Friday, June 24, 2011

Home Sweet Home

It has been more than a week since I have been back to my island home now! The trips to and from Toronto were safe and occasionally eventful. It was a pleasure to visit my folks again, I had missed them terribly. Here are some highlights of the many blessings during my trip...

Friends: visiting with old friends through the day while my folks were at work ended up being a very convenient plan. It was wonderful to meet and catch up with sisters, hear their updates on what's been going on, how God has been revealing himself in their lives, and, most importantly, how we could support each other in prayer. It was lovely to meet up with Pam and Kenneth, and though sad to hear they have to move even further away, it is always such a blessing to see friends embarking on another new chapter of their lives. Thankfully, I also managed to catch a childhood friend, Victoria, with whom I went also to highschool and later university, before she flew off to Vancouver for her five year residency...five! And I thought two was long enough :P

NTCBC: seeing familiar faces, caring faces, new faces! Making special deliveries and playing volleyball on Sunday afternoon with my brothers and sisters. Oh how my quads and gluts cringed for a day thereafter! Haha. I was also able to make it out to my Thursday small group for a time of bible study. I am still appreciative of the thirst Almond continues to have for the Word and his gift in teaching it. I hadn't realized it before, but through my recent experiences with mission teams coming to the island, Almond's teaching style reminded me much of Pastor James' style of discipleship. We studied a passage in Hebrews which really triggered a stream of thoughts regarding the actually time-sensitive urgency in sharing the Gospel with he new immigrants here. While I have been learning to take steps to make myself not only available for God, but also move forward and take action upon His call, I sometimes forget that I need to continue to practice this; there is no end in experiencing God's goodness in following Him once, twice or three times.

Food: being home while my parents were working, I decided long before I even arrived home ghat I would try to take up my pre-move role as resident cook at home :) just to take a load off my parents and often times I end up getting the treat of cooking with my parents. I'll tell you, I miss cooking with a real wok a lot!

'Smuggling': The lobsters I packed landed safely and in good shape :) the cheesecake I made for dad, though arrived intact, was accidentally left in the kitchen fridge right before we left for Montreal, so the girls ate it all before we got home :( dad only had a small, small slice! Leaving Toronto, I managed to sneak two lovely taros through security - I still believe it's because the guard searching my bags was asian :D



Family trip: With my parents, older brother and his wife, I went to Montreal for my first weekend back on Ontario. Witnessing old childhood friend Carl marrying Amy was sweet, but strange because this was notably the first secular wedding I have attended. It struck me how strange it was to hear the secular understanding of love and marriage. Where as Christians we are bound together in Christ and the witnesses hold us accountable to the Lord, my non-believing friends bound themselves with ideas of love and the law regulating marriage. They saw a successful marriage as not getting a divorce and loving each other til they are old and grey; we see it as a fulfillment of God's will in His children called to minister in unity, living holy, pleasing, and Christ-centred lives together.



Surprises: It was such fun to have dimsum with my great great aunt, and then go to surprise Prentice by picking him up from school :) On father's day, we get to go to his house for a family BBQ. His dad always makes the best wings! So sweetly, Pren had a surprise for ME...jello fruit cups that he made! We eat, we play...that's about all we do with the kids :D


Convocation: Jonny convocated from UW and we drove out to attend the ceremony. I remember everything was the same...except I noticed engineering spends a lot more money than AHS for their graduating students :p a hidden blessing here was that I was able to see some of the Waterloo folks!! Oh those 'babies' have grown...some were even convocating that weekend with jonny too! What a journey God has brought each one of them on :)We ended up spending the evening at Joseph and Emily's for a delicious dinner. It meant a really late night for Dad at church, but I had fun helping out :)



Reggie Dabbs: The connecting flight from Halifax to Charlottetown was a short one...in a very small plane. It reminded me of that sermon Reggie Dabbs gave about the lady screaming 'Jeeeessuuuus!' as his plane descended through turbulence. Though there wasn't much turbulence for our flight, the fact that it was an 18 seater plane of two single row seats with about only a dozen on board, and maybe because anyone could easily each wall to wall standing with their arms spread out, made some people feel a little uncomfortable. In front of me was an older couple. Each time the plane ascended or descended, the man reached out across the aisle and held onto his wife's arm with a look of comforting concern on his face. Then adding to the tension, as we descended into Charlottetown, I distinctly heard a woman screaming all the way down as if it were doomsday or the drop off the Hulk rollercoaster...(I am sure the rest of the passengers heard it too!)

It was wonderful to have this visit back to Toronto. While the culture shock started in Pearson airport, it was still a treasure to spend time with my family again. As I returned to the Island, I found myself feeling relieved to finally be home again. Home? When that passed through my thoughts, it made me do a double-take. The place I have known as home for the last quarter century seemed a little out of place, or rather, I felt out of place there. As Pastor Rich said on Sunday, going back to your birthplace is a bit more like an old glove that fits but isn't the same anymore. We've grown and changed over the years, and going 'back' isn't always going to be the same as we remember. Pastor Steve inadvertently greeted me warmly, "Welcome home, Joanna - whoops I mean, I'm sorry, Welcome back." No, welcome home was nice.

Our family in the Thornhill house with Dad's adventurous garden and Mom's fruitbearing trees will always be home in my heart, the friends and communities I encountered there warm memories that are wonderful to reminisce over. Yet somehow, these post-grad adventures, settling in to a new place, finding a community to connect with, serving a people to whom I am called... this feels like a new home :) I am torn about whether or not I should stay, and pray for guidance as I strive and struggle to live each day by God's standards and not mine.

Labels: Family, Food, friends, Funnies, PEI, Reflection, Toronto, Travel

posted at 8:58 AM by Jo -