It occurred to me yesterday that we have not formally announced the results of the tour that we got back from only 7 days ago.

To go back a couple of steps, let’s talk about Thursday night, March 26.

At this stage, we had just finished a visit to Spruce Grove and Stony Plain, and having talked to my sister and my mother in Edmonton by phone, discovered that our planned overnight at Dawn’s place was not going to happen.  It wasn’t a big deal – only 90 minutes south we knew we had a bed at Cheryl’s parent’s place in Red Deer.  We jumped on the highway south through Devon and that led us straight to… Leduc, and a White Spot for supper.  Kind of funny, when you realize that White Spot is a unique restaurant chain that is a household name in BC, but almost unknown in the rest of Canada.  The fact that we drove right to one of the very few that are not in BC… well it was comfortable.  I made one concession – I didn’t have their “Legendary Burger”.   When in Alberta, you have an Alberta steak.

We meant to stop for dinner, to digest in private the cities we had seen and ask God where our hearts were.  We only brought in two packets – Spruce Grove and Medicine Hat.  Looking back, these were the two we preferred from the start, but having reviewed all the options, we were more certain than ever it was between these two cities.

After sitting down, we both found our hands gravitating to the Medicine Hat material.  We tried to be fair and set up pros and cons for the two cities, but it was clear to us that barring an act of God, Medicine Hat was where we were being led.  There are many reasons, from the superficial to the miraculous.  I’ll start there. (more…)

We finished visiting all the communities we wanted to Wednesday afternoon. The weather out here has been cold – below normal for the month of March. Hence, we didn’t spend as much time “on the ground” as we originally planned. However, thanks to many hands both likely and unlikely, I believe we saw what we needed to see.

We tried to reschedule our stay at my sister’s place in Edmonton a day early since things were progressing so quickly, but then I learned why she had not been responding – she has had the flu for a week. When I finally learned what was going on, she was staying at my Mom’s place because she couldn’t even watch her 2 year old daughter she was so sick. She is in good hands over there though. My Mom is a pretty good nurse when it comes to colds and flu.

So, the backup plan was instead of staying overnight in the Edmonton area, we hightailed it back to Red Deer – which was only an hour and a half south anyway. That’s another neat thing about Alberta – everything is pretty close.

On the way south after seeing Spruce Grove and Stony Plain, we stopped for dinner at White Spot! Heh. They’ve even expanded out here. We prayed and looked at the material we had for the top two, and God brought us to a consensus. The deciding factors were definitely not on our list before we left so this trip was absolutely worth it.

So that was the good news. The bad news…

Cheryl was grateful that we would have another extra day to rest up as she was getting uncomfortable in the long rides. Being at her parents’ place that helped too. So we visited her grandmother yesterday afternoon and had a great dinner of Roast Buffalo(!) and went to bed, planning to leave today.

You might ask, “What is Shane doing up at 4am posting a blog entry?”  The answer would be Cheryl and her youngest brother Sasha waking up at 4am (Mountain) and throwing up into buckets.  Now they are both occupying different couches with buckets beside their heads and not feeling at all well.

So now the challenge, in addition to about 30 total centimeters of snow that has fallen on us since we got out here (don’t know if more fell last night or not – I haven’t checked), we have the challenge of waiting for this sickness to pass.  Which puts us…

Right back on schedule.  If we leave tomorrow morning, that is what we planned all along.

In our heart we may have planned this trip, but the Lord has definitely determined our steps! (Proverbs 16:9)

What a whirlwind.

Last Saturday we got a call that my grandfather had two strokes in quick succession and was now in intensive care at the University of Alberta Hospital.  We quickly made the decision to travel to Edmonton in our minivan, risking wintery conditions in the mountains and spending money we don’t really have to be with my family and my grandfather in a time of crisis.

He’s an 84 year old World War II veteran, and proudly independent.  I knew he would take this hard.  But I also had some concern because while I know he grew up Catholic, and I know his second wife was a devout 7th Day Adventist, I don’t know if he ever truly made faith in Christ his own.  I also knew that I wanted to see him again, if these were his final hours.  I haven’t seen him since he moved to Alberta 2 years ago after Grace died.

God truly opened a number of doors for us to enable this trip, from providing financially for the expenses, to providing help to cover for us in our many responsibilites, to providing friends to take care of our two cats.  He cleared our path in front of us – we didn’t meet with any storms on the Coquihalla, and made it all the way to Revelstoke the first day, and even found a pet-friendly room for us all to bunk down in.

By Monday we were in the Hospital, and he was all hooked up to tubes and things.  He was unable to speak, the stroke having damaged the speech areas of his brain.

We spent a couple of days with Cheryl’s family in Red Deer, and then brought the boys the rest of the way to Fort Saskatchewan, to see my parents and brother and sister.  Friday I went back to the Hospital and saw Grandpa again.  He had improved again, but was groggy initially, and in considerable pain in his abdomen.  I prayed with my mother and him, and then we left him to sleep for a bit.  When we returned an hour or so later, he was much more alert than he had been and the pain was gone.  He wanted to go for a ride in the wheelchair, and we were excited to see him demonstrate his strength and mobility.  His coordination seemed very good in both hands, despite his still not being able to talk.

God definitely wanted to use us on this trip.  In Red Deer, we had a long talk with Cheryl’s grandmother and mother about churches and about why we do the things we do.  We had a great talk about honesty and transparency and community.  I think thay are typical in that most Canadians view church as something to do on Sunday, a quaint custom from a more superstitious time.  If they still even believe in God as a concept, they have never truly understood the kind of life that Jesus calls his followers to – a whole life of love and fellowship and support.

Then with my family, my grandfather, though he was limited in what he could understand, I believe he did get what I wanted to say to him, to just invite him to talk with Jesus as he recovered.  To remind him he doesn’t need to speak to speak with God and begin or renew that relationship once more.  At my parents’ house, we had several opportunities to talk with Steve, my sister’s husband, who claims a staunch atheism.  His inquisitiveness was enjoyable and revealed a desire to understand more about the faith we have.  I was very excited at the non-confrontational conversation and to learn that he had recently tried reading the Bible (to little success – he made the same mistake I did, starting in Genesis!)  I wish we lived closer so we could spend more time helping him to understand the message of the Bible and of the Word.  But it is a beginning.

Of course, I would be lax to not praise God once more for his watch over our travels home which we pushed through in one day – 14 hours of driving.  Strangely the cold weather followed us all the way to the coast – blowing snow and sub-freezing temperatures looked bizarre and prairie-like was we pulled in our driveway here on the coast.  It’s supposed to stay this cold for at least a week too!

So yesterday, Adam preached his first sermon at Community of Hope.  It was a  message a lot of us needed to hear heading into a busy fall where a lot is being asked of us, about whether following Jesus is easy or hard.  It served a second purpose as well – it allowed us to get to know him and his family and hear a bit of their story.

I was talking with Cheryl after church, and she says to me, kind of out of the blue, that she had a bit of a vision, but more of a realization.  She said she saw Adam and his family coming with us to Alberta.  Totally out of the blue.

I figured I had better note this down for posterity.  I like to give glory to God when he moves in ways beyond our understanding.  And it certainly will be beyond my understanding if (when) it comes to pass!

So, here’s your notice, Adam.  You’re moving again in a couple of years.  Yeah, sorry Phil.  What can I say?  It’s God, not us!