Nothing to Say? How about Ukraine?

It would seem that I have nothing to say, given that I haven't blogged since the day we left for Ukraine in May (also my birthday). The trip itself was successful. I was part of a teaching team - while the church team worked with the kids at the orphanage and school, my team offered education with a special needs topical emphasis to the staff. At each place the staff were hesitant, even though we had been invited, but once we began, they became sponges and wanted more. We've been invited back.

We parted ways with the church team for three days and visited Sergay and Natasha in Lutsk at Fimiam Church. We're hoping that if we are involved in any work in Ukraine in the future, it'll be with and through them. They are planning a visit to Toronto (in tandem with a trip to Pennsylvania and Seattle) in August. We're hopeful.

All of our pictures, and then some, are on our Flickr page. Yes, I went ahead and paid the subscription fee for the service. I also reduced my cable package to offset the new expense. I'm thinking that once I finish my contract with Rogers in the winter that I'll just get an antenna.

The bank also reimbursed the $500 that was stole the day after, on May 15. of course, I didn't now that until we got home at the end of May.

2009 has been busy for us so far. I think June was recuperation for me. Yesterday I spent the day experimenting with the computer - I ran the app 'Boot Camp' to partition the hard drive on my iMac, then installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate on the partition. Microsoft might have a winner with this OS.

Oh, back to Ukraine.

It went very well. Of course, what we planned and what we did were two different things. With few exceptions, the level of understanding of people (including those who work with kids with special needs) about special needs is, well, almost non-existent. That's not the assessment of an inflated Western ego, but actuality. We were surprised at how basic we had to get.

But I suppose its a systemic issue, because the staff have not had the opportunity to get any formal educational resources. Until the system changes, the country will have to change one person at a time. But a revolution can start with just one person - even a special needs revolution.

Let it be so.

Happy Birthday ..... To Me!

I woke this morning to enjoy my birthday.  It's a big day .... we're leaving for a working trip to Ukraine as part of two groups - one from my work and the other (and bigger) from church.  We'll teach special needs workers and play with kids in orphanages.

My first chore - check the weather on line and finalize some banking.  But my internet was down.  I go to use the phone, but the phone is down.

I reboot all the various connective devices and call Rogers, and I'm back online.

Then I check my bank account (today is payday).  Seems Karen went out in the middle of the night and withdrew $500.  Wait a minute......

Someone stole 500 bucks from us!

I then call PCF who says my card was flagged, so we cancel the card and I go to the PCF pavilion to get a new one.  All is well.

Then I get an email from Rogers saying they are no longer offering their Flickr service....... as of July 1, I'll have to pay for it on top of the $75 / month I currently pay to Rogers for internet.  I think when I get back I'll check out Picasa.

We've packed. In about 10 minutes I'll call a cab and we'll head to the airport.  The petty challenges of western life will stay here and we're off to try and make a difference for someone else.

Your Will Be Done

A few years ago I had begun to read the Bible through in a different manner than I had done before.  I remember getting to Chronicles and being struck by a thought that made me stop reading in order to process that thought.  It's been the same with this whole Kingdom concept.  I've had a hard time getting away from it or reading anything else.

Perhaps I applied Jesus' response to John the Baptizer a little too narrow.  Perhaps the people he had spent his time with and the activities he engaged in are to be taken as representative of who we, as His followers, should spend our time with and the stuff we should be doing.

Perhaps these people represent the "off-the-beaten-path" folks, those in the margins of society.  Because I work in developmental services, I am quick to apply most everything I read there first.  However, there are many more people in need in the world.

Seems I've been pondering this notion for years.

Karen and I leave for Ukraine on Thursday - she as part of a church team, and me as part of a volunteer team from work.  We'll spend most of our time in orphanages.  I think that's the kind of stuff Jesus was getting at.  Going to the ones who have no one, or who have much less than the rest of their society.

We're just trying to bring a little bot more of His Kingdom to those people we encounter. 

Your Kingdom Come

I think it started in January when we began rehearsing for Passion Play at church.  As we were learning our parts, we'd also pick up other people's parts.  I found myself humming one of Jesus' songs ...."The kingdom is coming, good news it is coming...."  Every week, several times a week, I'd hear it or be thinking it.

Since Easter I began to read the Gospel of Matthew.  Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God a lot in Matthew - what it's like, who is part of it.  

But as I think about it, I recall that someone asked me what I thought "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you" meant.  I thought briefly and responded in two parts: first, I've been taught that it meant that we seek after Jesus first and everything else will work out.  Second, to seek after Jesus means we are following him actively....... and for me, to follow him actively means I would be doing what he would be doing, participating in the activities of the kingdom.

In retrospect, it might have been that conversation that caused me to pay closer attention to things about the Kingdom of God.

So what are Kingdom activities?  If I'm seeking Jesus first in an active sense, what kinds of things should I be doing?

It hit me as I've been reading Matthew.  John the Baptizer sent a question to Jesus, asking "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect another?"  That would have been a big question for John, given that he recognized Jesus from the womb and he heard God speak after Jesus was baptized.  Nonetheless, he wondered.

Matthew 11:4-5 gives Jesus response:  "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor."  

Jesus didn't say "Tell John 'Yes, I am'".  Had He said "I am", that would have cleared it up.  Instead, he said to tell John what they saw, what Jesus had been doing.  

In the midst of all the teaching about the Kingdom of God, Jesus stated that the evidence that he was "the one who was to come" was the things He had been doing. 

Kingdom activities:  helping those who are blind, lame, leprosy, deaf and dead, and sharing the Good News with the poor.  This is easy and affirming for me to see, because I work with people with disabilities.  

Could this be?  Perhaps John the Baptizer expected Jesus to be doing different things, hence his doubt.  

But what does it mean to be helping those who are blind, lame, leprous, deaf and dead, and sharing the Good News with the poor.  For Jesus, it meant curing them, doing the miraculous.  But for us, if we don't see the miraculous, does that mean we don't do the work?

Or perhaps I am to be the miracle?   Leprosy and other skin diseases are now treatable.  Braille, wheelchairs, hearing aids all help those who are blind, immobile or hearing impaired.  These kinds of challenges do not have to be challenges today, with the technology available to us.  In some respects a supernatural miracle is not necessary to help people not be limited by these, well, limitations.  

Not sure to do with the dead coming back to life, though.  Perhaps it can speak to spiritual life.  

And the poor hear the good news.   Should we be spending our time bringing the Good News of God's Love and His Kingdom (that's a lot of capitalization) to those with less means, not to those who have much?

So that's where I'm at.  I'm thinking that as someone who is part of the Kingdom of God, who is praying "You're Kingdom come, your will be done on earth", that I need to  be focusing my actions towards people with various disabilities, and focusing my conversation, the message of the Good News, towards those with less means.  

So now my thoughts have moved.  If I believe that, then it should be evidenced in all aspects of my life. Not just at work. 

You gotta be kidding me......

Mom and Dad arrive on April 5 and will be staying for three weeks.  In preparation, Karen and I have moved downstairs so that they can use our bedroom.  Ours is a small house, and I like to go to bed early, whereas Mom and Dad generally go to bed later, so us sleeping downstairs allows all that to happen that much easier.

Last fall I was made aware of a mouse in my house.  Myrtle, our cat, seemed to be quite comfortable with sharing her space with guests, and left it to me to deal with its eviction.  I tried all manners of traps, including those that electrocute, those that snap, those that entrap and those that glue.  None worked.

The one that finally worked, as explained to me by Gord, was recently featured in Jay's Vlog here at Rob's Cooking.  It involved a stick, a bucket and some peanut butter.  Jay explained it in even more detail.  

Then, a couple weeks ago, a mouse ran into the bathroom while I was in there.  We danced, but only one of us came out alive. 

So, back to sleeping downstairs.  At about 3:30 this morning I woke.  Myrtle was on the bed, and I was hearing some noises.  I had heard the noises before on other nights, but simply assumed Myrtle was running around the house somewhere.  But not now.  It sounded like scurrying.  At one point, Myrtle was sitting on my chest looking at the ceiling listening to the same noises as I squinted toward the ceiling wondering if there were hundreds of mice about to collapse a ceiling tile onto the bed.  

Last week Karen and I cleaned out our entire pantry, on the chance that it was attracting our little guests.  It wasn't, as there were no holes in any packaging.  The only food that is now in our house is Myrtle's cat food, some items in the fridge, and the stuff in the compost container under the sink.  I also bought some of those noise making deterrents, that emit a high frequency sound inaudible to us and Myrtle, but apparently audible to the mice.  

It seems my mice are hearing impaired.

Which makes sense because I think I heard them talking to one another, which they would not have been doing if they could hear well, as they would realize that it had blown their cover.

Of course, it seems they don't care about being subtle, running back and forth above my head since 3:30.  And I wasn't about to lift a ceiling tile to see what was going on, lest the thousands of mice in my basement decide to 'Thelma and Louise' it over the edge and have their falls broken by me and Myrtle as we gazed upward in hesitant expectation. 

No.  Instead, I will unplug the mouse deterrent emitter in the laundry room to make it a welcoming room.  I'll then place some peanut butter at the base of an old recycling bin with a mop handle connecting the top edge to the floor.  Let's hope they are hungry. 

I suppose I'll need to examine the house on the outside as well and try to figure out where the heck these things are coming in.  

So stay tuned.  I'm going mouse hunting.

My only worry is that the mice are so numerous that some of them sacrifice themselves to be used as a mouse-bridge to get the others out of the blue bin.