Congratulations on 25 years!

Mentors and friends, Danny and Claudia Tsang celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary lately. Their daughter, Queenie Tsang had organized a surprise party for them at the Howard Johnson in Vancouver. It is great to see them reach this milestone, and it is evident from the lives of Queenie and Kelvin that they are indeed leaving a great legacy.

May God continue to bless your marriage Danny and Claudia!

Another year, another birthday

Last Tuesday was my birthday. Those of you that remembered - thanks for the birthday greetings! It's always nice to feel special on your birthday. Rather uneventful this year... after all birthdays after 30 tend to be more inchpebbles rather than milestones. But it is kind of cool that this birthday is a power of two for the computer geek inside me. Hey, it's a pretty significant number according to this page.

Karen and I went out for dinner at the Watermark - and had a very enjoyable evening of appetizers and good company. (I highly recommend the prawn spring rolls.)

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

Our family has recently begun a new routine during church worship services. We have discovered that Erich really enjoys the singing and worship portion of the adult service, so we keep him in the sanctuary during that portion before bringing him to the nursery. We've found
that this really helps him get settled and it allows him to participate in the worship service as well.

Today, he decided that he would REALLY participate and promptly conducted himself in the way many adults would. Instead of sitting on mommy´s lap, Erich found a seat in the row in front of us. He sat, grabbed a church bulletin, and began to browse through the bulletin. Then, when Rodney, the worship leader, asked everyone to stand, he took a stand himself and enjoyed as people sang. When the music was done, he sat himself back into the seat, and looked again at his bulletin.

It was all very cute to watch. It also got me thinking - many of us when we first become Christians begin by emulating and imitating the outward actions of Christ (WWJD). It isn't until later that we discover and we internalize our faith from which our attitudes are changed.

My prayer for Erich is that his faith would become genuine and that the habits and disciplines that he may begin by simply imitating would become a genuine article, attitude changing part of his walk with Christ.

Opportunities for application

In our quest to deepen our relationship with Christ, our small group at the Bridge has been tackling the various disciplines in which we commune and meet with God. Specifically, we've been looking at worship through prayer, and edification through the studying of His Word. One of the tools we have been using is homiletics: the process of breaking down then rebuilding a passage of Scripture. One thing I admire about this tool is that it allows the reader, through exposition of the passage, to extract application.

Laura, a person in our small group found that this tool really helped her. She put it succinctly when she wrote to me in an email that homiletics:

• allows the reader to really meditate on a piece of Scripture, and
  
• it provides the believer with an opportunity for application.

The word "opportunity" really stuck with me. I have never really thought of it quite this way - but in fact, she has nailed the aim of homiletics on its head. When we meditate on a passage of Scripture, in addition to its historical and theological significance, we are really given an opportunity to apply the passage in our lives. That is the beauty of reading the Bible to see how God may want to speak into our lives vs. reading the Bible to justify the way we have lived our lives. What we do with that opportunity is up to us.

My opportunity for application

We have been looking at Colossians 1 through 3 the past few weeks, and I must say that the opportunity for application for me is to keep on the "clothes" (or attitudes) of Christ. I need to remember to draw from Christ's strength rather than my own and that in all things, to all people, it is opportunity to demonstrate Christ's compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12).

Planespotting in Vancouver

As a treat, Karen and I brought Erich to the Vancouver International Airport to do some plane spotting. When I told him we would see airplanes, he was excited! After searching some hobby sites, we whisked down to North Templeton Road on Sea Island right under the landing path of airplanes and watched as plane after plane came in for a landing.

Some were small ones and some were "really really big airplanes" (as Erich would say). I must say that it is quite incredible to only be a couple hundred feet below a passing 747. In case you didn't catch the full impact of this from the picture above, this is what it looked like from my camera!


We had a great time, and this is a great way to bond with the kids. As planes flew by, eventually we sat in the car, trunk open and ate our lunches. Who says entertainment has to be expensive? :-)

I scream, you scream, everybody scream for ICE CREAM!

Now if this isn't mom and son bonding time, I don't know what is! :-) After an afternoon out at the Stanley Park Train, we all decided to have some ice cream on the front porch. Erich particularly enjoyed his strawberry ice cream in a waffle cone as evident in this next picture...