Our Hangout

Miscellaneous...

A good friend of mine was worried. I haven't been blogging regularly. They were wondering what was behind it. Too stressed? Too busy? Just don't feel like it? They were worried about me. It's good to have friends. I don't know what I'd do without my friends.

So, this is more of an update than anything else. And I know I will not cover all the things that I've missed, but I'll get some of them.

First of all, no, I'm not stressed, not too busy that I can't blog. Pretty much, just don't feel like it too much. Every time I sit down and think of something that I could blog about, something of greater priority comes up, like going bikeriding with my children. And with the weather getting warmer, there always seems to be something of greater priority going on. Blah, blah, blah, at the end of the day, I just haven't felt like it much, greater priority or not. I think a lot of it genuinely is the fact that I spend so much time on the computer working, when I get a break, I don't really feel like being on the computer, if I don't have to.

So, bikeriding. Over the last week, actually it all happened in two days last weekend, Xanda and Lucas (in that order) have moved from four wheels to two wheels. This has opened a whole new world, as I knew it would, in terms of what we could do together. So, the three of us have gone much farther, than the usual, around the block on the sidewalk rides. We've gone to the park, around the neighbourhood, and we're (Vun and I) are looking forward to hitting the trails (we've got some really good ones around here) this spring and summer. As for Senzenina and Marcelo, we've got one of those really cool behind the bike thingys that they can sit in and get pulled by me. So the whole family is bike mobile. Niagara trails, here we come...

Moving on...

The drug house across from us what busted. Sort of.
For those of you who don't know, we have a drug house across from us. Real famous place, has a bigger congregation than we do at POG, a much, much bigger congregation. There's a great volume of traffic (pardon the pun) on our street as a result of this.
Anyway, last Thursday they were busted. Cops showed up in an umarked truck and minivan and went in. Unfortunately, they get busted once every year, get their hands slappped and are up and running right after the cops leave. This might sound ridiculous, but the cops waited for them to stop a few sales that were ongoing, before they actually went in.

One of my struggles, since day one here, has been, how am I supposed to pray for, relate to, love these people? I've found everybody's got different feelings about this one. I think I've come to this, they need to know God loves them. Having said that, in order to discover that, like the rest of us, if they're ever going to experience the kind of relationship with God he longs to have with them, they need to come to the end of their self-sufficiency. Their self sufficiency is the sale of drugs. So, I'm praying that God will stop that, with whatever measures need to be taken. But at the other side of things they need to know God loves them and that there's something more meaningful than that life. And so, like any other neighbour I have that needs to know that, somehow, I've got to be a real, visual aid to them. Don't know exactly how to do that, since knowing that I'm a pastor, they keep their distance pretty good. But we'll see...

We continue to love our time in the Port. It just is a wonderful place to be.

Spiritually, I continue to be tested, tried and stretched. There's no question God's doing something. But more and more I'm realizing the steps are often slow and long. I believe the days of "Build it and they will come" are over. Okay, that might still work in the big city if you build an exciting enough place with enough ammenities for the church consumers. So, you might be able to fill the church, but never have a "Church." That's not the story of every big city church and the point of this is not to point fingers at all. The point that I'm discovering is that ministry is about cultivating relationship with people. And cultivating by nature is something that is slow rather than something you can plan a five or ten year strategy that will bear the intended results of the strategy plan. Anyway, that's just what I'm finding where I'm planted. Which is perfectly fine, as I could see myself here for a very long time.

Our home, well renovations are going really slowly. At a snails pace. meanning we really haven't done anything since we arrived. We have lots of dreams. And who knows, 15 years from now we'll have the home we've always dreamed of, or it'll still look much the same. Actually, with us, it's very unlikely that it'll look the same, as we often get tired and then make changes... But it's all good. In time.

So that's my miscellaneous update. After I post this I'll remember a million things. Like the fact that Senzenina was sick and throwing up all day yesterday and a bunch of other things I can't think of right now or maybe the fact that I have several thousand pictures that I need to get out of my camera and into our picture gallery.

Later...

Posted by ed