Matt's Blog

New Blog

2012-01-28T18:04:00.001-08:00

Please see here for new updates: http://vandykensinmexico.blogspot.com .

Cottage Pictures 2010

2010-09-06T05:55:00.001-07:00

One of the several Ticket to Ride games we played. :)

Dad telling us how big the fish that got away was.

A big game of "Tip Curt over". (Also known as wrestling.)

Dominican Trip (only slightly overdue :) )

2010-02-27T19:09:00.001-08:00

Just tonight, I wrote an update regarding my recent trip to the Dominican Republic for the Oak Glen church "paper". And so I thought since the work of writing it out was done, I would include it here as well, for your interest.

________________________

As many of you know, this past January I went to the Dominican Republic for about a week-long trip. The purpose of the trip was to help build a medical clinic in Hato Nuevo, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. (If you have a very good memory, you might remember an article in the Christian Renewal about this very clinic a while back.) The two-story clinic is the project of Ministries In Action (MIA) and Dr. Silvia Martinez, the local representative of the Luke Society. It will replace Dr. Silvia's current clinic in Santo Domingo, which is very crowded and badly in need of more room.
Our group was 19 strong, 18 of whom came the Edmonton Orthodox Reformed Church (a URC). When I was in Edmonton this past summer for an internship, they kindly invited me to come along with them on this trip. We were quite the crowd of people all told! The local kids would always shout out upon seeing us, "¡Gringos, gringos!" To which we would reply, being Canadians, "No, ¡canadienses, canadienses!" :) But we were there to work, and work we did. Our main job was to paint, and so we were very thankful to have a professional painter along to direct us.
On one of the days, we made a trip to one of the bateys. (The bateys are some of the poorest sections in the Dominican Republic.) There, after a small VBS program, some of the girls who were nurses helped Dr. Silvia in an impromptu clinic while the rest of us were busily occupied playing games with the kids.
By night we were invited to come to different churches in the area. I had originally been told that I would be asked to preach once, but as I soon found out, I would have to preach five times in four different churches! I was quite nervous about preaching in Spanish and also was quite worried that any grand ideas they had of a Canadian preacher would soon prove to be reversed. But I found the congregations were very encouraging and appreciative. It was a very different experience, but I am so thankful for their warm welcomes given to our group.
Other highlights from the trip included late-night 5-inch spider-killing, as well as forming a mid-night fire brigade. (Ask me if you want to hear the story.)
All in all, it was a busy, tiring, yet very encouraging trip. What was most special to me was the bond we shared with the D.R. Christians - the bond of being Christians joined together by the body and blood of Christ.
________________________

Winter Wonderland of Hoarfrost

2010-01-22T17:09:00.000-08:00

I recently had the opportunity to preach in Forreston RCA, Illinois. Great was my surprise to see a beautiful hoarfrost! Unfortunately, I missed what would have been the most beautiful picture of all (the town church where we were with the surrounding trees), but here you can some that I took on my drive back to Indiana.

Job 37:9-14 - Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: and cold out of the north. By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened. Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud: he scattereth his bright cloud: and it is turned round about by his counsels: that they may do whatsoever he commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth. He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy. Hearken unto this, O Job: stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.

On a different note... Solzhenitsyn

2009-11-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

One of the professors at school referred us students to an address given at Harvard a while back (1978). Solzhenitsyn was a Russian who lived during the Communist times, lived at a labour camp for years, and was finally exiled because of his views. I believe that he became a Christian. He died just last year.

Here's a very short version of his speech and here's the whole shebang. It's a fascinating critique of Western society, written from a Christian perspective and also from one who grew up as a Russian communist.

Thanks for the link, Brian! (In case you're reading this.)

Quick fish post...

2009-09-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

I have to make this quick, as I really should be studying, but... the Swets took us out for some fishing on Labor Day weekend near Dan's work. We caught a lot of sunfish and I caught this nice catfish. It was maybe around 7 pounds or so?

Samuel de Champlain Fish Roll

2009-08-27T06:50:00.001-07:00

We just got back from Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park this past Tuesday. We had a great time. Curt, Jen, Phillip, and Ruth came up for one of the weekends, and we really enjoyed our time together. There is some great snorkeling and rapids-on-an-air-mattress at the park.

And of course for any camping trip, there is the small question of fishing. It was incredible! Never have we caught so many large fish in such a short time. You will have to ask for the stories that go along with these fish some other time.

We started out fishing quite a bit on the Mattawa River just below the rapids. There we caught a number of smaller small-mouth bass. But the highlight there is a 14.5 lb catfish - 31 inches long, 18 inches in girth that I caught. No picture unfortunately, but that's the official family record for catfish to my knowledge (aside from Dad's unofficial cat in Jordan Harbour, and aside from any picture-less fish that Jer remembers catching. :) Just kidding, of course.)

After Curt, Jen, Phillip, and Ruth left, Dad, Mom, and I discovered another place, outside of the park. The location is classified... we might let you in on it for a price. :)

First of all, I caught a 3.8 lb large-mouth bass there.

Then soon after that I caught a 4.4 lb walleye! This fish actually broke the line right next to the shore, whereupon Dad jumped in and caught it with his bare hands. So the credit goes just as much to Dad as to myself. Here you can see the two fish. We let the bass go, and made a fish-fry out of the walleye (cut into pieces and fry in egg and bread crumbs).

Then on the following day, Dad caught a 1 lb largemouth, and then I caught a 5 lb largemouth! This was my biggest largemouth ever, though Jonathan still holds the (unofficial?) record for his Florida bass.

Actually, this bass has a bit of a story as well. We decided to keep it, and left it tied up on the shore. But we came to get it just before we were going to go, and a turtle had been chewing on it! :( All in all, we probably lost a pound of meat to the turtle (though the 5 lbs measurement was taken in the pre-turtle era.) We ate this one as well (deep fried with batter). Here is a picture so you can see the turtle effect a little better. (The other side was worse.)

And finally on the next day, Dad wrestled a fish out of the one location that we had been trying for a while. It was a 4.2 lb largemouth. (Dad's biggest?) We let this fish go, as (needless to say) we had just had two very big fish dinners.

I've never seen fishing like that before. Incredible, eh? Too bad Curt and Jen and Ruth and Phillip couldn't have stayed a bit longer!

The Flatlands

2009-08-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

Pictures from the "Land of the Living Sky" (Saskatchewan license plate motto).

This picture reminded me of the marshes in LOTR. Dad would probably be horrified that I'm comparing real experience to movies, but ah well. :)

This was what a good number of my pictures look like before editing. :)

The ubiquitous grain elevator, once again.

One of the river valleys. (Athabasca?)

The Trans-Canada pipeline? No, just some hay bales.

They do everything big in these provinces! This train was actually probably five times as long as what you see.

Borden Bridge.

Some Manitoba farmland. The horizon is at least 10 kilometers away! (I measured.)

Right now I'm at a Day's Inn in Portage La Prairie. Tomorrow night I'll be into Ontario. I'm thinking of sleeping in my car overnight, so you may not hear from me.

My place #2

2009-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

What happens when things are forgotten in the fridge that never should have been in the fridge in the first place.

I never knew an onion could do that. Actually, I saw it starting to sprout and so I left it in the fridge.

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving for Ontario. I was going to leave tonight, but it didn't work out (too much to do). So I'm not going to stop by Calgary and am instead driving straight from here (no change in plans for Thursday, don't worry).

My place

2009-08-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Ah... the peaceful quiet of a bachelor's suite. No worries at all. Here's a picture of my mug (I cleaned half of it) to show you the true state of things. :)

Don't worry... it's not quite as bad as that. Two reasons - first of all, my mug is usually elsewhere when I do the dishes. And secondly, if you look carefully, I made the shadow line up with the tea/coffee stain on the mug. :)

Here's some other assorted pictures of Edmonton. This one below is my appartment (part of a four-plex) from the outside. The tree there is a half dead birch. All the birches in the area seem to have the same sort of malady.

A local jack-rabbit I saw in the park.

And a nearby retirement complex.

Record Walleye? (For the family, at least...)

2009-08-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

Last week, one of the guys from the congregation - Jean-David Jutras - invited me to go on a fishing trip with him in Northern Alberta. We went to Calling Lake, a northern lake right beside of Grandpa's favorite fishing lake - Fawcett Lake.

I had never caught any walleye before, so Jean-David was going to show me how to catch some. And catch some we did! Here is the picture of my second walleye there. We weighed it, and it was right at 5 lbs. Unfortunately, we never got to eat it, as it bent the stringer during the day and got away. Here are two pictures of it.

Jeremy? Curt? Is this the record for walleye? We should really have a page somewhere discussing who caught what for the family records. :)

Thanks for the great trip, Jean-David!

Food

2009-07-18T19:12:00.001-07:00

My latest, greatest effort at cooking... harvest casserole.

If you come over soon enough, I'll even let you have some! :) Though you better hurry, 'cause it's .....

Edmonton Fishing

2009-07-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

Today I went fishing with Mr. Klaas VanderVeen and Rev. Pols. The fishing wasn't quite as good as the last time... but we did still make out pretty well, as you can see. These were all the fish we three kept (I didn't catch all of these.... don't worry.) Rev. Pols caught the most as well as the biggest one, which was probably about 3 pounds.

I did do pretty well though, even getting some fish on some of my biggest lures. I tried the Baramundi Mauler, Curt & Jer, but didn't get anything on that one unfortunately. :)

We also saw on the trip two bald eagle's, some loons, and a big white pelican.

Afterwards, we went over to the VanderVeen's and had a nice dinner there together (Mr. and Mrs. VanderVeen, Rev. & Mrs. Pols, and Kevin VanderVeen, a grand-son).

This picture is of the bright yellow canola fields on the way home. Beautiful!

Long Overdue Pictures #2 - The Sky... of Wisconsin, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta

2009-07-06T22:37:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago, I drove out to Edmonton to start an internship there with the Edmonton ORC church (a URC). I haven't taken any pictures out here yet, unfortunately, but I did take a lot of pictures on the road trip. 3500 km, in toto! I took three days to do it, which allowed for a fairly easy driving schedule (13, 9, 8 hours I believe). It was a very enjoyable trip. I listened to some music, a good number of sermons, as well as the complete audiobook of Dostoyevesky's "The Karamazov Brothers".

The main thing that impressed me on the trip was the sky. The sky is so big out here! Everything is so flat (especially in Saskatchewan) that you can see for miles and miles. That means that you can see much more of the sky than in Ontario. On my second day, I was chasing a storm for quite some time. I went right through a violent part of it, as you can see. The downpours are quite torrential (though localized).

The Trip.

Approaching a down-pour.

In the middle of the down-pour.

Saskatchewan. No trees for as far as you can see.

After a storm, #1. No set of pictures on a trip through the Prairies (aka 'Grain Basket') would be complete with a picture of the ubiquitous grain elevator).

After a storm, #2. I think this is my favourite picture.

____________________________________________

He has made the earth by His power;
He has established the world by His wisdom,
And stretched out the heaven by His understanding.

When He utters His voice--
There is a multitude of waters in the heavens:
He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth;
He makes lightnings for the rain;
He brings the wind out of His treasuries."

(Jeremiah 51:15-16).

Long Overdue Pictures #1 - Where I Stay in Chicago

2009-07-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

A certain dear cousin of mine has lately been after me to update this blog. So, I have overcome my tardiness and procastinatory nature (for the present, at least), and have chosen some pictures to post. These pictures are of the Swets' house, where I stayed in Chicago. It's quite a pretty house, as you can see. The Swets have put a lot of work into it. The yard is quite large as well, and extends a long ways backwards. Very nice for studying, though I'm afraid I haven't availed myself of the backyard too often. :( I'll have to rectify that next year.

It has been very nice to stay here. The Swets are very kind & sociable, love to play games :), and always include us students (Aaron V. and myself) in the life of the household.

Pictures of Visit and Gary's Bachelor Party

2009-03-17T18:37:00.000-07:00

These pictures are long overdue. The first shows a visit from Pastor Bouwers and Mr. Sinke. They came all the way from Jordan Station to visit me at MARS! That was very nice of them and of consistory.... a real blessing!

And this was from a while back. It's of Gary Z's Bachelor party.

Joshua Project

2009-03-17T18:23:00.001-07:00

I came across this site the other day... it shows a map of the world where you can see the unreached people groups of the world.

http://www.joshuaproject.net/

Pond Hockey (or rather... Pond Shovelling)

2009-01-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas break, I visited Uncle Curt & Aunt Jane's house. I went there right before that one big storm (when we got over 1 foot of snow). We decided to play some pond hockey, but by the time we got the whole pond shovelled, we were just about too tired to play! And we could only play for about 20 minutes before we had to re-shovel. All in all, we probably did about 2-3 hours of shovelling for about 40 minutes of hockey. :)

Here's a picture Derek took. As you can see it was quite blizzardly!

Done!!!

2008-12-20T14:44:00.000-08:00

With thanks to the Lord for His goodness and sustaining grace, I have finished my first semester at MARS!

After the final exam week, Erik & Gina (from New Zealand) invited all us first-years and Pastor Vander Hart over for a pot-luck dinner. Here are some pictures, so that you can see a little bit of my class-mates. The pictures are compliments of Pastor Vander Hart.

Yevgeni (my room-mate), and Pastor Vander Hart.

Steve and Russ in the background.

Russ and Evan (a friend from Beecher URC).

Richard B. (from Hamilton) and myself, as well as one of Erik & Gina's girls in the background. (I can never keep all their names straight unfortunately.)

Why one deer in the bush is worth two in the hand...

2008-12-20T14:07:00.000-08:00

This story is actually a couple of weeks old, but it's been a little bit busy as of late (papers, exams, etc.), so that's why it took a while for this post.

Anyways, to proceed with the story...

Yevgeni (room-mate from Afganistan-Russia) and myself were happily studying away one Monday night, when Dan (the son of the Swets with whom I'm staying) came in with a story to tell. He had been trying to get a deer for weeks. This time, he had a good opportunity to take down a good-sized buck. But while getting a bead on it, another buck (unbeknownst to himself) walked behind the 1st deer. So he 'killed two bucks with one shot', not always a good thing, as we found out. (Two deer = double the work and double the meat.)

Dan had shot the deer a ways away from the road, so he recruited Yevgeni, myself, and Mrs. Swets to help drag the deer to the truck. It was a good hike, probably a bit over a kilometer. Part of it was through a chopped cornfield, which was quite difficult. (I kept tripping and falling backwards onto the cornstalks. :( ).

Here's a picture of Dan with his two deer.

The next day, I helped Dan skin the first deer, and then skinned the second one myself later on in the week. Dan did most of the cutting up, which was a lot of work. Mr. and Mrs. Swets patiently worked in the kitchen, grinding up most of the meat and combining it with pork. So we have a LOT of deer meat now! And Mrs. Swets wasn't even sure if she wanted all the meat from one deer! :) But the following week, we had Gary Z. and Aaron V. over, and Mrs. Swets made some chili with the deer meat. It was really good!

More Seminary Life...

2008-11-03T19:08:00.001-08:00

This past Wednesday night, Corey, Simon, and Gary (fellow seminary students - middlers) came over for a hot tub party with Eugene and myself hosting. (Yes, the Swets do have a hot tub, and a nice one at that!) We had a lot of fun, with cigars provided by Corey. It was a good time of fellowship, with conversational topics ranging from theology to Uzbekistan to student life.

Study Break

2008-10-31T12:23:00.001-07:00

It's reading break right now (hence the two new posts), and I've been studying all day. The following was my first study break. I got the idea while playing with (nephew!) Joel out west actually.

The base is made of 6 sets of 3, then 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1. I used up every piece of a double 12 Domino set to make this.

I was surprised at how stable it was. It took a solid bump to the table before it finally fell over!

... definitely time to get back to the books. :)

Flood Relief

2008-10-31T05:43:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, we had a good sized flood in September after the hurricane. Actually, it was a double whammy. Indiana got dumped on by two different storms, back-to-back. I think we had something like 8 or 9 inches of rain on each of two consecutive days. The seminary was turned into an evacuation center, with people staying there for two nights. I helped out by staying up on the second night along with Aaron V. and Yevgeni K.

So here's (finally) some pictures of the flood. None of these are my pictures... I kept forgetting my camera and wishing I had taken it along.

This past Saturday, I took a break from my studies and helped out one of the relief teams from Oak Glen URC. We spent the whole morning on this house. There was a lot of stuff in the basement that was ruined, as you can see. The man from the house called it the "Wailing Wall". Apparently, this was a quite a common sight all along the flooded streets!

Steve & Nicole's Wedding

2008-09-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to Washington State for Steve & Nicole's (Enter) wedding. The wedding was very nice and went with only one major hitch (sorry, very bad pun :) ). Holly (niece) was one of the SEVEN flower-girls, as you can see in the pictures.

The groomsmen.

The bride's maids (and matrons).

Holly looking quite cute outside. The weather was unfortunately typical Washington weather (grey and rainy), but that did mean that the colors stood out quite well, as you can see.

And of course, another high point was seeing once again Steve, Laurie, the kids (Emily, Marie, Joel, Holly), and for the first time the NEW BABY Jenna!

Camping Trip To Thousand Islands

2008-08-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, the three kids of our family (Jer, me, and Ruth) went on a camping trip to the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence. (Well, one of the islands anyways.) We had a very relaxing enjoyable time, filled with snorkelling in our wetsuits (we sure put those to good use), some fishing, and enjoying ourselves. I've been meaning to post about this for a while, but here are some pictures. I did take an underwater camera, but we haven't filled it up yet, so I don't have any pictures of those unfortunately.

It's a beautiful park, good fishing, great snorkelling, fairly quiet. (There are a lot of boats that go by during the day however.)

Yes, we did do other things besides fish.

Jer and I caught this one trolling. I forget the size... something like 3.5 lbs? (For the record, I caught this one, even though Jeremy's holding it. :) )

Go west, young man... where did that quote come from, anyways?

This fungus was HUGE, probably about 1.5 feet across.

Ruth took this beautiful sunset picture.

Retreat

2008-08-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

... just a note to say that Steve has pictures of the Seminary Retreat up on his blog: http://steveamy.wordpress.com/

Seminary Life

2008-08-23T15:16:00.000-07:00

Steve and I have been doing pretty well by ourselves so far. Steve makes these amazing power drinks made of beets and carrots and all sorts of other fruit... they taste amazing. We've been eating pretty well too... here's a picture of our last supper.

But just today both of us needed haircuts, so we went to a place in a mall. I don't think either of our barbers had ever cut many heads of hair like ours, and they both took quite a long time cutting. Steve's turned out pretty well, but I think my barber was a little lost... half of my head on the top was buzzed, while the front was clipped, allowing for a nice big cluft of hair (like Tintin). :)

Here's two pictures of the 20 dollar haircut:

And here's a picture after the fix up job in the bathroom.

Steve and I had a good laugh about this one! :)

This is what happens to guys who study Greek (continued)...

2008-08-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Seeing Steve & Amy's blog reminded me of a funny picture I saw in my Greek workbook.

If you can't read the caption, it says: "Here is a famous Greek scholar who spent too much time studying and not enough time playing." (Basics of Biblical Greek Workbook, 2nd Ed., William D. Mounce). :)

A Trip to the Zoo

2008-07-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

On July 1st (a while ago, I know), we (the Ontario Clifford & Henriette Van Dyken clan) made a trip to the zoo ( http://www.zooz.ca/ ) on the way to Fort Erie. It was a beautiful day for it, and we had a good time. We saw monkeys swinging, lions roaring, storks squawking angrily (we got too close to the nest), hippopotami sneezing, friendly macaws, and we even got some fishing in there. The park was very nice for a day trip... not too big, not too small. Here are some of the pictures I took (I don't know where Mom's are, sorry).

And some more fishing...

2008-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Dad, Curt, and I went to Mountsberg on Saturday morning. The fishing was excellent, probably because it was just after a long cold week (both of the fish I cleaned had empty stomachs). We caught about 8 pike, some small perch and sunfish, and two crappie. Curt's pike was his biggest ever, (I think), 26.5 inches, 3lbs 7oz. My second crappie (picture below) was 11.5oz. Some good fishing!

Fishing again...

2008-06-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

I went out for about an hour on Friday just before a storm. The fishing was incredible! I spent most of my time fighting with the fish. I had a nice one on at first, but it got so tangled up in the lilypads that it finally got off. Then I caught this one, an 8 lb catfish. I was in my rubber dinghy, and went on a nice ride for both of them.

(Sorry, the pictures aren't that great.)

For bait, I tried something new... cheese & raisins! I plan on trying to make some kind of a mesh around the cheese in the future to keep it on. Usually, it would fall off on the first strike.

Another cat...

2008-06-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

Dad caught this one tonight... 5.3 lbs.

Catfish Season

2008-05-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

Catfish season is just starting in Jordan Harbour, as the weather is finally starting to warm up. I went fishing for a bit today with Derek and Elliot (two neighbour guys from Trinity). I didn't catch any big ones (the two biggest are shown here), but Derek caught a five-pound one before I got there.

I think this one was about a pound or so.

And one last picture of a beautiful sunrise I saw a couple of days ago from out of my bedroom window!

And Some Pics....

2008-05-16T16:00:00.001-07:00

Here's a couple of pictures... maybe you've seen some of them already, and maybe you haven't.

Tepic in the early morning.

Jim Vannette vs. Paco.... can you guess who won?

Paco, Carlos, Marcos, and myself.

Angie at the beach.

On top of Cera de la Cruz.

Sophia, Edmundo & Elouisa's little girl. :)

Mexico!!!

2008-05-16T09:07:00.000-07:00

As some of you (whoever is reading this, which I doubt is many :) ) may know, I just got back from the ELM mission trip. A team of about 10 of us (3 from Ontario, 7 from Holland, MI) went down to Tepic, Mexico for the annual mission trip. We kept a blog of the trip on the ELM website (go to Team Blog 2008 on the site). It was an excellent trip! Highlights from the trip for me were:

1. The devotions. The theme was how we can, how we should be, and how we are already equipped to be doing missions right here in Canada. Of course, there is a difference between ordained mission work and our own 'mission' work. But the emphasis for us (which is challenging in our Dutch Reformed mindsets) is that we need to be to be actively looking, thinking, and praying about ways we can reach out to those around us who we know and who we don't know. Going on a mission trip is a great opportunity, but really, as individuals and as a church, we can be doing much the same things here!

2. The church there. It was a blessing to see how the church has been growing in Tepic. Not so much numerically (though that too), but spiritually, as God works in their lives slowly but surely.

3. Practicing my Spanish! This was a lot of fun.

There are a good number of pictures on the Team Blog, as well as on Richard & Angela's blog. I hope to put a couple up here too.

Snow !!!

2008-03-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up to a beautiful surprise... the snow had stopped, the trees were covered in ice, and the sun was shining! What a storm that was!

I took these pictures at mid-day, when it wasn't quite as pretty as in the morning unfortunately.

Honduras Pictures!

2008-03-04T09:38:00.001-08:00

Honduras is a beautiful country, filled with lots of foothills and ridges. This picture was taken soon before we landed in the capital of Honduras. We didn't go into regions quite this rugged, but it does give you a little bit of a sense of what the driving is like.

This was taken just outside of Comayagua (where the Langendoen's live). I think it had just rained not long before. At one time, Honduras was covered by jungle and forests. However, large parts have been deforested, due to fires and tree-cutting.

The two Langendoen girls, Davina (left) and Eva (right).

Here you can see the three of us (me, Jonathan, and Melanie). This was the first VBS program we had, at the church.

The following three pictures were taken in the South where we had two programs in two different communities (Nueva Reunion and Ojo de Agua). Both communities were very poor but had LOTS of kids. :)

Nueva Reunion church.

Ojo de Agua (Eye of Water) church.

We played a lot of soccer in the south. Here, however, we were teaching the kids a Canadian (British?) game... British Bulldog. It worked quite well and was a lot of fun to see all the kids running.

Cockroaches. Mrs. Langendoen brought us out one night to LISTEN to them in the back compost heap. You could hear them loudly munching and crunching away all over the pile!

And ants. This was actually a lot of fun. I killed about 7 big red ants and stuck them close to a ant hole. I took this picture about a minute later. I counted 144 ants!

The Langendoen's had a nice palm tree in their front yard. I wanted to climb it, but Jonathan Langendoen had almost got badly hurt before trying to climb it, so that was out. However, while studying one morning, I decided to try to rig something up. So I took two dust mops and strapped them together. Using this as a long pole, I lifted up a lasso knot while Eva twisted the rope to work it around the coconuts. It worked very well! It was a lot of fun, though my study break was a lot longer than it probably should have been. :)

Taken from the balcony at the Langendoen's house. The tree in the foreground actually lost all its leaves while we were there and grew completely new ones. I never thought we would be raking leaves in the Honduras in February, but we were!

Mom said this was a Bogenvillia (spelling?) plant. It grew on top of the wall around the Langendoen's house.

The tarantula. This was a medium size. We saw another one later that was quite a bit bigger.

And finally, a fish picture. We went fishing in some (stocked) ponds just outside of Comayagua. This size was typical. (Sorry, I don't remember the name of the fish.)

En el Pais de las Honduras

2008-02-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

En el pais de las Honduras
(I wrote this up yesterday (Tuesday), but didn't get a chance to post it.)
Hello to everyone at home! I hope you are all well! It has been two weeks already here in the Honduras. Sorry for not posting earlier, but we have been quite busy. Jonathan and Melanie left last Friday, so now I have a lot more time. I am using my spare time for my Greek and also am putting chords to the songs in the Langendoen's hymnbook. We three (Jonathan Reistma, Melanie Smit, and I) arrived here almost two weeks ago on a Wednesday after a LONG trip (8 hour stop-over in Washinton). We were quite tired when we got here, so we rested in the morning, then went through the neighbourhood around the church inviting kids to a two day vacation Bible school. That was held on Thursday and Friday morning, and went quite well. Mrs. Langendoen did most of the teaching, though I did help out a little in my stilted Spanish. One big mistake I kept on making was saying hombro (shoulder) instead of hombre (man). I'm sure the result was somewhat amusing at times (e.g. the Good Samaritan helped the poor 'shoulder' onto his donkey :) ), but hopefully people understood what I meant. We had twenty-eight kids in total. Saturday was a free day which we used to do a lot of shopping. (If anyone wants any vanilla, just ask me. I have two 500 mL bottles for Mom which cost just 15 lempiras (about 75 cents) each!) On Monday, we left for Choluteca in the South. Pastor Langendoen used to pastor there, so we went to visit his previous church there. It was very hot (30-35 degres). The people in the South are very poor. (I'll have to put some pictures up once I get back to Canada.) We had a small program at two different villages there on Tuesday. At Nuevo Reunion, we had 60 kids, and it went very well. At Ojo de Agua, we had over 80 kids. This was a little frenetic (proper word?) at times. The kids at the first place knew the story of the Good Samaritan already, but the kids at the second did not. On Wednesday, we travelled back to Comayagua. On Thursday, we had another free day in which we did a lot of shopping. Jonathan and Melanie bought 7 or 8 machetes between the two of them. (Would anyone like a machete? They are around $10 each.) On Friday, Melanie and Jonathan left. Saturday we cleaned up around the house. Peter (L.) and I were digging the back garden, and we saw EIGHT different tarantulas of varying sizes! Crazy, eh? On Sunday, we had church in the morning (1 sermon by Pastor Orlando, followed by a Catechism study by Pastor Langendoen). In the afternoon, the young people came over, which was a lot of fun. Yesterday (Monday), Pastor Langendoen, Pastor Orlando and I went to a bookstore in Siguetepeca and to visit there. It was the most beautiful stretch of road I've seen yet in the Honduras, but I forgot my camera!! Honduras is quite a beautiful country. There are many small razorbacks everywhere and not many flat sections. (Our airplane landing into Tegucigalpa was quite interesting. The runway there is very short, and to get to it we had to go through a curving valley!) This post is starting to resemble one of those long Jonathan epistles. :) I had better stop soon. I'll wrap up by saying that I am enjoying myself a lot, and am well and healthy. (Praise God that none of us got sick while we were here! It is not uncommon.) I do miss you all at home, and I am looking forward to seeing you in a week. Please continue to pray for me and the Langendoen's and for the work especially. Bye for now!

Steve & Ruth's Birthday Party

2007-02-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

This past Friday, we had a birthday party for Steve and Ruth at our house. I think we had over 20 people over, which made for a full downstairs and a great night of fellowship! Here are some pictures of the night.

The birthday man himself. (Ruth had a beautiful matching hat too.)

We played a very rousing game of 'Cat Loves Dog'. For those who have never had the fun of playing this game, it involves hitting people as hard as you want (or as hard as you can, in some cases, not to mention any names) with a newspaper bat. Quite invigorating!

And some more pictures...

On Reading

2007-01-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking (believe it or not). When so many people are using the Internet or watching TV, how many still read books? I used to read tons of books... I think I've read about 3/4 of the books in our house (and we have a lot of books), a good number of which I've read several times. But over the year's, it's gradually dwindled to a very small number. As I've had some more free time lately, I've been trying to get back into it again. I'm happy to say that it is definitely well worth it.

Here's a couple of books I've read lately that I really enjoyed.

How Sleep the Brave, by James Hunter.
This book is historical fiction (fiction in history) about the persecution of the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland by King James Stuart of England. It's a really neat story about the incredible exploits of Duncan Fenwick (I am not sure how much of the book is real) and how he took up the cause of the Kirk to become the Black Avenger, the avenger and protector of the weak and helpless of the land. I think Duncan is somewhat based upon William Wallace, the real (almost legendary) defender of Scotland (on which Braveheart is based.) This book is exciting, has a beautiful love story threaded through it, and demonstrates throughout simple faith and trust in God acting in difficult situations. A very good book (though it is a little over-dramatic at times.)

Twice Pardoned, by Harold Morris.
This book is the life-story of Harold Morris, an ex-con. He writes telling about his own life as he moved from starting a friendship with some slick criminals. His 'friends' got caught and framed him so well that he was sent to the Georgia State Penitentiary with two life sentences. He quickly became a hardened convict, until by the grace of God, his family finally tracked him down and started visiting him. He finally gave his life to Christ, and after much hard work and petitions received his freedom (hence the name 'Twice Pardoned'). This book is quite a powerful testimony.. I read most of it twice. (It is NOT a kid's book however.)

Three Shall Be One, by Francena Arnold
(F. A. is also author of Not My Will, which I haven't read, but I believe it is quite well-known).
This fiction starts off with a happy marriage between a lonely woman (Pat) and a lonely man (Tony), and is told from Pat's perspective. Pat and Tony are not Christians, but are very happy together (the two are one). However, things start to go wrong between the two when Tony's mother-in-law steps in. Midway through the book, Pat gets in a car accident, and gets a solid case of amnesia. Tony, meanwhile, thinks that Pat has separated from him and has run off. I'm not going to wreck the ending (which has quite a non-expected twist), but suffice it to say that they both come to love the Lord, and are reconciled to each other, such that Three Shall Be One (Christ becomes the center of their marriage).
This was the second time I read this book. The first time I read it, the ending didn't make any sense to me. But now that I reread it, everything made sense. Very well-written, and quite an enjoyable book.

If any of you have any good books you'd like to suggest, then comment away! Brad V. also has an excellent post on reading books at his blog: http://bjv-maranatha.blogspot.com/2006/12/books.html

Funny Faces (Finally)

2006-12-14T16:48:00.000-08:00

So here is part of my funny-faces pictures... some of my best ones. I hope you enjoy them! And to anyone who's featured here, I hope you don't get too annoyed with me... all I can say is if you pictures like this of me or others, then go ahead and post them! It's a lot of fun! :D :D :D

Laurie has some good ones here too at her blog.

Just to clarify, I don't think there is any editing done on any of these except for cropping.

Single Shots

Dad, who can pull off some of the most amazing faces I've ever seen. (Yes, that was a big fish, but not ...that... big.)

Jorge, a good friend from Mexico, practicing to be an opera singer. (Actually, Josh B was trying to steal his nose :) ).

Steve... always stands out in a crowd, eh?

My new cousin Joseph, VERY happily married to Sarah out West.

Two's A Pair, Three's Company

My dear brother and his wife. They are one of a kind, eh? :)

Like brother, like sister? (The picture of Rachel on the right was posed for last year's Boxing Day 'Movies'. You can find the pictures on www.ypfriends.com.)

Jason & Stef. Believe it or not, this was NOT planned.

Kevin and Dan, brothers.

Mark showing one of his skills and Ruth's reaction. (Well... not really, but the pic's do go together well.)

One of my all time favorites.

My sisters and niece all having a "blonde moment". (This one's compliments of Curt.)

And lest I make too many enemies (though I think it's too late already), here's one to make fun of me too. :)

Our New Home

2006-12-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

30 comments so far, and growing! It would be interesting to stop writing and see what that number grows to! :) Ruth has definitely done her ad campaign well. So here I am writing away on a blog that I never expected to be on. I suppose that you won for now, Ruth, but I'll find a way somehow or other to get the upper hand. Maybe some pictures from my 'Funny Faces' album would do the trick.... :)

Anyways, as some people might know, and some people might not, we have moved! We now live in Jordan Station, close to St. Catherines, ON. It's in a tiny subdivision out in the middle of vineyards. Dad walks back and forth to school every day and we've been walking to church too! It's very nice to live so close... much different from Dundas days.

As per Curt's request, here's some pictures of the main floor:

And Curt, here are two pictures of the downstairs appartment. (Sorry, I couldn't find any nice ones of the kitchen area... it's on the right of the first picture.) Mom took these pictures before we bought the house, so the stuff isn't ours. I hope you don't mind a nice, PINK room! It will certainly wake you up in the morning!

I can't say I like the colors of most of the rooms, but other than that, I do like the new place, especially being so close to everything (except work, that is). Now Ruth and I are both prescribing the exact opposite course we did all through high-school! (Before we drove from Hamilton to Jordan St every day, and now we're both driving from Jordan St. to Hamilton every day!) :) But we are very thankful for where we are now. God has definitely blessed us in
giving us a home right next to the school and church.

It's 11:24pm and I am beginning to remember why I didn't want to start a blog. I guess I had better sign off here. ¡Hasta luego a todos!

To Blog Or Not To Blog

2006-11-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

Hmm.... I said to myself (and to others) before that I would never start a blog. I seem to have done so however, the reason being that I encountered a blog which required me to have a blog to comment on it, so I am starting a blog so that I can comment on someone's else's blog. The inanities of blogging are quite beyond me. (Maybe there should be an 's' character in the second word of the last sentence.) However, I will desist. Hopefully my foray into blogging will curtail itself with this post. If anyone is reading this, then my apologies. :)