazing how God works.  In the midst of tragedy and heartache, each of her family members took the opportunity to talk about her love of Christ during their eulogies, and then to tell of how Christ's strength was keeping them strong.  They were witnessing!  They were laughing!  They were full of joy!  They were excited for their daughter/sister in heaven!  It was incredible to see their faith and their strength.  About 1,000 people were at the funeral, many non-believers, and they heard the message of Christ loud and clear - several times from many speakers.  That in itself was a testament to Amanda's faith and legacy.

I really can't say enough about this girl and this family.  I had so much respect for them before this all happened...I didn't think it was possible to gain even more respect for them, and yet here were are today.  Meanwhile, her boyfriend is in hospital with serious injuries.  I have just as much respect for his family (who also go to our church).  Both families are truly anchored in God, I have always looked up to both, and both have always inspired my faith in the past, and even more so now.

In the end, there were two things that captivated me today, shared by Amanda's family.  One was her determination to excellence.  No matter what she did, she gave it her all.  1 Corinthians 9:24-27 says that we run a race, but only one wins.  We should run to win, and train our bodies for that - we push our hardest and strive for our best, and it's all for God.

The second thing was that we have no fear in death.  As Christians, we really do have no fear in death because death means something better for us.  Philippians 1:21 - "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."  The family got that message across clearly.  In fact, if there was one thing that was comforting all week, it's been picturing Amanda having the time of her life in heaven, and just waiting for everyone here back on earth to join here.  She's thrilled right now, and we as Christians have no fear in death because we have something better that awaits us!

Still, it is hard for those left behind right now.  We will miss her and grieve with the family.  But Christ is our strength and our joy, and her family did so well to remind us of that today.