Fun in the Sun

We were recently blessed with a holiday in Florida with my parents. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed relaxing by the poolside and at the beach. It was wonderful!

With Grandpa




Should I go in, or should I just stand here....and pick my nose?!

Jono's catch of the day...can you see it?!

Just chillin'

But all good things must come to an end, so we are now back in our winter wonderland. And just in time too--they say there's a big storm brewing that will hit Southern Ontario sometime in the next 24 hours. Some schools have cancelled for tomorrow already. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Jonathan, for sure, would be thrilled to get more of that white stuff!

30 on the 30th

I just realized that reading past blog entries is a great way to reflect and reminisce. Last week I hit another milestone in my life with my 30th birthday, and I guess that’s why I was feeling a bit nostalgic and skimmed over a few of the entries from the past year. It brought back a lot of memories, as well as a range of emotions as I‘re-lived’ the experiences of the past months. It was also really neat to see how the children changed and grew, not only by the photos, but also in the things they’re doing and saying.

Our second entry on the blog was about my 29th birthday—celebrated in Lae, on a very hot day, of course. The highlight was a morning walk on the beautiful grounds of the Lae Golf Course. How different this year’s birthday was in comparison! Just a tad colder and not too humid—-it was below zero, after all! But it was celebrated with enough family and friends to warm our hearts and home!

It was special to celebrate with a couple of the little, but significant, people in my life! Here’s Allie Buist and I celebrating our birthdays…together we turned 35 this year!



And here is Lucas (the son of Ian’s brother, Tim and wife, Elissa). He turned 1 on the 30th! I remember when he was born last year, and we really felt how far away we were in not being able to meet him right away and cuddle him in our arms, like you love to do with a newborn. But then the Lord blessed us with getting to know him in PNG this past year, and the icing on the cake, you could say, was celebrating with him in person this year!



I ended my 29th birthday blog praising God for another birthday and saying that I would strive to follow Him faithfully the coming year. As I think back, I know there have been times when in my stubborn pride I’ve tried to take the lead and go my own way. Other times I’ve stumbled and fallen as I tried to race along the path. But in His grace and love, He’s always picked me up and showed me His way again. And because of this grace and by His power, I can strive to follow Him again this year, wherever He may lead. Especially with Ian still not completely well and our future plans uncertain, we need to completely surrender and trust and follow. So easy to say, but really hard to do sometimes.
In His strength, we take it one step at a time.

Visitors

Phil and Lisa Houweling and family...all the way from WA, Australia!



Their little guy, Hamish. Cute, isn't he?



Here's some patriotic MKs for you! This was our last time with Wayne and Cheronne before they left for Australia.


Our new friend, Hudson came for a visit too.



Oh yeah, Uncle Ryan (and Aunt Elissa) came with him!

On the topic of libraries...

Thank you, Joyce, for prompting me to write more about libraries in Lae. While it is true that Lae has no public library right now, our church started up a small library about a year ago. It’s located on the ground level of the pastor’s house on the church property.

There are books of all kinds, for all ages, even for beginners like little Jelika!


Most are in English, but there's also some in pidgin. There are bible commentaries and study guides, as well as children’s books and books on health and general interest, etc. We have had to work out a few glitches—like how to ensure those books come back (!)—but it has still already been a blessing. Every week after Sunday School the children have some time to look at the books. This is special for them because most do not have books in their homes. I’ve noticed a number of the young people taking out books too, such as the Narnia series and some of the “Mandie” books that we have. Our co-worker, Natalie VanderHeide, is also teaching a women’s literacy course, which is held in the library (where else?!) and they’ve also made use of the books there.

Some of the women working to get the books ready, before the library opened.



The good news is that there is still room on the shelves for more books. So, Joyce, we would love some of your books!
And for anyone else out there who would like to donate books, send us an email at inwildeboer@yahoo.com. Thank you!

ramblings...

As I was out jogging this afternoon, on an incredible fall day, I was thinking about the fact that I haven’t blogged in a while. I guess there’s maybe something about jogging that gets one thinking about blogging. So from jogging to blogging...

We are so enjoying being around family and friends, enjoying the fellowship and getting to know our nieces and nephews again!

Uncle Peter and Liam with Jonathan and Karlyn


Karlyn bonds with Uncle Greg at storytime
And with Auntie Lu

We are also loving the little home we have here and getting out on the ‘rail trail’(tracks and rails removed!) beside our house whenever we can. I’m even jogging 4km a few times a week on there these days. That’s a feat for me, but yeah, a good friend still ran the socks off me the other day (right, Alice?!).

The leaves keep falling in our front yard--and Karlyn falls in right after them!


And then today I went to the library with the kids. Especially after living in Lae where the town library apparently shut down because people were not returning the books, I am so thankful for this resource. The selection of books and videos and dvds…it’s incredible! And yes, it actually works the way it’s supposed to---people do return them! It makes me even more sad that Lae doesn’t have one—the people could benefit so much. Maybe someday.

And even with all of these things we're enjoying here, I often still find myself longing for PNG. Talk about struggling to be content! But actually I’m thankful for this struggle. When we first arrived here, I had a hard time thinking about going back to PNG. I was only thinking about the stress of Ian being sick and the other stresses of life there and thought, I’d rather stay here! But the Lord has helped me work through this and I’m thankful to say that that has changed. Now we just need Ian to get better…and it seems that slowly, ever so slowly, his health is improving. It’s not that we notice improvements everyday or even every week. It’s more like every couple of weeks, or when we compare this month to last month, we realize he has a bit more energy and is feeling less symptoms. And for that we praise God and hold on to the hope that this will continue. We’ve not received an ‘official’ diagnosis yet from the doctors at the missionary health institute, which is in a way discouraging and frustrating, but regardless, the Lord’s in control. The naturopathic doctor, on the other hand, maintains that Ian has a parasite in his heart tissue and a viral infection in his spleen. And this does seem to make sense when we consider his symptoms, so maybe we should just stop being skeptical about homeopathic medicine and believe it! Ian has been taking herbal medication for these things for about 2 months now, so maybe that’s why we’re seeing improvements. Whatever the case, we’re thankful, but have to admit that sometimes we’ve despaired and become discouraged. But here too, we are learning the secret of being content whatever the circumstances! And being thankful that we can serve our God wherever we are!

This week we have a good friend staying with us--Nathan Boersema, who works for Worldwide Christian Schools in Western Canada, and used to work in Nicaragua. He's here for a few days for meetings with his Ontario colleagues. We haven't seen Nathan in years, and it is really great to re-connect. The only sad thing is that Kim and the girls aren't here with us. (Miss you, Kim!) Jonathan and Karlyn have fallen in love with "uncle" Nathan in a matter of days and think he's lots of fun.


Speaking of visitors, we have some Aussies coming over tomorrow. Should be fun! Maybe I'll have to take a few photos and post them, especially for all of you 'down under'!!