Home For Christmas

Well I made it through the semester (barely). I finished my last papers on Thursday December 14 and flew home the morning of the 15th. It has been a busy but good trip home. I've enjoyed spending time at home with my family an dout visiting with friends. This year for Christmas my fmaily did something totally new for us and we packed up and went to Victoria on Christmas morning to spend Christmas dinner with my aunt, uncle, cousins and their kids. My aunt and uncle have just moved over to Sidney to be closer to my cousin and his wife and their little girl and my other cousin came in from Australia with her two kids so we came over here to be with them for Christmas dinner. We spend the next couple of days here visiting with them and other family before heading back to the mainland.
I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas and enjoying time with dear ones.

More Kitty Cats!

Who'd a thunk I'd become a cat person. I have definitely fallen in love with these two cats. I know I've already posted pictures but I got these today from my housemate Sarah and had to post them. In the top one you can see George has taken Billie under his wing and you can see his paw on Billie's shoulder. The second one is Sandra and I watching a movie and Billie has fallen asleep on my lap. The last one is later on in the evening and Billie has got nice and cozy and is totally out.

Things are going well here, classes are done and I'm just working on papers and have one exam tomorrow. I fly home in three days and can't wait! Tomorrow night I'm having a gingerbread house get together after my only exam. Today I have to finish a paper so I can go out to a movie tonight. Please continue to pray for the seminary community as we all head our separate ways for the holidays that we may find rest and rejuvenation and recover from a rather traumatic semester so that we can come back together again in January. 

Grief

This week has been really hard. It began on Monday when I received news that one of my friends at LTS's dad had died Sunday night. Such sadness for her and her family as they grieve his loss. Tuesday brought grief of another kind. Something happened at school on Tuesday that has caused me and many others a great deal of distress all week. Tonight I came to realise that in many ways it is a deep grief that I am feeling. I am saddened by the fact that one or more students may not return in January because of this situation. I am deeply saddened that some people's lives may never be the same. I worry about this community and I hope and pray this Christmas break will help us to find rest and rejuvenation that we so deeply need. It has been a very hard semester for most in the community, faculty and students alike. This week I also had to confront someone who I have a lot of respect and admiration for because I believed they shared information that was not appropriate with a group of people. Every day this week has brought more sorrow and I pray for an end to the struggles this community faces. Last night we had our seminary Christmas party and it was a wonderful evening a really positive time in the midst of dark times. And yet at one point in the evening I looked around and felt grief because I knew there were people missing who really should have been there. In this time of waiting, Advent, I wait and pray for reconciliation in this community.

Advent Vespers

Just wanted to share this picture of me and a couple of friends at Advent Vespers tonight at the sem. It was a lovely service. I and my friend Barbara (on my left) were acolytes, fancy title for candle lighter. Erik (man on right of picture) led the service. It was a nice way to end a chaotic and difficult week. One week from tonight I fly home!

Prayers Please

Well I've often mentioned issues in the seminary community this semester here at LTS but today it reached epic proportions and there seems to be no end in sight. Please pray for this community as we struggle with such brokenness and pain. It is affecting the entire community and some are not able to cope very well with the burden. It's a hard place to be right now, please pray for us.

Time for some Christmas spirit!

I decided that since December started on Friday (where did it come from, I thought it was still September) that it was time to get into the Christmas mood. So Friday night I called home and got my favourite Christmas baking recipes, went grocery shopping. Saturday I went Christmas shopping and then did Christmas baking and today I decorated. In my grocery shopping on Friday night I found the table cloth ($2.77 at Stupidstore!), while perusing flyers today I saw that Michael's had all their fake trees on for 40% off and so I picked up this little on there for $5 and my housemate was getting into the spirit too and she pulled out all her lights and loaned me some that she wasn't using and voila! I have some more lights to do something on my other window but I'm not sure what yet. I also bought gold and red bead garlands and put them in a glass vase on my coffee table and a mulled cider candle to make it smell Christmassy. Today I also went to a mass choir concert at a local church that the seminary choir was participating in of Advent carols. I love Christmas and especially the season of advent. I don't have an advent calendar or wreath so I may have to do something about that tomorrow, we'll see!
It has been a hard week in the world of LTS, it's the end of the semester hysteria setting in and people are getting touchy, emotional and worn out (including me). It ended with a 4 hour community meeting on Friday to discuss some of the issues that are going on in the community. I think we all need a break! 12 days until I come home, I can't wait! I'm home for 17 days fly back to Saskatoon long enough to unpack and repack so two days later I can fly off to Peru for 17 days coming home two days before classes start again, yikes! It's going to be quite the holiday season. Somewhere in there I may also move upstairs and give up my cozy suite, but that is yet to be decided and I'm not going to stress about it until it happens.
Papers are coming fast and furious. I had a productive weekend last weekend and finished 5 assignments of varying lengths. I wish I could say this weekend has been as productive schoolwise that is, I got lots of Christmas baking, shopping and decorating done but I'm not sure my profs care about that! Six assignments and one exam left before I'm done for the semester on December 14. I have finished two of them so I have a ways to go, two aren't due until next week so the other two will be getting done in the next few days! I'm off to bed but thinking I should plug in my car before I head to bed. I forgot to mention that was down to -30 this weekend, -40 with the windchill on Saturday, fortunately it went up to -13 today. Definitely plugged in my car yesterday! I'm glad to see it's raining in Vancouver much more Vancouverish than the weather they had last week, I don't want to come home to snow! Well I shall bring an end to this ramble.