Thursday, April 26, 2012
Kitchen makeover...
Over the course of the past several weekends I've been working at giving our basement suite kitchen a makeover. This evening I finally finished reinstalling the cabinet doors. Here are the exciting before and after shots :-)
Before...
After...black PVC pipe GONE!
Before...
Before...
After...4 coats of paint later and the grey cabinets GONE, as per our landlord's request. Love the result but so much work! Lets just say I'm not eager to take on another cabinet painting job in the near future.
After...new wall colour too
Before...
After...vinyl baseboard is so easy to install and makes such a big difference
Before...Yikes!
Before...
After...new baseboard
After...Those drywall repair skills I picked up at AMBS came in handy!
Before...
After...
Before...Hole in drywall that I offered to repair for my landlords...
Before...upon further inspection...
After...I decided it would make the perfect play space!
After...
After...
During...(shhh...our landlords don't know yet that I built a door instead of patching the drywall but I have a feeling that they won't mind)
During...
After...Carrie's new magnetic spice rack - an innovative idea for those ugly basement support poles.
After...painted the back of the shelving units and added vinyl base to make it look more like a wall.
After...Painted the wooden trim white. So much cleaner, I think.
Well, our landlords trusted me to give this kitchen a facelift while they were gone. I guess we'll get the verdict next week when they return!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Saskatchewanites visit Mantioba...
(Well, at least a few of the Saskatchewanites.) During the last weekend of February mom, Niki and Levi came down to Mantioba for a visit. They stayed at my place and on Sunday we hung out with Andrew and Pearl. Here we are at Tim Hortons in Steinbach.
Lots of laughs...
Levi discovered how much fun it is to open and close doors. Cheap entertainment.
Andrew and Pearl stopped by my place on Saturday evening to announce their engagement!
Lots of laughs...
Levi discovered how much fun it is to open and close doors. Cheap entertainment.
Andrew and Pearl stopped by my place on Saturday evening to announce their engagement!
Home for Easter...
“Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of all who fall asleep.” 1 Corinthians 15:20
Easter Blessings everyone!
I took off for Hudson Bay early Thursday afternoon and have had the privilege of spending a relaxing Easter weekend with my parents and grandmother. The Good Friday service was an inter-faith ministerial event held at the United Church. We took Friday's supper out to grandma's house on the farm and then Saturday we picked grandma up to come to our place for our "official" Easter Dinner. It's now Sunday morning and we're anticipating a missions report for our Easter service followed by lunch with our guest speakers. Then it's back in the car and back to Winnipeg for me this afternoon.
Preparing the feast...
Making mom's birthday cake...
The Reimer Family Easter Dinner gathering was a little small this year...
Grandma, mom and me...
Checking up on what family was up to this weekend via Facebook...
And snow! When I drove out on Thursday it was +18C, sunny and the grass was turning green. It rained all day on Friday and Saturday morning we woke up to this. I'm curious how the roads will be on the way back to Winnipeg.
Easter Blessings everyone!
I took off for Hudson Bay early Thursday afternoon and have had the privilege of spending a relaxing Easter weekend with my parents and grandmother. The Good Friday service was an inter-faith ministerial event held at the United Church. We took Friday's supper out to grandma's house on the farm and then Saturday we picked grandma up to come to our place for our "official" Easter Dinner. It's now Sunday morning and we're anticipating a missions report for our Easter service followed by lunch with our guest speakers. Then it's back in the car and back to Winnipeg for me this afternoon.
Preparing the feast...
Making mom's birthday cake...
The Reimer Family Easter Dinner gathering was a little small this year...
Grandma, mom and me...
Checking up on what family was up to this weekend via Facebook...
And snow! When I drove out on Thursday it was +18C, sunny and the grass was turning green. It rained all day on Friday and Saturday morning we woke up to this. I'm curious how the roads will be on the way back to Winnipeg.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Bread for the journey...
This month I learned that a friend and fellow seminary student is facing her final weeks on this earth. The cancer that was being kept at bay for the last couple of years is no longer responding to treatment. I have shed many tears for my friend, her husband, her two young adult daughters, and her church. I got to know Jane in our spiritual guidance and pastoral counselling practicums and she is one of the most genuine, nurturing caregivers that I know. Her seemingly untimely illness cannot be fathomed outside of Mystery.
A year and a half ago Jane asked me to lead worship during the chapel service in which she was invited to share her story of living with cancer. At that time we were all hopeful that complete healing was possible, though we knew very well that with cancer one never knows. Today's medical system would like us to think that there are guarantees, but there are really more unknowns than we'd often like to admit. Jane knew that and candidly shared her fears, doubts and questions even while holding on to hope.
In the last few weeks as I've been sending thoughts and prayers Jane's way two of the songs that Jane chose for that chapel service have been surfacing in me:
Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God.
Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word?
All is vain unless the Spirit
of the holy One comes down.
Brethren, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around.
Sisters, will you come and help us?
Moses' sisters aided him.
Will you help the trembling mourners
who are struggling hard with sin?
Tell them all about the Savior.
Tell them that he will be found.
Sisters, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around.
Is there here a trembling jailer,
seeking grace and filled with fears?
Is there here a weeping Mary
pouring forth a flood of tears?
Brethren, join you cries to help them,
sisters, let your prayers abound!
Pray, oh, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around.
Let us love our God supremely,
let us love each other too.
Let us love and pray for sinners
till our God makes all things new.
Christ will call us home to heaven,
at his table we'll sit down.
Christ will gird himself and serve us
with sweet manna all around.
-----
We will walk with God, my brothers,
we will walk with God.
We will walk with God, my sisters,
we will walk with God.
We will go rejoicing
till the kingdom has come.
We will go rejoicing
till the kingdom has come.
As I have pondered the words of these songs I've felt the rub of the words "adore" and "rejoice", some of the last things we feel like doing in the shadow of death. But then it dawned on me that these are really songs for the journey, to sustain us even when praising God is the last thing we feel like doing. These are prayers and commitments that have been growing in us for just such a time as this...for this time when more often than not we are at a loss for words. That's not to say that doubt and confusion and fear and anger are wrong, only that they may be held as part of a larger whole.
Today I learned that the AMBS president and others will be going to Jane's home in Ohio next week to confer her M.Div. since she is not likely to live to the commencement ceremony at the end of May. What a way to mark the life of this extraordinary minister...
A year and a half ago Jane asked me to lead worship during the chapel service in which she was invited to share her story of living with cancer. At that time we were all hopeful that complete healing was possible, though we knew very well that with cancer one never knows. Today's medical system would like us to think that there are guarantees, but there are really more unknowns than we'd often like to admit. Jane knew that and candidly shared her fears, doubts and questions even while holding on to hope.
In the last few weeks as I've been sending thoughts and prayers Jane's way two of the songs that Jane chose for that chapel service have been surfacing in me:
Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God.
Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word?
All is vain unless the Spirit
of the holy One comes down.
Brethren, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around.
Sisters, will you come and help us?
Moses' sisters aided him.
Will you help the trembling mourners
who are struggling hard with sin?
Tell them all about the Savior.
Tell them that he will be found.
Sisters, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around.
Is there here a trembling jailer,
seeking grace and filled with fears?
Is there here a weeping Mary
pouring forth a flood of tears?
Brethren, join you cries to help them,
sisters, let your prayers abound!
Pray, oh, pray, and holy manna
will be showered all around.
Let us love our God supremely,
let us love each other too.
Let us love and pray for sinners
till our God makes all things new.
Christ will call us home to heaven,
at his table we'll sit down.
Christ will gird himself and serve us
with sweet manna all around.
-----
We will walk with God, my brothers,
we will walk with God.
We will walk with God, my sisters,
we will walk with God.
We will go rejoicing
till the kingdom has come.
We will go rejoicing
till the kingdom has come.
As I have pondered the words of these songs I've felt the rub of the words "adore" and "rejoice", some of the last things we feel like doing in the shadow of death. But then it dawned on me that these are really songs for the journey, to sustain us even when praising God is the last thing we feel like doing. These are prayers and commitments that have been growing in us for just such a time as this...for this time when more often than not we are at a loss for words. That's not to say that doubt and confusion and fear and anger are wrong, only that they may be held as part of a larger whole.
Today I learned that the AMBS president and others will be going to Jane's home in Ohio next week to confer her M.Div. since she is not likely to live to the commencement ceremony at the end of May. What a way to mark the life of this extraordinary minister...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
One month in at Mediation Services...
Today I had my one month check-in meeting with my supervisor at Mediation Services. I can't believe I've been there a month already, though some days it feels like I've been there longer than that given how familiar things are beginning to feel. I am grateful that they took the risk of hiring such an "overqualified" candidate, and what came out of today's meeting is that they're grateful they took the risk too!
Mediation Services is a community resource for conflict resolution. Their mission is, "To promote and enable effective and peaceful responses to conflict and crime for Manitobans." A large part of what MS does is offer training through their Resolution Skills Centre. Training participants are most often there as part of their professional development and it's interesting to see the diversity of professions and organizations represented in the training room.
I am the front office administrator and my list of responsibilities is too long to list in full here. From registering and invoicing training participants, to directing phone calls, to attending to hospitality issues, to providing administrative support to the executive director and programs, to making sure that office space and equipment in is good working order...and the list could go on. With the multiplicity of tasks my days do go by very fast! I had to laugh today when my supervisor said that it's noticeable how much life experience I bring to the position. While I do have a smattering of experience in administrative roles, at 27 years old I've never been told before that I bring lots of life experience to anything!
I cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful group of people I am privileged to work with. These are people who are working in the restorative justice field and seek to live out the practices that they teach everyday. Coming straight out of a seminary setting I was concerned about finding a job that would feel congruent - where ethical and justice issues were not simply an afterthought (at best) - and that is what I have found here. I have already observed and am impressed by the intentionality that goes into their decision making processes.
While both my supervisor and I feel that this is a good fit we're well aware of the fact that this is not exactly what I've been training for the past number of years. At this point in my life approaching ministry bi-vocationally is a necessity. In my check-in meeting today we spoke very openly and honestly about how my identity as a ministering person comes to bear on this position. The idea of sitting at the front desk as a Compassionate Observer (a term that comes from spiritual direction) has come to me in my short time there as I have a unique vantage point of the organization as a whole, its staff and its clients. The organization is also open to this position being a job share and both my supervisor and I assume that as my ministry of pastoral counselling and spiritual direction gets busier, we will talk about how to develop a job sharing scenario to accommodate both Mediation Services as well as the ministry to which I am called.
It was an encouraging meeting today, affirming for me again that this is the right place for me to be for this time.
Mediation Services is a community resource for conflict resolution. Their mission is, "To promote and enable effective and peaceful responses to conflict and crime for Manitobans." A large part of what MS does is offer training through their Resolution Skills Centre. Training participants are most often there as part of their professional development and it's interesting to see the diversity of professions and organizations represented in the training room.
I am the front office administrator and my list of responsibilities is too long to list in full here. From registering and invoicing training participants, to directing phone calls, to attending to hospitality issues, to providing administrative support to the executive director and programs, to making sure that office space and equipment in is good working order...and the list could go on. With the multiplicity of tasks my days do go by very fast! I had to laugh today when my supervisor said that it's noticeable how much life experience I bring to the position. While I do have a smattering of experience in administrative roles, at 27 years old I've never been told before that I bring lots of life experience to anything!
I cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful group of people I am privileged to work with. These are people who are working in the restorative justice field and seek to live out the practices that they teach everyday. Coming straight out of a seminary setting I was concerned about finding a job that would feel congruent - where ethical and justice issues were not simply an afterthought (at best) - and that is what I have found here. I have already observed and am impressed by the intentionality that goes into their decision making processes.
While both my supervisor and I feel that this is a good fit we're well aware of the fact that this is not exactly what I've been training for the past number of years. At this point in my life approaching ministry bi-vocationally is a necessity. In my check-in meeting today we spoke very openly and honestly about how my identity as a ministering person comes to bear on this position. The idea of sitting at the front desk as a Compassionate Observer (a term that comes from spiritual direction) has come to me in my short time there as I have a unique vantage point of the organization as a whole, its staff and its clients. The organization is also open to this position being a job share and both my supervisor and I assume that as my ministry of pastoral counselling and spiritual direction gets busier, we will talk about how to develop a job sharing scenario to accommodate both Mediation Services as well as the ministry to which I am called.
It was an encouraging meeting today, affirming for me again that this is the right place for me to be for this time.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The view from here...
Andrew and Pearl...
Just over a week ago my little brother got engaged! On Sunday he called me up out of the blue and asked if I'd help them with some engagement photos. After telling him that there were no guarantees as to outcome and he assured me that they're pretty laid back about the whole thing we headed out to nearby Assiniboine Park. It was a little colder than we imagined, but Carrie scouted out spots while Andrew and Pearl posed and I snapped the pictures.
I am so excited for these two, and very excited that I'm gaining a wonderful sister-in-law come August!
I am so excited for these two, and very excited that I'm gaining a wonderful sister-in-law come August!
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