IT'S MOM AGAIN

We can't help it, we three boys, three sons of a woman who was born in Montana and brought as a toddler to Saskatchewan. This is one of those days in every year when we remember her. I am glad that we can do it with fondness and gratitude. We remember her with reference often to this photo of her, mature, with cognition and joy and love shining from her blue eyes. Her mind and her eyes fogged in later years.

Her daddy had just died, so young, too young, 29 years of age. Doerksen was his surname. Her mom and her brother Peter two years older than she, were transplanted into another family, the Willems family. Marie married Abram. He had lost his wife and he already had six children. Opportunities did not abound on the prairies in the twenties and thirties, specially for a girl. Mom completed grade 9 before needing to work. She met Edward Richard Unruh, dashing young man, with a pencil mustache, balding dark hair, whistled everywhere he walked, well liked by everyone, a gentleman, a gentle man. She loved him. He was 4 years older than she. Although living in a distinctly Mennonite Christian community, Hepburn, he was not practicing the faith of his parents. His personal commitment would come later, ten years later, but Tina married Edward. I (Ron) was the first to be born to them.

He ran a gas station and then he went to war, enlisted, and that was unheard of. Conscientious objectors they were, these Mennonite settlements, but he was a Canadian and proud of it. He was an enlisted member of the Royal Canadian Royal Air Force, Force mind you, not Farce. So on this weekend, Remembrance Day, is also a time when memory of Dad re-emerges. And then the war was done and mom and dad started up a coffee shop, and then moved east to Ontario, and Murray (son #2) was born, and I was 5 years old. Dad worked hard at factories and mom was busy with children and work at home projects, sewing for others. She cleaned other people's homes. She worked in a restaurant as a waitress. And son #3 was born, Neale, named after Dad's eldest brother, and I was 11 years old. A coincidence that has intrigued us was that in dad's family there were three sons as well, and they born at the same time intervals, the first five years older than the second who was six years older than the third son.

And in 1954 Tina and Ed bought their first home and dad was 39 years of age and mom was 35. It was a small home and all three sons grew into adulthood there. Mom had basic life skills which because she was entrepreneurial, she turned into a livelihood. Many figure skaters wore her garments. Thousands of people ate her food. She ran her own occasional catering business. She served her food for coffee breaks in a corporation office building. She was head chef for many summers at a Christian Conference campus. She wrote a cook book in which Neale's and my drawing appear. She led women's groups at church and regional women's meeting in many places surprising herself that she could stand in front of others with adequate thoughts and words from which others would benefit. Those latter responsibilities compelled her to read and to study the Bible among other books and she grew spiritually and intellectually. And in all of these pursuits she was encouraged and assisted by the gentle man whom she had loved when she was a stunning young woman of 22. Sometimes it seemed that he had no greater ambition than to see her succeed.

I have written in memory of mom today, but as all of us have witnessed through our experiences with mom and dad, you could hardly think of the one without thinking of the other. So, on this day of remembrance of Mom's departure from here, I know that it won't be long, six months from now when we will remember Dad's departure. At 93 years of age he spoke to her still body and said, "good night sweetheart, I'll be seeing you soon." He too, could not think of life without her, and then he too was gone. We are all okay with this. This is life and theirs was a happy and contented life. They were married for 66 years. Her eyes convey to you why we loved her so much.

MAINTAINING SPIRITUAL VITALITY

I have been thinking a good deal about the challenge of maintaining spiritual vitality. This is particularly demanding when one is employed and life is full or when children are young and require constant care. Responsibilities can impact one’s efforts to sustain a vital relationship with God. Conversely I have found that following retirement from formal work and in my case from ministry-oriented work, the absence of time consuming responsibilities also impacts spiritual vitality. Often responsibilities of the kind I knew when I pastored four churches or served as an executive officer of a church denomination, compelled me to pursue with diligence an intimate connection with God through prayer and reading the Bible and trusting God’s Spirit for insight and direction. When no longer faced with pressing duties, I have found it easy to relax the level of time and commitment to spiritual disciplines. It’s a retirement risk. It isn’t necessary but I know that it occurs. I have experienced it until I have realized afresh that no matter what I am doing in life, my relationship with God should not diminish but it should develop. This has been a good reminder, initiated by the theme of a one-day seminar that is being offered by ACTS Seminaries on November 25^th, 2011. I will attend. While it designed for people in Christian ministries, it has application to all working and active Christians and I know that it will apply to me as well. The principal speaker on that day is Gary Thomas, author of numerous good books. The seminar is entitled, ‘MaintainingSpiritual Vitality in Ministry.’  

Information about the seminar 

MURRAY AND RON TOGETHER AGAIN

Murray & Di at Queen Elizabeth Park

When Christine and I decided to move from Ontario to B.C. twenty years ago, we knew that we had introduced separation into our family relationships. I ran that by my father at the time and his response was "you have to do what God has called you to do." That was an appropriate response given that he believed what he said and I was coming to BC to pastor a church. I left behind my parents and two brothers and their families and Christine did the same with her family. We have never regretted the move and the separation was manageable as it turned out that I was able through all of the years to travel annually to visit family back east. My own two children stayed in the west, married and had children and live here. We are complete and content.

Image of Murray from his website

However, we missed all the large family events and parties. My elderly parents finally unable to travel, saw only one of our five grandchildren in person. My brothers, Murray and Neale and I missed countless leisure and sporting opportunities done together.  I am saddened to reflect on that. Murray is now retired as well and in his later years has also taken up visual art (painting) as a passionate hobby. His website is called Vintage Impressions. He paints for the pleasure and sells some because he has a unique and appealing style. Neale and his wife Kathy run a needlecraft store and Neale does picture framing. That could certainly have become a business alliance.

Murray & Ron at work/play

He and Diane chose to come to visit here in British Columbia for three weeks. Murray has come to officiate at a wedding of some special friends, and Di and Murray have been staying with us. We have both fulfilled a dream by spending hours painting together while listening to music (golden oldies) or talking (telling old stories) or laughing (too much), or doing all of these simultaneously. We have both completed paintings during this week.

We both see what we have been missing but we cannot retrace the past or return to change it. So we are not dwelling in the past, or dreaming of the future, but rather concentrating upon the present moment - living it.

Christine and I may travel east in 2012 and we will certainly pop in to see all of the relatives scattered in Ontario and Quebec. We may also return to see the Maritimes after an absence of over twenty years. And then perhaps we will disappear to England and Europe for many months - just thinking. 

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

At Moby Dick's Fish & Chips, White Rock

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MY SWEETHEART! Christine and I celebrate our 44th Wedding Anniversary on August 12th, 2011. We were married in 1967 Canada's Centennial Year, and the summer of EXPO Montreal. Thank you Christine. I love you.

Great 44th Anniversary Day. Began with a 1-hour walk, leisurely sunny breakfast, then our MX5 sports car ride to Domaine de Chaberton for lunch at the Bacchus Bistro, outdoors amid the vineyards, drove along 0 Avenue and backroads to Yarrow for an ice cream cone and on to Minter Gardens for a stroll through the magnificent themed park, happened upon a garden wedding and listened to vows similar to those we exchanged in 1967. Leisurely evening ride home in the sunset. And by the way I did mean 0 Avenue, right along the US/Canada border with nothing but a ditch separating 0 Ave and another US parallel country road. And somehow very surreptitiously and clandestinely border patrol monitors that border. Probably caught us sneaking a kiss too.

WE GOT IT AND DID IT - SENIOR MAN AND SENIOR WOMAN

The call back for the six of us for a commercial advertising campaign resulted surprisingly in Christine and me being selected as principals, but not Jeff and Gina and their two children. Fortunately later last week, Jeff and Gina landed another. Yet what an interesting few days Christine and I have had this week, Monday through Wednesday. This is our first foray into commercial ads. We received word late last week that we were selected as two of six principal cast members, having no idea what we were expected to do. However, we learned that our roles were as senior man and senior woman. There is no doubt that we qualify by appearance and chronology. We arrived for wardrobe fittings on Monday. Then Tuesday and Wednesday were shooting days on a large lakeside acreage with a waterfront heritage home.

This was an atypical production because the cast was much larger than is customary. There were forty extras,and the six principals. The production crew was enormous, ten trucks, scores of production people, camera personnel, grips and gaffers, electricians and lighting technicians, set, props and art decorators, hair and makeup stylists, attendants, catering team, and even portable toilet. In addition the client company had a number of marketing, writing, advertising professionals on hand watching monitors with the developing action and still visuals. It was a very hands-on production. Someone said that this crew was the size often seen on movie productions.

Once on site, and having gone to wardrobe for the right apparel, we sat with other cast in a cavernous barn on the property. This was the sheltered holding area, where there was a constant supply of good foods available. Upon arrival you could grab a sumptuous breakfast at the catering trailer. Lunch was mid afternoon on both days. Tables and chairs accommodated us all during the hours that we waited for a call. Calls came to the entire group sometimes and at other times just couples or several at a time. Sometimes they were still shots taken rapid fire and other times it was action. Christine and I were even called for an audio only for sound bites that might be used. Hours and hours of digital material will be edited into 60 second commercials and magazine and brochure pieces.

We were impressed that while sun, clouds and rain alternated throughout both days, the crew managed their windows of opportunity with expertise.

We finished each day by 9:00 or 9:30 PM and drove home so by 10:30 pm we were weary even though we had nothing particularly strenuous.

We meet some fantastic people, might even have established a casual acquaintance or two that we can revisit. We found the clients very affirming. It was a new and enjoyable experience. After the goodbyes as we walked down the dark lane to our car, we overheard the director on the handheld radios telling his crew to meet the next morning downtown and thanks for a great day.

A STAR WE ARE

Christine and I joined my son Jeff, his wife Gina and their two children for an audition last week. Yes, that's right. Gina regularly stars in TV commercials. She has an agent. This time, the product whatever it is, we are not told, wanted a family. They particularly want grandchildren interacting with grandparents. So we stood together with the camera on each of us in turn, stating our names and answering questions. There were scores of other families there for the same reason last week - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
 Kadence is four years old. She stated her name and her age. She was asked who is the funny one in the family and she replied "me." And she is comical. 

Well it was considered highly unlikely by Christine and me, but we have all been called back. It is called a 'Call Back.' So tomorrow we go again so they can do another more in depth interview with us. Perhaps we actually have to do some role playing for the camera.

If on the outside chance we land the commercial, we will have to give them three days for shooting the film and we each get paid.

FATHER'S DAY 2011 - EDWARD RICHARD UNRUH

My dad was a good man. He was easy to love.

I can remember him being angry only a couple of times. Once it was with a man who was troubling my mother. Another time it was with me as a youth and I deserved his annoyance.

Edward was his name. Edward Richard. English names bestowed on a Mennonite boy born on the prairies of Canada. His father Cornelius, a more common Mennonite name broke with custom. Only the oldest son carried the father’s name and it was Anglicized as well to Neale. The middle brother was Harry. Three sons, the eldest five years older than the second and eleven years older than the youngest who was my dad.

Dad and mother Tina had three sons, me Ronald James (the eldest) and I am five years older than Murray Dennis and eleven years older than Neale Bryan. In the early years of his fatherhood Dad wanted us to be thoroughly Canadian, hampered in no way by any hang-ups derived from the heritage. Little could he know how important the connection with our family history would be to us when we were adults. He and Mom spoke the Low German dialect at home with which they themselves had been raised in their Saskatchewan homes of Hepburn and Waldheim. Since I was almost five years of age before Dad and Mom moved to Ontario, I was familiar with the dialect, understanding much of it but not able to speak it. For years I did not let on that I understood what they were saying when Mom and Dad spoke privately using Low German.

Our Dad never struck us as a complex man. He was intelligent, interests in politics, current affairs and sports. He completed grade eleven, had no skilled trade but worked at available manual jobs. He was enlisted in the Canadian Air Force, never saw overseas action but was posted in the Yukon. Following WWII, our Dad, a hard working man, began a lifetime of work in factories. He was in love with his wife, committed to the care and provision of his three children, appreciated his church and what the Sunday lesson gave him for the week ahead.

He was not an ambitious man. He respected himself yet he may not have understood how well he was liked by others. He was friendly, helpful, kind. He never owned very much yet he shared what he could. He was satisfied easily. A day’s work and a day’s pay, and supper meal, and a newspaper, a nice place to sit in the back yard, a car to move the family around, a couple of weeks of summer vacation, a small pension at the end of a long time with the company.  He expected no more than that. God was good to him.

I respected him very much. As a young man if I was tempted to do anything that was at all wicked, my esteem for him, held me back. Of course he was much younger then, and most of our memories are of him advanced in years, still with a wonderful sense of humour and a pleasant spirit and endearing love for our Mom. I miss him a great deal. He died at age 93 and that was three years ago.

June 19 Addendum: Father's Day came on Sunday and I was asked to preach at our local church. I chose to speak about "God the Father" and I used the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. The prayer begins with "Our Father who is in heaven..." Christine had prepared a light lunch and my son's and daughter's families came. After dinner I took my five grandchildren for a long walk to the school yard to play on the apparatus and then to the corner store for a slurpy. We hung around until early evening snacking on lunch leftovers. We enjoyed a good family day. I like that. 

CANUCKS - PRIDE AND SHAME IN THE CITY

We did it in 1994 and again in 2011. We went to game seven of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And our city's worst residents rioted in the streets.  Yep, again!

I watched the game with my son Jeff and his wife Gina and their two children who were multi-tasking with IPad and other toys. The tensions the three adults felt had intensified since Monday when our Canucks lost in Boston. We knew how important it would be to the team who scored the first goal. We had only put six goals past Tim Thomas in six games so the probabilities were against us. Nevertheless it was home crowd, home ice, tons of talent and desire. But Thomas and the big bad Bruins bombed the Canucks in their wins in Boston.

Canucks began the first period looking strong and determined, and THEN, the Bruins scored first. The noise went out of the building and the fright was on. Then in period 2, goals two and three and still no comeback by Canucks, and another B goal in period 3, and then it was over.  In our viewing room, dressed in our Canucks jerseys, we sat mostly silently all night, glanced at one another occasionally with resignation, and then it was over.

Yet near the end of the third period our Rogers Arena fans were on their feet waving their towels and cheering for their Canucks who did us proud all year long in so many ways, and then when it was over our players also skated around and applauded their fans. Then the two teams did the traditional congratulatory skateby and shook hands but even that had a classiness to it as players showed genuine appreciation for one another's performances. And Tim Thomas in one of the outstanding goalie displays ever through his playoffs won the Conn Smythe most valuable player of the series award. And our fans cheered him genuinely. And they applauded the Bruins as they received the Stanley Cup.

Then within minutes outside and downtown in Vancouver, where 100,000 had watched on giant screens, the vast majority of people moved to go home, but the drunken, easily led, selfish, low esteem, social misfits from 18-24 years of age, broke down barriers, burned cares, taunted police, overturned police cruisers, broke windows, looted stores, hurt themselves and shamed our city once again.

As disappointing as our Canucks loss was, I am far more disappointed that our city's reputation has been sullied across North America by these degenerates.

JUNE 4 IS TINA'S BIRTHDAY

She was born in 1919 in Montana, USA – June 4th. She was an infant when her father died suddenly. Mom’s parents had been homesteading and farming the vast rolling fields in pioneer conditions. One small wooden building served as both a house and a barn. Her name was Tina and she was a toddler when her mother Marie together with Mom’s four year old brother Pete, made a significant decision to leave Montana and come to Saskatchewan. Without much distance between her and the shocking grief she had born at the farm house, she was introduced to Abraham Willems who had also recently lost his wife. He was somewhat more desperate because he had six children for whom to care while farming a small plot of land. Marrying Marie was a practical resolution. Abraham’s children had adored their mother and still cherished her memory when this new woman entered their home. In the ensuing years Marie bore five more of Abraham’s children. The challenges for family life, poverty, tuberculosis, inter-family rivalry and tensions were factors that shaped the family and yet these were people of faith – ancient faith of a Mennonite variety that traced back to Crimea where Mennonite Colonies had found a haven in Catherine the Great’s Russia. Mom’s brother Pete was the odd brother, that is the maternal son, not wholly welcomed by the Willems sons, and decisively as a teenager he himself moved back to Minnesota where his mother’s family resided. It was from Minnesota that his father and uncles as young men had embarked upon that American dream of owning great tracts of land on the prairies of Montana. Pete’s departure was difficult for my mom and her mother Marie. Mom was a young teen and soon a young woman, who managed to complete a grade nine education before working as a domestic wherever she could. In time she met a dashing young man named Edward Richard Unruh who resided in Hepburn Saskatchewan. On June 12, she was married at age 22 and Edward was four years older than she. He had lost his hair by age eighteen yet what hair remained was dark brown and was complimented by a dark and classy thin mustache and dark eyebrows. Dad finished grade eleven, worked at odd jobs, ran a gas station, then called a service station and whistled while he worked. He was 26 when he and mom married, and I was born a year later, and when I was a baby Dad enlisted in the Canadian Air Force because Canada was at war. Following the war mom and dad operated a coffee shop in Hepburn, and then when mom was expecting her second child, they made the monumental move to the job opportunities of southern Ontario. Large factories and car plants and paper mills were installed there. Dad worked at the Ontario Paper Mills and Thompson Products (makers of GM parts) and finally at Anthes Imperial (furnace production) where he was employed on an assembly line for over 40 years.  Soon after the move to Ontario, my brother Murray was born. I was five years old. Murray and I waited another eleven years for our brother Neale to come along. In the years between Neale and Murray, mom miscarried and there was a rumour that she had lost a baby girl, perhaps even twins. Such matters were never discussed with children when we young or older. Mom’s skills were numerous and all of them hands on and practical. She cleaned other peoples’ homes. She sewed clothing and costumes for skating clubs. She cooked meals and specialty foods. She was always involved in church life. Dad was too but far more reserved and quiet. She began her own successful catering business preparing and serving extraordinary feasts for wealthy clients. She had the temperament and traits of a leader but she surprised herself when she became the president of a Christian women’s group with a province wide mandate. Throughout our childhood our parents took us to Sunday school and church and we were involved in assorted children’s and youth programs which influenced choices that we made. The outcome was that all three Unruh sons became trained and involved in Christian work, two as pastors and one as a missionary. Murray and I are retired now from pastoring and Neale completed his mission involvement and began his own retail business. Mom has been gone since 2007 when she was 88 years of age but June 4 marks the recollection of her birthday. When she died, her children and adult grandchildren stood with my Dad Edward and heard him say to her, “Goodbye Sweetheart. I’ll see you soon.” Six months later he peacefully left us as well. The legacy that these two ordinary people left is lived through the lives of an entire family now where children and grandchildren walk with God and live by God’s values.  

KAILYN IS A CHAMPION

Kailyn far in front - Secretariat

Can you see that small statured girl walking to the line at the rear of the crowd. That is my ten year old granddaughter Kailyn. It may appear like a mismatch, but hold on. It doesn't matter how quickly one walks to the starting line but how confidently, how sure of one's own ability. I am sure that Kailyn had a better idea of what she could capably do than I did as I stood high in the bleachers ready to cheer her on. I could kick myself now for leaving too early. But I was there when she ran the 100 m. The gun went off and in the distance to the left I could see her. She looked like she had a good start and was with the others. But something happened about fifteen of her mini-strides into that race. Some afterburners kicked in and at 25 m she was in the lead. We were standing at the 3/4 marker and we could see that at the 1/2 point, Kailyn was three metres in front of the nearest runners. She came tearing past us, eyes riveted on the finish line, and she was now eight metres ahead of everyone. She blasted the field. She was first!

Kailyn is our Winner

Well she did that in the 200 m as well. First!!!!! Yes, I know everyone gets a ribbon. Everyone is important, and she is First. I am so amazed and so happy for her and so proud that she lets me hug her. Wow! 

She finished third in the 4X100 relay, eighth in the 800 m. Sprinting is her strength.