Making the Most of University

Some of my readers are university students (or perhaps, college students).  Let me highly recommend an ongoing series - called "Making the most of college" - in Comment, a newsletter of the Work Research Foundation.  This organization is driven by a desire to work out into daily life the many wonderful consequences of a Reformed, Christian worldview and philosophy.  Here are some titles in the series.  I haven't read them all, but I like what I did read, and you university students will appreciate and perhaps be challenged by them.

• Business, balance, and learning to live
• Appreciating the arts
• Courts, diamonds & gridirons
• The importance of dressing well
• Finding your coffee community
• Recovering the lost logic of church
• Learning with friends
• Preparing for leadership

The Sun Is Back

After about a week of rain and dreary cool weather, the sun is back! It suddenly came beaming in our front windows, and noticing the rain coming down, we expected - and found - a rainbow. A beautiful double-rainbow, a complete semi-circle as the sun was about to set. We ran out front to make a few pictures. Doesn't Valerie look happy?

Oma Timmerman - 1914-2007

Today, at the age of 92, my maternal grandmother ("Oma in Holland", Hendrikje Timmerman-Doornbos) completed this earthly journey and went home to be with the Lord. She's pictured here with three of her six sons (there were also three daughters, including my mother of course) and five of her over 50 grandchildren (I'm wearing the tie), on the last day I saw her, which was Sunday 14 August 2005, as I was in Holland for a conference. I visited her in 1994 and 2003 as well, but before that, from as early as I can remember (say, 1972?) until 1988, Opa and Oma came to Canada for six to eight weeks once every two years. I thank God for her, and for the many wonderful memories. We in Canada (only two of her children are here) were very privileged to have their frequent lengthy visits. After Opa's ill health, they didn't come to Canada together again, but Oma came to my oldest sister's wedding in '96, after Opa died in '94.

My Oma had long black hair, which only in the last few years included any signs of grey. She also had amazing abilities: she could tell body temperature by hand, as well as accurately determine the weight of bundles of newspaper (she helped us tie them up in the 70s and 80s when our Christian school in Fergus/Guelph made $50 (?) per truckload). Plus, she could "divine water"; in fact, reaching over from behind me, holding my wrists with her strong hands, the Y-shaped willow branch would turn when we walked past the waterline running from the house to the barn. She knew all kind of cures, including this one for my sunburnt & blistered back (I mowed the Bouwman's lawn with no shirt for three or four hours when I was about 14): a tea-towel soaked in buttermilk was placed on my back. And my favourite memory of Opa were his sing-song mealtime prayers in Dutch.

Praise God for her life and leadership and service!

Orchid blooming after a year

Last year on our fifteenth anniversary, I bought my wife a couple of orchids. Now, I must say the garden centre was somewhat reluctant to sell them to me, and at first claimed they didn't have any orchids. Well, I had my sister-in-law with me (who, of course, also grew up at Dufferin Garden Centre) to help me pick out the orchids, and she found some in a dark corner of the store. But, since they weren't blooming, they had figured no one would be interested. Far from it! Since my wife is a horticulturist, she would enjoy the challenge! So, 11 months later (about two weeks ago), the plant started to send up a flower stalk, and this morning, on her parents' 41st anniversary, the first one revealed its glory. Here's a close-up. The first flower still has a wee bit more opening to do, and the second is about a day behind the first. The other picture shows the full plant on the kitchen table, with slingers hanging on the ceiling to celebrate our youngest's graduation from single-digits, and the "grow-op" plant stand in the background in front of the patio door, above which is strung our stephanotis which hasn't yet bloomed since we moved back to BC from Iowa two years ago. You can also just make out two other orchid plants under the lights behind the railing.

Orchids are amazing! Instead of soil, they grow in a humid moss-mulch mix to mimic their natural environment in hollows of trees in tropical rain forests.

"If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

I have often heard this (Psalm 11:3) raised up as a banner by Christian organizations concerned about where culture, or the church, is headed. But today when we read it at lunch, I saw the context and realized that we have a simple response to this kind of appeal.

Here's Psalm 11:1-3 (NASB):

In the LORD I take refuge;
How can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain;
For, behold, the wicked bend the bow,
They make ready their arrow upon the string
To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.
If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?"

So, what should be our response when we're told, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

Simple: "In the LORD I take refuge - how can you say that to me?"

Conrad Black - dangerous criminal?

I haven't followed the Conrad Black story very closely, but with his guilty verdict, the sentencing is soon to follow.  Here's a post I submitted to CBC's Your View.

Here the concept of jail-time for white-collar crime comes up again.  Do we really have to lock up this dangerous criminal to protect society?  Instead of having him be served by the tax-payer for the duration of his sentence, let's have him pay restitution and serve others.  There should be plenty of community-service opportunities for him.  Take away his wealth, let him live in a little apartment somewhere, and put him to work - using his intelligence and skills - full time (for free) in the public library or a homeless shelter, and monitor his finances and his location to make sure he doesn't pilfer or enjoy exotic vacations.

Baby, It's Hot Out There

While the Fraser Valley is supposed by many to sport a mild climate, today's temperature reached 38 degrees Celsius here. Without air conditioning, but with a picnic blanket over my office sky-light, blowing in "cold" air since 5am, and then closing the windows at about 8am, we've kept the indoor temperature to a mere 28 deg! But, I must say, it's still much more comfortable inside and outside than a typically summer day in Iowa, where the humidity would be 60 to 80%.

Global Warming speaker at Regent

It's going to be a hot week here, the weather forecasters say. And the publicity on global warming (or, when it's cold or stormy: "climate change") has, with its attendant confusion and rhetoric, increased dramatically in the past year or so. You will therefore certainly be interested to note that Sir John Houghton (Oxford atmospheric physicist, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an outspoken Christian) will be delivering a Regent College public lecture entitled "Global Warming: A Challenge to Scientists, Policymakers and Christians" on Wednesday 18 July at 8pm. I expect I'll see a number of you there, traveling by carpool of course! Information about Regent's public lectures is available here.

Graduation from CCES

Our eldest daughter and second child graduated from elementary school in June. Here's a photo taken just beforehand in our backyard. Hair by Christina, flowers by my wife, gold earrings her surprise graduation present given moments earlier. A beautiful child of our covenant God - what a blessing!

This makes her our first child to graduate from elementary school. Our son started high school two years ago without having the ceremony of graduating, since he finished grade six in Iowa (and grade eight was the last grade of elementary there) and entered grade eight here (which is the first high-school year) because that put him into his peer group. He's not really big on ceremony so he was OK with that.

And below is a picture of the graduating class, with their diplomas and NIV Study Bibles, and the girls with a long-stemmed red rose. Not the greatest photo, as I didn't notice at the time that most students in the front row hid two others diagonally behind!

Canadian Reformed String Camp

Last week (July 3-7) our two violinist children were blessed to be involved with the first annual (?) Canadian Reformed Strings Camp which was held right here in Langley (with participants from BC, Washington, Alberta, and Ontario). Directed by Kent Dykstra and Roxi Dykstra (both graduates of Trinity Western University), and run behind the scenes by their mother Jenny, it was an excellent programme of rehearsals, master classes, private lessons, chamber-music groups, outings, and fellowship. The two concerts on Saturday and Sunday evening were amazing! With just five days together, and no music provided in advance, they pulled off stunning performances. The Sunday concert filled the Yarrow church to capacity, ending with a standing ovation after one of Kent's several string arrangements of the Genevan Psalms (they did Pss. 136, 75, 17, and 8). The creativity, encouragement, enthusiasm, and dedication of the entire Dykstra family was clearly evident throughout the week. With skill levels ranging from just a few months of lessons (the seven-year-old pictured above) to over a decade of experience, the entire orchestra played Autumn from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the 2nd movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3, the first movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart, Pirates of the Caribbean, plus about 10 chamber music quartets. [Our children are the middle girl (turning 10 this week) in this foursome plucking Ps. 136 and the 14-year-old fellow barely visible between the boy and girl of the four.] Kudos to Kent (band teacher at Parkland Immanuel Christian School in Edmonton) and Roxi (soon to begin graduate studies at Université de Montréal), as well as Jenny, for a wonderfully successful week!

Below is a better shot including our son, who has been playing for seven years.