Changes

Today was Canadian Thanksgiving, a time when families normally get together to visit and share a turkey dinner. Back when our kids were younger, we either went to Kathy’s family’s place, or had our families over to our place. When we went to Burkina, we got together with fellow Canadians there to celebrate the day.

But this year was different. We’re back in Canada for a bit, but our kids are grown up and gone, and we don’t have a place of our own to invite people to come and share a meal with us. So what happened? Melissa’s parents, Tim & Pat, invited us to join in their family celebration along with their parents and their grown children (they also invited us to stay at their place for a couple of days before we head off to the States). Josh & Melissa were there too, having just returned from their honeymoon. It was a wonderful day for us. Thanks, Tim & Pat, for this blessing.

I used to take these family times for granted. I reckon that’s normal when you’re at that stage of life. But we’re at a different stage now, and what was once ordinary has now become something special. Like the old Joni Mitchell song says, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. I guess that’s normal too :)

We’ve got another big change coming up. On Tuesday, we leave for Orlando, Florida, the first stop on a 5-city trip to the USA that makes up the orientation program for our new roles in Burkina starting next March. Josh is kindly driving us to the airport in Toronto, despite the fact that this means he’ll have to get up at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m. and fight rush hour traffic to get us there.

It’s great to have family and friends that we can count on to help us out like this when we need it. Josh has already deliverd and picked us up from the airport several times over the past couple of months. Our sincere thanks also go out to friends Len & Carla who generously lent us a car from the beginning of September up until the end of last week. How many people do you know that would do something like that for people they hardly know?

Anyway, my next posting will be from Florida. Someone wrote to say that it’s 92 degrees F. there and that we should bring our swimsuits! Wow! That’ll be a switch from here where summer is definitely over and fall is well on its way. We’ve actually been rather chilly here in Kitchener the past few days. But we’re not complaining. Last year at this time, we were sweating to death in Burkina. So we’re enjoying the cool temps here while we can :)

Well, it’s midnight and I’m getting chilled sitting here in our bedroom and writing this blog. Time to call it a day and crawl under the covers. Good night!