lessons from the bus part 2

This morning when I got to the bus I was standing in the line of people and decided I needed a pen out of my bag. I can’t remember why. O ya, it was to write something down so I wouldn’t forget it. Ironic. Anyway…

So with my mitts on and my bag still over my shoulder, I started rooting around for a pen. I knew there were at least two in there so I was bound to find one, right? Well, not easily! I rooted around between my book and my notebook, my lunch and work security card, my gum and hand sanitizer, my ipod and random papers (By now your thinking – Mary Poppins bag. Almost!) I couldn’t feel a pen.

Maybe if I took my mitt off I’d have better luck? Sure enough, as soon as I slipped my unmitted hand into the uncharted depths of my bag it found a pen.

And again, just like yesterday, a thought popped into my head.

Sometimes for us to feel where we are going and be able to find what we are really looking for it requires that we strip ourselves of some of our protection – or we allow God to in the places we can’t.

I won’t even go into what I mean by protection. You can figure it what it means for you…

Just another random bus thought…

lessons of the bus

I got on the wrong bus today. Those of you who have labeled me the transit guru are probably laughing uncontrollably right now! Laugh it up!

I got to my second bus stop of the morning and I was so engrossed in my book (The 6th Lamentation by William Broderick – a MUST read!) that when the bus stopped, I didn’t even look at which one it was. I just got on.

After I was on and we started moving, I had the fleeting thought, “Did I get on the right bus? I’ve never seen this driver before.” Sure enough, a couple stops up he turned when he shouldn’t have. Dang.

I pulled the cord for the next stop, J-walked across the road (bad erin) and found the next correct bus stop and waited. After a few minutes of waiting I thought, “Maybe I missed the right bus when I got on the wrong one. I’m in the 4800 block and I only have to go to 4585, maybe I should just walk.”

After I’d walked half a block and was waiting to cross the street Murphy’s Law kicked in and the right bus went screaming by. Arg. I waited far too long to cross at a Y intersection and when I finally did, I realized that these were not normal length blocks. This just keeps getting better and better! I should have just waited!

So I picked up the pace realizing I wasn’t going to make it by 9 if I didn’t hoof it to the next stop in time to catch the next bus. Unfortunately, the next bus stop was far enough away I couldn’t even see it yet.

“Please don’t let the bus get there before me. Please don’t let the bus get there before me. Please don’t let the bus get there before me.” I chanted as I jog/walked around the curve. Yes! There it was and there was still someone there. Good sign.

When I got there I asked the lone waiter, “Do you know what time the next bus comes?”

“8:53 and it’s 8:51 now.”

Perfect. “Thanks.” Maybe I could still make it. 8:53 came and went. 8:54. 8:55. 8:56. Finally, I could see the bus. And it was the right one this time!

In the end, I made it to work by about 9:01 so all was well. But I couldn’t help but wonder what God might be trying to say to me this gray and drizzly Monday morning.

A thought passed through the vast expanse between my ears.“You got to work on time and that’s good but if you would have just paid attention and been patient things would have been significantly easier and better for you.”

Hmm. How many other parts of my life does that apply to…

campus pics

hey...
just found some pics of UBC's campus. thought i'd give ya the link...crazy beautiful. look at the fall ones, and then scroll down for a few shots from various places on campus.
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~yizhengc/photo/photo.htm.
good night.
SW

learning

hey everyone...
it has been a while since i wrote anything on here. my running joke is that if i could submit my papers for blog fodder or read my class texts in order to share insight, i'd be set. surprisingly...no one bites when i say that. :)
many of you know that i'm going to school four days a week...and that darlene and i continue to flipflop schedules in an effort to stay sane and get Hayley outside[while also seeing each other every week]. and for the most part, it's been wonderful.
fall here, and especially on the UBC campus, really accentuates the beauty of this city we call home. one day last week, i sat in the open air commons outside the library...and looked north through thinning red/orange/yellow leaves across the radiant blues of english bay to the terraces of north vancouver and the lush greens of the mountains to the north capped by brilliant snow...all wrapped in the warmth of sunlight. what an incredible place to sit...and what i wonderful place to learn!!! check out the website to see for yourself. www.ubc.ca
the semester is about half over...and i've mostly adjusted to being a 27-year-old in class with youngsters. i'm studying in history and religious studies...and enjoying the tremendous challenge and insight. what i wanted to say tonight is that, much like our journey as a group here in burnaby...i'm being stretched to question and search through some of the 'quick' and hasty assumptions we make with regards to our own tradition. and by that, i mean some of the 'quick' ways we read scripture...and some of the hasty answers we conjure for big questions. this term i'm studying the book of job and the life of paul...both in the context of historical and literary criticism in one of canada's most specified faculties. and while that makes some of you cringe...and others of you move on to a different website [i.e. trace...chuckle], i'm finding the journey to be invigorating.
the truth is that...as we've often talked about our journey to/in vancouver being...jesus and His irresistable teachings MUST be here, even when the answers aren't what we thought they were. so...needless to say, i'm learning.
SW

our dinner party

The photo journal of a night filled with friends.

On September the 28th we hosted a dinner for our friends, people we have come to love in Vancouver.

our neighbours - jody and kristen and their three little boys...david and angela and their two kiddies...marcello and iola, angela's parents...mj and her two boys harry and stanley, who are caleb's best buds..aki and lena and their little girl who rosie goes to school with.

work friends - liz and mike and their little girl, the photographer tracey has been shooting with this summer...

and just friends - david and roberta, a great couple we met from tracey's BNI... daniel and bella, another couple we met and love dearly...angela and her daughter miranda, who tracey went to high school with... amber, a friend of lani's...josh and chantal, jonathan's brother and his girlfriend..

We had a 5 course meal made by the creative hands of 4 up-and-coming chefs. In an environment designed by our team, MissionBurnaby. It was beautiful...to have our friends all together eating and enjoying each other. The kids even had an incredible time downstairs with our child superhero, erin!

Enjoy the pics.

our living rooms turned into two dining rooms, dressed in autumn colors..

the first course: sun-dried tomato pesto salad..

just a glimpse of all 24 of us in our living rooms..















the chefs hard at work in the kitchen..
















the three chefs - jonathan, chris and susana






















susana putting together her native mexican dish, our second course: pollo con mole with poblano rice... YUM!!

the surprise palate cleanser - cucumbers with a salty tomato concoction!

jonathan preparing the pork vindaloo





















susana at the stove..





















chris putting the papadam on the vindaloo before serving it to our guests..















the 3rd course - pork vindaloo wrapped in naan bread...mmmmmmmmm!
















and the fourth course - ricotta ravioli with fennel sauce






















and the last course - DESSERT!! baklava & root beer floats!

child superhero erin and her dozen little people!

been having some fun doing what i love...

hey everyone.. been having a lot of fun "working".. sometimes i wonder if i can even call what i do work; i LOVE my job and it's always something i look forward to..the accounting side of it, however is an entirely OTHER story.. ;) but seriously, i love my job..i'm so blessed.

so check out my photo blog to see what i've been up to the last week.. :)

tracey's photo blog

xo
tracey

thankful...

There are alot of things I am very thankful for and remember to be thankful for all throughout the year. Things like family, far and near, friends, old and new, and God, unchanging. This Thanksgiving God has been reminding me of some of the things I often forget about and take for granted.

I am working today on the holiday so I can take another day off later when my parents come to visit. (super sweet!)
It's easy for me to forget to be thankful for my job. :)

I have a dentist appointment today too.
It's easy for me to forget to be thankful for teeth (and good health in general) and medical care (and now partial dental coverage - woot woot!)

We went to the grocery store Saturday to buy turkey dinner supplies.
It's easy for me to forget to be thankful for easy access to food and the money to buy it.

I slept in a warm, safe bed last night and took a hot shower this morning.
It's easy for me to forget to be thankful for a nice place to live, a peaceful country to call home and dependable electricity and running water.

I'm in "process" working through the "junk" in my life. Somedays painfully coming to the other side of it, somedays painfully staying right in the middle of it, somedays painfully avoiding it.
It's easy for me to forget to be thankful that Jesus continues to contend for me because He thinks I'm worth fight for.

The moments when I'm confident there is and was no other time but now for me to be at this exact place in life, I'm thankful for God's incredibly impeccable timing. But somedays, He reminds me again of how perfect it is and how grace filled He is. Today is one of those days.

a funny thing happened...

...on the way home from a film industry networking event i attended last night.

i was invited by my friend eng to go to this event..maybe make some good contacts. and there was FREE FOOD. like seriously, who can pass that up?? it was held in this really great cafe called calhoun's down in kitsilano on 4th.

so after the event eng and i are driving down hastings.
we're almost to willingdon (for those of you who arent' from here, none of this street name business will make sense..sorry!) and this copper flicks on his lights to go thru a red light, it seemed.

well if ANY of you know how i am in my car whilst driving it, i am all about justice for injust driving. so instantly i'm beeking to eng, "can you believe that cop? honestly, how do they get to just flick their lights on and go thru a red light? and look he's only a car ahead of me now. was it really worth it??"

you get my picture.. :)

so coming up to holdom, east on hastings still, and i noticed police lights in front of me on the side of the road, behind what seems to be a pulled over white van. the police mobile was a white volvo ghost car. so then i see my friend the cop pull around the guy in front of him, lights on, to then do what looks like a U-turn to go back down hastings the other way.

wrong.

he pulls right in front of the car in the lane next to mine to block the red car, with alberta plates i might add, and the volvo screaches in front of me, as i bash my brakes on, and in moments there are 4 cops around this car, to my left, one car up from my car.

and they had their guns pulled.

ok, when i saw that, i instantly thought, and said, "holy crap, they have guns, that guy must be a bad guy, oh god, what if the DRIVER has a gun and starts shooting?? i'd be shot!"

meanwhile, poor eng is trying to calm me down, i'm stunned and watching this drama outside my car and they finally get the guy out and put him on the ground and cuff him and take him away.

i'm stunned.
completely so, that the volvo driving cop comes to my window and says, 'thanks for stopping and not hitting me'. and i'm like, 'ya', and wondering if i should drive away or what..

so we begin to drive away.
and then i realize why waaaaaaaay back at willingdon mr cop man had went thru the red light to get ahead.. and why mr volvo cop man was "faking" pulling someone over..

unbelievable.

that was more action than any film industry event could have put on.

:)

here I am again

well people in blog world. here is a little bit of my adventure the last while.
I am taking some addictions counseling courses from a college in vancouver which have been going pretty good and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of being completed. one more left after this one i am almost done. More about what perhaps this schooling will be used for other than holding a slow sign or driving in a truck.:-)
I was going to catch the bus downtown after work one night/morning, it all runs together and I saw a poster on a pole for some addiction seminar forum thing. I emailed the contact and he told me they were talking about what to do about the addiction problem in, specifically, downtown vancouver. One of the recent assignments was to present a story of an addicted or recovered person and tell their story and tell perhaps why they fell into addiction and how they recovered. I was reading a book by a guy named Monty Lewis, (phenomenal story, short bathroom read, google it, its 5 bucks) who founded cons for christ and told a bit of his story of brokeness, addiction, violence and all the many prisons he was in all over Canada. I had 5 mins to share so I read excerpts to the group about his coming to the end of his sanity and his need for peace which God gave him through his desparate prayer. And shared how his life was changed from that prayer on. One lady asked to borrow the book, and that was one of my goals. And This next meeting we are to bring a story of a self help or spiritual methods used in the war against addiction, I am going to talk a bit about teen challenge which is a faith based organization all over the world and 12 in Canada that uses biblical principles and methods for young men and women committed to a year and God does miraculous work in the lives of these young people. So its been cool to be a part of this "seminar" and to get to share glimpse of true freedom, found in Jesus. One guy said this at the meeting to me, "I am ok with God, I just dont like his fan club" argh... its so true sometimes sometimes I go and mess up who Jesus truly is and people are turned off, but there is hope and thankfully its not me.

So we have been out out in Vancouver now for 3 months and it has flown like a bird that flies really fast, hmmm maybe a hummingbird( they actually fly backward, weird) anyway. I am currently working for a line painting company that does most of the lines and intersections in this area and beyond, so its been good. good guys i work with and some good money but definitely not a life calling and they shut down when it gets to the real rainy season. You might wonder what I do, well if we are working on a busy road I help put out cones and redirect traffic so they can put the lines down without getting hit, then I sweep the line to get rid of the grit so its smooth, sometimes I drive the truck behind the “line guys” so the traffic is directed to the other lane. Well its not really paint at all, its plastic, hot plastic that is kept hot in a propane fired kettle, it last longer than paint and dries much quicker, if you want to know more email me and I will tell you.

So its been good times, and at the end some real good lines are showing up on the pavement, and to think I had a part in that.. sniff. It’s a beautiful thing. So this rainy week I worked one day,(trusting tomorrow stays dry) needless to say I am looking for another job to prepare for the end of this job. I had an interview today at a risk youth assessment and receiving home where the kids are placed there until better arrangements are made with the goal trying to be reuniting them back with their parents if its possible and safe for them. 13-18 yr old and co-ed so like whoah is what I am thinking,( like a mini youth all nighter gone bad) there are 7 kids at a time. I am going to be doing some orientation/observation shifts this next week to see if we all fit together and then perhaps start working there on a contract basis. 8 hours a day, varying days per week.

I am excited for something more where my heart is youth and being there for them. This is where this addictions counseling courses might come in to play.
Meryl is working at a cafe in the Vancouver general hospital and enjoying it and they love her there, who wouldn’t, and old men often hit on her and tell her they would work for a pretty girl like her, but this is where trust comes into our relationship:-0 but she feels there is more for her in this life than serving coffee to doctors and nurses fulfilling their dreams. So we are waiting to see what this fall and spring hold for her. Pray for us in our search for the places we work, people we are placed with here and the seasons we are in.

peace

About time...

Well, good news in my world. I have a job! I'm going to be starting next week at Building Opportunities with Business Inner City Society. I'll be working in the downtown eastside of Vancouver as an Employment Support Coordinator. The hope is to bring life to a very dismal part of Vancouver. How do you connect businesses, with those that need jobs, without displacing the homeless that call this area home? I'm going to find out.. or rather, it might just be my job to find out. Eeesh!

Thank you for everyone that was praying for my job... I think I might need you to keep praying as I start! The next step is to find an apartment and roommates.

Have a beautiful day everyone!