Thursday, July 27, 2006

Made my day

Just here at the airport in Toronto where our flight is delayed 2 hours! Thankfully I discovered a wireless signal here and 2 things I read made my day...

1) Todd Anderson's blog entry - here
Quick thought: Jesus is the most offensive person alive. There is noone else who has scandalized and brought on the hatred of so many people.

2) New Canadian friends of ours who we spent alot of time with named Maggie & Derek sent an email to us and the signature underneath the email read:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John3:16
It's was encouraging to see them going on strong for the Lord even though we haven't talked with them in months.

That's all for now, we'll try to upload a video if we have enough time.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Olivia crawling!!

In other news, Olivia started crawling!! Here's a video for you to watch over and over again until our next update:

Wednesday prayer requests - Travel, Pack, Repeat

Well we are back home now...for just over a day, then tomorrow we fly out to Greece! That's right we got the passport! A little stress and 90 dollars was all it took. Thank you all so much for your prayers.

We got the passport late on Monday, and I think it was a bit easier because Olivia's passport was a child passport not an adult. Anyhow, after getting the passport we camped out at the Mayo's and left early Tuesday morning. We drove through a few torrential downpours, including one right at rush hour in Montreal, and landed at good old Brockville, Ontario in time to have dinner with our very own WikkidPerson!! Here we are in this picture doing our Wikkid handshake...well we just made it up on the spot so nothing official. It was a great time chatting and getting to know each other, and by the end of the visit even Olivia was smiling! :)

The picture is a bit blurry, but hey, you gotta be discreet when dealing with people who have been kicked out of closed brethren meetings. We got home about 1AM and are now packing like crazy to get ready for the next leg of the race. Tomorrow we fly to Athens, Greece so stay tuned for more updates from OG2!! Thank you so much for your prayers so far, please continue to remember us as we travel across the ocean. Basic info is available at the www.operationgideon.org website - here

Monday, July 24, 2006

Monday's hot topics - Church closure and a SimpleGathering in Fredricton

Hey everyone, we're just in Fredricton at Wayne & Valerie Mayo's place. I'll hopefully post an update on the passport situation some time tomorrow however I wanted to post a few pictures I took today. We were driving through Fredricton and I saw this church building, that had been bought by a marketing company. The name and mission statement are so classic for a business that set up shop in a place where people used to worship.

Real results

Seems like the church produced no results in people's lives, therefore the end result of that failure resulted in the church being turned over to a secular business. Careful before you laugh too hard, for we need to ask ourselves if our local church is producing results. Results in the way people live, results in reaching out to others, results in basic Christian stuff. If not, then we best examine why, so that this church's fate is not repeated. God asked the churches in The Bible(Book of Revelation) to deal with their problems. Not to ignore them but to "repent and do the first works". Also, at the side of the building was an interior design business that had purchased the church's parsonage! Another classic. Seems like the minister hadn't done his job of making any "interior" changes in human hearts. God must have a sense of humour! :)

In other Fredricton news, we were able to stop by and visit with our friend Paul Blackmore who is a friend of Wayne & Valerie and a legend on the discussion forum. Since we were in town waiting for the passport we stopped by his watch shop to say hi. It's an awesome store, openly displaying lots of scripture and creation magazines fromn Answers In Genesis for all to see. It was a great example of what can be done when a local business man takes his faith seriously. Not only did we get to meet him in person, but the guy graciously fixed hayley's broken walmart 9 dollar watch for free! Sweet Maritime goodness - thanks for the visit PMB.

So that's all for today, stay tuned for more soon on the continuing passport saga!

Sunday, July 23, 2006

God cares about my mail?

Thank you everyone for praying about the passport situation! God is good. Here's an update of what went down today:

1) This morning we went to worship at Charlottetown Bible Chapel. I love that place. It's so down-home-how-ya-doin-friendly and very supportive and encouraging to us. Got to see lots of people, including Bud & Phyllis Anderson, the legendary Dan Frew tribe, and John McKim was the speaker! It was a really good church day. Very refreshing.

2) Jacques Boisvert mentioned our Greece trip after the Breaking of Bread, encouraging the folks to "McPray" for us each time they see a McDonalds :) A few people asked about the trip and so we asked them to pray about the passport situation.

3) After church we didn't have any plans, but Carson & Sarah Younker wanted to hang out so we invited them over for lunch.

4) During the conversation at lunch Hayley remembered that both Carson & Sarah used to work for Canada Post!! It was like an epiphany as we asked them every question we hadn't gotten an answer for. We asked about how we could find out where the package was without having our tracking number and they weren't sure but told us to call Andrew (their brother-in-law) who just happens to be a MANAGER at Canada Post!! Bonus!

5) We called Andrew, who told us that the sorting plant employees got started sorting the weekend's mail at 4PM, and actually gave us some contacts so we could go over and sort through the mail!! How sweet is that?

6) Hayley trucked it over to the sorting plant for 3:50PM just in time to see the first employee show up. She walked up and gave them the schpeel and they let her right in! Imagine that, getting let right in to the plant where they sort the mail.

7) Well the employee asked "What was the name" and Hayley said "Ger..." to which the employee said "Oh, Gerald MacLeod, it's right here". They didn't even check for ID or anything!! Hayley opened it up and indeed we now have Olivia's birth certificate and the plane tickets!! No more rage against Canada Post and their "gaurantees"

Now the next stage of the amazing passport race has us travelling to Fredriction, New Brunswick where we will need to be at the passport office at 8:30AM..yes AM..meaning we leave PEI at 5AM. There are still no gaurantees we will even get the passport, however we have renewed confidence seeing that God made some amazing connections for us today that we didn't even know about so we could get our documents. So please keep praying that we can pull off the next leg of the race in Fredricton, as well as get home in time to catch our flight on Thursday. Stay tuned!

The sayings of Lukas v26 - Superman

On the way to PEI we always stop in Quebec city at this amazing Burger King. It has the best play place I've ever seen and the kids love it. We picked up some happy meals and the toy was a pair of Superman glasses with a little story book as well. Lukas was looking ove the booklet yesterday when he said:

Daddy, why does Superman wear his underwear on the outside?

I honestly couldn't think of a real good answer. :) Any thoughts?

Saturday, July 22, 2006

The passport saga continues...

Well it's Saturday afternoon and the plot is getting thick here in the Olivia passport saga. She doesn't seem to frazzled about it, but mom & dad sure are stressin over this one. Thankfully my good friend Matt Cook posted an exhortation about not worrying on his blog - here so that has been quite comforting. Let's see how God works this one out!

Here's the situation:

1) Olivia's birth certificate and our plane tickets were sent "priority" from Toronto to PEI on Thursday with the "gaurantee" that they would arrive on Friday by 5PM. Well it's Saturday at 5PM and there is no sign of the package and all Canada Post employees have the weekend off.

2) If we ever actually get this package on Monday we'll have to boot it over to Fredricton to the passport office to beg and plead for an emergency same-day passport. We'll also have to cough up about a hundred bucks along with the begging and pleading.

3) If the package doesn't come on Monday...well...we're in some serious trouble. The friend that mailed the stuff to us was leaving for San Diego that same day and, upon calling the hotel he's staying at, found out that he didn't have the tracking number with him. Joy. Has anyone ever been able to track a package without the tracking number?

4) If the package does come on Monday we might just be OK, but if nothing shows up then we have a serious dillema. One option we had thought of was me going to Greece and Hayley staying at home. That wouldn't be desireable but then at least we wouldn't lose out completely on our tickets. Oh ya, that's another thing, since the package has our plane tickets in them, we'd have to try to get replacement tickets. Does anyone have experience getting replacement tickets or switching tickets at the last minute?

We'll keep you posted! Please keep praying!

Thursday, July 20, 2006

The PEI posse

Went out tonight with some folks I used to work with. I promised them I'd post up this video, in hopes that they would send me the picture of me licking the plate. I think tonight was the beginning of my plate-licking career. Perhaps I'll make a hobby of licking plates at famous restuarants or with famous people.

As for the passport issue, things may have gone from bad to worse. We spent way too much time on the phone today with several government people. We will need to go to Fredricton to get an emergency passport, however there is an error in Olivia's birth certificate so we may be in big trouble. A friend has express posted the birth certificate to us here in PEI, hopefully it arrives tomorrow and hopefully the mistake isn't going to keep us from getting a passport. If we can't go to Greece, does anybody else want to make use of the plane tickets?? :)

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Wednesday prayer requests - Greece passport

Have you ever had one of those "OH NO" moments? Tonight we were hanging around with friends when they started asking about our Greece trip next week. We were mentioning how things have been so busy that we haven't had much time to think about the details of the trip, hence the PEI vacation to regroup a bit. In an instant I realized we hadn't gotten Olivia a passport for our trip!! Yikes. One week away and no passport for Olivia! Please pray as we need to make a few very important calls tomorrow to see if we can get her one before we leave.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Day 3 - The Lukas show v2 - PEI update

Well it seems Lukas has really taken to putting his thoughts on film. Here is the Lukas report this afternoon from PEI:


Earlier in the day we headed out to the beach. Here's a video of Lukas taking on the waves!

Monday, July 17, 2006

PEI trip - day 1 - driving, driving and more driving

Proof that McLobster lives! I didn't ask where it went, but ladies and gentlemen "it's back". I took this picture tonight while we were stopped in Moncton for gas. I haven't tried the McLobster yet, not sure if I ever will. Hayley tried it and said it was gross and overpriced. I'll take her word for it.

Today was a simple day. Drive.Stop.Gas.Drive.Stop.Eat.Gas.Drive.Stop.Gas and so on. There really wasn't anything eventful about the trip, other than the fact that we pulled it off in about 16.5 hours which is very good time for a family of 5.

For the last week or so we've been hyping Lukas & Sylas up about their "sleepover" with Grammy & Grampy (ie: Hayley's parents are taking the kids while we are in Greece). This strategy has worked pretty good and the guys were really excited as we approached the legendary Confederation Bridge. When I told Lukas that the bridge was the longest in the world he said "Like the CN tower is the tallest in the world". Here's a video of Lukas and Sylas' reaction as we went over the bridge! It's a bit dark so you might have to squint to see those cute faces illuminated by the infared light (Olivia was sleeping in the back):

More tomorrow from PEI McLobster headquarters!

On "the" Island

How come everyone who lives on an island calls their island "the" island? Well we have arrived here on good old PEI, wah! It's about 11PM, the kids went right to bed and so I wanted to just throw up one video and a few pics. However, Linda Peric, of the athensBLOG team, just walked in the door so I'll be back on in a few minutes. Just checkin in to let you know a) we are alive and b) we didn't get c) any speeding tickets or d) eat any McLobster's (yes they have McLobster out here, more about that soon)

Monday's Hot topics - Bill Gothard

Last week I attended the Bill Gothard Seminar here in Toronto. I like alot of what he had to say and there were loads of notes and applications I made. On the whole I think Gothard is right on with alot of conflict, character and....concilliation (I would have said recon-cilliation, but I needed that last C word).

Others however have taken stronger stances. Some worship him as a guru or prophet, believing everything he says, right down to his teaching about how many days after giving birth that parents can...err...try again let's say.

While that is one extreme of almost worshiping everything he says, the other extreme are those who throw out everything he says as too right-wing-ultra-conservative-authoritarian. Either that or they see those who worship him and think something must be up.

There has been a few pages of discussion - here - on the forum about our brother Bill and his teachings/seminar/institute. What are your thoughts? Does Mr. G go to far? Or is he right on and people just need to get with the program? Have you attended a seminar? Let us know your thoughts on the forum

ps. We are leaving at 5AM for PEI!! I will be posting a few videos of the glorious red sands so stay tuned.

Friday, July 14, 2006

The sayings of Lukasv25 - Hezbollah Geurillas

Two videos in one day! Sure, why not, it's Friday! Today we were driving home when the news came on the radio about war in Israel.

Lukas: Daddy! Did you hear about the battle in Israel
Daddy: What battle?
Lukas: The battle with the guerillas!! We need to tell grammy!

Video of the week - v1 Sylas sings!!

Well folks, when the Florida team was here I discovered YouTube.com! What a site! It's an online community of video sharing that rocks. You can upload loads of videos so I created an account and started uploading! So far I've got 33 online, and believe me, there will be many, many more! So as an outlet for my new addiction I wanted to start a new feature on the blog.

Ladies and gentleman...introducing the athensBLOG "Video of the week"! This feature may happen every Friday, I just haven't decided yet. This feature will allow me to post video updates of our ministry, our kids, our travels, and soon we will be posting videos of our time in Greece. Glory!

So each week I will select a video, upload it to YouTube and display it here to the glee of my faithful readers. To start off I thought I'd let you all hear how wonderfully musically talented Sylas is becoming. Here is our first installment of the athensBLOG "Video of the week" - Sylas sings!!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Need a title v17

Here's Lukas with his buddy Russ. Can anyone think of a good title?

Wednesday prayer request - Greece again!

The Greece mission trip is only 3 weeks away! We picked up our tickets last night so please pray for all the preparations for the trip. We'll be posting updates in the coming days. For now, more details as www.operationgideon.org

Monday, July 10, 2006

Q2 report online - here

Click here for our 2006 second quarter ministry report (890KB Microsoft Word Doc). It's hard to believe the year is already half over!! So click away and don't forget to McPray! :)

Monday's hot topics - What is an Apostle?

I wrote a post on the forum a while back and while there have been a few comments I am like U2 and still haven't found what I'm looking for. Here is the original post:

When my wife and I first went to Greece we realized that there are some words in Greek that we have substituted and changed or anglo-ized.

The Jehovah's Witnesses in Greece are called Martyrs (witnesses) of Jehovah. Martyr = witness but over time those two have been seperated mentally by those of us who live in the west.

The other one that caught my attention was that missionaries are simply called apostles in Greek. Seeing as the Greek word "apostolos" means "sent one" it made alot of sense to me.

It made me wonder why we don't pack in our english un-scriptural word "missionary" and trade it in for a bible word - apostle

If we used the term apostle in it's true sense how would everyone feel about bringing this back?

Another question I had then was "What are the qualifications of an apostle"?
Some say that an apostle has to have seen Jesus Christ, but I don't think that's what Paul is getting at in the verse we quote. He says "am I not an apostle, haven't I seen Jesus" and goes on to sort of build his case for his own legitimacy. I'm not so sure he's builing a list of "qualifications" for apostles.

Just wondering if anyone has had similar thoughts?
So, what exactly is an Apostle? Just a select group of individuals or anyone "sent" by a church? What do you think about bringing back the Bible word "apostle" instead of "missionary"?

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Parenting 101 v8 - parking lot panic

When I am confronted with a difficult parenting situation, I'll put the issue out there to plumb the depths of the vast parenting knowledge of my beloved readers....Here is our eighth edition of Parenting 101.
__________________________

Hayley here with todays Parenting 101! Yesterday I was at the grocery store, on my way back to the van with a full cart - Sylas in the front, Olivia in her infant car seat balanced on the back, and a weeks worth of groceries wedged in between the two. Upon reaching the van, I picked up Sylas to throw him in his seat when I noticed Olivia was gagging on someting- she has a bit of a cold so i thought maybe it was just that. Then I remembered that I hadn't unlocked the van yet so with Sylas in one hand, I'm fumbling in my bag with the other to locate the keys. Olivia was still making gagging noises so i gave up looking for the keys and turned my attention to her. She was choking on something- but what? I hadn't seen her put anything into her mouth. So I made a decision to put Sylas down (in the parking lot next to the van) and start fishing arround in Olivia's mouth. She had pulled a peice of plastic off a grocery bag and it was stuck in her throat!! At that point, Sylas took one look at me and ran in the other direction across the parking lot!! The decision I was faced with was: A) help 7 month old daughter who is choking on a plastic bag or B) chace 2 1/2 year old son who is running into parking lot traffic.

What would you do?

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Wednesday prayer requests - Cookie & Fam

Well it was with great sadness that our little friend Cookie went home to St. Catherines. The Florida team dropped him off on Saturday on their way back and we've been missing him, so take a minute and say a prayer for Cookie, Kellz, Kadeem and mom Michelle as they adjust to life in their new home.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

The sayings of Lukas v24 - Wind

Last night we went down to Ontario place to see the "Festival of Fire" fireworks. We were down on the water and there was a nice breeze coming off the water. Lukas turned to me, rubbing his eyes and said:

Daddy, I have a piece of wind in my eye!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Saturday, July 01, 2006

July loggin in

27July06-Aug 11th - OG2 Greece
26July06 - Wed - pack for Greece, prayer meeting with Mike D
25July06 - Tues - Fredricton to Toronto drive, Mike D stays over
24July06 - Mon - Fredricton - passport
17July06-24July06 - PEI
16July06 - Sun - BofB, FBH
11July06 - Q2 report, send
10July06 - Mon - admin catch up, cell phone, Greece correspondence
09July06 - Sun - BofB, Chester-Le Sunday School!, Jamoy, Nathaniel resumes@Bridlewood, World Cup final, Evening service, F.O.M meeting
08July06 - Sat - speak at RBC retreat 2x
07July06 - Fri - Daycamp - speak at chapel, speak at RBC retreat 1x
06July06 - Thur- daycamp
05July06 - Wed - daycamp, PC lunch
04July06 - Tues- daycamp
03July05 - Daycamp starts
02July05 - BofB, FBH with 7 (Nathaniel, Tyrell, Kevin, Jamoy, Clayon, Mickey, Raphael)
01July05 - recover from Florida trip, fireworks

Stats:

Spoke 6 times
Chester Le Sunday School
Greece
FBH - 7