Kendra Heatwole

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I know, I know. A post is long overdue. It is 10:30 pm and I need some sleep, so I'll try to cover the major things and the rest will have to wait for another day.

The first thing is that I am changing blogs. As of next week, I'll be posting at http://kendraheatwole.wordpress.com. Come visit me there!

I'm trying to get used to new technology. Since I no longer have a computer at my job, I purchased a laptop of my own. I also ordered an iPod with my visa points. I have the laptop and am looking forward to the arrival of the iPod in the mail sometime...soon?

Good times with friends have been the highlight of the past two weeks. Bethany came on April 25 and Melanie arrived on the 27th. They stayed until May 2 and we had a great time. Our fun included visiting various people from church, four-wheeling, girls' nights, hosting a picnic for the church young adult group, and several birthday parties, among other things. My 30th birthday was on the 26th. I felt very blessed and honoured by my friends. On Sunday morning I was surprised with a coffee-and-muffins party and card shower between church and Sunday school. The Masts hosted a special birthday lunch, and in the evening I was honoured by the Living Hope staff. Kind of a combo birthday party/farewell.

This past week I got to meet and enjoyed spending time with another friend who hasn't been mentioned here before, but probably will be showing up more often in the future. =) The story is too long to explain here, but for the past couple months I've been writing to and talking with a guy from VA by the name of Jim Landis. We're from the same area and he knows my family, but the two of us had only met briefly once before. A series of events (that can only be credited to God, I believe) brought our paths together. It was an intense but good week and we both feel like this is a relationship that we want to pursue further. And...ummm....I don't know what else to say about that.

Tomorrow morning I start my job at Black Bear Lodge. I'll be living there for the summer, cooking for tourists who come to go fishing. The camp is about 45 min. drive from Red Lake, so I'll be able to come back for church on Sundays and possibly occasionally during the week. I'm sort of dreading the disconnect from phone and internet and the connection they provide to family and friends, but overall I'm looking forward to the experience. I will have two weeks off in July, and I'm planning to join a group from our church that is going to Liberia to visit our sister church there. I spent most of the past two days running around getting immunizations, applying for a visa, buying a plane ticket, etc. Once I'm at Black Bear, I won't be around to take care of those things.

As you think of me in the next couple weeks, I'd appreciate your prayers for the following:

• good relationship with my new employers and a smooth transitition into my new job
• that details and plans for the trip to Liberia would come together
• time to process the multitude of changes, decisions, questions, etc. that are happening all at once and seem almost overwhelming at times
• confidence and trust and peace as I wait on the Lord

I have lots of pictures but I don't know how to resize them with this new computer. That's on my list of things to do. Hopefully pictures will be one of the first posts on my new blog.

There are so many changes happening in my life these days. Yesterday was my last day working for SkyCare. Today is, for all practical purposes, my last day of regular office hours at Living Hope. S moved over to M & R's house today. These things all cause mixed emotions and I'm not sure the magnitude of the changes are really registering with me.

It feels like there are a mountain of things I'm leaving unfinished at Living Hope and that bothers me.

I'm very excited about Bethany arriving tomorrow and my 30th birthday on Sunday and Melanie coming on Monday.

There are lots of things I want to accomplish yet today at the office and at home preparing for my guests.

One question...I intend to close this website down soon. I'd like to switch to something where I can post everything on one page, instead of on separate pages like this site has. Do any of you have advice or comments about blogger or wordpress or some other (free) blogging service? I want something that is easy to use and preferably does not have ads.

Last night I took S to the annual Trade Show at the Balmertown curling arena. I'm usually not interested in the actual displays or information, but its fun to visit with people and there's always lots of free give-aways. Most booths also have a draw for a "door prize" and some of them are pretty nice. Not that I ever win anything, because in my whole entire life, I only remember winning one thing. That was at an event where everyone won something and my prize was a size 2X white t-shirt with "Snapple beverages" printed on the front. Yay. But I digress. So we went to the trade show and walked around and put our names in the draw boxes and collected free stuff (S was really making a haul) and hung out with friends we met there.

Today I got up early, talked to a number of friends on the phone and started some Saturday cleaning chores. S got up around noon. By then, I had most of the kitchen cupboards emptied, wiped out, and reorganized. I cleaned the bathroom, swept the floors, and then I completely lost momentum. S kept saying she was bored (which resulted in chores which wasn't a great hit) and asking me to take her back to the Trade Show. I'd say no, and she'd say, "WHY?" So I told her reaons like, we already saw everything last night and you were bored there by the time we left, and we already got all the free stuff, and I'm too tired and lazy, and I don't feel like driving back to Balmertown, etc. etc. Finally she said, "But what if we win something?" See, the gimic with all the draws and door prizes at the Trade Show is that you have to be there when they make the draw or you don't get the prize. I told her I never win anything and soon we'll go to Masts for pizza and...I should've listened to her. Because several people called to tell me that my name was drawn to win $250 and I wasn't there to collect the prize. I guess you win some and you lose some. Literally.

One of S' favourite meals is lasagna. She's asked a couple times if I'd make it, so yesterday I decided it was Lasagna Night. My day kind of ran together though, so when I got home from work, I took the easy route and followed the recipe on the pasta box. It was very simple and started with purchased sauce. Once I had the lasagna together and in the oven, S helped mix up a chocolate pudding cake. (The kind where you pour water over top and it makes a thick sauce on the bottom as it bakes. She thought the recipe quite odd.) I was feeling good about the yummy supper in the oven.

And Then.

Then the pudding bubbled out of the pan and into the bottom of the oven. Then I slid a cookie sheet under it to catch the rest of the drips but it was too late. Then the kitchen was smoky and stinky. Then S told me the lasagna tasted "just like the ones you buy on a tray in the store." Not something I'd generally consider a compliment. Then I spent the hour after supper washing the pudding dish, cleaning the oven and scrubbing the cookie sheet, which I eventually threw away because I could not get the stuff off no matter what product I tried or how hard I scraped at it and I didn't care because it was an old ugly cookie sheet I never use.

Sigh. Some days just aren't my day.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Tonight I have choir practice with a group that will be singing at the Easter Celebration on Sunday evening. Tomorrow morning I'm going to a friend's house to lay down a few keyboard tracks for a song he has written/recorded. He says he wants an organ "wooo-woooing" in the background. ?! We'll see how that goes. I plan to go to the Good Friday service in the evening, which includes a potluck dinner and communion. Saturday is a play day--absolutely no plans other than spending time with friends and maybe washing my car if the weather is nice. On Sunday, there's the sunrise service and then church. I'm responsible for leading the music. Rachel and I have invited seven single friends who have no family in the area to come for Easter dinner. In the evening our church is hosting a music service that I'm mostly responsible for planning this year. There will be a number of people from the different churches sharing special music in between congregational singing.

Easter is my favourite holiday. It's so...triumphant and joyful. I admit I'm having a harder time feeling triumphant and joyful this year. I keep thinking of Jesus' words in John 10: "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." I want to live in the abundant life of Jesus even when the circumstances around me are stressful and draining and reek of the thief.

"I live, I live because he is risen

I live, I live with power over sin

I live, I live because he is risen

I live, I live to worship him

Thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus

Because you're alive, I live."

In Red Lake

• ...Four-wheelers are an acceptable mode of transportation on the highways as long as they are licenced. It still makes me "think twice" to parallel park between four-wheelers at the post office or to stop behind them at the stop-light or to hear the whine of a four-wheeler engine running flat-out, headed for the next town.
• ...The area churches (Baptist, Catholic, Luthern, Mennonite, Pentecostal) celebrate Easter together with joint Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Easter Sunday evening services. That is what Church should be, I think. It blesses me.
• ...The cheap tires (Kelly brand) at the local tire shop cost $115. A Goodyear costs $180. I had to buy two new tires for my car yesterday. =(
• ...A good-sized crowd of people turns out for the Easter Sunrise service, even though the temperature is often well below zero. Yes, we have our service outdoors. Last year it was about -20. This year the forecast says a low of 0 and a high of 13 C for Sunday. Yay! Maybe we'll all have to wear flip-flops.
  
• ...The ground is still snow covered, but under the trees in my yard tiny patches of grass are showing through.
• ...Good Friday and Easter Monday are both holidays. A four-day weekend!

I've been reading "My Utmost For His Highest" and again today the reading seemed written for me.

"We should take a look at our current circumstances. Do crises which affest us or others in our home...seem to be crushing in on us? Are we being pushed out of the presence of God and left with no time for worship? If so, we must put a stop to such distractions and get into such a living relationship with God that our relationship with others is maintained through the work of intercession, where God works his miracles. Beware of getting ahead of God by your very desire to do His will. We run ahead of Him in a thousand and one activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don't worship God, and we fail to intercede. If a burden and its resulting pressure come upon us while we are not in an attitude of wrship, it will only produce a hardness toward God and despair in our own souls."

A very timely reminder.

My weekend went mostly good, once Friday night was over. This was my night:

10:30 pm--teenager comes in high on weed, send lots of prayers up asking God to help me deal wisely with the situation

12:00--fall into uneasy sleep

1:30-2:30--baby cries inconsolably for an hour, won't take bottle, finally dose her with baby advil and she goes to sleep

4:30-5:30--#3 boy cries, says his tummy hurts and he misses mom, dose him with baby advil and take him to bed with me, its like trying to sleep with a squirmy puppy--feet in my face, my side, head on my shoulder, my stomach, feet in the side..., finally fall asleep again

7:00--kids up!

So needless to say, I was tired on Saturday. The kids did well, played outside some, and we all slept great all night long. After church today we joined my neighbors for grilled burgers. Grilling was a challenge due to gusting winds and temps just a bit above zero, but it is spring and how can you not grill?! The grill would barely stay hot enough to cook the burgers so Justin surrounded it with scraps of lumber and drywall and I'm so annoyed I didn't take a picture because it would've been a good one. We made the kids play outside after lunch and then took them back to their house. An hour later the parents came home. Now I'M headed home for a good sleep. I admire my friends who have kids and still act reasonably sane...

I'm spending this weekend (Fri. afternoon-Sunday evening) playing "house." In a real house with real children. I'm babysitting four little Grabers (three boys and a girl, ages 9-1) while their parents take a weekend away. Oh yeah, and add an unpredictable teenager that has been living with me to the mix too. Sounds like a full quiver to me.  I'm hoping the weather gets nice so the kids can play outside lots.

I've been doing a series of fasts, a Lent observation that Bethany told me about. I started late so I did the first and second weeks together, fasting from self-indulgence (including sugar and snacks) and from at least one meal a day. This week is a fast from TV, music, media and entertainment. The hard one comes next week--a fast from internet and email, other than is required to complete my job. It seems to me that it will take an inordinate amount of self-control to only open and read those emails that are work-related and let the rest sit there unread for a week. It seems like it would be easier to have no computer whatsoever, but I doubt my employers would appreciate that too much. The last week is a fast from...I don't know, selfishness maybe. The assignment is to sacrifice an amount of time each day normally spent on yourself and do something for someone else.

I'm supposed to be printing the church bulletins this week. I need to finish it up in the next half hour. There are absolutely no announcements. Would you print a blank bulletin? Fill it up with inspirational poetry? Why do we have to have a bulletin anyway? I could print a half sheet with the standard Sunday info on it--who's in the nursery, who is the host family, where the Sunday school classes are, etc. and be done with it, but then I'd have to answer everyone's questions--"Did we run out of bulletin covers?" "Did you forget to make a bulletin this week?" "Who is preaching today?" Never mind, it's easier to print a bulletin with no announcements. No wait, I know! I'll fill up all the blank space with lines, under the heading "Sermon Notes:". =)

Today is the first day of spring break for students around here. Today the thermometer reads a balmy +10. We should've had spring break in February.