Well Dear Friends, I am trusting that 2010 was not unkind to you and that as you say goodbye to it with its fine memories as well as with its challenges, 2011 will emerge with realistic resolutions and numerous encouragements for a life of contentment, hope and trust in the trustworthy One, our Father who is in heaven, and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Advent Wreath

Almost universally the Christian church marks each Sunday during the Christmas Advent season in preparation for and in celebration of the birth day of Christ with the lighting of a symbolic candle. Yesterday, Nov 28^th the Candle of Hope was lit.

Candles are arranged in Christmas Wreaths, usually four candles in a circle and one white candle in the center of the circle. The wreath itself is assembled with evergreen tree cuttings. Traditionally on each of the four Sundays preceding Christmas Day, one outside candle is lit until Christmas Day, the anniversary of the Birth of Christ, when the central candle is lit. Each of the four outside candles carries a symbolic meaning, hope, love, joy, peace. Three of the candles are violet in color and the fourth has the color of a rose. The Christ candle at the center is white.

REMEMBRANCE DAY - WE VISITED JUNO BEACH MUSEUM IN NORMANDY

Insignia of WWII Royal Canadian Air Force

VETERANS' WEEK/REMEMBRANCE DAY

Edward Richard Unruh, my dad fought to preserve us from outside oppression.This was particularly unusual given the family, heritage and town from which he came. His parents were immigrants from the Mennonite colonies of Crimea, Ukraine near the turn of the century. He was born in 1915 and in 1941 he was going to war to defend the freedoms upon which his birth country was founded and governed. Hepburn, Saskatchewan was largely settled by Low German speaking Mennonites who established a town of shops that provided all necessities and some amenities. Most families were farmers and most citizens attended church. Dad was slow on connecting with faith in the supreme being and perhaps that was one of the factors that resulted in his decisions to break with the pacifist conviction of his family and peers to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. While the town would support the war effort through prayer and labour, he would fight, albeit as an Air Force maintenance mechanic. He was a new generation Canadian and proud of his homeland.

My wife Christine and I spent two months in France in 2009 and our travels moved us to Normandy just before the D-Day anniversary. We stopped in Arromanches where we booked in at Room #6 in the Mountbatten Hotel. We walked the beach and toured the Musee that celebrated the accomplishments of June 6, 1944. This was the beach town to which the remarkable floating concrete piers and barges were floated by night across the English Channel from Britain and anchored well off from shore to create a docking area for great ships loaded with tanks and war equipment with which to mount the victorious assault against the Nazi German Army. Remains of some of the barges lie still visible in the crashing surf.

 On a rainy and foggy day we went to Juno Beach and the Canadian Museum that honoured the Canadian contribution. Veterans years earlier realized there was no monument to honour the Canadian War Effort so they began the recruitment of funds. The City of Courseulles Sur mere donated a former camp site for the museum location. The museum was highly informative about immigration, about WW1, about the 1929 stock market crash and economic depression and then the confusion about Germany and Hitler's intentions until it was necessary to declare war against him. From six thousand soldiers to one million by war's end, most were volunteers like my father. Forty-five thousand Canadian soldiers died. Museum guides were mostly young Canadians on duty for four months. At the Canadian Museum we met one guide, a 21 year old McGill student whose grandfather perished while storming this beach, and while he may have said it many times to visitors, he told us, " I would not be here had it not been for his sacrifice." I was very proud to be Canadian that day.

When the war ended, my father came home in 1945.

My Uncle Les is gone

My Uncle Les Willems died yesterday. He was 87 years old. That's a long life. He had been unwell for some time. His wife Helen, was with him at the end just as she has been there through all these years, a one man woman for a one woman man. They have two sons Dean and Peter and grandchildren in both Britain and Canada. He resided in Ontario, the province I left twenty years ago to live in B.C. In all those years I have seen him and visited with him only on family occasions like my parents significant wedding anniversaries and then at my parents funerals three years ago (Mom) and two years ago (Dad). Uncle Les was a tall man. When we were children his height and his deep voice mesmerized my brothers and I. He had a quick wit and a good sense of humour. When I wanted to go to college, he traded a 57 VW Beetle for an oil painting that I painted of an old Russian peasant woman. He held on to that for many years, returning it to me when I was already a middle-aged man. He thought that I should now have that painting. The car was long gone. He was a man of faith, so leaving was not a hardship for him. We however know he is missing from our family. His nearest loved ones miss him very much.

Memorial Service held Wednesday, November 3rd at 2pm, at Tallman Funeral Homes 3277 King Street SS1, Vineland, On L0R 2C0 phone# 905-563-8223 .

ACCIDENT

A write-off, bent frame etc

Three of my grandchildren pictured below were in their daddy's car when minutes ago, it was struck by another car - not critical, for which I thank God, but daddy and youngest taken by ambulance for observation. The other two have some cuts.

These three sweet ones are safe

Sunday news: All appear OK, sore and traumatized and we will wait to see their progress.
Wednesday news: The car is a write off. human body Scratches disappearing, and some bruises appearing.
Wednesday one week later: Everyone is AOK. They must purchase another vehicle. They certainly have confidence in the Honda because no door panel or hardware entered the passenger area.

A BUNCH OF NUTS - THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving Day was a great day for my family and me.
Christine and headed for church at 9:30 AM, top up because the air was cool and damp. Great morning of music and a sermon. And then leaving the church we were welcomed by a sunny sky and warm air. Down went the top and we drove home stopping for a few groceries and a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.

Knowing that the entire family of children and grandchildren would be coming for a harvest dinner at 4PM and Christine would be spending the afternoon preparing, I suggested that I could take three of the grandchildren in early afternoon to a NUT farm, that's right, and we would pick up hazlenuts. So that's what we did. My daughter and her three children spent part of the day together going nuts among the nut trees.

And then back home, everyone showed up and we have had a fantastic family time together. A happy thanksgiving. Between dinner and dessert, we sat together around the dinner table and each of us took a moment to express something for which we were grateful. Even the smallest one had a reason and that was that she was grateful that she has a cousin with whom she can play. Then we went for a walk and came back for pumpkin pie smothered in whip cream. Hours of conversation and hugs all around and we shut down for the night. What a wonderful day.

PAPA AND THE 3 BOYS

The photo is two years old and the 4 boys contained in it are each 2 years older. I have grown a beard since then but the other three have not. They are my three grandsons. Two of them are brothers and the third is their cousin. I cherish these kinds of moments and this one in particular because it is visually captured. It happened on an August morning at a cottage in Tulameen. I had just retired after a career of service and I was finding it difficult to adjust to life without work and I was not reacting well to a cottage full of people and busy grandchildren. I am confident I did a good job of putting off my children from every wanting to do a family vacation again. Hopefully some mending has occurred since then as they see I have grown more comfortable with who I am now and more content with the grandchildren as children. I am not always grumpy. I love the intimacy and love and the touchy, feely stuff and joking and tickling and walking and playing together and seeing them grow. These boys are close to my heart. Can you tell?

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY but I am thinking of Mom and Dad

Yes, another one. As I did my walk this morning on this cool damp morning after a day of rain, I walked with a sense of my age because my clenched hands ache with the onset of a mild arthritis that is bothersome to my painting. I didn't stay on that thought long however. I realized that while I walked on the first day of my 68th year on earth, I was thinking of my mother who sixty-eight years ago laboured to give me birth. I was her first-born child. She was twenty-five years of age. Just beginning a life as a mom. She is gone now, leaving three years ago after finishing well as she could and then her mind clouded gradually until everything became simple and mundane and controlled by others. For those other caring people I will forever be grateful. Most of all for my brother Murray and my sister in law Diane who for love alone gave endless hours to care for Mom when Dad could no longer do that and we he needed to be encouraged as he toughed life alone until he was 93 years of age. On my birthday I have thought of Mom, soft blue eyes, devoted wife, lover of Christ, nurterer to three sons, fantastic cook, proud woman, contented woman, helpful to everyone, concealer of deep inner hurt that had a long history, determined and ambitious and industrious and surprised by successes that came as a result. The woman my father fell in love with and whom he adored changed involuntarily until she barely existed but he understood this process and loved her. He taught his sons about love so that we could come through adolescence, confusion and mistakes to a mature appreciation of our mother. And when she died he taught us again when he said, "Good night sweetheart. I'll be seeing you soon." Six months later he too slipped quietly from us in 2008. And I am experiencing a birthday at this season of my life and trusting still to leave a legacy of good memories for my offspring and grandchildren. May be 68th year be productive.

Day later Birthday Postscript: We gathered at my son Jeff's home. He and Gina prepared a great meal, baked crusted Halibut which he himself caught off the west coast of Vancouver Island, salsa, great green salad (courtesy of daughter Cari), glass of Ehrenfelser. For dessert, Christine baked an egg custard pie and a chocolate pie with whipped cream. Later, everyone sang happy birthday to me, grandchildren crowding in to give me cards and a present from the whole clan. The children ripped the wrapping off because I was far too slow at it. Inside was a portable painting easel, light, easily assembled, in a carrying case - could take this to France or Fiji. This was the kind of soft celebration birthday party that I like - only my son-in-law was missing do to work. Thank you my family.

Life is too precious.

My own life is almost spent. Sure I may have many years to live. Yet my energetic working years are done. The strong blond man of my high school and college years lives only in pictures seldom viewed by anyone. My children now in their own mid years don’t remember me in my youth. In their minds they have only grown accustomed to the ‘me’ with escalating limitations. Their children will always know me ‘old.’ Grandpa I am.

I am not complaining. This is life. It’s good. There are large measures of joy and satisfaction attached to this personal definition of life in Canada.

That’s why the wounded lives of Paul and Zabeth Bayne and their children Kent, Baden and Bethany trouble me so much. That's why the Court Case, the result of which will determine whether the children can come back to their parents or whether they must be forced to become adopted children to adoptive parents, is one of the most important events in B.C. right now. It is only one family of course. However, this single case forecasts the likelihood of an overhaul of the structure, protocol, personnel and policies of this beleaguered child protection agency. It is unthinkable that the Judge's conclusion might greenlight further injustices to more innocent parents and children as zeal and power without wisdom decides the lives of citizens.

The Baynes should not be enduring this broken family unit, the financial ruin, the daily tears, the eyes of three children filled with worry and doubt about so many things that should not harass a child in Canada. For the past year I have been writing a daily blog post advocating for the return of the children to Paul and Zabeth. A final court day occurs September 21. Then the judge will take some time to write and deliver his ruling. Catch it all at my GPS site. Today I wrote my 300th entry.

WE WENT TO THE PNE

On Sunday afternoon and evening of the 29th of August all of us, Christine and I and our children's families, all eleven of us went to the PNE, Pacific National Exhibition. This year it celebrates 100 years. And of course at night there was a dazzling show designed to that theme.

We parked for $25 per vehicle, did many rides and ate PNE food and paid PNE prices and toured the prize home and stood in lineups and played games and won stuffed animals, and watched fireworks and had a blast.