Fire Engine Red

This one is specifically for you scientists . . . or moms who decorate cakes for their kids!

Kenneth wanted his birthday cake to be simply red and white; just a fire engine, with his name and age and "Happy Birthday" scrawled on it. As some of you might have guessed, the writing and even the rough resemblance of a fire engine wasn't the hard part; getting that bright red color was definitely a challenge.

Now when a daughter's birthday rolls around, things are pretty easy; you add that red food coloring, and the icing turns out pink, and you add more, and it gets a brighter pink, and eventually you concede defeat and pretend you actually meant it to be pink in the first place. But for a son, it's a bit harder to be flexible with that "not red" color.

So...back to my story. I added that red food coloring, trying two different brands in the hope that maybe it would make a difference; but pink it remained. Now I had to be creative, as Kenneth was looking at me very expectantly. I said, "Maybe we should make the fire engine orange." He readily agreed, so I added yellow to the pink . . . and the end result was a wonderful fire engine red! Of course, I knew that all along, right??!!!

250 Pieces of Popcorn

"Take one piece of popcorn. This represents one language - let's say the English language. Ok, now eat it... goodbye English! How about another one? .... How many pieces of popcorn would represent the number of languages in Cameroon? .... I have 10 "languages" (pieces of popcorn) in each of these baggies, and this plastic bag is full of little baggies, so that makes....? There are over 250 languages spoken in Cameroon."

So went my "spiel" 8 times today as we were part of a "missions fest" at Christy and Jenny's elementary school. How can you communicate Cameroon to these kids in a way that will grab them, and make them realize that they take so much for granted? You can't. You just do your best, and realize that God will use that for His glory in some way.

Pray for these future missionaries and the work in Cameroon every time you eat some popcorn....

Birthdays and Bunnies

Scene: Kenneth's preschool
Actors: 6 preschoolers, 1 teacher
Props: 1 pinata, lots of candy, Easter baskets, food, Rice Krispy bars with "Happy Birthday Kenneth" in icing on top
Occasion: Easter party and Birthday party

What a mixture! So Kenneth got an Easter basket full of candy for his birthday.... It's actually quite appropriate, as he was born on a Good Friday. But what a difference between the stark delivery room in Cameroon 5 years ago, and the well-supplied preschool room in Canada today! And yet isn't that appropriate too, as Kenneth was born on the day when the Christian world remembered a death. Hmmm....

Life is full of contrasts, isn't it!!!

Long time...

Well, it's been almost 2 months since I last blogged. But during that time I was in Calgary, Chicago, Philadelphia, Warrington (and lots of other places around there), Lancaster, Denver, Gunnison, and Crested Butte. And during that time lots of wonderful people took care of our 4 children for 2 1/2 weeks so Mike & I could have a great trip of business with a week of relaxation at the end.

But talking about a LONG TIME, that pretty well describes some of our delays in the airports. I'm not sure if it was just our particular carrier that was having a rough month, or if it is all the airlines, but I think 3 out of 4 of our flights had some delay. And when Mike came back this past weekend, he had an overnight delay. Oh well, time is all relative anyway, right??!!