Category Archives: Day to Day

Yesterday Leo and Christian left for Calgary to have an interview at the US consulate for Christian’s visa so he can attend CHIC in Knoxville, TN at the end of the month. This has been a big concern for us since we want to see him go, we have already paid a few dollars towards his trip, etc. And we have been praying that the event will be a blessing to him in his somewhat struggling walk of faith. He is Congolese. A landed immigrant, to be sure, but still with the cursed Congolese passport. That means that no one trusts you and you have to prove that you have enough ties in your adopted land to ensure that you will return there.

If we tried to make more of a mess of the whole process I am not sure how we could have improved on it. I got home from work at 5:30 to find all the papers and the passport on the kitchen table. Thank God for cell phones. I called them and they had been blissfully ignorant of the missing papers for about the last 600 kilometers. So they turned around and headed home. I was to drive and meet them somewhere along the way.

Just then in walked our oldest son – having one day off with his wife. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he said, “I’ll go.” So we all switched vehicles so that he would take the one that uses the least fuel. And off he and his wife went – in separate vehicles so she could drive their car to Saskatoon where it had to go in for some maintenance. What a way to spend your one evening together in two weeks!

The envelope exchange happened in Rosetown. And then I got another call. In the package there were no report cards, no letter of registration proving that Christian was indeed registered for CHIC. So another chase began. I called my sister in Calgary. They would get the papers to Christian if I could fax them before 9 am. They would then drive into Calgary and meet the guys.

Another phone call to Randall. “Please can you write me a letter that looks real official saying that Christian is indeed part of the youth group going- PLEASE” And I dug out the report cards, etc.

Funny. I went to bed with a headache and woke up with one too!

This morning the fax went through. I was doing a lot of praying and a lot of other people were too. At noon I got a phone call. The visa was granted! Wow! God is good. Only he could have pulled this one off. It looks like all we can claim the credit for in this is a whole lot of mistakes made.

I wonder if God is trying to teach us a lesson in just who is really in control – us, governments and immigration officers – or himself?

When I told one person about going off to our family reunion, she sighed and said she knew how those could be, as if it must have been a big chore going. She was surprised when I told her we had a great time. Maybe we have a strange family. Maybe we don’t see each other enough to get tired of each other.

Folks at the Frost/ Johnson reunion traced their roots back to two sisters, Anna and Ellen Ostergren, who immigrated to Canada back in 1896 and 1899. My grandmother, Anna, shown in her wedding photo was 16 when she came over to Canada. Her sister came three years later. My grandmother worked as a servant till she developed her own catering business, then married my grandfather Fred. She died when she was in her 50’s. My mother was then about 18 so I never knew her. My grandfather also died long before I was born. So I only know them through the stories of others. My cousin produced a wonderful book of our family history for this reunion. I’m glad there are people in our family who are so good at preserving our family heritage in this way.

At the reunion we ranged in age from about 8 months to 85 years. I wonder if there will be any of the older generation at the next reunion. It is scary to think that my generation will probably be the older one at the next few reunions. But we will undoubtedly get together to celebrate our family, our heritage and our faith. And we take the time each reunion to remember those who have gone on – only my Uncle Carl remains of my moms brothers and sisters.

We also came from all over North America and from as far as London, England. From Vancouver to Halifax, from Texas to Kentucky. There were school custodians, teachers, professional dancers, lawyers and engineers, pastors and missionaries, farmers, heavy equipment mechanics, doctors and nurses, stay at home moms and stay at home dads. Yeah and even one dentist.

We had a talent show as we always do after our banquet – mostly so we can show off how talented our kids are! One of my cousins did a great magic show for the kids. Grace danced and danced so well! She danced a Hip Hop routine to “Shackles” and did it so well. It was a blessing to me – like her feet were really unshackled to praise God.

Oh! I am really one of the luckiest moms in the world. Give me a few days and they will bring me back to earth with a thud.

I missed getting Sara to practice at 1:00 today and I had promised her that I would. Then a situation came up at work that demanded all my concentration and the time for going passed. The fact is that at that moment my work was more urgent than my kids demands. It is pretty hard for Sara to understand this and it makes me feel rotten too. She says she understands but the fact is that I let her down and I couldn’t even stop in the middle of what I was doing and call her to let her know.

Being a mom at this moment is not fun and being a dentist at this moment sucks! I did what I had to do but there was no joy in it. The patient got the best part of the deal – I hope!.

God gives good gifts.
And he gives them when and where they are needed.
And some of my friends, my kids, myself have stuff that we need right now.
And my natural tendency is to jump in to see what I can do and right now the answer is not much.
But I can pray and I can ask God. His resources are endless and so I need to go to him. And like a good father he will provide the good gifts we need.

Matthew 7: 11
“If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

I think sometimes we are given some difficulties that can either make us despair or make us smarten up and turn back towards God. My reading from the Psalms this morning reminded me of this too. Psalm 143: 7 and 8

Come quickly, Lord, and answer me,
for my depression deepens.
Don’t turn away from me,
or I will die.
Let me hear of your unfailing love to me in
the morning,
for I am trusting you.
Show me where to walk,
for I have come to you in prayer.

Last evening I was given a gift. My drummer boy brought home a beautiful set of planters. A late Mother’s Day gift he said. Maybe it was a peace offering. Maybe he sensed in advance that he would need to atone somehow for his sins.

It is a totally humbling and very overwhelming experience to receive gifts that are totally unmerited in the sense that I am not the mother” just standing in for her. Here I am accepting a gift that rightly should belong to someone else. I keep having this happen to me on the part of my children”. The sense that they love me is too powerful for words at times. They, Jacques and Régine, gave this up so that the boys could have an education. And I don’t know just how to accept the gifts sometimes. I wish I could wrap them up and return them to their rightful owners. I feel as if I am usurping a right that should only belong to them. They gave it up freely but did they know the cost?

I certainly didn’t know the cost emotionally that accepting two kids into our family would exact from me. There is something so different about having children as a part of your family who you have neither chosen to birth or adopt. They were just coming for school and I did not intend to let my heart get tangled up in trying to love them. I intended to just give them a safe, caring place to live while they got their education. Little did I know the consequences of that decision. I had no idea how love would work its way into our relationships in such a subtle way that when the crises came I would find that my heart had already been taken over by these two young men. I love them. I love them as surely as I love my biological and adopted children who I set out from the start intending to love.

I have learned that love is expandable. If Love lives in you, it is not going to be possible to limit the level at which God expresses himself. The more you make room in your home the more room you will find. The more Love you let grow in your heart, the bigger your heart will get. God’s grace is sufficient.

Oh yeah I do get the agonies of worrying over them too and the toil of disciplining. I get to deal with the sorrow of homesickness and depression and the hurt of angry words passed between brothers. But seeing these guys grow up into young men is a reward well worth the hard times.

This morning my reading took me to Matthew 6:19 to 34. One of my favorite verses is in this passage – verse 34

“So don’t worry about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will bring its own worries.
Todays trouble is enough for today.”

I need to hear this since my natural tendency is to worry and despair.

The whole passage is also about the wise use of money. More than some, in our last few years, God has blessed us with abundance financially. It’s also a big pain since we could support a couple of families on what we pay to CCRA. And even so our spending always seems to exceed the resources.

Leo aptly describes children as parasites who latch onto our wallet at birth, not letting go until it is sucked dry. It doesn’t take long with 3 in University and one starting a business and a family – we have 3 to 6 more kids in the lineup for university funding too over the next 6 or seven years. They had better take good care of us in our old age!

Leo visited the accountant yesterday. We have back taxes, kid expenses and a big bill coming up for refinishing the exterior of our house. So it is a good time to be reminded of the bounty of God’s provision. We also have to be reminded of the necessity of using God’s resources wisely. When money is abundant enough it is easy to waste on little indulgences and to get selfish with it.

Matthew 6: 32 and 34 say:
“Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.”

Today was sort of an in between day at work. In between the weekend and Canada Day and our office was running in slow gear. I guess it is easy to forget a dental appointment when the weather is nice and the lakes beckon. I would rather have been at the lake today too. It is easier to work well when things are running pretty tight. Then it seems that things keep moving on schedule and the day goes by fast. It seems that we all shift into sleepy mode when we have a big gaps in our schedule.

This week our summer student starts and our Hockey player wife dentist starts her summer locums the next week. Vacation is not too far away but my partner gets his turn first.

Tonight at supper we had to have a “little talk” with one of our kids. Christian the drummer, wanna be independent looking after himself guy, needed a little parental reminder that growing up and becoming independent does not mean that you get to do what you want to do without regard to the other people who live in your household. Otherwise, shouldn’t we parents get to do that too. After all, if life isn’t fair for us adults who get to do “everything we want to do”, it would hardly be right if it were fair for the kids! So we had the great setting of the curfew talk and reminded him that he had been pretty rude to all of us over the last few days and that if he didn’t want us to ground him(as he is quite aware we would have done if his sister had been the tardy one) he’d better use his great maturity to start letting us know his plans and keeping curfew.

And you know – a kid that, on his own initiative (because he didn’t spend the night at home) comes on time for worship practice(chalk one up for maturity) on Sunday morning smelling like he spent the night in a brewery (take off two points for stupidity) would be smarter not sitting so close to his mother in that condition. Mothers so provoked are highly likely to give out a lecture on the evils of drink! Actually I thought I did quite well to restrain myself till tonight. I’m getting wiser in my old age having made enough mistakes to learn from some of them.

Rudy in his urbanonramps blog is talking about how he is going to be “father” to a whole bunch of kids at Harambee. There is probably no greater or more difficult task. And it is so hard to do that in such a way as to pass on the faith. So I would pray for him that he will be filled with an amazing amount of love so that in spite of his mistakes(and every parent makes lots of those) the kids will see the love of The Father shining through him.

Leo and I both tend to automatically wake up early – bad habits are hard to break. We are getting to be more “mature” adults – in other words we both have a lot of grey hairs. After 33 years together sex isn’t the only intimate thing we do in bed. This morning we began to reminisce about our life together and how God shaped us both. It is a wonderful way to spend an early Saturday morning. We have learned a lot from each other. And from God. And God seems to be pushing us to go a bit deeper with him all the time and it looks like this might be one of those pushes. We are sort of exploring how God might use us to share our faith with those who will never feel comfortable going to a church building, at first at least. How we don’t know, so we are talking and exploring. I want to see how the worship freehouse works so I’m planning on going to this event.

Then I go to a parent meeting for youth group and find myself being just the kind of parent I don’t want to be – the kind that puts their foot in their mouth – reacts first before thinking. Boy, God sure has lots of work to do on me yet. I always feel so drained when I know I’ve been a bit of a fool. I always wish I could hit the rewind button of life so many times.

Now we are off to Saskatoon; pick up a keyboard, meet with a lawyer about some immigration stuff and take part in Leo’s 30 year medical school class reunion. My classmates will be there too since we were in the same year and most of my calssmates still practice dentistry in Saskatoon.

Last night we enjoyed an evening in French. It was our youngest child’s “Meritas” or in other words “Awards ceremony” and last day of school except for picking up report cards. Next year she has chosen to attend St Mary High School with our other children. I am sorry to see this phase of her life come to an end but she really wants to move on to a larger school.

This last year Sara had the experience of being the president of her student body. So last night she had to give the speech to welcome everyone to the Meritas. She decided that since she was the president that it was legitimate to have a speech writer so like a true president she delegated the task to her secretary. It turned out to be a good speech. Sara has a very nice French accent so it was a joy to hear her talk. I hope she keeps this fluency as she heads out into the English speaking world.

The evening was also the retirement event for one of the long time teachers at Ecole Valois. Mme Marchildon gave a lot of herself in the establishing of Prince Albert’s Francophone school. Patrick was asked to give one of the appreciation speeches. Mme Marchildon was one of his mentors giving many extra hours to helping him adjust to life as a student in Canada. It was a fitting speech – oh that boy could be a politician or a lawyer. He doesn’t like being called a boy anymore though.

Racism and prejudice against “other” people seems to be such a universal evil. I read with sadness Randall’s story about a mutual friend and wish I could somehow do more for her. Why can’t we provide her with a safe place after all she has already gone through. Why can’t our government make immigration for her other daughter and husband less formidable and shrouded in red tape. Why, why , why… Life is too incredibly unfair for some people.

Linking to the BBC to see how things are going in the Congo, I come upon this story and it reminds me of other horrors told just too recently about the same area around Bunia. My heart cries for the innocent victims who have to raise their children in such turmoil.

On Hearing of the Atrocities in Bunia and Seeing the World’s Complacency

I Cannot Comprehend

It is impossible to comprehend
The weight of these atrocities
On my heart and mind.
I cannot, I cannot comprehend
The difference, the value lost
From being small and black.
These are my people
Does no one care?

How can one become so crazed
As to crush a babies skull?
In wanton luxury
Of all that is evil
Kill innocence?

Is the life of a small black child
So dispensable as not to
Matter at all
In the eyes of the economies
Of our world?

What value do we put on restraint
When those we are watching
Are mad crazed for blood,
Schooled and incited
To butchery?

It is impossible to comprehend!
The weight of these atrocities
Eats at my heart and mind.
I cannot, I cannot comprehend.
My anger ferments into rage
As governments procrastinate.
Their pain too shallow,
The child is not their own.