The Adventures of Cory and Chris

Renting out our Basement Suite

2011-01-04T20:34:00.001-08:00

Here are some photos of our basement suite:

Private parking is on the left side of the house...paved and
enough space for 2 vehicles on the property

Updated bathroom with a shower

Dining Room / Living Room

There is now also an upper cupboard along that wall (see next pic)
and the microwave has its own wall space as well (see next, next pic). (Meaning, lots of counter space!)

6 appliances included in rental:
f/s, w/d, dishwasher, and stand up freezer

Nice sink!

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2 (some have used it as
bedroom while others use it as a bigger living room)

Bright, clean, newly renovated with updated cabinets, appliances, amazing kitchen sink and faucet.

Only 30 minutes to Big White!
Only 8 km to the College
Only 8 km to the University
Only 8 km to CATO

Includes:

Utilities
Your own washer and dryer
Fridge
Stove
Dishwasher
Stand up Freezer
2 parking spots
roughly 1000sq feet
2 large bedrooms (10 x 14ish)
large entry
private covered entrance
storage space
access to the backyard

Included for an extra $10/mo each:

digital cable and box
Internet

Features

new large windows for light
wood fireplace
new furnace
new on-demand hot water (won't run out)
quiet and friendly neighborhood
cult de sac
2 parks and a school within 2 blocks

Call 250-765-8248 for inquires. Available Jan 15th, 2011 or Feb 1st, 2011

Basement Suite Renovation

2010-08-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

Our tenant got married last weekend. We figured now that his new wife would be moving into the suite, this was the best time to renovate the kitchen. We had been wanting to do it for quite some time. The suite was always nice and clean, just needed to be updated. So while they were on their honeymoon, we went mad to get it done.

What started out as a kitchen renovation (installing new cabinets) became a "well, since we have the cabinets out, we might as well put new flooring down; and since we have the flooring out, we might as well paint the suite". The job got bigger and bigger.

I found some great Mills Pride cabinets on craigslist from Vancouver. Chris and his dad took a budget truck down from Kelowna and picked them up along with a few appliance deals I had brokered as well (the plan always was to put our appliances in the basement and get newer stuff for us upstairs).

We got the same cabinets off of Craigslist that we already have upstairs. We will (in a few weeks) rearrange our kitchen, take out a wall that divides the living room and kitchen and put in an island. With the left over cabinets, we planned to update the basement suite kitchen. I plotted out the upstairs kitchen to see which cabinets would be used, then I knew which ones were left over for the basement.

Chris' Dad and my Dad came out on Saturday. They started taking the old cabinets and the old lino out of the suite while we were at the wedding.

laying down new lino

Once we got back from the wedding, Chris went to help out as well. Twelve to fifteen hour days with so many wonderful helpers! Chris figures that about 200 hours went into this reno.

A few weeks earlier, our renter's fridge started going on the fritz so we quickly got our new fridge installed and gave him our old one. Now with the renovation being complete, we gave them our stove and dishwasher too. (We already had the newer dishwasher for us just sitting in the garage waiting to be installed, but the stove...we put ours down there and took their older one upstairs).

I bought the kitchen sink off of the same people I got the cabinets from for $50. They also gave us the countertops too and since the countertop was already cut for that sink we just used that newer, nicer sink in the basement suite. Let me stress -- NEWER, NICER. When our pastor saw it he said he used to work in that industry and that was one of the top of the line sinks available and was worth about $600!

The new sink only had one hole for a faucet. The old sink had two. This meant we could not use the old faucet on this new sink. Chris started taking apart our faucet to put in the basement when he asked if he could just put in our new faucet (that wasn't installed yet and which I had picked up off of Castanet [like craigslist but for Kelowna only] for a great deal).

So now the suite has a top of the line sink and a very pretty faucet, plus our stove, fridge, and dishwasher.

We needed one more cabinet to complete the lower cabinets. The only one that we thought would fit well and leave plenty of room in the suite for a kitchen table was one from our kitchen. So our kitchen is now missing a cabinet!

Our kitchen
Pink! The walls were pink before.

With all these renos, including new paint, the old green baseboards did not match the decor anymore. Chris was concerned that getting new baseboards and painting them, then installing them would take too much time. So instead, he took the baseboards off of our upstairs living room, dining room, kitchen, and guest bedroom to use in the basement!

More pink paint exposed beneath where the
baseboards used to be in our upstairs

So now the suite has a top of the line sink and a very pretty faucet, plus our stove, fridge, dishwasher, cabinet, and baseboards.

We will install the uppers in the suite after we have finished our kitchen renovation and can see for sure what is still available.

Special thanks to Chris' dad, my dad, my mom, and our pastor for all their help. Funny story: I had called Pastor Darren on Tuesday to see if one of his teenaged girls could help me out with the kids while I get some errands done. But I couldn't get a hold of him so I just left to do my errands. Well, he called back and when Chris answered the phone, Darren said "what can I help you with?". Chris goes on to ask him about how to install the sink. (Darren has some plumbing experience). Chris then realizes that Darren was likely returning a phone call and not necessarily seeking out how he could help Chris with the plumbing. But, nonetheless, Darren was available that afternoon. He had planned to do some visiting with people from the church and it seemed like God had picked us to be on his roster for the day! What a blessing.

Before and After Photos

Angle #1:

Angle #2:

Angle #3:
The Bathroom:

New Baby!

2010-04-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

Who is that kid? You'd think we got a new kid!

The first picture was taken on April 9th. The second April 26th. Yet, his haircut makes him look like a completely different baby. Who knew he was blond underneath all that shaggy dark hair. His hair is now shorter than when he was born!

Friends at Church yesterday weren't sure who the child was that was with us. Same kid, different look. We had to cut it; it was getting so long it was getting in his eyes. So Chris just clipped it with the hair cutting kit he has.

Chris had a hard time getting Taylen to keep his head still.

You'd almost think that was a wig. I mean, the kid
is only 6 months old and that is a lot of
hair for a baby his age to be
responsible for.

Because of the way he sleeps, the hair on the back of his head was
being to get meshed into dreadlocks.

And to prove that it is blond underneath all that dark hair, see below. (We are truly surprised, although when he was born it was interesting that the tips of his hair had blond highlights...and he does have blue eyes).

Belize 2010

2010-01-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

Belize 2010

We had the blessing of being able to go as a family (yes, with the 2 kids along [Mikaya 22 months; Taylen 3 months]) to the country of Belize early in January (thank God for things like Travel airmiles and TD reward miles).

Welcome to Blue Creek, Belize

If you ask where is Belize, it is just south of Mexico on the Caribbean side.

We went to the area of Belize just below
the dip in the North.
We were literally a few minutes from the border
crossing where Mexico juts down into Belize.

The kids handled the travel with ease (minus one plane ride [out of 6] in which they both cried for most of the way). But for most of the travel time they were exceptional. They also really enjoyed staying in Belize. Mikaya loved being outside, running around in bare feet, and having 2 older sisters, Mikayla and Destinee (the family we stayed with). It was a little confusing at times because Mikayla and Mikaya sound a lot a like. And they both went by Micky too!

Mikaya also had a little brother that week - Kwame. It was nice to stay with a family who understood a toddler getting into everything. Thank you for your grace Abe and Mary!

On the way to Belize, we flew from Kelowna to Seattle, stayed the night in Seattle, then flew to Dallas and on to Belize. But it took 3 days to get there! Our flight was delayed leaving Kelowna (no biggie).

Delay, delay, delay...
Thank God for the restraints of a car seat - otherwise
she's be all over the airport!

Our flight, the next day, out of Seattle was delayed as well. They had us all on the airplane, then spent about 45 minutes fixing some engine trouble. After that, they had us de-plane and get onto a different one because they could not fix it easily. Annoying as that is, I am glad they choose to not send us off on a broken airplane. And since I will never know if it could have been a disastrous problem, I just have to be thankful for the delay.

But because of the delay, we missed our connecting flight out of Dallas to Belize. So we stayed the night in Dallas and enjoyed Denny's restaurant. Mikaya likely thinks that Dallas is a hotel and a restaurant as that is all she saw of the city.

We arrived in Belize on New Year's Eve.

The Dyck reunion (Cory's mom's maiden name was Dyck) was from Jan 3rd - 5th. It was amazing to look around and realize that we are related to all these people. About 250-300 people were there. About 150 who live in Blue Creek, Belize, about 50 who live in Old Colony Shipyard, Belize and the rest from Canada.

The days were packed with activities, good food, and enjoyable people.

Since we recently discovered that Mikaya is allergic to nuts, we kept an extra close eye on her over the reunion days. Peanuts are a treat in Belize. Coke and peanut time fell at 10am (where as we are used to coffee break). Prior to 10am there were no peanuts around. After 10am there were peanuts and peanut shells everywhere. We actually had them make an announcement about Mikaya's peanut allergy just in case she happened to pick something up off the ground or if someone wanted to be nice and offer her a snack. And that did happen - but the adult realized in time that Mikaya should not have any. And either Chris or I (or my parents as they were there at the reunion too) were often right next to her to ensure her safety. We also had an epi-pen along, just in case. Most there do not have this allergy so we also made her a t-shirt to identify her as the "no peanut" girl.

Notice the "no peanuts" t-shirt.

Taylen liked to dress pretty skimpy on those days when
the heat was too much for him.

It wasn't hot most of the week as they were having a cold front (with temperatures down to about 20 or so). But sometimes when we were outdoors at the park for the reunion the warmth was a bit more than Taylen was used to. For those meal times he was sometimes fussy.

Taylen slept in his "moses bed". Very nice for traveling. Just place the baby in the bed, cover with mosquito netting and viola! It is all good until you get a fire ant in your travel bed (their bite stings like crazy!).

There was a program every evening with games to follow afterwards.

To keep the child quiet during the program, feed
her cheerios.

Mikaya and Taylen learned many new activities while in Belize:

Raising sheep

Learning to drive (they start young in Belize)

When we were living in Belize (2005-2007) we also connected with a Spanish speaking church in the next town over, San Felipe. Now we were able to go back and visit on the last night before we left. It is amazing to hear about what God is doing in that church. So many have come to know faith in Christ over the last few years. Praise God!

This is an old picture. Eldon and Natalie's
child is now 3 yrs old.

Chris spent some time at the tree plantation. Lots of mahogany, cedar and gmelina.

Can you see the flagging tape on
some of the trees?

Because bugs, ants, and other issues come up that can hurt the trees, Chris flagged the trees that we need to focus on fertilizing and pruning.

The nasty Shoot Borer (an unwanted bug
that causes problems)

I chose a tree

Mikaya chose hers
And Chris his
Some are big (trees are supposed
to grow an inch wide per year)
Some are small

Chris really enjoyed his time with the trees. After doing an office job 40 hours a week, it was nice to get out into the outdoors and marvel at God's creation. Maybe it will be just a big garden in the end.

On the way home, Chris came down with a cold. So he and Taylen stayed at the hotel while Mikaya and I went out exploring Dallas. The mall was the only good option that was open, not too far away, and could work with the short attention span of a one year old. Unfortunately, since we were only passing through the States we did not have any American money on us. So there were many activities at the mall that we ALMOST got to do:

We almost got to ride the cool train,
but they only took cash.

We almost got to ride this,
but it only took cash.

We almost got to ride the carousel,
but they only took cash.
Mikaya tried to climb through the bars (actually, she did get through)

And then this nice lady came up to us and offered to pay
for Mikaya and I to ride. Mikaya loved it!
What a blessing. We didn't have to go on,
but a blessing it was.

We almost built a bear, but Mikaya wasn't too
interested. Rather she found a stroller in the store
and was more inclined to drive
the stroller around the store.
Ah, we don't need to many more stuffed animals anyways.

Burger King took debit.

I was really impressed with the kids' ability to travel so well. We arrived home at 12:30 in the morning (and since there was a 2 hour time change) that was more like 2:30am. For the kids, that was one long day. Taylen took it in stride since he was still in the "just give me food and a couple hours sleep and I'm good" mode of baby life. Mikaya, however, since she is up for 12 hours a day now (minus a two hour nap in the afternoon), that was a VERY long day for her and she let all the other passengers know about it. Thank God she slept on the plane rides that day, but once we got to the baggage pick up area at Kelowna's airport, she let everyone know that she was tired. And it was so wonderful that the kids both slept until about 10:30am the next morning after getting home. I was really hoping they wouldn't be waking up too early because things hadn't been normal. As it was, we all got to sleep in (even me who is having sleep struggles).

The flight home

For interest sake, here are some photos we have taken in the past of Belize:

The church in Blue Creek
The church and the three buildings of the
Linda Vista School, and the Linda
Vista Shopping Center (including
grocery store, hardware store, post office, and bank)
Level one (grades K-3) of the school
Chicken barns
Rice fields
The local restaurant

This is the same park where we had the
Dyck Reunion
A house in Blue Creek up on a hill

The Old Colony (Shipyard):

The church
A horse and buggy right next to a truck
(They use both)

Notice the steel tires. They are not supposed
to use rubber tires on their tractors

The rest of Belize:

Now that's what I call carpooling
The roads weren't always so easy (notice the
support beams of a bridge where it
once was)

The sugar cane industry (not
trucks with bad hair cuts)

Mayan Ruins

The beautiful landscape

Rio On Pools
(One of my favorite places to visit in
Cayo District)
Hidden Valley in Cayo District
http://www.hiddenvalleyinn.com/
The road to 1000 Foot Falls
(not far from Hidden Valley)

Funnies

Even the cows get hot (Brahma cows)
A dog house on stilts
(when it is hot, the dog can lay under his house
to cool down)

Chris working for Club Penguin outside, under a
cabana, with a fan blowing
(2005)
Chris, snorkeling
(2007)

Cory on her motorbike

The garbage truck in Caye Caulker

A New Baby!

2009-10-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Finally! He's here. After months of waiting and extended due dates, Taylen James Priebe finally decided to join us!

Taylen James Priebe
October 5th, 2009
10:10pm
8 pounds, 1 ounce

My due date was Monday, September 21st, but when he didn't come, the doctor said "come in on Thursday". So we thought Thursday would be the day. But then Thursday wasn't the day. Then the doctor said "well, it looks like his due date is later...how about Christmas?" There was always a discrepancy with my dates. Some method of figuring out the date suggested September 21st, the other method suggested Oct 1st. So when he didn't come for Sept 21st, the due date was moved to October 1st which was inline with my ultrasounds. When Oct 1st rolled around and he still didn't come, the doctor then said that if he didn't come by Oct 8th, he would put me in the hospital and help him come. And boy was I ready to have him come...although I would prefer not to be induced.

But then the day God told little Taylen to come was Monday, October 5th. It was the most perfect day for his birth:
-my mom has been staying with us, helping out with the extra things needed around the house and herding the other little one, Mikaya since I was so big and uncomfortable. She will need to go back to Abbotsford soon, so it would be nice if he would come before she has to go back.
-my dad was still in Abbotsford, but came out just for a quick visit on Sunday and would need to return to Abbotsford on Tuesday.
-my mother-in-law had a doctor's appointment on the Monday during the day and my sister-in-law had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning. We all have the same doctor. Taylen was born right in between the two appointment on Monday evening.
-My parents took Mikaya with them to visit my brother and his family on the West side on the Monday evening. So Chris and I had a few hours or quiet to ourselves before everything started.
-I had the wonderful support of my friends from church as I attended Bible Study minutes before going to the hospital and was the recipient of prayer with the coming birth in mind.

Monday, October 5th:
-something felt weird and different starting at 5:30.
-I got Mikaya ready for a visit with her cousins and kissed her goodbye in grandpa and grandma's car.
-Chris and I had dinner
-I asked Chris to drive me to the church because my stomach was hurting every few minutes (was it something I ate?).
-Throughout the 7 o'clock hour my stomach pains continued every few minutes and were getting worse. Maybe it wasn't something I ate.
-I called Chris to come and pick me up thinking we should just go to the hospital.
-We called the hospital saying that the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart, my water had not broken yet, and this was my second baby. They said, "you can stay at home longer if you like." Naw, I wanted to go to the hospital now just to be on the safe side. "Will you call my doctor?" I asked. "No, we'll wait until you get here".
-We got there and the emergency entrance door was locked. The only other entrance? All the way on the other side of the hospital! Just getting out of the van was hard; I did not want to have to get back into it and drive over speed bumps and all to the other side of the building. Thankfully, a man was leaving the building by that door and we were able to sneak in that way.
-Between 8:15 and 8:27 (the time it took to get to the hospital), I had had 4 contracts -- can we say 3 minutes apart...and by the time I got to the prenatal part of the hospital, another 3 or so contractions.
-Then they said, "just wait over there please".
-The waiting seemed like forever because the pains kept coming and were getting stronger.
-Finally, they put me in a pre-birthing room for assessment.
-"Have you called my doctor yet?" "No, we will assess you first".
-"Can I have something for the pain" (IT HURT). "Just wait, please".
-"How about now?" "Oh...let's move you to the birthing room; this baby will come soon after your water breaks. You are 9 centimeters dilated".
-In the next minute, my water broke! (into the toilet thankfully)
-(I was only in the assessment room for maybe 15 minutes. This baby was coming quickly.)
-"Can I have an epidural?" "Let's start you with the laughing gas".
-"How about now?" "No, you are too far along. It's time to push."
-He was born 1 hour later. Entire time from arriving at the hospital to when he was born = 1 hour, 40 minutes. Drugs used: laughing gas. Drugs desired: epidural. Next time I guess. Didn't I say that last time?

So the ultrasound we had done back in April was confirmed as accurate -- he was/is a boy. Can't you tell?

(Out of respect for the young child, certain parts have been edited)

Good thing we prepared in accord with blue walls and boy clothes. He's right at home in the house and in our hearts.

Mikaya is adjusting to having a baby around. Still a little unsure of him, but keenly interested too. She came to visit twice on Tuesday and both times was great for about 5 minutes before her short attention span was done. Since there is nothing to do at the hospital for a little 19 month old child, she would take her shoes and socks off many times, run around the room, and eat mommy's left over breakfast fruit. It's nice to be home where she can play with her toys and take care of her own little baby (dolly) - courtesy of Ridgeview Church (our home church) which graciously allowed Mikaya to take the dolly home from the nursery for her to practice being a big sister.

She has been promoted (not dis-positioned), we told her.The nice family picture:
The "I cannot sit still any more and must play with my socks" family picture:

The grandparents came to visit:
Pregnancy Photos:

Cute photos:

A Cruise to Port Alberni

2009-05-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

Chris and I just got back from spending a week with his parents on a cruise ship from Vancouver to Seattle to Port Angelos to Victoria to Port Alberni and then back to Vancouver. It is true...the coastline is beautiful!

Our adventure began with a flood just outside our cabin, even before we left port. Those in charge, gave us 2 options:
1. Get off the ship and re-book another cruise
2. Get off and stay in Vancouver then bus down to Seattle the next day.

We really did not want to leave the cruise ship as wanted to spend as much time together with Chris' parents on this family vacation. They were willing to take us into their own cabin for the night, but Chris told those in charge that our room was not that bad. Our floor was only sopping wet up to a certain point and really there was no reason why we could not sleep in the cabin. We would just be understanding of the situation and allow the stewards to clean up as they needed to.

This is what a hallway is supposed to look like:
This is what ours looked like:

The water pipe had busted in the hall and spilled water all down the hallway and into various rooms, some more damaged than others.

The friendly dehumidifier guys:

So we did end up staying on ship. Thank God for small blessings like that.

In Seattle we visited Pike Place where they throw the fish. It is a means of getting the fish from the display ice to the packaging counter -- throwing the fish across the 10 feet instead of walking it over.

We did not get off ship in Port Angelos.

In Victoria, we visited the wharf where the seals were being fed by tourists.

Then off to the parliament buildings. While we did not go in them on this trip, we did get to see their nice green roofs from afar.

I was too tired to walk all the way back to the ship, so we opted for a neato date -- a bicycle tour. We learned some interesting things about the city. For instance, according to Ian (our bicyclist) the man who got the contract to design the parliament buildings only got it because he claimed to have designed some spectacular ones on his resume that actually it was his uncle who did them! One place he supposedly designed he would have had to have been 6 years old in order to do it.

Did I mention I was tired?

And pregnant? (Expecting for September...and the ultrasound says it is a boy!)

In Port Alberni, we were told that only 2 cruise ships are stopping there this year...so we were privileged to be one of them.

Notice the caption on the sign: "Welcome Statendam". I think everyone must have turned out for the grand arrival of the cruise ship. A celebration for a small town.

The evening entertainment on the ship was a variety of acts including ventriloquism, song and dance, and humor.

And the food was great. It is a most wonderful thing to go on a cruise and be pregnant at the same time! We enjoyed many dinners with Chris' parents.

And this time I understood when they served the last evening with a Baked Alaska dessert. Last time, in 2007, I confused the words "Baked Alaska" with "Alaskan Salmon" and thought we were having fish for desert. (Reference the Blog on September 29, 2007 for my confusion over the Baked Alaska).

Here the waiters are doing a special dance to serve the Baked Alaska.

This is what Baked Alaska looks like (neapolitan ice cream with a meringue topping)

What an adventure and a pleasant time to share with Chris' parents.

And where was Mikaya? She stayed at home in Kelowna with my parents while we were away. I would call often, just because I missed her so much. But she didn't have much to say on the phone...I am not sure she really understood that it was us on the other end!

While we were glad to have the few days to ourselves (and even got to sleep in...Mikaya wakes up at 7am every morning [weekdays and weekends]) we were so glad to come home to her. We really did miss her so much. And she changed while we were gone for the one week. In fact, she grew 3 new teeth!

During the week, my mom tells me, Mikaya would go to the stairs and look for us. "Muma? Dada?" And then go to our bedroom door and knock. "Muma? Dada?" But then move on to a different activity. So when we finally did come home, she didn't know what to do with us. She came to me easily, but not excitedly like she usually does after being at a babysitters. Then she clung to me until she saw that Grandma had ice cream. She had a harder time coming to me throughout the night as my parents stayed until the next day and she had grown very fond of Grandma and Grandpa, especially the donuts Grandpa brought home from Tim Hortons every morning. But after they left, she was fine with just us. Nice to know we were missed. I think she must have thought we were never coming back...although we did explain the situation to her before we left.

Some funnies:

The sign says, "Notice: Restricted Area" in the above photo. And that is our ship held captive in the restricted area! I thought it was funny.

Crew were painting the boat as we docked in Port Alberni. I wonder how much extra weight the boat carries because of the gallons of paint put on. I didn't even realize that it needed a paint job. But I hear (e.g.,) that Disneyland is re-painted every 2 months. So maybe it is common to paint big expensive places often, just for fun???

July - November 2008 Update

2008-12-02T10:24:00.001-08:00

Since becoming a mom I have not taken time to update the blog as often as I wish I would. It has been nearly 6 months since I updated and a lot has been going on. As I review the mile-stones in Mikaya's life since July she has:

July 1st --> started sucking her toes as a daily activity

(hey, why not ... they are always available!)

July 8th --> flipped over in her crib and got stuck, then cried about it. As soon as we righted her, she did it again! She did this three times before she figured out that it was best not to. Ironically, now she likes sleeping on her tummy.
I think she drools.

August 6th --> started solids

(Grandpa Loeppky is an old pro at this)

August 17th --> first time sitting by herself (without props; although these pictures are with props)

August 19th --> jumped out of her bumbo (see video of this at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4463750981785054421&hl=en)
Sept 14th --> said "bye bye"
Sept 18th --> used sign language to indicate "more"
Sept 19th --> pooped in the toilet
And when there is nothing better to do on the throne, suck those toes!

Sept 28th --> first time she acted shy with Grandpa Priebe by tucking her head into my shoulder
Oct 7th --> went from a sitting to crawling position on purpose and not just because she fell over
Oct 23rd --> crawled on all fours (as opposed to the army shuffle she had been doing for ages). The picture shows her perfected army shuffle.

(Oops...I think there are too many legs in that pant leg).

Nov 2nd --> pulled herself up into a standing position on the automan

Then proceeded to knock the dolly over!

Nov 9th-15th --> this was the week of pulling herself up on the furniture regularly but then getting stuck in a standing position and crying because she could not get down.
Nov 18th --> cruising on the automan. Slowly.
Nov 26th --> said "Da Da" (see video at http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3996141690166492941&hl=en-CA
Nov 29th --> Sat on Chris' shoulders while walking through the mall. She held on for dear life to his hair. Thankfully none came out, although it was a little painful for Chris.
Dec 1st --> started clapping

Some highlights:

Often we would stick Mikaya in her bumbo, position her in front of the toys, and then have some freedom to do a few things around the house:

Grandma Priebe made Mikaya a beautiful tutu.

Mikaya gave a great cry and pout for Grandma Loeppky (playing strange with her) when she was 3 months old (May 2008).

We tried to do the Anne Geddes look...didn't work out (Oct 2008).

Some special moments:

Daddy and Mikaya go flower picking (July 2008).

Chris and Mikaya reading the Bible together (Sept 2008).

On November 23rd we celebrated this precious gift God gave us by dedicating her back to Him. In the presence of our church, our family, and friends, we promised to raise Mikaya (with God's help) to know Him personally and to be good examples of Christ Jesus for her. We were able to video the service and it can be watched at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=448329046721055761&hl=en

Family picture (October 2008)

It's our 4th!

2008-07-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Today is July 17th...our 4th anniversary. As we look back over the last 4 years, it has truly been an adventure.

Year 1 -- after marriage, we lived in Abbotsford where Chris worked at Trinity Western University and I worked at Blessings Christian Marketplace.

Year 2 -- We moved to Belize, Central America where Chris and I both taught in a school. It was an amazing opportunity being in Central America. We learned so much during that year.

Leading Chapel for the young kids.

Year 3 -- Cory continued to help out in the Linda Vista School of Blue Creek, Belize, and tutor on the side while Chris did contract work for an internet company in Canada, helped with preaching in a Spanish Church in San Felipe, and planted trees.

The San Felipe Church

Year 4 -- We moved back to Canada. Shortly after our arrive in Kelowna, BC we discovered we were expecting. Cory has worked for Club Penguin (www.clubpenguin.com) as a Player Service Representative over the last year and Chris has worked for them as a programmer. The company was sold to Walt Disney in August 2007. The sale has proven to be a positive move as Club Penguin has continued to be the positive place it has always been for the kids who enjoy the site and for employees who work there.

Now Cory is on maternity leave and is enjoying being able to spend time helping Mikaya grow and develop. What an awesome job! We are so thankful that the government allows for an entire year for a woman to be home with a child to do this. And Mikaya sure is a sweetie!

Mickey has recently learned how to flipped over! (I think she drools in her sleep).

Chris and Mickey playing cards together.
Is that fair? -- the two of them against the one of me?

So where have we come from?

From just two:

To four in Belize:

To three:

Here are some other special pictures:

Mikaya and Daddy share a thoughtful moment.

Mikaya picks a flower for Mommy.

Also, you can view some pictures at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cory.priebe/ExtentionOnOurHouse?authkey=jQLioqb6df4

and

http://picasaweb.google.com/cory.priebe/MikayaMay2008?authkey=kineI5CHc0c

Psalm 16:11
"You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

Life with Baby Mikaya

2008-06-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

Over three months has gone by since we have updated our blog. Life with a new baby is very busy, we are finding out. Our lives really do revolve around her -- especially her eating and sleeping schedule. I am so glad to say that she sleeps through the night now, and has been doing so for the past 6 weeks! Mostly, though, it is a timing thing. She can do at least 8 hours in a row, but if we put her to bed for the night too early (say 8pm) then she is ready to go for the day at 4am. So now we put her to bed a little later and she sleeps till 7 or 8 in the morning.

Of late, teething has been the new thing. Her teeth (or lack of teeth rather) bother her most during feeding times. Then she does not want to eat. Then she wakes in the night hungry. So we are doing our best to get as much food into her in the daytime while at the same time trying to ease the pain of that teething process. Any ideas anyone?

She sure has been a joy to have around. It is amazing all the love we have for her. If you have facebook, feel free to click on the following link to view some videos:

http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=551156310

(Sorry, I have not figured out how to upload videos to another internet source yet. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. As well, if the link does not work, please let me know).

It was especially wonderful to hear her first laughs (pst: watch the video).

As well, here is a link to some pictures (everyone can access these):

http://picasaweb.google.com/cory.priebe/MikayaMay2008?authkey=kineI5CHc0c&pli=1&gsessionid=_8tkhasiEBvX86JuXTI5ew

Hopefully I can update the blog sooner than 3 months next time. Till then, take care!

Baby Princess

2008-02-25T10:09:00.001-08:00

We had a baby girl Friday Feb 22 at 8:39pm. Mikaya [TBA] Priebe was 6 pounds and 6
ounces, 49 cm long. Her name is pronounced Mi - kay - ah (Mickey for short).

Cory went to the hospital at around 1pm and guessed the baby would be born about 8:44pm (wild guess, but she wasn't too far off). Chris guessed 1:31 am (way off!).

While Cory and Mikaya had to stay in the hospital a few extra days to help her learn how to eat properly (which she is doing very well with now, praise God!) they have been home for a few days and adapting well to this new life outside the womb.

Check out the pictures of our new baby daughter at the following link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.priebe/BabyPrincess/photo#5170980832812050674

Baby Registry

2008-01-08T08:29:00.001-08:00

The baby is coming!! Really. Take a look:

Company Christmas banquet (Dec 2007).

We are now registered at Sears for anything the baby might need.

http://www.giftregistry.sears.ca/gift/egrSearch001.jsp

We are registered under:
Cory Priebe
Chris Priebe
of
Oswell Dr
Kelowna

Or, the number is:
200800653895

Please obtain a gift receipt (enclosure) just in case. Sears has this policy that without a gift enclosure, if you do need to return something they will only give you the lowest possible price that product has ever been at, even if the purchaser bought it for much more. Silly, but it definitely encourages a gift receipt to be used.

Thank you for all your consideration and help towards welcoming this new little one with a comfy environment. Baby says "thanks" (or "blahblahblah").

Baby Pictures are In!

2007-12-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

We have had two ultrasounds in the last few months. As of December 5th the baby weighs about 2 pounds and 3 ounces and is 25 centimeters long. Right on target, so I hear.

The following three photos are from October. (Comments are noted just below the picture they pertain to).

This is the baby's face
Here the baby is yawning.

The baby's spine.

These next two are from December (the 5th).

Can you see the baby holding his/her arm in front of his/her face?

This is my favorite! What a sweety.

We do not know if the baby is a boy or girl and are going to wait until the birth to find out. The due date is February 23rd, but we are hoping for the 29th since it is leap year. Wouldn't that be fun!

Disneyland, Alaska, and a Special Surprise

2007-09-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

Lots has happened in the last few months. I meant to blog sooner but have been putting it off waiting for my new computer to be ready. (My old one is slower than molasses). So now that the new computer is here, I have no more excuses!

3RD ANNIVERSARY!

In July we celebrated our 3rd anniversary. My brother Chad happened to be in town for the one night only, so we let him take us out to Montana's for supper. There was these silly hats that they made us wear for the occasion. I would love to put a picture on but cannot find it. Sorry!

TRIP TO DISNEYLAND

Then in August, we found that our company had a change in ownership. As part of the change, they required us to go to California to meet our new bosses and since we were there, encouraged us to spend a day at Disneyland.

Even kermit has his own walk of fame star!

City walk near Universal Studios

The "Nature" trail was so funny compared to the real crocs and such we saw in Belize.

I didn't go on many rides since I tend to get motion sick. But Chris loves rides. The way the day worked out was perfect...We did some "nicer" rides in the morning at Disneyland then went to California Adventures for the afternoon where the bigger rides are. I was so tired by then that I just wanted to sit and rest while Chris went on the bigger rides. Perfect!

ALASKAN CRUISE!

After returning from LA, we had an Alaskan cruise with Chris' family planned. This has been planned since oh I think spring sometime. It was a nice way to spend a vacation together with Chris' family (his brother, wife, kids, and parents). Yup, the entire entourage was there!

I thought it was terribly funny that for the emergency run through with your life vests and all, they had us gather in the casino. Ha! All these sophisticated people gathering in the casino and wearing funny looking outfits.
Chris and his brother spending some bonding time together in the pool.

Me.

Chris and I took a dance waltz lesson. I remember my mom teaching me some waltz steps in our kitchen when I was growing up in Harrison Hot Springs. We had a design on the lino that was perfect for learning the waltz. They didn't have such a neat design on board the cruise.

The kids did great at the 2 hour meal at the evening dinner. Of course, though, they did not attend every night as that would be too hard. Rather, they feasted up on the buffet dinner available in another area of the ship for some evening meals.

Chris and I all dressed for evening dinner

Chris' parents looking fabulous, dressed for dinner. Ps: his parents just moved to Kelowna this month. It will be nice to have them here.

The evening theatre show was amazing. They re-inacted a shorter version of Phantom of the Opera amongst others.

Port of Call -- Ketchikan

My father-in-law

Chris and I went to see the Lumber Jack Show.

The Hubbard Glacier. We got about within a couple hundred feet before we had to turn around. Amazing!

But hey, it was cold. It was Alaska after all!

Chris and I also took a tour bus to see the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau. It took a half hour to get there, a half hour to view it (although we could have stayed longer but I had to meet someone back at the boat soon) and a half hour back. I was so glad it worked out!

The boys needed to exercise!

The boys went up the tram to the top of some mountain in Ketchikan.

While the girls watched from down below.

On Ice Strait Pointe, the boys had to skip rocks. It is just something Priebe boys do!

And Chris looks to first base. It is clear and he takes the shot!

On one of the last nights at sea, the dinner staff did an amazing presentation of the desert item. They called it a Baked Alaska. I have never had Baked Alaska before and so had no idea what it was. But in my mind, I thought they said "Baked Alaskan Salmon" (I thought that because there is such things as Baked Salmon and Alaskan Salmon and I just stuck the word "salmon" in there even though nobody actually said the word salmon). So I was then convinced that we were having salmon for dessert. And I couldn't figure out why they would do that to us!!!! I don't even like fish that much...for dinner it is okay, but really for dessert!

I asked the waiter: does this have fish in it? He says no but I don't believe him. And I ask again. He says, it is ice cream. I still don't believe him. Ha! But truth is truth whether you believe it or not -- so I learned that lesson. I was very thankful that it was not fish, but I couldn't figure out how Baked Alaska Salmon was ice cream. Baked Alaska is neopolitan ice cream with a lemon meringue on top. And it was very funny when someone at our table asked it they had anything else available for dessert and the waiter said that not only did they have Baked Alaska, they also had Neopolitan ice cream. Ha!

SPECIAL SURPRISE

And if you managed to read through this entire blog you get to read the best news of all -- I have gained about 10 pounds in the last month.

(Can you see the bigger tummy on that picture?)

Due to the cruise? Maybe; I did learn to ignore the "I'm full" signs on the cruise. But, really, the doctor is quite happy with me as this means that our baby is healthy!

We are having a baby! That's right, a new little Priebe for the world to enjoy. We are due at the end of February (about the 25th although I am shooting for the 29th!).

The doctor told me the other day that it was a boy. But what does he know? I mean, he was just a dentist and not a baby doctor. And he didn't do anything special except look at me and say "how far along are you". When I answered, he said it was a boy. He just had a feeling! But really, we have no clue at all.

June 2007

2007-06-27T16:28:00.000-07:00

In early June I went with my mom to a retreat at Capernwray School on Thetis Island. One of the things I looked forward to the most at this retreat was spending time with my aunts. Only three (out of 6) of my mom's sisters could come. But it sure was a fabulous time. There is a reason, that they stick the Dyck ladies (and their friends) out at the last cabin at the edge of the camp. They are soooooo noisy, even till late at night. Never expected this from a bunch of ladies who are supposed to be grown up. Glad I went.

Cory, Betty (my mom), Auntie Annie, April (my Uncle's wife of just 1 year)

My first time kayaking...I really enjoyed it.

We've also babysat for Kim and Lance one evening. (Lance is Chris' brother). They had it nicely planned out. We have to get up at 4:45 am in order to get to work on time, so Kim arranged it that we would watch the kids in the evening and then her dad would come over at 8pm and watch them while they slept. That way Chris and I could go home and get some sleep. What a smart sister-in-law.Katie was a doll

Chris invented a flying paper airplane, launch pad, refueling game for the boys

Ethan thoroughly enjoyed it

That is a shuttle (made of paper) on the other side of Chris' gut.

Of course, the photographer does not get to be in the picture...but I assure you...I was there!

On our way home

2007-04-29T06:50:00.001-07:00

We are in Rocky Mountain House this morning. Will be stopping in
Nordegg to see my first church and then at the camp there. Hopefully
a stop at Bow Lake and then on to Kelowna. It'
s been a nice road trip.

Graduation

2007-04-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

After seven years I have finished my degree. Officially it is a "Masters of Arts in Christian Studies". Although I have grown quite a bit through the program it sure is nice to be done.

So what's next? Well Cory and I are going to go on a road trip to Alberta and then May 1st we start working for my brothers company again.

Had to turn the heater on

2007-04-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

We are back in Canada today. I started up our car and one of the first things I did was turn the heater on. Wow, what a change. From 40 degrees in high humidity where I got a little sunburn to trying to figure out where I put all my sweaters.

School and Tutoring

2007-03-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

Most of my days here in Belize are very busy between volunteering at the school, then after school, travelling from one house to another to fit in 2-3 or more hours of tutoring.

I arrive at school at 8:40, and split my three hours there between the kindergartens, the grade 1 class and the grade 2 class. I usually pull the kids out of class and work one-on-one (in the storage room -- only room available) with them in a particular area of study that they are having trouble with. Usually reading or spelling.

Kenny's reading has improved dramatically over the last few months.

In the afternoon, I travel from one home to another tutoring students. Sometimes we do homework, but mostly I like to review important concepts like times tables, do some practice reading, and spelling. I have been trying to learn about different styles using those in my tutoring and volunteering.
For example, I ask the student to make the numbers 3, 6, 9, 12...and so on from the 3 times tables, out of play doe. I may then ask him questions such as "which number comes between 12 and 18?" or "Which number comes after 33?". This for of questioning also him to spend extra time looking at the sequencing. We then say the numbers forwards and backwards. Everytime we finish a sequence, we take one number away. Then we say them forwards and backwards again. In the end, he will say them about 12 times in that short period of time (forwards and backwards), the last time without having any of the numbers in front of him. Using the play doe seems to help him as he gets to spend extra time, in a creative fashion, working with the numbers -- rather than just writing them out. If you can count by 3s, you can do the 3 times tables. Next week: the four times tables.

(See the play doe in the picture?)

I also lead chapel this last week. My puppet Marty and I were playing "catch" in a museum where this crazy statue holding a banana was on display. It seems that the banana was already but even though it had not been peeled. Hard to believe. We equated it to a Bible story in which Doubting Thomas would not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he saw it with his own eyes. At the end of the show, you find out that the statue (who comes to life) is very hungry and eats the banana. Low an behold!! The banana was indeed already cut even before he peeled it! In fact, the banana pieces fell all over the place. And later another teacher stepped on it!

The school science fair happened a week or so ago. I took special pleasure in asking the kids I work with to show me their projects. Some unique and challenging projects were presented, including Mikaylas discovery how friction effects the speed of a car.

Wesley's demonstration of a water wheel.

And these boys showed how an egg will be sucked into a bottle when the fire is looking for oxygen.
I asked this student's mom if I could teach him over Christmas holidays since 2-3 weeks off was such a long time, especially when we had just started a new reading program. The first time he came over was hard for him (after all, he is on holidays). However, after that first time, he has loved coming over. He now asks his mom, of his own volition, if he can come. And his mom looks at me and says, "what do you have at your house that he likes?" A lamb! Yes, a little bribery seems to work wonders. He comes and reads and then gets to feed the lamb. Now what will I do that Lily the Lamb has been weaned?

Another student, I asked her mom the same question, if I could teach her daughter over Christmas. As this German mother saw me working with her daughter, she asked it I would teacher her too! So now, I also spend about 2-3 hours a week with the mom, helping her gain better reading skills, and at the same time explaining what these English words mean. As an added bonus I have been teaching her how to help her children with their school work. The children do not get much homework at these young grade levels and yet there are certain areas they may be struggling in. I have been showing her how she can do things at home to help. I never fully realized before how much the parents need even this type of training, especially when the parents are all German, and their kids are attending an all English school. For this parent, she is also taking "grade 1" in the evenings at the home of one of the community members. For her, then, she has the advantage of knowing what the special sounds are, how to mark the vowels and so for. Many parents, even parents who speak English, would not know these things since they are specific to phonics and Abeka curriculum.

The game we are playing here is kind of like Uno except with words and sounds. You have to match the vowel. Hot -- Sock -- lots...etc. And use a "Swap" card to switch vowels. I found this resource in England and ordered it off the web. They also have a software version to which you can add your own words. I have used it before in learning spelling words.

1 Month Left

2007-03-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

I announced a new addition to our family, Larry Darren Priebe (Stanley), and yet he didn't survive a week with us. Five days after delivery to our home, we found him dead. Possible reasons:

1) We took him swimming on Sunday (day three of life with Priebes) to Green Lake. We discovered that bunnies can swim...but they don't like it. He was so cold after getting out of the Lake (the Lake is not that cold) that he just settled into a blanket and tried to get warm....so cold that he couldn't move his cold foot from being up in the air to close to his body to savor body warmth.

We snuggled him in the towel and let him recover. He did, within a half hour. Now the question is: Was his untimely death on Tuesday a result of Sunday's adventure -- massive heart attack [hmm...he is just a baby bunny]?

2) Lily the Lamb and Stanley the Bunny shared the same bedroom (a room in one of the back buildings on our property that we rent -- remember, we live in an archaeological outpost house, with many extra buildings on the property). Well, we locked Stanley in the room because he was being potty trained and during that process I didn't want him getting out into our big yard and then not coming back. After he was potty trained, he'd return to the same spot from now on to do his business. So here he is locked in this room...the same room Lily gets lock in at night (otherwise she goes to the main house window at 4:30am and bleats for our attention)...the same room that Lily (who had no discretion where she pees or poohs) uses quite regularly for her business. I fear that bunny was so close to the ground, so close to that pooh that he suffocated to death...pooh fumes inhalation!

3) Chris figures that maybe Lily stepped on Stanley early in the morning (she would do that, oblivious to the fact that he was even down there are her feet). Then, after massive internal bleeding throughout the day, he died in the evening. Far fetched I think.

4) A snake came in the open window and killed him.

I felt really bad at first on Sunday after seeing Stanley struggling with being so cold. Who would have thought he'd not respond well to swimming? I mean we took Lily swimming when she was just a month old and she's fine. But then he recovered, or so I thought.

Now, I am beginning think it was a snake. Not far fetched for this house. People who used to live in this very house told me that their cat often caught snakes around here. Not that we've seen one in the 5 months we've lived here.

I don't think we will be getting any more animals since we only have 1 month left in Belize.

The next weeks will be very busy as we wrap up our ministries. Chris has a couple more preaching sessions in San Felipe (Spanish church) as well as one in Shipyard (Old Colony, although the church we are at on March 18th is an evangelical church plant within the old colony...reaching out to them). And I have another few weeks of volunteering at the school here and tutoring students. Pray that I would use these last few weeks to help the parents know of some ways to help their kids using some new methods. Pray as well that the materials that I am waiting for to arrive will come soon yet so I can show the parents how to use them before we leave.

Thanks for your prayers

Through the Week

2007-03-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

So we got back from Canada, and almost immediately both us got sick. Thankfully, we were only sick for a few days.

Then on Thursday I fell off my chair at school and hurt my ... . After school, as I was waiting for a student to arrive at home so we could begin tutoring, I decided to lean against the motorbike. Bad idea as I burned my calf against the muffler. Ouch! Two nice big bubbly blisters, and one small one. The nurse told me that you aren't a real Blue Creeker until you've had a motorcycle burn.

Then the next day, I had some grade 4 students over to look at the full moon through our telescope (I tutor 3 grade 4 students and then have been studying the solar system recently). Since my friend allowed me to borrow a telescope and take it to Belize (thank you Amanda), I could share that with the students.

Up on the roof, there are some cement things that just jet out of nowhere. I was so excited to have the students over last night, that I didn't see where I was going in the dark and badly stubbed my toe on the cement thing. Ouch again!

I feel a little like an accident waiting to happen. So, between my sore bum, my burned leg, and my majorly bruised toe (oh not to mention the finger that still hurts from where I bent it wrong 4 weeks ago), I am quite a site.

Here's the latest family photo.

Koshka and Lily (the Lamb) did not get a long at first.

Lily just wants to know if Koshka has milk. She greets everyone the same way.

But they seemed to do better as time went on. But it didn't matter much since Koshka did not live with us. Chris and I were thinking of bringing him to live with us, but before we could, he has disappeared (possibly is dead) from his old home.

Just yesterday, though, we got a bunny...not a replacement for Koshka -- we could never replace him (well, maybe we could). We have been thinking about getting a bunny for a while. His name is Larry Darren Priebe. We call him Stanely for short. In honor of our beloved brother.

We have him tied up because he is being potty trained. Yes, you can train rabbits to be potty trained! He's quite scared right now having just moved in with us. But I think he will get used to us. I told him that we tie up all the new animals...that way they will learn their new home and never run away.

We figure this is our one time to really have an "Old Macdonald Farm" since when we get back to Canada there are certain bylaws that will prevent us from owning too many farm animals (like sheep).

Today, one of my tutor students taught me how to ride a 4-wheeler. Now I would like to get one. But I don't know where I would ride it in Canada.

Never thought a nine-year old would teach his teacher how to ride a 4-wheeler!

Cory

Grad Essay Completed

2007-02-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

After 7 years I have finally wrapped up my graduate program. The last task I had was to make the final changes to my grad essay. I know lots of people have been asking me about it so I have posted it on the web in the hope you will find it useful.

Click here to download the full paper

How to Study the Bible: Part 1

2007-02-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday we were in San Felipe where I preached part 1 of 6 on "How to Study the Bible". The main idea is that we need to be careful not to put our Bible reading on our "checklist" of things we have to do. That kind of an approach makes Bible reading a "job" and a burden.

Instead we can think of our Bible study time like food. Just like our physical bodies need to eat on a regular basis so our spiritual side needs food as well. We can also think of this time as relationship. If I want to build a relationship with my wife or the pastor at the church I spend time with them. One way we do this with God is to listen to what He says in His Word.

I tried to be really practical and address questions like "Where do you read from?" "How much do you read?" and "When do you read?" The short answer is it does not matter too much where, when and how much but that we are doing it. The best advice one of my pastors ever gave me was to pick a time of the day, pick a place and pick an amount to read and do it everyday. I started that practice 15 years ago. After all these years I know the Bible has shaped my life and defined my spiritual journey.

Safe Arrival

2007-02-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Cory and I made it back safe in Belize. It was a very hectic trip back and in our rush I fear we forgot to say good-bye to most people. For this we are deeply sorry and thank-you for all your patience and understanding.

We had a wonderful trip back to Canada. We spent the first part in Abbotsford where we were able to make some short visits and catch up with some collegues at Trinity Western University. By Thursday we were off to Kelowna where we say our delightful nieces and nephews on both sides of our family. It was so great to see our brothers and sister-in-laws again. I also had a chance to go into the office and see how things have grown. Another great team to work with!

We tried really hard to buy a house in Kelowna but that market is going nuts and despite all our effort we'll just have to wait till the time is right.

Then on Friday we headed to Kamloops and had a great visit with my parents.

We flew out on a Wednesday and boy was that crazy. We got there right around the time the airport opened in the morning but the line was so long to check-in that we made it to security the same time our plane started boarding (5:30am). Of course both Cory and I got the full security detail and had to run for the "last boarding call". My lungs still hurt (must be out of shape). Anyhow we are most thankful we made it in time.

Now this week we are back in Belize and my old friend Mike is out here with us.

Prayer request1: This Sunday I begin a 6 week series in the San Felipe church on how to study the Bible.
Prayer request2: For Cory as she starts tutoring students again this week. Pray especially that she'll be able to help the parents find ways to tutor the students when we are done in April

Prayer for safety

2007-01-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

We leave tomorrow (Friday) for a quick trip back to Canada. We managed to book our flights to include a night in Miami tomorrow. This should be interesting as we've never been there before. By Saturday we'll be in Abbotsford where we'll spend just short of a week. Then Kelowna and then Kamloops. We fly back to Belize on Valentine's day to wrap up our last 2 months of ministry here.

We could sure use your prayers for safety and for divine appointments as we travel

Trip to Cayo District

2007-01-10T17:46:00.001-08:00

We have a kitten…born Nov 23rd…one day before my (Cory) birthday. Her name is Koshka which is Russian for cat. Chris and I have both spent some time in Russia and like that name. We wanted to name her Sobaka, but didn’t think it was quite appropriate since sobaka is Russian for dog.

Koshka lives at one of my tutor students houses. Her cat had kittens and I asked if I could have one, but keep it at her house. So she cares for it, and I just come over and pet it…and we got to name it too. I Koshka out for visits sometimes as well.

Chris and I went on a little trip to Cayo District for a 4 day vacation. We were gone for three nights and had plans to visit: Barton Creek Cave, Rio Frio Cave, Rio On Pools, Five Sister Falls, go to a butterfly farm, and Big Rock Falls.

As we drove up Mountain Pine Ridge in Cayo District, we kept looking for a road that would lead to Barton Creek Cave. Finally we saw one: Barton Creek Cave Archeological Area. Although it wasn’t a complete sign to the cave, it did have a picture of a little man taking a hike and so we figured it could be the road. We decided to try. The road was very skinny…there was no way to turn around. As we forged on ahead, we found it getting muddy. I was concerned because I didn’t want to get stuck out in the boonies. But we kept going. Finally, going up a hill, we realized that it was impossible to go any further (we don’t have 4 wheel drive). But since the road was too skinny to turn around, we had to drive down backwards for a while. What I didn’t know is that there were banks on each side of the road with little ditches (small tiny, ditches) – looked kind of a like a bowling alley with high banks behind the gutters. But I didn’t know that. And when our two left side wheels got stuck in the gutters and Chris kept driving all that way, not realizing there were banks, I thought we were going over a cliff. I was freaking out!!! Thank God, though, there were banks! Then we hit a bump and the truck swung out of the gutters and now was across the road. Our front bumper was two inches from one bank and the other bumper was two inches from the other bank. Not only was this a skinny road, we now took up the whole road with no room to go anywhere. I was now having visions of us rolling over in the truck down the hill. (With all my parinoya, I didn’t think to take a picture, although it would have been very funny – in hindsight). So Chris inched the truck from a fifty point turn. Back and forth, two inches each time, back and forth…until finally we were facing the right direction and we got out of there.

Then we found a place to stay for the night and went a visited a butterfly farm. I didn’t quite realize that they actually raise butterflies at these farms. Here I learned how to hold a butterfly and all about the life cycle. Tragic that their lives end in 2-4 months.

The next day, we got instructions on how to get the Cave entrance. Turns out the entrance is through an Orange Grove that has no signage (actually our entrance we found yesterday was the correct one, but not the one taken when the road was impassible; the orange grove is a secondary entrance … and you pass through an Amish community this way).

This time, we had to cross a creek. We thought we could make it. Turns out that we only could get to the other side before the truck had taken in too much water. After 10 minutes, though, we were good to go again. One more creek after that (this one smaller though) and we made it there!

At Barton Creek Cave you hire a guide to take you through the cave, which is pitch black, in a canoe. We had actually brought a guide with us that we met at a different location (he was the one who convinced us that we could make it through the creek!). With a flashlight in hand, we entered the cave. Amazing adventure…a claustrophobic experience.
Going back we got stuck in the middle of the creek! When we opened the doors to get out and push, water came flooding in and soaked the floor of the cab! An Amish man with his horse and buggy was passing by and gave us a tow but he couldn’t make it up the little bit of a hill on the opposite side so a 4 by 4 who came along shortly gave us a tow from there.

We went to Big Rock Falls later that day.

Next day, to Five Sister Falls…which was amazing. You could climb the water falls, and when you got to the top, there was a whole nuther set of falls for you to climb!

We also went to Rio Frio Cave and Rio On Pools that day too. Rio On Pools was simply beautiful. Chris and I had to go and kiss under the waterfall since our first kiss (Aug 4th, 2003) was under a waterfall along Harrison Lake. Nostalgia.

Oh, and we have a phone number now: 501-624-4984. It doesn’t cost us anything to receive calls.

Finished my Masters Degree

2007-01-05T07:35:00.000-08:00

After 7 long years of squeezing in courses while working full time I have finally completed all the assignments for my Master of Arts In Christian Studies. I finished my grad essay last week before New Years and now all I have left is an exit interview.

It feels great to finally be able to move past this and get on with other parts of life.

Watch the Lamb

2006-12-20T14:18:00.000-08:00

We have decided to get started on our family so are now raising a lamb. She is very cute and then more cute. We feed her a bottle 3 times a day and then she has a milk mustache. She follows us where ever we go, until her feet get all tangled up in the leash. We haven't really named her yet; any suggestions?

Christmas break is upon us and the kids are out of school. I am still tutoring some students over the holidays and I have taken on a few more whom I worked with in school and wanted to continue with over the holidays so that we don't loose momentem (did I spell that right? And I'm a teacher!).

Chris' parents have come!

2006-11-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

Chris' parents have come to visit. We have visited Lamani (Mayan Ruins) and Shipyard (Old Colony Mennonites).

Today was very boring for them. I (Cory) had to work in the morning at the school. Then I had Spanish lessons (yes I am taking Spanish now) at 1:30-3:00 and then tutoring from 3:00-7:00. The motorbike broke down today, so I rode my bicycle to a few of my appointments. Man, didn't realize how much out of shape I was. Then when I did get the truck, the tail gate fell off!!!!

The Trinity Sermon

2006-11-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

I preached on the Trinity last Saturday night in San Felipe. I had a great time during the week pouring over the subject and trying to put together what God has been teaching these last 10 years or so. I was very excited to present it. I think it went okay but it was very difficult because it was being translated and I had too much content and was trying to chop it out as I was preaching. All the same I think it made some sense and I really hope God used it.

The translator asked for a copy of the manuscript and he is going to translate it into Spanish and then give it to the people in the church so they will be able to understand it better.

I have put the English transcript online.

Unity

2006-11-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

I preached last Sunday in San Felipe about unity. Willy translated for me. It was his first time and he is more used to Creole than English but he did great. The text was Eph 4:1-6 on how God has given us all a high calling.

Here is my summary:

- Ephesians 4 says that we have a calling to live up to

- We need to live a life of humility, gentleness, patience and we must bear with each other in love

- I shared a story about how I was wronged and maybe you too feel you have been wronged by someone. We must let it go and seek to live in love, everyone is watching us, this is our high calling in Christ

- I shared stories about how when I was a youth pastor all the churches got together and prayed and we saw God move among our city. Churches that were divided found healing and people came to Christ.

- I shared how there are churches all around the world and we all worship differently but we are all one body.

- We have one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith and one baptism.

- I challenged you to unite with all the other churches in San Felipe and the world to bring Christ to the lost

- But I also warned you that there is a bad teaching that we are one with everyone

- Not everyone is our brother. Some people worship some other Jesus.

- Then I asked how we should treat them

- I warned about how the church did bad in the middle ages by killing those who did not agree

- Instead we need to be like Jesus who died for those who did not believe in him

- And then I shared stories of how in my city we have an event called “Love Abbotsford” and all the churches get together to do acts of kindness to the people in our city.

And now I want to close with a prayer from Jesus. In this prayer he actually prays for you and me and He reveals one of his greatest desires for us today.

John 17:20-23

When we were done Willy asked for the manuscript. He is one of the elders and he really wanted to go over it again and then discuss next Sunday how they could implement it. His challenge to the congregation was that too often we hear things and it goes in one year and out the other (this is a rough translation from his body language). We need to take this to heart.

So please be in prayer for that little town. I told them that they could not just take what we do in Canada and put it into their village, it has to be translated into their own setting. I am excited to see what God will bring about.

I will preach again then on Saturday the 25th of November. The topic will be on the Trinity in hope to be able to help them some with a teaching in that village called "Jesus only". That teaching claims that there is only Jesus and not the Father or Spirit.

Thanks once again for joining us on our adventures.

Chris

Prayer for San Felipe

2006-11-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

I was sick with a headcold (they call it snod' a'nieze here) last week so couldn't make it San Felipe. We made it last Saturday night though and it went really well. My Spanish is still really poor so I did not catch most of the service but I did recognize two songs and the elder who was preaching told me it was on 1 Kings 18 (Elijah prays for rain).

10 people were baptized last Sunday morning in that church and the pastor is very excited about the growth in it. I'm signed up for preaching next Sunday at 9am. I asked them what topic to preach on so the pastor called a little meeting of all the elders right there in the middle of the pews. It was fun to watch them talk about it and try to figure out what the greatest need was, especially since the service was about to start and this delayed them (which is fine in Spanish culture). The topic they chose was inter-church unity. Cory suggested I preach from John 17 where Jesus prays for us (that we would be united). She also suggested bringing in some stories from love Abbotsford (do any of you have any you could send me?)

Feel free to post any content you have on inter-church unity in the comments section or email me.

I also value your prayers for this little church and our ministry there.

Chris

First Week

2006-10-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

It has been an eventful first week.

Thursday - arrived, no water and lots of power problems, slept at Carl and Margarets.
Friday - Fixed the water
Saturday - Can't remember but I think that was the night we went out for dinner and had some really good connections with friends.
Sunday - Went to Church - great sermon on the lost coin and how God wants us to reach the lost around us
Monday - Fixed the power, the breaker and some fuses were blown
Tuesday - First day for Cory back at school, great meeting with Principal, lots of potential. Got the gas to work in the house.
Wednesday - Cory went to school and helped students, Chris went to Spanish Lookup to pickup 5000 teak trees, Chris comes home very dirty. And great news we now have hot water for the shower.
Thursday - Cory got bitten by lots of fire ants and had an allergic reaction. Praise God she made it to the nurse who had a shot to lower her adrenalin.
Friday - Cory continues to help at the school and is tutoring students after school. Chris managed to get some trees to the field and is working with some fellows to plant them.

Upcoming. We have some of the new teachers coming over for supper tonight and hope to be able to have some games and be able to encourage them. Saturday I hope to make it to San Felipe and see how the church there is doing and how I (Chris) can help out.

We arrived safe

2006-10-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all your prayers. Cory and I are safe in Belize. We have spent the last couple days setting up our house. We have running water now (I am so thankful for even a trickle right now) and are able to get the doors closed (they were a bit too tight before but I borrowed a grinder and trimmed them down).

We have met up with lots of friends and are starting to settle in.

Prayer requests

- That God will show us which open doors we should take to best use His time here
- For great friendships and relationships to grow and be a blessing
- That we will experience God in the small parts of life.

On our way

2006-10-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

Our bags are packed and we are ready to go. We should be rolling out in less than an hour. Thanks for all your prayers and blessings on this trip. I sure hope God does some awesome stuff. Oh ya, something really neat is Cory met someone from our church who does training for dyslexic seminars and he really gave her some great tips.

We'll be in Belize for noon Thursday

Chris

Working on my grad essay

2006-10-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

After seven years I am almost finished my grad program. If everything goes right I should be done by Christmas because I only have 2 things left to do: 60 page grad essay and a correspondance course on Mennonite history.

Since we pushed back leaving for Belize a couple weeks I have been spending some time in the library cranking out my grad essay. Thankfully I've written about 60 pages in just over a week. Mind you I've been doing research for over a year and just needed to pull it all together.

I've attached a very draft version of the final summary

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Research Question: How does the primary purpose of the World Wide Web reveal how it can most effectively be used for the website of a local church?

Answer: People use the web because they are looking for answers. The web is more than just information however but it is the interaction of people represented as their writtings posted and then interlinked with the writtings of others. For the church the web is a place to have a voice where people can come and ask it questions.

Conclusion (this is taken from page 65 (obviously there is more detail above) (unedited):

In order for computers to help people find the answers they need the data has to be organized. The Semantic Web and Information Commons argue that the greatest weakness of the web is that it is not organized in a fashion that a computer can best help find answers. If Licklider and Englebart’s vision is to be realized the web has to be restructured in order to make sense. In the second part of this paper it was proposed that the church needs to design its site to use XML (Extensible Markup Language). When this happens then computers will be able to recognize which items are events, photos, news, sermons, addresses and be able to interpret what that item is about and then use it to make new systems. Nelson called this transclusion, which is the ability to take bits and pieces from other works and combine them together to make a new work. His hypertext model allows the church to break its information down into small parts but the current implementation on the web does not allow those bits to be put back together logically. By moving towards a more structured web elements that are found in the Web 2.0 movement such as mashing up content from one page with a tool from another now become possible. In addition the church web page is no longer stuck on the churches site but can be mixed into personal calendars, mapping software, feed readers, iPods and accessed from cell-phones, palm computers and whatever new medium is yet to be invented.

Although the above concentrates on how to communicate information the goal of the web is not only on the information but on the people who read and write that information. Like other communication mediums, the web gives people a voice and allows them to interact with others. Howard Rheingold argues that the web creates virtual communities and the individual postings and responses garnered on the web are actual social interactions. In light of this every posting on the web is posted by a person and every link on the web represents the link between the sayings of one person and another. Thus the web is a representation of the interactions of people and not just data. By extension the church web site is a representation of the collective voice and interaction of the people of God in a local settings and not just raw data about the church. Considering that Bernes-Lee dream is that the web is a place to “Enquire within” that means that people come to the church web page in order to find answers. Licklider’s and Englebart adds that the primary role of the computer is to augement peoples abilty to find their answers. With all these concepts combined the purpose of the web for the local church is to be the church’s voice to the people who go online to find answers to their questions about the church.

The church does not need to worry about answering every question but only the questions people are asking about it and the questions people will ask online. The church still needs a method to answer questions offline since not everyone has access to the web nor will everyone use the web to find their anwers. The web is only one voice of the church but it is an important one. The task for the church is to determine which questions it should answer online and what is the best way to answer those questions. In order to do this the church must follow five steps:

1. Determine the questions that the users are asking

2. Prioritize the questions in light of the mission of the church

3. Determine what unique data this church can add to that question

4. Determine how does this data relate to other components

5. Leverage the web’s uniqueness to best answer the question

Although it may be nice to have a cookie-cutter approach to making a web page the reality is that no two church web sites can really be the same. Each web site is an expression of the voice of all the saints in the church striving to accomplish the mission they believe God has given them. Since each church is made up of a different combination of saints and are called to reach out in a different location to different people then the voice will look different on the web depending on the people asking and the people answering the questions. The church web site however does not stand alone but is part of the greater collection of voices tied together through hyperlink into a tapestry called the web. The next step for church web pages is to find ways to tie its voice back into the greater web. This will require the church to not see its page as an end destination but a small piece that contributes its voice into a larger pool of answers. Practically this means the church will need to start a pages like theology statements but then send the user to other sites like the denominational headquarters to attain more pieces to the question that puzzles them. Likewise when the church writes about news it should send the reader to pages with more information. The church should also draw information from other sources such as members photo galleries, blogs and profile pages. This information can be transcluded onto the church web page and take on new forms that advance the mission of the church. For instance if a the church’s mission includes enhancing fellowship it could blend together the photos its members post on other sites and deliver then as a new compilation on the church site. Likewise the members and other sites can take the information on the church site and blend it with information from other sites so it appears in their calendars or desktop of their computer.

Update

2006-10-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Our friend Karen is healing well. The funeral is today at 2pm. I have been asked to say something but I am not sure yet what to say. Perhaps something along the lines of how we met - which was Dave's surprise birthday party - Surprise! You don't even know me yet. I would also like to share about how he loved the Lord.

We have moved our plane tickets to the 18th of October. This will give us some more time to visit with Karen and to help her in her healing. Thanks again for all your prayers.

Change of Plans

2006-10-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest parts of being a youth pastor was when the phone rang late at night, you always knew it was not good. Last Saturday night the phone rang. We had been planning to get together with some of our best friends (Dave and Karen), ones we swapped being in each others wedding parties. When we picked up the phone we had thought it might be them but it turned out to be his mom. It turns out that they were in a car accident. She was in a comma and he did not make it. It is amazing how life changes in just an instant.

We made it to the hospital today, she is out of the comma and is doing well. We had a time of swapping stories, praying and grieving.

Fortunately our airline is willing to move our tickets without losing the whole cost we put into it. We are very thankful that we have this chance to support her and her family.

Please continue to pray for Karen and her family and that God would use us to help in her healing.

We bought our tickets!

2006-09-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

We found a great deal for for tickets for our trip back to Belize this year. We will be leaving October 4th. We will be spending Christmas in Belize this year (can you imagine swimming in the river on Christmas day and not even being cold, crazy hugh?). It was about the same price to come home and then go out a second time so we have booked a trip back home for Jan 26. This will give us a chance to visit our family again, I'm sure we'll be mighty homesick by then.

Of course the quesiton your probably asking is: what are you going to be doing this year?

Most of our focus will be on Cory's ministry this year. She really found an incredible niche in helping dyslexic students last year. I believe she has a gift because we saw students who were failing pass last year and actually do quite well near the end. Check some of our past entries for some great stories. So Cory will be focusing on that as her main thing.

As for me, I was told by my Seminary that I have to get finished my degree. After working on it for 6 or 7 years they are pushing me to get it done. Quite frankly, I can hardly wait to be done. So I'm going to finish my grad essay (thesis) on using the Web for local churches and doing a directed study on the history of Mennonites. With that history course I am hoping to put together a study to help those in the village and on the colony. I don't want to dream too far but I wonder if understanding their roots will really help the old colony find freedom in Christ. We'll see, keep praying. I've also been invited to preach in a church in the neighboring village and that pastor was quite eager for me to get back even before we left last spring.

So keep us in your prayers.

Had a baby, it's a niece!

2006-08-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

The long wait is over. Kim and Lance (my brother) had their third child today. It was a baby girl 8.3oz. Cory is over at their house looking after the kids now. I hope to be able to go to the hospital when she gets back this afternoon.

Nothing New to Report

2006-07-31T21:11:00.000-07:00

For all those asking -- we are not pregnant and not dead.

Working at TWU

2006-06-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

I'm back to work at TWU. I took a class last week on "Building Healthy Churches". It went well but I am more excited about the assignment where I am writting a paper on how the internet can be "unhealthy" for the local church. This should be a good step towards my larger grad essay which will deal with what the internet is and how it can best used to support the local Church.

This week I'm re-connecting with collegues and doing some planning with them on the myTWU site. Right now however my computer is in the "shop". Good news about that though because I have a great tech who is re-installing it and will hopefully make it dual-boot (as either XP or Linux)

That's it for me now. Oh ya, and we're trying to sell the condo.

Graduation

2006-05-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Last night was graduation. We had 5 grads this year and it was a joy to see them finish and walk the isle. Three are off to Canadian schools and two are staying here (one will even be a teacher next year).

One of my joys was to have some of the students (from all grades) come up to me and thank-me for being their teacher. Some almost had tears in their eyes. This is especially significant since I have had a somewhat challenging year and have often wondered if I was doing any good. I thought it was going to be many more years before they came to appreciate what I had done but last night one of the girls said, "I want to thank-you for teaching us this year. I know I have not always appreciated you the way I should..." Another student came up to me that night as well. He did not finish very well this year. On the last day he wrote on the wall "I hate school" and then took off. When I called him on his cell he told me that he wasn't coming back and was quitting. Last night after seeing the grads make it I saw him talking to the school board and then he came up to my truck as we were pulling out and said, "I know I haven't been that easy on you this year. I just wanted to thank-you and let you know that I will be going back next year." It's going to be another three years for that guy and he knows it but I am so glad he is going to try.

As we wrap up here I often think what kind of mark I would give myself. Honestly, I am not sure. I know I have tried hard and we God has used me to do so amazing things (including getting the students to lead chapels and memorize whole chapters of the Bible) but I also know I would do some things differently (like be more strict in the beginning and stuck to my guns more when the students opposed me and telling the students I love them more often). In the end I am glad God is the one who gives me my mark. I have had to learn this year to just be faithful and not to worry what my students or others think. I have been working on the discipline of finishing well. I have also learnt a very valuable lesson that I do not have to shine in every ministry but sometimes I just need to sludge through it and trust that God will do something with it in the end.

Half acre planted (all it took was a shovel, a string, gas and a lighter)

2006-05-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

Last night it rained really hard. Our wheel barrow had 4" of rain in it just from one night. That is almost a week of good rain so I guess rainy season is upon us now. When I got to the nursery this morning our trees were flooded (some almost to the top of the bags). So Carl and I figured it is time to plant the little suckers.

So we loaded up the truck and headed out to the first plot. A nice 8 acres hill with some rich top soil at the bottom. It was this bottom piece we planted today.

We learnt a lesson last Saturday about how slow and silly it is to try to line up the border by eye (same location but we only planted 60 trees then). This time we brought some string and tied it to two poles on either side of the field. Then we marked off every 8 feet. Then we put the trees under the markings on the string and then moved the poles over another 8 feet. In so doing we have nice straight rows for the tractor and mower to keep it clean later on. Silly thing is we could not get the poles in a straight line so for now the trees are only straight one way.

During this time we found a line of leaf cutting ants. Those guys find plants, climb them and cut all the leaves off and carry them in long rows back to their home. It looks really cool to see them but they can take out 200 saplings in a day. I follewed their line and stuck a stick in it to deal with it. Funny thing, Carl moved the truck and parked right on top of it. So we looked and looked for their nest.

We unloaded all the rest of the plants (remember where the truck was) and headed out for lunch. The rain made the road a mud-bog so when we came back we had to hike it in (half mile). By the time we were back they had already started on the trees. This time we brought gas and a lighter. We poured the gas down their little holes, lit a stick on fire and threw it at them. It is so cool to watch the little puffs of fire come out of the holes as the fumes work their way underground.

It took us about 3-4 hours between the three of us to plant 200 mahogany saplings. So we had time to spare. I had heard that direct seedings works just as good as going to all the hassle of growing the plants in a nursery so we grabbed some seeds and plucked 3 down in between every tree. Wonder how those will turn out?

In the end, 200 saplings and 600 seeds. (Well I caught Carl dumping about 60 cedar seeds into one hole so maybe 6000 seeds). The funny thing is I kept wondering why Carl was saying, "Man, we are going to a have a lot of trees in a few weeks...."

Moving....

2006-05-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

This summer will be full of a lot of moves for Cory and I. On June 4th we drive to Mexico then take a 5hr bus to Cancun then 8 hour flight to Seattle.

When we get home we need to set up our condo again. Second week of June I am taking a course from ACTS (only 2 more to go till graduation).

Then I'm back at TWU full-time for 2 weeks launching a new project and connecting with my team.

Starting first week of July, Cory and I are in Kelowna. My brother has released an online kid-safe chat this year called club penguin. He needs my help to build some backend stuff to make it run smoother. It should be a really awesome project and I am most of all looking forward to time with family (both Cory's brother and my brother live in that area). Kim (my brother's wife) will be having a baby during this time and we really want to be there to support them and greet this new member of our family.

We're still looking for a house for July but August and Sept we are house sitting. We even get a dog!

Then at the end of Sept we are returning back to Abbotsford to help TWU get the new school year kicked off. Then back to Belize. Cory will be continuing her awesome ministry with tutoring students. She has really found a gift there. I hope to plant trees, host authentic walk seminars in the local churches, write a book or two and help out my brother and TWU part-time over the internet.

Unexpected Ministry

2006-04-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Cory and I travelled to the neighboring village called San Philepe to find a Church. We drove around in our old pickup until we found a group sitting around a tree outside a Church. We called out the window, "Are you guys a Church"

"Yes", they replied.

"English or Spanish?".

"Spanish" they called back. So we waved goodbye and kept up our search. The problem was we could not find anything that was open. So we turned the truck around and went back to our little circle under the tree.

When we got there they invited us to join them. As soon as we sat down they asked us to share. "I thought this was Spanish?"

"Yes, but we also speak English too"

"What would you like me to share on?" I asked.

"Teach us from Revelation chapter 10". So I flipped open my Bible and took a look. After a quick glance I knew I was not ready for this one. Oddly enough we happen to be studying Revelation in class right now and had just finished chapter 8. So instead I shared my testimony. What was neat is that at the end of it I said that every story has a beginning and an end and everything that is in the middle is understood in light of how the story began and how it will end. In just the same way the Bible starts in Genesis and works it's way through to Revelation. The history in between (including our lives) are the threads that weave this story together. So just as in my story God has a journey that he is taking me on that is part of His greater plan, so each of our lives (I explained to them) has a purpose and is part of that bigger picture.

Afterwards we met the pastor and were invited over to lunch by a very nice family. The pastor asked if we could come back and speak at the Church. At first I said not at this time because we are so busy with the closing of school but I really felt I needed to so I found him later that day and arranged to come in two weeks time.

This will be for Saturday night May 6th and the topic will be Evangelism. Interestingly enough, 25% of the town goes to an evangelical Church. It should be interesting...

Thanks again for all your prayers.

2006-04-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, Chris and I organized a weekend with a few of the other international teachers to go into the Cayo district (about a 3 hour drive) and go cave tubing. In true Belizean style, since our truck did not have enough room for all 6 of us, four sat in the cab and 2 rode in flatbed...perfectly legal in Belize. But my! Did they get sun!

Ians Caves Branch is one of the few places in Belize where they offer adventures in Cave Tubing. A guide told me that while the caves belong to the government, the entrance to the cave is located on Ians Caves Branch property so they are the only one who has access to that particular cave.

We arrived at Ians Caves Branch, after first stopping in Spanish Lookout for ice cream of course!

Our cabin, while spacious enough, had no electricity...pardon me, it has electricity enough to run a single ceiling fan, for everything else we used oil lamps. We ladies were lucky enough to (without realizing it beforehand) pick the cabin with a bathroom (no shower, just a toilet and sink -- and yes, no electricity in there either). The showers at this "resort" were jungle showers -- with hot water.

I choose to believe that the "resort" was saving us money by cutting back on electricity and showers in every cabana. However, they do not claim to be a resort and even state "we are not sanitized from the jungle, we are apart of it".

The first adventure we went on was cave tubing. That of which, I have not developed the pictures as yet since they were taken with a 35 mm water camera. I will post pictures as soon as I can. And explain about the trip too.

The second adventure we went on was a jungle walk in which a guide explained to us many different medicinal uses of trees and leaves...etc.

This tree is called a Sabor Tree. It is the national tree of Guatemala and thus is also protected in Belize. The ancient Mayans believed that the roots of the Sabor Tree were actually the stalactites of the caves (the big boulders that hang down from the ceilings of caves). They believed that if they offered sacrifices in the caves, the stalactites would carry the sacrifices use the roots of the tree, through the tree, and into the heavens. That is why they used caves for doing their religious sacrifices. This particular tree (in the picture) is about 300 years old.

This is Santa Maria. Add lemon or hot sauce for favor. It is good for a toothache as eating it turns the mouth numb. (Looks like celery, doesn't it?)

This plant is good for curing malaria.

I thought the way these vines crept up the trees was just beautiful.

Our guide (Neko) told us that terminates are good to eat.
And true enough, they were crunchy and surprisingly minty. It would sure take a lot of terminates to be full. (Yes, that is my tongue! -- Cory)

He said that you could take a terminates nest, divide it into four and burn each at the corner of a camp to keep away mosquitoes.

These leaves (the small ones), if boiled and made into a tea, are good for toothaches (not sure if it numbs the mouth this time). This tea, however, is not to be drunk, just swished around in the mouth and then spat out. Notice this before picture (on the left) and then the after picture (on the right). Before shows before the leaves are touched, and after shows after they have been touched. The leaves retract inward as a defence mechanism. And it works, since when cows come by to eat the leaves, when they are touched and they curl inward, the cow is fooled and moves on to find a different leaf to eat.

The roots of the cohune tree are good to eat. As well as the nuts (which are on the ground). They grow into beautiful trees.

We don't have a picture of the harball tree. That one, if you cut the bark or open its fruit, it seeps glue!

We also went to the Blue Hole National Park. I believe it is because of a natural underground spring, but a section of this "pool" is a brilliant blue, almost like the ocean. Funny thing is, I discovered that if you spit in the water, small fish jump up to the surface of the water and eat it. Gross, but it sure is cool.

We hiked around in the park a bit...and came across this beautiful sunset:

In this national park there was also St. Herman's Cave.

These are stalactites. Which are actually mineral deposits coming down from the ceiling. Eventually, they will combine with stalagmites that come up from the floor to form a column. But the ancient Mayans did not understand this geology and just thought the stalactites were the roots of the trees and that the trees were their access to their gods in the heavens.

We traveled through the cave and thankfully emerged on the other side. Thank God! I was never so happy to see daylight.

Oh, and our truck ran out of gas 1 mile from home!

That's our Cayo trip with Phil (from North Carolina), Rebekah (from Manitoba), Alicia (from Manitoba), Noelle (from BC), and Chris and I (also from BC).

Stay tuned for the tubing pictures and commentary.

Reading is her favorite!

2006-04-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

"Reading is her favorite!" she said.

How exciting to hear that. This from a girl who has struggled with reading immensely. And now, she loves it. I feel so blessed to have been given these glimpses into knowing how my work (tutoring in this case) is making a difference in people's lives.

Update on the spelling-memory game: her spelling tests are better than normal.

So a student I (Cory) work with while volunteering at the school....I am amazed at how far he has come in his math. He has improved like night-and-day in his cognitive ability in math. Just the other day, he came early for our time together. He told me that they were finished Bible early and just playing some games, but he wanted to come and do math. "I used to hate math; but now I like it". How encouraging to hear!

A typical week for Cory:
Monday -- all day at the school volunteering (first one-on-one Math with a grade 5 student; then helping out in the grade 2 classroom as an extra set of hands; then after lunch working one-on-one with two dyslexic students from grade 3; then reading with 4 grade 1 students who need some extra practice; then as needed working a small group from grade 4 in whatever area needs to be covered that day; tutoring after school for 1-2 hours)

Tuesday -- Math with a grade 5 student; then going home and making lunch, only to bring it back at lunch time for 6 six teachers; doing one-on-one with grade 3 students; then tutoring for 1-2 hours; then a second tutoring job for 1 hour.

Wednesday -- Math with a grade 5 student; after lunch doing one-on-one with grade 3 students; reading with 4 grade 1 students; working with a small group of kids from grade 4 who need some extra help; tutoring after school for 1-2 hours.

Thursday -- Math with a grade 5 student; working as an extra set of hands in the grade 2 classroom; after lunch working one-on-one with 2 grade 3 studnets; tutoring for 1-2 hours; then another tutoring job for 1 hour.

Friday -- Math with a grade 5 student; going home and making lunch for 15 people (to be brought to the school for teachers and students who need it); after lunch reading with 4 grade 1 students; tutoring for 1-2 hours. I do like it that when I am done for the day, then I am done. As\na full-time teacher I found that I was taking the work home with me --\nmarking and planning...etc. And was up till late at night trying\nto get everything ready. As a volunteer and tutor, there is\npractically no prep work. However, since I work with 3 dyslexic\nstudents (2 at school and one I tutor after school), I am reading some\nbooks that will help me best meet their needs...and boy am I learning a\nlot about dyslexia! Oh my, it is amazing what I didn\'t\nknow. Check out "The Gift of Dyslexia" and the "Gift of Learning"\nby Ron Davis. A dyslexic himself, he has actually discovered a\ntermendous method of helping dyslexics overcome all that which holds\nthem back. When I mentioned above that "reading is now her\nfavorite subject" -- that is state only weeks after using Davis\' method\nas outline in his books with her. He has some wonderful methods\non helping students with ADD, Math, and handwritting problems...not to\nmention getting beyond the normal hurdles of dyslexia (e.g., making the\nletters that float around stop floating).

I do like it that when I am done for the day, then I am done. As a full-time teacher I found that I was taking the work home with me -- marking and planning...etc. And was up till late at night trying to get everything ready. As a volunteer and tutor, there is practically no prep work. However, since I work with 3 dyslexic students (2 at school and one I tutor after school), I am reading some books that will help me best meet their needs...and boy am I learning a lot about dyslexia! Oh my, it is amazing what I didn't know. Check out "The Gift of Dyslexia" and the "Gift of Learning" by Ron Davis. A dyslexic himself, he has actually discovered a termendous method of helping dyslexics overcome all that which holds them back. When I mentioned above that "reading is now her favorite subject" -- that is state only weeks after using Davis' method as outline in his books with her. He has some wonderful methods on helping students with ADD, Math, and handwritting problems...not to mention getting beyond the normal hurdles of dyslexia (e.g., making the letters that float around stop floating).

Creative Spelling

2006-03-21T18:53:00.000-08:00

So today I went to one of my tutoree's houses
to work with her for an hour or so. In preparation,
I made small cards containing two lists of her
current spelling words. Then we played "memory"
with them. The trick? Everytime her or I flipped
over a card we had to say the word and spell it, then
flip over another card to find its match, saying and
spelling that word too. If we came across vocabulary
words, then we had to say, spell, and read the
vocabulary words. She enjoyed it so much that we
played three times! And still she was not tired of it!
in essence, we went through her spelling words
about 6 times verbally. Verbal is good for her since
she has a learning disability and learns better verbally.

Soon, I want to try practicing spelling words with
pudding...the kid has to spell the word with their
finger in pudding! I'll see if I can't take some pictures.

Cory

Amazing! Her reading is the best it has been all year!

2006-03-06T18:27:00.000-08:00

I have been having a wonderful past couple of weeks. Where does this joy stem from? From being able to help the students at Linda Vista School, particular students that is. As a volunteer special needs teacher, I come along side their regular teacher and help as needed. I have a few dyslexic students that I work with one-on-one and I decided that I needed to learn more about dyslexia so that I could better help these students. It is as if God knew this over a year ago, because when I worked for the bookstore I bought some learning books but had not read them, yet I took them along to Belize. Now, I zipped through the one book in just a week (and it was a complicated book) and am starting on the second one, eager to read it. I am a novel girl...books that are just information are not that interesting for me, and yet I am so drawn to these books that I have not read the novels I have sitting on the shelf.

Anyways...what has happened? I have been trying different methods (methods geared toward helping students with learning disabilities) and have found that grades are going up. One method of reading that works better for dyslexic kids is that instead of using phonics to sound out words, to use the spell-read system. That is where if they have trouble with a word, to spell the word, then I say the word and they repeat it. I have tried this method and found that they are better able to pick up on that same word in the future. Why? Probably because they have such good memories that they remember the spelling of the word and how it is pronounced...as opposed to sounding it out.

Another process I have been trying is doing clay-spelling with spelling words. One student, after doing this for 20 minutes the day before his spelling test (and only working on about 6-8 words of 30 (actually, he only did 3-4 and I did the other 3-4 words, to which I made him check my spelling and then spell the word after that without looking)), he got the best on his spelling test all term (the term is almost over)!

Another student, we spent 2 hours on Saturday afternoon creating the alphabet out of playdoe, then saying it forwards and backwards many times. Then I would ask her, "find the letter N" and she would locate it. Then I would say "what are the letters around P?" And she would tell me that. Forwards and backwards, the capitals and the smaller case. In the end, her teacher told me today (Monday) that her reading has been the best it has been all year. "What did you do?" She asked. "We just went over the alphabet for 2 hours". Praise God that the little girl really enjoyed it (since we were playing with playdoe). I think what happened is that dyslexic kids are known for having really good memories, and just as the spell-read system works by them memorizing the spelling of a word and linking that with it's pronounciation, so too when they get really good with knowing the letters of the alphabet, then their reading is effected in a positive way too.

I can't take all the credit, because I have found that God has given me a unique ability to understand these books on dyslexia (which is where I am learning all these different methods of teaching). "The Gift of Dyslexia" by Ron Davis and "The Gift of Learning" by Ron Davis. Excellent, phenomenal books on how to help students with not only dyslexia, but also math problems, hand writting problems, ADD, and ADHD. Read them if your child or student is in need of some help. It is amazing the suggestions they give. I have seen 3 cases (students) of dramatic improvement in just 5 days! And I only started reading the books just over a week ago!

Wow! I hope God can use me to help more kids!

Cory

Recruiting New Teachers

2006-02-28T16:57:00.000-08:00

I got the update from the board last weekend. Here is what next year is looking like.

Kindergarten: Pending response from current teacher
Grade 1: Filled
Grade 2: Has an applicant
Grade 3: Pending response from current teacher
Grade 4: Open
Grade 5: Open
Grade 6: Open
Grade 7: Open
Grade 8: Open
Highschool: Filled
Highschool: Pending response from current teacher
Highschool: Open

So I posted an add on goabroad.com and updated our web pag e with the latest data.

I could really use your help. Do you know of anyone who might be interested in coming down here to teach next year? If so send them to our web site at http://www.authenticwalk.com/belize/index.php

Things in Perspective

2006-02-28T16:45:00.000-08:00

In Bible class today we were studying about the start of the American Missionary Movement with Judson's trip to Burma. Man that guy suffered a lot. He was imprisoned at one point for 3 years in terrible conditions chained with only his beaten and whipped shoulders touching the ground, no light and the stench. For 6 years he never saw one person become a Christian. Yet in the end he led a movement that God used to lead thousands to Christ.

As I read this from our textbook I could feel the cracking sensation of the sunburn on my back. Last Saturday I was out a bit too long working on the trees and burnt myself. Monday it was almost unbearable trying to get through class. My students were quite compassionate. As I read this story I thought my sufferings are small. My pain is from my own silliness and will pass in a few days (it is not that bad), his went on year after year.

Anyhow after reading this I was really impressed by how easy I got it.

PS Some time soon I need to send you pictures of our trees...

Wall of Prayer

2006-02-25T15:48:00.000-08:00

During staff meeting last Tuesday I shared some
of the struggles I have been having. It seems
some of the other staff are feeling the same. In
response we took some time and prayed about
this. In addition the teachers are getting together
after school and praying in the middle of the field
and many of you on my prayer team have expressed
your support and prayers.

In response I sense God's presence like a wall
around the school. It is not easy for many of us
but I sense hope rising. Please continue to pray
for us all.

Discouraged

2006-02-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

I am hesitant to write about things like this but what is the point of
having a support team like yourself and not sharing with you the
lows instead of just the highs.

I find teaching really hard. I think everyone is getting tired. We are
now almost 3/4 the way through the year and both the students and
myself wish we were done. .

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing here, why did I leave so much?
I came to make a difference and to help those who really wanted to
grow. At times I do not feel wanted. My students argue with me in
class, they get angry about how I mark, they tell me I am doing it
wrong, and the class gets out of hand. I wish I had taken some courses
in classroom management. They are still really good kids and to the most
part stay out of trouble, I just feel worn down inside and need prayer for the
strength to press on. I also need help knowing which things to call for the
students, which to let go, and to embrace opportunties for life-change.

Sorry for ranting and I hope I have not dishonored my students. Maybe
the biggest prayer I need is that I will love these students with the same
love God has for them.

100 Words Per Minute

2006-02-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

In Keyboarding class today one of my students broke 100
WPM. That is so incredible! I felt inspired and since I had
not tested myself for a while I did their speed test along
with them. That one student and I raced to beat each other
and almost tied. For the first time in my life I got 101
WPM (less 5 WPM for errors). I never knew I was so fast...
it was only a little while ago I thought I was doing 55 WPM,
I should have figured that after typing every day for 7 years
after that test I might have gotten a little bit better :)

Now I have to figure out what I can get my student for such
a big accomplishment. Any ideas?

The Adventures of Cory and Chris

2006-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

The Adventures of Cory and Chris
January is now over. We have been to 4 countries since the new year has begun...starting in Canada, traveling through the US and Mexico on our way to Belize. And then, just the other Sunday, Chris and I took a leisurely walk through La Union, Mexico. In Blue Creek, we live literally a 1 minute drive from the Mexican border. After paying a boatman $1 Bz to travel across the river, you arrive in Mexico.

With the change in schedules for us (whereas, we used to both go to school for 7:30am [or earlier] and both leave around 5:30 or 6pm) now, since, I am not teaching full time, we have different transportation needs and so we decided to get a bike. Gas in Belize is very expensive (about $5 a gallon) and the bike only costs $4 US to fill. We think we can ride it for about 5 days or so on a full tank (which is only about 1 gallon). It is perfect for our needs. And we can resell it in the end, probably for the same amount that we bought this used bike for. Although not common in Belize, we believe in wearing helmets!

I (Cory) am volunteering these days and enjoying it. I find that I do indeed fill a need in the school for someone to come along side the teachers and provide an extra set of hands, eyes, and help in the classroom. I have spoken with the teachers from grades 1 to 5, asking their needs and have arranged to come in during certain times of the days. For example, the grade 5 class needs some help from 8:30-9:15; the grade 4 class needs help from 9:15-9:45; the grade 2 class needs help from 10-11:30; the grade 3 class needs help from 12:30-1:30; and the grade 1 class needs help from 1:30-3. It is so amazing how God has designed it so that, I can help out in so many different classes throughout the day...what a difference I feel that I am making.

Some classes just need someone to come in and read with the kids in their reading circles, freeing up the teacher to help the other kids one-on-one with their seat work (or I can do the seatwork and the teacher can do the reading circle). Some classes, need someone to take a child or two aside, providing them with some extra practice reading time. Some classes need an extra person to come along and help the students with their math work.

Today's schedule was: 8:30-9:45 with grade 4's doing math; 12:30-1 with a grade 5 student working one-on-one with his math; 1-1:30 fifteen minutes each with 2 grade 3 students who needed some one-on-one extra reading time; 1:30-2 with six or seven grade 1's helping them to understand how to count money; 2:15-3 with three grade 1 students who needed some extra reading time. This last bunch I had a lot of fun with as we read a small story a few times, then we tried to see who could read it the fastest. We will keep record and give a prize at the end of the week. (And extra points were given if you followed along while the others were doing their verbal readings). I don't know if I have ever seen kids so excited about reading...and these are the kids who are struggling!

I am also providing lunch (for a small fee to help cover the cost of the food) on Tuesdays and Fridays. This is a big venture for me as I don't really cook that well...and yet it is an opportunity to learn a new skill. So far, I am doing well with the meals and breaking even on the money collected compared with the expenses incurred. I know what is was like as a teacher, trying to figure out what to eat for lunch everyday while living in a foreign country where food is not quite the same as you are used to in your country of origin. (E.g., in Canada I would have a sandwich for lunch practically everyday. Here, it is difficult to find good sandwich meat).

That's it for now.
Cory

2000 trees planted

2006-01-24T17:43:00.000-08:00

Last weekend Cory and I got together and planted a few thousand trees. At first we were putting them in plastic bags (to transplant later) but that was taking far too long. So we just made a garden and threw all the seeds in it and buried them. In about 4-6 weeks when they come out of the ground we can put them in bags.

The plan is the following

- 2000 mahogany
- 2000 spanish cedar
- 500 teak
- 500 maligna

We are just about finished buying 10 acres of land. I found out yesterday the guy we are buying off also moonlights as a logger so I booked him to log it with me in a couple weeks. That will be fun!

So what is the point? Well if we plant trees now then when we retire we can sell them for about $2000 each. I'll let you do the math but if it works out it should really be a great way to free us up for ministry.

God of Second Chances

2006-01-17T17:48:00.000-08:00

I am preaching in chapel tomorrow. I have been
working on this sermon entitled "The God of Second
Chances." I want to start off with New Years and ask
what is there Christian about it? Then I want to ask
the same about Christmas which was originally a pagan
holiday. And then the cross of Easter which was an
instrument of torture.

The key is conversion. God is the one who loves to
convert things.

He took an old rugged cross that was used for torture
and used it as the symbol of love.

He took the pagan ritual of the darkest day of the year
and turned into the festival of the coming of light.

And He took the New Year and gave us all a fresh
start.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come" - 2 Cor 5:17

For me, when I was younger I used to have a temper.
Last Christmas my dad asked, "When did you finally
settle down so that I no longer had to sit on you?"

A young gangster named Nicki Cruz stood face to
face with a preacher of the gospel but then God
changed him and turned him into a preacher of the
gospel.

And then I want to turn to the students and ask,
"And what about you?" What are you now?
What do you want God to change you into?

After letting them think on that I am hoping I can
have them turn to their friends beside them and
share what they really want God to change in them
and then have them pray in circles.

It is a good question though, "If God really is the
God of second chances, what do I want a second
chance in?"

Home Safe

2006-01-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

After three days of travel we are home safe. Thanks for all your
prayers today went much better. We made it through customs
okay and had to pay some money in duty but they were quite
understanding that most of it was donations to the school.

Also we got a ride from some people from Blue Creek which
we were very thankful for since they had to wait for us b/c
our bus was full and we had to take a later one.

We went and saw Noelle and Rebekah. The are both in a
sling but one has the right arm and the other the left so I
guess they can work together. I saw the x-rays, Rebekah
has 7 screws in her arm cause the bone was broken right
through. Boy does it look weird.

Cory will be helping Noelle this week with her class. Oh ya, and
Rodney (from Blue Creek) will be taking over Cory's class for the
rest of the semester.

So tomorrow I start teaching again. I am looking forward to it.
Hoping and praying that things will go smoother with the classroom
management.

Thanks for being on our team!

Please pray for us as we travel

2006-01-07T20:26:00.000-08:00

Cory and I are enroute back to Belize. We made it through to Mexico
today and are staying the night. So far it has been really tough. In
Seattle they found out the person in Cancun took all my tickets away
and I had to put up money to buy a ticket till they research to find
the ones the guy took. Good news though I found the guy who did it in
Cancun and he remembers he did it wrong.

Also in Cancun we had a terrible time getting through customs as we
have lots of old computer parts and they were afraid we were going to
sell it. Finally they let us through at no cost but it was scary for
a bit with looking at over 200 in tax

Pray for our border crossing in Belize tomorrow which likely will have
similiar problems. And safety.

God's peace be with you

Chris

A Change in Focus

2005-12-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

After a lot of praying, discussion and waiting the board and us have decided it is best for Cory's health for her to step down from full-time teaching for this next semester and focus on substitute teaching. Of course this was not an easy decision to for a number of reasons:

The school is so short of teachers already and, like the grade eight class, this class may be left with one teacher after another filling in for the remainder of the year.
Stepping down half-ways through a project is not Cory's style. She desires to see a project through to the end, no matter how difficult. And yet, this situation is beyond her ability. We have seen her struggle with her health and in many other ways, knowing that something needs to change.
There are kids who do not deserve to lose their teacher. We hope that their studies will not suffer because of their classmates actions.

Yet, we know that this is God's will for Cory at this time.

Over the last years, this particular class has been challenging to many teachers. Mix that "energy" with the changes and challenges that come with puberty, and you've got one wild class. The community has been really supportive: the board has come in and spoken to the class and parents have regularly sat in during the day to help with discipline. Although there have been some improvements there reaches a point where you are not certain if you are the one that will lead the kids through the steps they have to take in order to turn around. As we shared these struggles with the board they opened the door for us and said they would rather have Cory step down, get some rest and support Chris in his teaching than potentially have everything blow up part way through the next semester and lose both of us. As to a new teacher, the board says, "God will provide." We truly feel they love and care for us.

So as of this January Cory will be focusing on substitute teaching and looking for other opportunities to do ministry that God will give her. Chris will continue to teach Bible and Computers for the high-school students.

Please pray for the following:

A teacher for the grade 7 class that can lead them back to focus on their studies, and provide the right amount of discipline.
God's help to the students (esp. to those who do not deserve this and yet will suffer along side their classmates) that they can still pass this year and those who are struggling with their classroom behaviour will have a change of heart
For Cory to get well rested and not be discouraged.

Please pray for Noelle, Rebekah and others

2005-12-27T13:11:00.000-08:00

I recently recieved news about some of my fellow teachers back in Blue Creek and request your prayers for them. Noelle (whom we went with from our care group) - grade 4 teacher, Rebekah - highschool engligh and history teacher and 3 others were out for a walk a couple days ago. It was dark and a motorbike came around the corner and without seeing slammed right into the group. Noelle has a broken arm and a slipped disk in her back, Rebekah has a broken arm and head injuries and another girl took some serious hits to her head. I heard yesterday that Rebekah was released from the hospital and Noelle is supposed to be released today. I haven't heard much about the driver or the third girl.

I can only imagine this is really shaking up the community and definetly those young lives and their families. Thank-you for your prayers.

Going home for Christmas

2005-12-20T19:47:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow morning we leave for Cancun. After 3 hours of driving then 6 hours of bus we will be there and start looking for a hotel. I wonder how much is rebuilt now after the hurricane? On Thursday we fly out at 5pm and arrive in Seattle around mid-night. Then off to Abbotsford for Christmas and then on to Kamloops later next week.

Thanks for all your prayers duing this travel time. Pray for:

- Safety
- Opportunity to share Jesus

Pray for Exams

2005-12-13T17:56:00.000-08:00

The students are starting up Semester Exams today and will continue that all the way till next Tuesday. Please pray that they will be able to remember what they studied and put it to good use. Thanks!

Praise God for my Bursery

2005-12-13T17:53:00.000-08:00

I got news a little while ago that my bursery has been approved. That means I get another free course from ACTS seminary as a benefit of working for TWU. That is very gracious of them since I am only 5 hours a week right now and the course is worth about $1000. But praise God because I really want to finish next summer. Only three more courses to go. So this one will be my master's paper (kind of like a thesis but only 50 pages long). I have been thinking about writing something about online ministry. Any ideas?

Our Christmas Program

2005-12-13T17:37:00.000-08:00

This is our Christmas program that level3 and the highschool put on. Level3 was about "The Cost of Christmas" and was a retelling of the manger scene. The High School did "Mary Did you know" which walked through the life of Jesus leading to the death and resurrection through Mary's eyes. Phil DeHart put it together.

Hallelujah Church!

2005-12-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

There is actually more than one Church in Blue Creek where we live. There is the EMMC (Evangelical Mennonite Mission Church) where we go, the Gleindemeihn (sp?) which is the old German service on the other side of town and there is the "Hallelujah" Church. Today we decided to visit this last group.

The chairs were in a circle around the Lord's table and the service started off with people reading from the Hymn book. Sometimes in unison and sometimes individually. People were free to put lots of emphasis on the key words and to give a good old "Hallelujah" when they really agree. Then after reading/ praying the Hymn we would then sing it a few times and then go back and read the good parts again.

Then someone would pick the next hymn. There was no designated "leader" as far as I could tell and the worship time just carried itself along as people felt lead. Communion came in the middle with the passign around of the bread and the wine (juice). Once the singing was done we read from a devotional book and people shared their words of encouragement and the messages God has been giving them on it.

The hymn book, Bible translation (Recovery Version), and study plan was written by Witness Lee and published by Living Stream Ministries out of California. Has anyone heard of this group?

My observations.... it was different. It had a sense of spontinuity and freedom where people could go as they felt led but in all this there was a clear rythme and tradition had formed even in the spontinuity. Every line read ended with some form of shouting emphasis on the word that made it sound somewhat "prayer spiritual". There was a very strong emphasis on the unity in the Church and how we are not individual Christians but need to minister together which is much needed in today's day. There was also a lot of emphasis on how this unity comes through "eating Jesus" which is the Lord's table, I don't think they are Catholic in their view but retain that communion is a simple... I even think they connect "Eating Jesus" with reading the Bible regularily.

One thing Cory and I had struggles with is when they sang and talked about becoming divine. One person shared how there is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and they are all one and so three in one. And how there is Father, Son, Spirit and Body and so four are now one. And how Jesus was God-man and now we are man-God b/c partake of the divine nature. Cory and I had a long talk to help clarify this. We explained how we saw it more that where when we are saved we recieve the Holy Spirit and so we are "filled" with God and partake in Him that way. Our nature, we said, never changes to God and the two are seperate. When we are born again we are not becoming God's begotten children as they suggest by the term "Jesus is the firstfruits [thus we are the secondfruits]" but rather born again spiritually to a new life. I was thankful however that when they talk about divine they at least claim that we do not become part of the Trinity but I am not sure how they are distinguishing it. I warned them of J.W. and Mormon teaching which minimizes the unique Sonship of Christ and puts us all on part with Jesus and of using such a strong phrase as "becoming divine". I also exhorted them to read more books than just Witness Lee and Cory exhorted them not to use words like "become divine" so as not to confuse others; but I am not sure how much progress we made or if we truely understood them.

Thanks again for all your prayers.

Taking a break today in God's creation

2005-11-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

Cory and I are on a much needed holiday in central Belize. The place is called Hidden Valley Inn. Today we checked out about 5 waterfalls. Tomorrow we head back, stopping over in Belize City for some much needed shopping.

Pulling Back from Youth Pastoring

2005-11-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

Cory and I met with the pulpit board earlier this week to discuss the progress of their decision to have us on as a youth pastoring couple. Last spring when we were here their youth pastor resigned and so we offered to help out as interim youth pastor till they could find another one. To facilitate this the school board tried to bring me on for only quarter time but due to a lack of teachers (we are still short a grade 8 teacher) I have been working about 50 hours a week and Cory quite a bit more. This has been rather tiring for us and everyone (the board, us and the youth chair) felt it best if we withdrew our name from the youth pastoring role and focused on the teaching ministry.

This has really helped reduce the stress here. Of course, we are still offering to help the youth leaders if they ever need our help.

A tough week

2005-11-05T10:47:00.000-08:00

For those who have not heard yet we had a really tough week this week. On Monday night our car was covered in flour and egg and a snake was left to greet us outside the door. It turns out it was Halloween night and despite how it is a predominately Christian community I was surprised such pranking went on. I had to power wash the car which was already suffering with it's paint peeling off the hood (and we are borrowing this car for the year) and bits of flour were stuck all inside the windows and door jams.

Class didn't go much better that day for either of us, especially Cory. Of course the Devil would want us to give up and at times that seems like an easy road. My mom says, "The Devil doesn't bother people he isn't afraid of."

Of course the kids were just trying to have fun but with some of the troubles we have been having it really looked like, "We don't want you here!"

Some points of grace in the midst of it all:

The pastor and his wife spent quite a bit of time with us and encouraged us
The students involved have since confessed and taken responsibility by washing all the nooks and crannies where the flour went.

As our prayer team we could really use your help. It seems we are indeed involved in a spiritual battle. That means God wants to do something through us and someone else wants to stop it. Personally I want to see what God has in mind!

Pray for small encouragements in our days
Pray for break-throughs in our classes. They are getting more and more out of control and it is hard to be the "mean" person to call them back into line so they can learn.
Pray Cory doesn't have to work so much, she is currently getting up at 6am and working till about 9:30-10:00pm and this is really hard on her.

Christmas Wish List for the School

2005-10-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

Cory and I will be heading home for Christmas to visit family for 2 weeks. We will be visiting Cory's parents in Abbotsford, then my parents in Kamloops and my friends back at the office at Trinity Western University for some business meetings.

There are a few things that I wish I had here for the computer lab, if you have any of these things lying around could you please pass them off to either one of our parents or my office at TWU?

Mousepads
Optical Mice (the ball-mice keep getting clogged with dust)
Keyboards that are not super stiff (we have some but they really slow the keyboarding students down because they are so hard)
Hard-drives (Anything over 2 GB)
Network cables (those blue or grey things used for Internet - not the phone lines but the high-speed ones)
Wireless router (for our teachers who have laptops)
Network Switches (10okb or higher)
Memory (especially 333 DIMM's but also 100 and 133 too)
NIC (Networking) cards
Wireless Network recievers
USB scandrives for teachers to save files onto
Legal copies of Windows 95 or 98
Legal copies of Office 97 or 2000

And if you have anything that would work for a school bell (electric thing for 3 different buildings) that would be great.

(If you have anything could you please add it to the comments below and where you will drop it off - my parents in Kamloops, Cory's parents in Abbotsford, or my office at TWU)

Chris

Opportunities and Encouragements

2005-10-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

Two things we really need prayer for

Opportunities: I heard something the other day (but I fogot what it was now) about how we need to pray to see the opportunties all around us. Cory and I prayed that yesterday and before we even said amen we saw some fellow teachers we could give a ride. Small things yes, but we really want to be a blessing. Could you please pray God gives us opportunities.
Encouragment: We just passed mid-terms and are now a quarter of the way through our time here. We have found he honeymoon stage to be over and are learning to rely on God for strength to face new challenges and to find pleasures in the joys. Please pray God will give us little encouragements throughout our day.

Thanks again for all your prayers.

Hurricane Update

2005-10-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks for everyone who has been praying for us. Other than a lot of rain and strong winds everything is the same as normal (in fact the rain and winds are sort of normal too). Please keep us in your prayers and all those whom the hurricane might hit.

Chris

Have you ever wanted to throw a computer out of the window??

2005-10-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

One of the neat parts of my role here is looking after the computer lab. Ever since my first computer of Christmas grade 8 one of my favorite things is to take the computers apart. So in computer class we sometimes take the computers apart. The problem is some of them are just barely hanging in there, that was the problem today.

Senerio: We have 9 computers, 6 work well and 3 are almost dead. I need to reformat the 3 to make them work better but if I start I'm not sure it will work out since I don't have the original disks for all the parts.

Blessing: One of the parents just gave me two of their old computers. One is actually a 500mhz computer (fairly decent) but when I turned it on the hard-drive was dead. No big deal I have an extra drive from a dead computer (but no OS yet). The other one is a 166MHZ and surprising I just plugged it in and it worked.

Process: So I decided to back up all the computers by making an image of each drive so if I mess up or something goes wrong (like the power going off twice a day and corrupting the system) I have something to go back to. I backup up the new 166mhz system and then formated the drive to test it. When I restored it the computer no longer accepted the drive. Nuts! So I stuck it in another computer and the drive actually loaded (until it froze b/c the hardware was so different). Then I took that computer drive and stuck it in the 166 and it loaded which means the cables and all are working. That's good. But when I put the other drive back that computer did not work now. Oh oh! Several hours later I still haven't figured it out, I'm hoping that when I come back in the morning it will work. So the drive works and the cables work but they don't work in the computer.

Solution: None known yet. But we have 7 working computers and 3 temperarily disabled ones.

Prayer Request: Pray I can get the computers working again and not lose too much hair in the process.

How did the Marriage Retreat go?

2005-10-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

Thank-you to everyone that prayed for Cory and I at the marriage retreat. We really needed it. There has been so much rain lately that the road was all washed out. Fortunately someone borrowed our group a really big 4x4 and we plowed through about 2 feet of mud and water.

The talks went well too. I was concerned about them because we were cramming 6 weeks of marriage planning into 3 hours but God answered our prayers and people made some progress. Probably the most helpful was just having everyone sit back and just think about what is most important in life. I mean so often we spend our life working for something we think is important and then look back and go, "I wish I had only...." "been at home" or "given more to God". So we tried to skip the step of wasting time and focus on what is important now.

Download the PowerPoint presentation here

Speaking at Young Married Retreat Oct 7-9

2005-10-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

I have been invited to speak at the young married retreat this weekend (Oct 7-9th). It will be at the Cahal Pech Resort in San Ignacio. On the fun side this will be a great retreat for Cory and I including a trip to the Mayan ruins, canoeing the river, strengthening friendship with other young married and maybe even doing some cave tubing or canoeing (something we so want to do).

I have been doing a lot of praying about what I should speak about and after talking to the leaders it seems best to do a strategic planning workshop. The core idea is that God has been taking each couple on a journey and has brought them together for a purpose. It is important to stop and reflect on the path God has brought us on so we can align (or at least surrender) ourselves to the path God has before us.

Friday night: Values - What is most important to you
Saturday morning: Mission - What do we believe God has called us to do
Sunday morning: Vision (and Plan) - How are we going to get there?

I took a class last year at ACTS seminary on Strategic Planning and for my major assignment Cory and I rewrote the strategic planning process (usually done for Churches and businesses) and applied it to marriage. In this we wrote a very detailed plan which we used to decide if Belize was a match with where we sense God is taking us.

Here are some prayer requests:

For incredibly insight and inspiration as I prepare the talks. I need to fit a 1 month process into 3 one hour sessions.
For clarity as I speak that the group will understand and be able to apply it
That God will give the group incredible insights into the path he has for them and direction on what He wants them to be focusing on at this stage in their marriages.
That Cory and I will be able to build rich and meaningful relationships that will have a lasting spiritual impact on us and them.

a Sunday afternoon...

2005-09-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

It is Sunday afternoon. We just returned from having lunch with friends. Sundays can be nice and relaxing or very busy. There is the young marrieds' get together one Sunday out a month. It starts at 3pm and goes until 7pm. Then there is youth Sunday once a month. It starts at 2:30pm, goes till 5:30pm at which time everyone goes home for dinner and then comes back again at 7:30pm for an evening program. This Sunday is Friends and Fellowship...for anyone not in youth or young marrieds. They have, however, invited the young marrieds to join them this Sunday for games at the park, starting at 3:00pm.

Since Chris and I are young marrieds (you are considered such until you've been married for 10 years), and since we are helping with the youth group, we tend to go to both events. Today, we have decided to take it easy, rest, relax and get ready for the week ahead.

Being a grade 7 teacher, teaching my students proper grammar, I am suddenly noticing all the areas where I am using improper grammar in this blog and am hoping that no one else will notice :)

We have just finished our info prayer letter. Feel free to down load it (just below this update).

Another week of school starts tomorrow. More tests, quizzes, and homework. May the Lord give us strength that matches the energy of these kids.

-Cory

September Prayer Letter

2005-09-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

The following prayer letter will be coming out in the mail in the next few weeks. For those of you who did not get it or want it early, here it is...

Download the full prayer letter with all the pictures here

I find that every year of my life seems to have a theme. This year one verse really stands out, “Leave your country, your people… and go to the land I will show you.” (Gen 12:1) Some say life is a journey; and like in this verse, it is a walk of faith, stepping out, not sure where we are going but knowing there is someone greater who walks with us.

It is interesting how God leads; take this year for example – at the beginning of the year Cory was working at a Christian Bookstore and Chris was making web pages for Trinity Western University. But a hand began to move us. At first we just heard about Belize and how there was a small school in the jungle just south of Mexico looking at being short 8 of it’s 12 teachers this fall. Something grew within us till we finally had to check it out. Little by little God kept confirming that this was where we were to be. So in faith we stepped out into the unknown in confidence that God would walk with us.

There is a joy in being involved in something supernatural – to have a sense that God has called you and there is a purpose for the steps you are on. It is kind of like how when I (Chris) was training my students to lead chapel for the younger grades I told them that God is already at work in those younger students lives and they have been invited to be part of the work of God. So Cory and I often pray, “Thank-you God for inviting us to do ministry with you today, show us where you want us to serve.” The interesting part is God was walking with these young people before we arrived and God will be the one walking with these young people long after we have left.

So why are we writing this letter? We would like to invite you to continue to walk with us. The amazing thing is that the God who is walking with us in Belize is the same God who walks with you in your city. The moment you enter into prayer with us the miles between us disappear and we walk together. In this way we can join hands and do this ministry together.

To support this we have created a web site called www.coryandchris.com where we are writing regularly of our stories and experiences here, of God’s answers to prayer and of urgent prayer requests. In addition we have included in this letter a prayer card that you can put on your fridge.

Thank-you for joining us in this ministry. – Chris and Cory Priebe

Continued....

Grade 8 teacher urgently needed - do you know of anyone!

2005-09-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

The good news is we have 11 teachers working at the school now. The bad news is we are still missing a grade eight teacher. Leroy filled in for the first few weeks and one of the school board members has been filling in this week but it is really important to get a teacher in there who can guide the students through the year.

Would you be willing to help out or do you know of anyone that could come and help out? The qualifications are a person needs to be a growing Christian and able to teach from a home-school curriculum. If the person has a degree than that is wonderful but all they have is a servant heart and desire to teach then they could probably be used.

I am been emailing different Bible schools and Universities I am connected to and also tried to get a hold of a few Christian schools and ask if they had any applicants they did not have positions for this year.

If you know of anyone who might be a good match send them to http://www.authenticwalk.com/belize

If you can't think of anyone could you please join us in prayer for this one?

Thanks

Reflection on Love

2005-09-21T14:57:00.000-07:00

An interesting thing happened the other day. It was during study period when my students were supposed to be studying. They came to me and asked if they could go to the store to get some icecream. Of course, it is study period so I asked how they were doing on their homework. I knew they had work to do in my Bible class because a Bible memory test was coming up quick so I told them if they memorized the passage for the quiz and said it to me 100% then they could go.

The next half hour was chaos. The students kept coming to me every 2 minutes and asking to quote their verse or complain about why they can't just go to the store. I admit (after sleeping on it) that my attitude was not very good. I got a bit annoyed and would not let them go until they got their verse down perfect without even pausing. I figured they should be studying. Sadly I watched the students become more and more frustrated and feeling like they want to just give up. Both sides were a little bit stubborn I think....

Anyhow I was praying about the whole thing that night and I started to realize I was not acting out of a Spirit of love but of frustration. The next day I had to humble myself and apologize to the class. They took it well and surprisingly they are studying more. Now I am praying for God's love to really pour through me and when I get frustrated I try to take a moment to just pray and find peace in God.

Of course, God loves to make His points clear so that same night I happened to bump into the pastor and we were talking about leadership. He said of himself, "People won't remember all that I said but they will remember who I was and if I loved them."

Speaking at Youth this Wednesday Night

2005-09-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

Well we are over our colds now. Thanks for all your prayers.
Highlight for today was taking the high school down to the river for
PE canoeing class. Funniest part of today is I opened the windows to
cool down the house and the rain blew so hard and fast my bed sheets
got wet. Now Cory doesn't want to change them because it is my side
that is wet...

Tomorrow night (Wednesday) I am speaking to the young adults about
"Potential" It is part 3 of a 4 part series the youth leaders are
doing on "What does it mean to be a leader" in preperation for the
youth elections the first Sunday of October. I will be talking about
how God took clay which is nothing on it's own and breathed into it
just as he took David whom people thought was not much, and the
disiples whom people thought were not much, and you and me, well....
you know.... and breathed His spirit into them and they did amazing
things. Like them we need to offer ourselves as lump of clay into
God's hands and let Him form us and then breathe His power into us.

Thanks again for your prayers. Pray specifically that some of the
youth will feel called to leadership and rise to the challenge.
Blessings on you.

- Chris

Sick this week

2005-09-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Cory and I are sick this week. Looks like a strong head-cold, soar throat and perhaps flu is going through the community. Several of my students are sick too. Seems strange in that it is so hot here and yet you can still be sick, oh well. Please pray for Cory especially as she is really tired and we only have a substitute available on Tuesdays.

Chris

Leadership Training

2005-09-01T19:53:00.000-07:00

At my seminary (ACTS seminary on Trinity Western Universities Campus) we are taught over and over again about leadership. I noticed a shift has actually happened in my life. I used to always focus my energy on teaching about holiness and leading seminars on how to live for God. Now I feel just as strong about leadership and training godly leaders (an integration of the two topics).

The youth group is having an election for 2 new youth leaders from the youth group. In preperation for this we are doing a four part study on what it means to be a leader to help the youth think through whom they want to elect and for those elected to think through what it means.

The four key topics are:

- Heart - Leader as a servant (John 13)
- Hands - Wise stewardship of the gifts we have been given (1 Cor 12; Rom 12; Eph 4)
- Life - Being a leader worth following (1 Cor 11:1, "Follow Me" statements)
- Feet - Stepping out and trying. (David, who although young and overlooked stepped out in faith, likewise we need to step past our fear with faith in God)

In addition to this I am working with the students in Bible class and teaching them how to do chapel for the younger grades. Our first chapel is next Wednesday Sept 7th.

Geckos in the Computer!

2005-09-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

Since I have moved to Belize I have had about 6 requests to, "Please come over and fix my computer". I don't mind doing that but my passion is really to pass on what I have learnt to others. So I hosted a "Computer Repair Clinic" after school for my students where anyone could bring their sick computer and the students learn to fix it.

I invited my new friend, "Abe Dyck" who for many years has been fixing the computers in town but is now far too busy. So I let him take the show this week and he did great! He talked about hardware (I am more into software so I really learnt a lot). The biggest problems here have to do with the heat, humidity and dust. Most often all a computer needs is a good cleaning. We fixed two machines just by cleaning them out (including taking the video card and memory out and brushing off the cobwebs, dust and sometimes eggs from geckos or others). We learnt that a long beeeeep sound followed by a pause then another long beep means the memory is not working so take it out and clean it.

3 Other computers had fan problems. In two cases the fan was just burnt out. In the heat of Belize that means the CPU is overheating and when it does that it just stops until it cools down which means the computer just hangs and waits for the CPU to come back on. So we need to find new ones of those.

One fan we looked at was not spinning at all. It was on a computer nicknamed "Methusala" because it is so old (not to mention rusted because of all the humidity). After closer examination there was a gecko (small lizard in it). I wrote my friends who are in charge of technology at the leading Christian universities in North America about this one and the best suggestion was to put up a poster outside the computer advertising positions available as a stunt-double for the "Geico Gecko". Or just to put a screen over it.

Once again I left the pictures at school so I'll have to post the photo later.

Old Colony Service

2005-08-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

We (most of us oversee teachers and the pastor from the Church here) went to Shipyard this morning. We had to get up just after 5am so we could be there when it started. It was really amazing to see all the horses and buggies all tied to posts in the Church parking lot. The ladies went to the south side and we went to the east side and stood at the door till someone invited us in. Then we took our seat on the wooden (no back) chairs. Everyone was dressed in coveralls with long-sleeve blue or dark shirts. All the straw hats were hung on nails about the pews (for the guys, the women kept their headcovering on).

We sang three songs out of an old high-german hymnal, each song was about half a page long and lasted 15 minutes. The singing was more in the form of chanting each word taking 5 seconds with a pause for the commas, etc where the song leader did a short solo. It was kind of neat in that it set an atmosphere of unity and consistency over the last 350 years. As the song continued to go on shall the faith through the generations (at least that was my reflection).

I could not understand any of the words in the song or sermon (both in high german) and unfortunately most of the people could not either (since they speak low-german) so I tried to pray for the church. Praying mostly that God would show me what to pray and praying that God would help the people to understand the words they are singing and the Word of God. The insight I had was, "You have to understand in order to serve", I mean understand these people until I can think from their perspective even if I do not agree with it.

When the sermon was over we sang the third song and then everyone immediately left. Two men stopped to talk to us (in English) outside and the preachers passed by and I made sure I shook their hand and thanked them with the little german I knew (they understood danke-shein)

From here we went to the contemperary EMMC church (planted by the one in Blue Creek). We spent a lot of time talking with the brothers there about their journey out of the old colony and how they were asked to leave for conducting Bible studies in their houses or having rubber on their tires. Surprisingly they seemed very loving to those who had ostrasized and forced them out. Instead of being bitter I sensed they were genuinly loving and praying for those in the old colony still.

This contemperary church sang some songs in English like "Jesus loves me" and some hymns in high german (all this high german is because low german was not written - at least not the Bible and hymnal till recently). Our pastor from Blue Creek was preaching on Habbakuk and that was in English.

Following this we had lunch at their pastors place and had a wonderful time of fellowship.

Please continue to pray for these two churches. One of the struggles for the old colony is they do not understand the words they sing and hear even when they are clearly the gospel so they are left only with a set of rules to obey or to be excommunicated. The new Church needs much prayer because they have been excommunicated from their family and friends so they cannot shop or visit and it is very hard to make a living and very lonely. For now there is only a handful of them but a huge number are just waiting till the time is right to make the switch. It is as if a revival looms on the horizon, may God breathe life anew!

Ministry in Shipyard this Sunday

2005-08-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

Several of us teachers are going over to Shipyard (the old colony) this Sunday at 6am to attend the old colony service. Afterwards we are going to the Evangelical Church where Pastor Darryl (From Blue Creek) will be preaching.

Please pray that we will learn a great deal about the old colony culture tomorrow, that God would give us opportunities for ministry and that we could be a blessing on the new Church (the evangelical one) that our community has been helping to plant there.

To learn more about the old colony listen to this sermon I preached at AWANA camp a few Sundays ago.

Missionary Status Accepted

2005-08-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

I got an email today from the EMMC Church saying that our status as missionaries has been accepted. Thank-you to everyone who has asked to support us, here is the information you will need.

Funds going toward our ministry should be sent to: EMMC, Box 52059,
Niakwa PO, Winnipeg, MB R2M 5P9.

All funds should be clearly designated toward "Blue Creek Linda Vista
teacher support" and "Chris and Cory Priebe" so that the deposit is made to the right
accounts.

Once again that you to everyone who has asked to support us. This is a huge blessing.

AWANA camp sermons are now online

2005-08-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote a few weeks ago that I was working on putting all the sermons I did at AWANA camp online. It was kinda fun cause I was on a bus somewhere in Mexico working on my laptop as I converted the audio files to be web enabled. The challenge was then to figure out how to upload such big files a satellite internet connection that was hit by lighting just before we got here.

Oh well, here is the link. I pray that you will be blessed by these sermons even as I (and many campers) were blessed a few weeks ago.

http://www.authenticwalk.com/camp/sermons/

Listening to God's Voice all around me

2005-08-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

It finally dawned on me, I should be sharing some of the amazing things God has been teaching me in class and what I am learning along with the students.

Well in Bible 11/12 class we are studing Genesis but the course begins with "The Bible" (which is a good place to start when you are talking about first things first). This week we learnt that God has two books - natural revelation (Creation) and special revelation (The Bible). In class I pointed to a large tree and asked the students what they can learn about God from that tree. I quoted A.W. Tozer who said to C.S.Lewis "Beyond this great oak with it's roots reaching deep into the earth and his arms stretched high into the heavens" (rough paraphrase) Likewse we too need to be rooted in God's Word and reaching up to God to pour into us.

I said, "Look at the sky, what do we learn there?" That it changes, it is vast, it is big and must have had a big vast God who loves rythme and beauty.

So I had all the students sit carefully in their chairs and take notice of what was around them and let God speak to them through it. For me, it was the breeze which blew through the door and past me in the hot morning air. Like that breeze I need the refreshing wind of the Spirit to keep me anew each day.

In the end my challenge to the students (and to myself) was this: Pay attention, God is all around wanting to speak to us.

How to Overcome SPAM!

2005-08-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

Several people have been asking me how to overcome SPAM. With over 80 emails a day making it through my filter on YAHOO mail I figure I have some experience with it. Here are some of the lessons I have learnt (feel free to add your own tips below)

Here is my basic theory: "The primary reason why people get spam is because they gave away their email address to an untrustworthy source." In other words, spam is really the fault of the user (or his/her friends) and not the email provider. I have tested this theory by creating unused accounts and it seems to be true (except for a few small cases where spammers guess my email address because it is too simple like info@domain.com)

The problem is that if I never give my email address away it is completely useless to have an email address.

Here is my solution: Get 2 email addresses!

Primary email address: This is your email that you want to keep for life. Only give this away to your closest friends and family and those that have proved to you that you can trust them. As soon as enter this address on a web page or give it to one of those friends who send out one of those chain letters or mass mailers with everyones name in the TO or CC you have might as well kiss that address good-bye.

Secondary email address: Sign up for one of those free address at hotmail.com, yahoo.com or gmail.com. In fact I highly recommend gmail.com.

Use this secondary email address to book all your flights online, buy stuff online, sign-up for newsletters and give it to new friends. If that friend or organization proves reliable either let them know you have changed your email (give them your primary one) or if you are not sure yet set up a rule to forward email from that person to your primary.

Once this address becomes too full of spam then create up a new account. With your old account set up an auto-responder that says something like. "I am no longer using this account because of too much SPAM. Please try my new address at 'mynew dot name at-sign gmail dot com.'" (Of course you don't want to put your new email address as 'mynew.name@gmail.com' because all the spammers will get your auto-responder and add that address also to their records).

Turantula outside our door

2005-08-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

[This post would be better with a Croc Hunter accent] Cory and I got home today and found a big old turantula on our sidewalk by our gas tank. The thing was huge, dangerous and having a bad day. I approached it with my camera and it reared up on me. But I pressed onand got some really good photos. (Stay tuned for the next part when I develop them on my computer)

Commissioned in Church Today

2005-08-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

This morning all of us teachers were called up to the front of the Church and prayed for. It was a real blessing. Here are our teachers (left to right)

Phil (Highschool math and science)
Susie (Kindergarten)
Lisa (Grade 2)
Cory (my wife, Grade 7)
Chris (That's me, Highschool Bible and Computers)
Noelle (Grade 4)
Rebekah (High School History and Language)
Alicia (Grade 5)
Liz (Grade 2)
Jennifer (Grade 6)
Rosy (Grade 3)
and Pastor Darryl in the front

High-School Building Dedication

2005-08-14T20:28:00.000-07:00

We cut the ribbon on the new high-school building today. Last year the grade 11's had to meet in the basement of the Church so all summer the school has been working on a second level on top of the middle school. Today the ribbon was cut and the keys were handed over to the school board.

Urgent Prayer: Grade 8 Teacher Needed

2005-08-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

We received news this week that our grade 8 teacher will not be able to make it. Unfortunately he could not sell or rent his place and so called and said he would not be able to come. Classes start on Tuesday and so far we do not have a teacher for that place.

Please pray that we God will provide someone (either from abroad or locally) to teach.

Thanks

(If you know of anyone interested please send them to www.authenticwalk.com/belize )

I Know What I am Doing ... I Think!!

2005-08-11T21:00:00.001-07:00

Lots of people have asked me, "So Chris, what are you going to be doing in Belize?" This has been hard to answer so far because the community had not decided on what they would want me to do. At first I applied to teach in the school but then the youth pastor resigned so they talked about using my gifts in that area.

I had a meeting with some of the school board yesterday and they shared how scheduling is really tight right now. We are still missing a grade 8 teacher and we don't have another teacher to teach all the electives I would be missing by working part-time. In contrast (and to my joy) the youth ministry is doing really well at this time with their volunteer leaders. It seemed best for all of us that I should teach full-time and then we will re-evalutate in January based on how the school and youth ministry are doing. So here is what I am doing.

8:00 - teach Bible Doctrines to a grade 9/10 split class
8:50 - teach Genesis to a grade 11/12 split class
9:40 - Recess
9:55 - Study Hall for grade 9's
10:45 - Computer Applications for grade 12 students
11:30 - lunch
12:30 - (another teacher will teach the Spanish and Automotive electives)
1:20 - Keyboarding 9/10 (Typing and Word-processing skills)
2:15 - Computer Applications for grade 11 students on Mon,Wed, Fri and Physical Education on Tues, and Thursday (so glad it is last period)
3:00 - Mark student work and prep for next day.

Cory is teaching grade 7 all subjects

Sunday night once a month is youth and we are volunteering to help.
Wednesday night is youth Bible Study every week
Friday night is games night with all the teacher and college and careers

We are also volunteering with the Church to help the youth leaders and at times the Church if they need some leadership develpment based on Cory's and mine's masters degree (although I still have 9 credits to go)

AWANA Camp Sermons Online

2005-08-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time sleeping on the airplane and bus ride to Belize so I opened up my computer and converted the audio and powerpoints into a web page for the campers last week to download. I was so blessed and encouraged as I prepared and preached these sermons. I pray that God will bless you as well as you listen to them.

See http://www.authenticwalk.com/camp/sermons/ for the list of sermons and powerpoint slides available

Settling into Belize

2005-08-06T16:49:00.000-07:00

After 30 hours of travel we finally made it to our new home in Belize. Boy were we glad to sleep in, well at least till 9:30 and then the welcome crew arrived. Wow, can hardly believe how friendly this town is. Everyone we met so far is so thankful we are here. Thanks for all your prayers.

"Dear God, here we are, use us as you will!"

On the bus somewhere in Mexico

2005-08-05T16:35:00.000-07:00

Laptops are cool. Here I am in the middle of Mexico and I can type a blog. Too bad there is no wireless here… So we finally left. After 3 weeks of packing, organizing, running errands and going to camp we actually pulled out and went. My mom and dad came down from Kamloops to see us off and my uncle Willis drove us down in his big old van.

10 bags. That was the total of what we took. 6 pages of stuff listed on our inventory. Do you have any idea what it is like to move that much stuff by airplane. Praise God, so far it is going well. We successfully made it through 2 borders (although in Mexico we were the only ones selected to have everything x-rayed but fortunately they did not take everything apart). One more border to go which is the Mexico / Belize border. I keep praying about that one with all the import regulations and all. Should find out tonight, providing our emails went through and someone from Blue Creek is there to pick us up, that is.

Another look out the window. The trees are really short here… and dense too. I heard it is because the ground is all rock with very little topsoil. They got all these buildings right off the highway in the jungle. Sometimes it is a burnt out factory, othertimes a gas station or some tower in the middle of no where. Cory and Noelle are watching Princess Diaries on their laptop. (I’m rendering the sermons from last week so I can put them on a web page for the campers)

Oh well, just thought I’d drop a line and let everyone know we are on our way and so far… so good. Thanks for all your prayers.

Camp was Amazing!

2005-07-31T23:37:00.000-07:00

Thank-you for all your prayers this week. Camp was absolutely amazing. I preached 7 sermons in 7 days. At 50 minutes a talk I was wondering if the campers would get bored but they kept engaged the whole time. The Spirit of God was obvious in that place and at several times tears came to my eyes as I watched the spiritual enthusiasm and commitment of these young people.

On Tuesday night a whole group of the older campers huddled together, prayed and sang for an hour after chapel. On Wednesday night all the older campers were gone on a missions trip and I spoke just to the younger grades (6 through ??) We did the Gospel presentation where I set up a plank that spans the gap between the life lived by ourself and the one given to God (where Jesus carries us over by faith). Three campers gave their life to Christ and another seven or so rededicated their lives. And that was only half way through the week.

I was blown away by the campers. What a bunch of great youth people! At several points I was getting ready for chapel and they would just walk up to me and start praying for me. Talk about a blessing.

I will be putting the sermon notes online later this week once we get our stuff all packed up for Belize. You can see them at http://www.authenticwalk.com/sermons/camp2005/

I would love to have some of you campers from last week leave a note saying what God did in your life at camp.

Chris

Prayer needed for Awana Camp

2005-07-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

Cory and I are at AWANA camp this week. I am doing the camp speaking every night. Imagine 7 sermons in seven days. Last night the topic was "Life is a journey". Cory and I had read Gen 12:1 yesterday morning where Abraham left his homeland and headed off in response to God's call. In many ways I feel like that. Leaving our home and family and going to a place with so many unknowns. "Life is a journey", I told the campers, "Full of bends and twists. The important part is to be heading towards God and everything else will work out."

This will be the theme for the week, "Authentic Walk". Tonight we are looking at what it means to be "Authentic" and Monday on "Which path will you walk on" Please pray that God will continue to give me words to say, and the campers hearts will be open and everyone will grow and be kept safe.

Sharing at Summit Drive Church

2005-07-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am in the Church foyer of Summit Drive today and found a wireless signal and thought I'd drop a note. I love this Church. I spent 1999-2003 as a youth director and then youth pastor here.

As we came in it was such a joy to see all our old friends and how warmly we were greeted. We shared a bit about our adventure to Belize coming up next week. Next week! Wow, it sure is coming fast.

Jim Holm preached on Acts 14 and perserving through persecution and suffering in order to bring the Gospel. It was really cool to hear a sermon about missions right when we are packing up and getting ready to go.

Well I should go, but it has been great to be here again. Blessings to you all.

Chris