Moving on…

I haven’t posted anything here for a few months and, because we moved from Elliot Lake to St Marys over two months ago, I have decided to retire Two weeks from everywhere. The title speaks more of life in Elliot Lake than it does of being in St Marys. We had a (mostly) great fourteen years in Elliot Lake and it will always be special to us in its own way, especially as that was where our son was born. However, in comparison, being in St Marys seems more like being two minutes from everywhere. Even though it is smaller than Elliot Lake it now seems like we are two minutes from everywhere – twenty minutes from Stratford, thirty minutes from London, just over an hour from the US border, and just under two hours from Toronto.

With all of this in mind, I have started another blog, Roads go ever ever on, which will be more of a reflection of life in St Marys. It’s a work in progress and it will probably undergo a few changes in the next little while. Thanks for following this blog and I hope to see you at the new one. I’ll leave this one up, but this will be the last post here.

Colin Jackson (1946-2015)

I just read the sad news today that one of my Rangers heroes growing up, Colin Jackson, passed away yesterday. Growing up in Orkney, I didn’t get to many Rangers games. However, one that I did get to was the Scottish League Cup final on 31 March 1979, when we beat Aberdeen 2-1. The winning goal came in injury time and was headed in by Jackson. We came from behind as well and I still remember the goal well. An added bonus to being at the final was that on the Monday, a couple of days after the final, my parents had organised for us to have a tour of Ibrox, which finished off with us watching the players train across the road from the stadium. I got to meet most of the player and had them sign my programme from the final. It was probably the highlight of our holiday. I think the programme is still in a box at my parents house.

Here’s the highlights of that Cup Final. The quality isn’t the best, but it’s still worth watching:

Saturday Snapshot – Labyrinth (June 6)

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy. Go there to see how you can participate.

Last week I took the opportunity to visit the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Sudbury, as I wanted to check out the labyrinth there before we move later this month. It was worth the visit and I’m sorry I didn’t take the opportunity sooner, as it is a quiet and peaceful place. Here are a few of the snapshots I took:

 

Teaser Tuesdays – The Little Old Lady Strikes Again (May 5)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here are my teasers for this week:

He greeted her with a big bear hug and after a cup of tea, with a drop of cloudberry liqueur, they went up to her room and listened to her new vinyl record, a recording of somebody called Bruce Spring—something. She had wanted to try something new, but was completely astonished to find such modern music on vinyl.

From page 87 of The Little Old Lady Strikes Again by Catharina Ingelman-Sunberg.

Bookmark Monday – #maythefourthbewithyou

Bookmark Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Aloi from guiltless reading. Take a picture of one of your favourite bookmarks, post it on your blog, and head over to guiltless reading to share a link to your post.

Today is May the Fourth, which means it is Star Wars day. So this week I’m sharing a few pictures of Star Wars bookmarks from around the web. I’m sure we have a few around the house, but we’re a little disorganized at the moment as we begin to get ready to move in less than two months time.

Teaser Tuesdays – The Undertaking (April 28)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here are my teasers for this week:

So whenever I or one of my siblings would ask to go here or there or do this or that, my father’s first response was almost always “No!” He had just buried someone doing that very thing.

From page 46 of The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch.

Moving on…

Today we officially found out that after fourteen years of ministry in Elliot Lake we are moving on to new opportunities in Southern Ontario. On June 26 we will take up our new appointment at St. Mary’s Community Church.

Obviously, after having been here for such a long time, there are some mixed feelings about moving on. Having said that, the timing is right and we are very excited at the prospect of a new challenge in a new community (new to us anyway). We don’t know very much about St. Mary’s, but I’m sure we’ll find out a lot about it in the next few weeks.

There have been a lot of good times here in Elliot Lake, as well as some challenging ones. Our son was born here and we’ve watched our children grow up to be teenagers.There was also the excitement of opening our new building downtown in May 2009 and the fresh opportunities that brought. The biggest challenges for us have come in the past three years, especially with the aftermath of the mall collapse in June 2012. Some of these challenges have been draining and we believe that things will benefit from the fresh perspective that our successors will be able to bring to the community.

Over the past few months there have been some unfounded rumours about us leaving and the Army being closed down here. These have mainly been by people who don’t have a great understanding of how things work in our organization. As a lot of what was being said was second or third-hand gossip it was very difficult to deal with. The truth is that things will continue to operate after we leave here. There are no plans to close anything down and, in fact, the new people may see some different opportunities to expand upon some of the foundations that are already here.

The next few weeks will be busy, as we work through fourteen years of accumulation and pack up our belongings. The worst part may be packing up all the books we have gathered. I did cull a few in the past few months, but I find it really difficult to part with them.

I’ll post some updates as things progress, or if we find out more that we can share about St. Mary’s. Until then, if it is your thing, a few prayers for a smooth transition would be really helpful.