Family ~ such a blessing!

Some fun pictures of my new
Aunt and Uncle's place...

Mr. Husband and I found this
to be really funny.

Our Dutch Christian heritage. 

The Lord's prayer,
that in Orthodoxy we call
The Our Father.

Africa.
My Aunt and Uncle spent many years there.

I love seeing Dutch things in the homes of my family.

Africa...

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

Visible parables done by French Catholics for Africa
some years back that my
Aunt and Uncle have in their home...
*
Being with my new family is like reading the Psalm verse in Psalm 18
by the paraphrase the message ~
I remember it saying something like this:
and there I stood in an open field,
surprised to be loved.

Returning to St. Herman's

I still remember how I would see all these candles
burning during liturgy,
my first, during Lent in the Spring in my
last year of University.

Mr. Husband and I stayed in BC just long enough
to come to Wednesday vespers.
We never know what life will bring and if we
will be able to return to BC in the future.
So I really wanted to have Mr. Husband see my first church.
*
It was wonderful to see St. Herman on the Iconostasis;
he was my first Saint that I felt a connection too
and I am so grateful;
St. Herman is a wonderful father to us!

The church's icon of the Mother of God.

Our Lord.

By the time I got to vespers,
after a full week of travels,
I was really tired.
So I sat for a lot of the prayers,
but still, it was so wonderful
just to be back.

I remember coming to this icon of St. Nicholas
and not knowing who he was at all,
I told him I was going to his church in MI
and please come with me!
St. Nicholas has been a special Saint to me ever since.
He was one that I was told by a monastic to ask for a husband.
A room at the monastery in MI dedicated to him was the first
one I stayed at years ago in 2005.
God is so wonderful in His Saints!

St. Herman of Alaska.

It was so wonderful to venerate St. Herman's icon...
and have him present in prayer with us.

I remember this picture from my time as
a catechumen and was so glad to see it still there.
*
After so many years we returned.
I was aware of how many things had happened in those years.
How many sacrifices of parents for their children,
how many heartaches and struggle,
how many joys and baptisms.
*
My first church.
I pray that to the end of my days I will
never cease to be grateful to God for
St. Herman's and how my life was totally transformed
by the Orthodoxy I found there.
*
Truly I was given the Church
that is always there,
even in the middle of great loss and devastation.
The Church and God's mercy will never leave us.
*
My priest in Ottawa once told me that
even if all the churches in Canada closed down
and not one building was left,
the Church is still with us.
*
It all comes down to this:
God is with us and
prayer...

Dinner with dear friends

One of my good friends
I met in my last year in BC.
We met at a how-to-get-jobs class;
I was a new graduate and she was 1
month in BC from China.

We had a lot of lovely times together
and I was sorry to leave BC and our friendship.
So it was so wonderful to see her and her son again!

We had a wonderful meal!
Mr. Husband got to meet not only her,
but her now 20 year old son and
her parents.

It was a wonderful meal!

She has beautiful flowers and
it was such a good time to see them again.

My dear friend loves flowers.

 

She had me on her church's prayer list for
many years for me to find a good husband.
It was wonderful to see how God answered their prayers
and for her to meet my beloved Mr. Husband!
*
I am so blessed to have such great friends in my life!

Last moments of Northren BC

Mr. Husband and I had such a wonderful time
talking with the young 20's woman
who is Mr. Husband's cousin's daughter, J. :)
We recommended Tim Keller's book on
marriage while talking to her and
it brought back such memories for me of
all the goodness and happiness I had in my 20's.
*
There was sadness too of course,
like my spiritual mother at
camp dying of cancer when I was in my first full
year in BC and at TWU.
*
But the reunion reminded me of the happy times.
When I was 19 I had such a beautiful year,
being at camp with other Christian friends,
three of them from BC one from Alberta
and the sunshine at camp,
the beautiful lake.
*
One of my dear friends from TWU went to camp
one summer with me
(two of my TWU friends came in those years)
and I saw her for lunch with Mr. Husband...
*
It was so good to remember the happy times...

Smithers was really beautiful.
I had never been before.
Of course we had the best summer weather
and there is a lot of snow and cold in the winter
but it was such a happy visit for us.
Smithers as a town was having their 100th anniversary this year...

Mr. Husband and I had a walk that night...

We talked again about the gift of our marriage.
We talked with the young woman who drove us
into Smithers about how we ask daily
for God to protect our marriage.
I have dear friends whose marriages have struggled
over the years and both of us are old enough to
know that it takes a lot of work to be married
and that we want our marriage to flourish,
not fail... 

So this apparently is the hospital there.
I've studied how to do consumer health in Canada
and it was cool for me to see a
'Northern Health' building...
*
I could not help but think about how this building would
contain so much drama that we find in our lives here...

Just having a walk with Mr. Husband is such a blessing!

We of course went to Tim Horton's.
What Canadian trip would be complete without this? :)

We can't say that it is
'naturopath approved' but on the other hand,
there were not too many options near our hotel... 

Flowers are so much of summer for me...

Smithers is great.
They have a bear in their airport! 

You know you are not in the city
when you see this sign at the airport... :)
*
We sure had fun! 

God's mercy pour out

I never tired of looking at these hills.

One of my new uncles is sick with cancer.
An Aunt too.
The Uncle left early to go to Prince George for
treatment. He sees that his illness can only be
controlled.
But he said how much more real his faith in God is
because of his suffering.
He was thinking of the war he was in decades ago
and why all the killing?
We as a family discussed how this is
and what does God think of it.
*
Another uncle talked about how sometime we slip up,
missing church or our daily prayers and
how we cannot think we have it all together
as we all fall and all are in need of God.
*
I saw my father-in-law praying with his older brother
who has cancer.
While in line for a meal, I commented to this
Uncle who was thinking over his life and the war he was in and
said all in the end comes to asking God for His mercy
and the Uncle agreed quickly and strongly.

I can't tell you enough how
beautiful it is when family is strong in
our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wish that the next generations could see the
beauty I see in the Aunts and Uncles who
are immigrated from Holland with
their accents, their love for the Lord and the
energy they give to living life with their families.

I can't tell you how grateful I am to God
for this trip.
How even more when I am with my family or
my new family of Mr. Husband's
I see the mercy of God.
*
This time and at this camp
reminded me of the beauty, the hope in God
and of deep friendships that come between Christians.

One of the younger ones
who loves God took Mr. Husband and I to
Smithers after the reunion.
We talked about God, books (including Francis Schaffer,
GK Chesterton and Tim Keller's book on marriage) and how
God is working in our lives.

  

 This young 20's woman who loves God so much
has a father that Mr. Husband told me
had said that years ago he had only to prayers:
that he would marry his wife
(this young woman's mother)
and have his farm.
His prayers were beautiful, simple and came true.
*
How is that I also was given such mercy from God?
Surely it was not for anything I did.
Instead I think it was the generosity of the Lord giving
to me part of the heritage of my Christian family
of generations.
*
We can only hope and pray for
the next generation to stay faithful
to God while we also seek His mercy.
*
In time we all need this prayer:
Lord save us whether we will it or not.

A different world ~ planes, logging and big game hunting

Sunday afternoon
a cousin and his friend came up
to the reunion.
Long story short:
they both own logging companies,
do a bit of leading big game hunts and the
one is a pilot.
*
A very different life
and it was interesting to meet them.

The left Monday morning after
breakfast for the Northern most part of Canada.

A bunch of us went down to the lake to
see them off.

Such beauty was there
in that day and in that plane taking off
on the lake...

There was this sense of excitement as we watched them...

I can still hear the plane's motors as they
went faster and fast on that lake...

Lifting off the water...

Into the air...

A small plane
getting smaller and smaller...

They circled around,
went near to us and
dipped the wing to say goodbye...

Last we saw of them,
a small dot in the sky...

 

It was quite something.
That was the last morning we were there,
cleaning up the camp,
having a last meal and saying how much we
loved our time there and
appreciated the home-cooked meals.
There were between 35 and 50 of us there that weekend....
Mr. Husband's father comes from a large family....
it was so beautiful...