Break...

As with last summer, I'll be taking a break from blogging. There might be the occasional post throughout the summer, but for the most part I'll be on a short blogging sabbatical :)

Ok, you could say I've been on break for a while already. Still...

Hope you enjoy your summer and your families and friends. Don't blink too much, it goes by way too fast.

And no, I won't be fishing all summer.

Love Port Colborne

I don't know whether I mentioned it before or not. But the local Pentecostal church decided to head up a day (this past Saturday), where all the churches in town were invited to join together and "Love Port Colborne" through acts of kindness all over the city. About 12 churches participated in being a blessing to our city in numerous ways. Everything from car washes, to free spas, children's activities, a youth "Fear Factor" time, lots and lots of renovations projects.

A few of us from POG were part of a renovation project that involved redoing a kitchen and a bathroom for a single mom in our community. There were 9 men involved, who worked incredibly well together, in quite the challenging project. It turned out to be an ongoing project. The three of us from Port of Grace wrapped up our project last night, after three different work times.

The PAOC (Pentecostal Assemblies) have done this in a few cities now. And I think it's really cool. I think, just my opinion, that more churches need to think about missions this way, that is, to think about what they could do to involve their people in impacting the places and people where they live. Much of the time short term missions means spending $2500 and more to go somewhere overseas and painting or building a wall. Always needed projects.

However, it's important that we realize that we can do it in your own towns/cities for a much lower cost. Again, I don't want to take away from short-term missions, I just think it might be time we re-think the whole thing and use kingdom resources more effectively.

I think it's critical that we realize missions needs to happen where we are first. I guess part of the issue is that we need to see ourselves as missionaries all the time and not as a job that we do or a trip we go on, occasionally

I wonder if we were to partner up with a church overseas and send the $2500 or more we would spend to go there and paint a wall, build one or dig a well, if we'd send them the money and gave them the opportunity as a church to do the work we would go and do ourselves, how much more effective, and how much farther would that money go for their impact in their own community? I understand there are times a team needs to go in order to train people to do something they don't know how to do, but a lot of the time, that isn't the case.

Just a thought. Not what I intended to talk about when I started. Something I wonder about though.

Bitten...

So I was walking by the house on this incredibly beautiful day, and saw some leafs keeping the sun from reaching a new plant, so I decided to remove the leafs, as I began to do so I felt a sudden prick on my right index finger. I thought that was awkward as this plant has no thorns, but continued on, as I did a stinking huge snake comes crawling out. Now, the truth is that it wasn't a stinking huge snake, it probably wasn't any bigger than a foot and a half, but if you were born in Africa, as I was, snakes are not your friends. And no, it didn't look like the one pictured above, however, in my mind, it looked worst.

My finger hasn't ballooned and I'm not having difficulty breathing, so, I think I'll be ok.

I know this is only a little better than posting about rocks, but oh well...

Found my rock.

I've never had anything stolen from our property here in Port Colborne. Kids toys, bikes get left out pretty regularly. Our garage door doesn't have a lock and many times the side door just blows and stays open. Our main garage door stays open more times than I care to admit. I've left the car unlocked overnight, with the keys in the ignition, several times. The point being, all that considered, it's pretty surprising that we've never had anything stolen from our property. Something, I love to tell all my friends visiting from places like Toronto.

Well, that was true until early this past Winter. On a snowy day, I realized something had gone missing. A decent sized rock that I'd picked up and placed in one of my gardens had gone missing. The truth is, considering all the things I could have had stolen, I found this to be pretty funny. So, all winter long, I've been telling people, "I've never had anything stolen from our property, that is, except a rock. I thought it was pretty funny.

Being and seeing Jesus in a broken world...

Over the last few nights I just haven't been able to sleep well. Two nights ago, I finally fell asleep at 4AM, last night 3AM. Getting up early is still not getting it done. Anyways, this happens every once in a while, so it's a little extra time to pray for people and circumstances in my life, play through my local golf course in my head, the way I should play it in real life, and when all else fails, and it's late anyway, pick up a book and read.

So, over the last few nights I've done something I don't do very often. Which is pick up a book I read before and read it again. "God in the Alley" is written by Greg Paul, founder of Sanctuary, a church in downtown Toronto with a mission to bring the gospel "to the streets."

You know it's too much when...

Last night, and today, we're having what I think might be the last snowfall of this Winter. If not, certainly one of the last ones around here.

However, you know it's time we wrap Winter up when Marcelo gets up, looks outside and asks...

"Mommy, why did the snow come back?"

Of course, as you can see by the picture above, it didn't seem to bother him, as much as it's bothering many others.

E-mail not helping?

After many years of depending on e-mail, I'm starting to feel e-mail is very counter productive. I decided to do a little test and actually record how much time I spend reading and responding to e-mails in a week. I was actually so surprised by the results, that all I will say is, it's a whole lot of time.

Yes, you could say I'm a slow learner on this one. However, there's a false assumption of need, when it comes to e-mail. You need to check it as often as possible and you need to respond to it as soon as possible. But what it's started to feel like to me, comparing it to the phone, is like you have the phone ringing non-stop throughout the day, and how much fun is that? Not just that, many of those e-mails, are just not e-mails you do need to get back to right away.

Anyway, I'm trying to figure out a new system of dealing with e-mail. Not sure whether that means checking e-mail just once a day or what yet. I also think when you check it in the day matters as I've spent the large part of a morning responding to e-mails because it's the first to-do thing in my calendar each day. I'm not sure whether I'm strong enough to check it early and not respond to it right away, I think it's just second nature, anyway, still figuring this out.

Report Card Day

It's that time of year again. Report card day at the DeFreitas'. Last report card brought a surprise to our household. Lucas, who had previously been an A student since his first year in school - suddenly, without any explanation went down a whole grade in most subjects and more in others. So, we met with the teacher. Turns out, in fourth grade, Lucas' teacher believes that they're old enough to make their own decisions and choose for themselves whether the work they're handing in is good enough. So, regardless of what they hand in, she asks them if that is what they want to hand in and if they say yes, she takes it.

The problem, if you have a student that doesn't have to work too hard and can just coast, like Lucas, he never really tries and just gets decent marks. A long time ago, I made a deal with my kids, as long as they did their best, the marks that they brought home would be fine with me. Therefore, Lucas and I had a conversation about whether he was doing his best. He told me he thought that was just for the other years.