Say Goodbye, Say Hello

Yesterday morning a friend died. It wasn't a surprise. Bob Bibby was in his late seventies or his early eighties. His lungs were weak, and they finally gave out. So we say goodbye to him, while he has the joy of saying hello to the Lord he served for so many years.

Much of what I understand about the character and work of an Elder I learned from Mr Bibby. His graciousness and gentleness of speech, his humility and the vast amounts of time he lavished on the needy made a lasting impression. Many of us younger men benefited from his counsel. It seemed he always made time for us. He also made hundreds of visits into the jail in Sudbury each year, trying to win the prisoners for Christ. In fact, for many years the jail in Sudbury had no full time chaplin, because Mr Bibby spent so much time meeting the spiritual needs of the prisoners.

He was a welder by trade, and didn't have an extensive education, but he knew the Bible well. He prayed daily for each person in the assembly, by name and with regards to specific needs.

He'll be missed.

Don't Bother Me!

I got a phone call at supper time tonight, asking me if I wanted to subscribe to the Ottawa Sun. I said no and that I never read their newspaper. He asked me why. I said, "Because I'm really offended by the Sunshine Girls". Every day, they feature some girl spilling out of her bikini. Anyway, he told me I'm not the first to tell him that, and he was sorry that in my mind, the positives of his newspaper didn't outweight the negatives. Of course, it could have been worse for him. He could have been the last guy to call me from Rogers Cable, before they finally figured out that calling me was a waste of time.

Sick Weekend

Still feeling sick. We didn't make it out to church today. Hannah was really congested, and I am coughing and dragged out. I ordered some Greek food for supper tonight, so Karen wouldn't have to cook. Not that I am completely altruistic; this also meant I wouldn't be asked to do any dishes! Anyway, it turns out that our favourite Greek place didn't burn to the ground after all. It did burn, just not completely. They are now back in business. I get a lot of funny spellings for my last name. Up until tonight, the funniest was "Abbygale". But tonight, the restaurant wrote "Aplgill" as my last name on the bill. Who knows - maybe this is phonetic Greek. The odd thing is that I actually spelled my name for the guy and I'm pretty sure I didn't say a p l g i l l. Anyway, the food was good.

General Update

Hannah and I both have a cold. She was up for a couple of hours last night, and has a very runny nose today. My chest is kind of heavy and I’m coughing, but at least the sore throat is going away. There is a visiting speaker at church this weekend, but I’m feeling too dragged out to go anywhere.

I had quite an experience getting a second hard drive for my new computer. I opened the case and looked through the instruction booklet, but couldn’t figure out what they were saying. When I took it to a computer store, the guy pointed out that I would need a second mounting bracket from Dell, and a new connector cable because mine would only accommodate a single hard drive. Also, looking inside the case I see that there is no slot on the motherboard for an 8x AGP video card, so I can never upgrade the video card. Very good Dell! You saved two dollars and have lost a customer. I finally bought an external 160GB hard drive from a local computer store.

Ideas

Today I was told that another one of my ideas has been accepted for a patent. This is the third idea I’ve had that my company has decided is good enough to file a patent on. While I can’t tell anyone what the idea is, I think it is a good one. Overall, it looks good when an employee is coming up with ideas. In addition, it’s kind of nice because there is a $2000 bonus for me when they file!

Back to the Blog!

I had thought I would have plenty of time for updating my blog over the holidays, but it turned out the holidays were busier than I had anticipated. Also, I have lost everything I have typed a couple of times, and so now I type in Word and copy to my blog (an extra step that reduces the spontaneous nature of blogging).

The holidays were a nice change of pace. I was on vacation the whole time. But with spending time with the children and doing some sermon preparation, it was busy. I have now come close to finishing reading James Sire’s “The Universe Next Door”, which discusses the major worldviews. It isn’t an easy read, but is definitely worthwhile.

During the holiday I was able to finish reading “The Horse and his Boy” to the children, who are now able to pick up some of the subtle Christianity woven into the Chronicles of Narnia. Books that contain this subtle indirect Christianity are beautiful to read. No, I won’t use them for doctrine. But for fiction, they are a whole lot nicer than blunt novels that have one character retell the “4 Spiritual Laws” for whoever will listen.

For those who are interested, for Christmas I received the 2 CD’s of mp3’s of David Gooding preaching on the New Testament and the Old Testament. With a gift certificate I have ordered a book on “Preaching the Parables”. The parables are a very different type of Biblical literature than the epistles, and have often suffered from attempts to allegorize.

Now I’m back to work. Apparently Sympatico (my ISP) has much better spam filtering than the company I work for. No, I don’t need to order any Canadian Meds. I live in Canada and have a drug plan! I must have deleted 100 emails.