“The RoseBouquet”

There is evidence if you’re alert to it. The trees are starting to shed their yellow leaves, the temperatures are cooler and the breezes and winds have a fall taste when I am outside. My garden plants are yellowing and falling over. Even one tall sturdy tomato plant over which I had placed a wire cage seems to have placed most of its fruit on the north side and yesterday I found it tilted over, cage and all.

Then this morning on the radio I heard that we can expect a serious frost the first week of September. What? Tomorrow? This week?

I’ve just checked with the weather network and don’t see any frost forecast but they’ve been wrong before.

I had noticed those signs of fall sneaking up, but had thought that I could go on for a few more weeks pretending it was still summer. I still wanted to show off my tall corn and so forth to some people who have not come to visit yet. But this implies that I should spend the coming Labour Day weekend out there harvesting my garden. Especially the tomatoes and the corn and the zucchini. The potatoes might survive the first frost if it’s not too serious.

My plans for a candle-making craft session with some friends on Saturday fell through. But that turned out okay for me, as I needed that time for some bookkeeping catchup. (I still need another Saturday too).

However, on Sunday I brought along my friend Shannon from church and we enjoyed some summa borscht from my crockpot and then went to the Appreciation Tea over at Western Tract Mission. I took along a bouquet of my bright and sunny marigolds.

Along with my regular busy agenda, I’ve been taking some small blocks of time - wherever I can pinch them out, to do some research for a client/friend in Uganda. It seems banking is not as advanced there as in our North American world, and it is difficult to set things up on his website so that people can make donations to him and his ministry directly. PayPal allows him to send money but not to receive any.

I haven’t kept a journal of all that I’ve been learning, but I’m discovering that I probably have the best banking options that are available. I’m ruling out some and narrowing down the possibilities, but there is still the matter of testing them to see which would work. The processor programs I hope may work are Alert Pay and Google Checkout. But we still need an international bank and a card.

If you have any experience with a payment processing program, or a bank account, or a no fees debit or credit card that should work for dear Isaac - I’d be happy to hear from you.

He and his family, and also their ministry are in real financial need. It seems sensible to get some form of accepting donations up on his website. This adds some urgency to all this research.

I had a phone call last night from the brother of a dear Pen Pal of mine. I have profiled Louise before, but I believe I will take time to review my memories of her again today in the article below.

You just can’t work any more hours! I know, there IS a limit to what a body can bear!

You need a system that works while you sleep. Most online systems are really out of our reach. Too hard.

But Arnfried has set one up that does work for ordinary folks, and brings in a steady passive income. Don’t sell - GIVE AWAY your link to people online and off-line, while you do your other work, etc.
Then watch the income tumble in and grow! Be Motivated Today

Do you have a friend that inspires you to greatness? I have an older pen pal friend who did that for me.

Louise and I met through genealogy. She heard of my family book, “A Godly Inheritance,” and that it contained Friesens, so she wrote to order a copy. In no time we were corresponding like new pen pals, and revealing more and more of our lives to each other. (So far we have not proved that we’re related - but it must be).

As a young woman, Louise, like her sister Margaret, had to go to the city to find employment to help out the parents on the home farm. They both ended up at the Lethbridge hospital kitchen and worked faithfully for many decades.

They found a basement suite close by for their living accommodation, but Louise had a car, and they always went home on weekends or days off to help with the harvest and work at the farm near Tabor. When the elderly couple died, from whom they were renting the basement apartment, they discovered that the house had been left to them in their will!

Knowing Louise as I did, I’m not surprised. She was always ready to go the extra mile to help out others, and to do more than they ask - like giving a cup of water, and then watering all your camels too.

The two close sisters reached retirement age. They still drove out to help their brother who had inherited the farm, but now they were able to travel. Usually it was a trip to B.C., as well as trips to visit various other relatives across the prairies. In B.C. they would circle through the fruit valleys, and fill up the car with boxes and crates of fresh picked fruit, then go home and make jams and preserves steadily for days and weeks, until all those precious treasures were stored for winter dining and for gifts.

Margaret gradually failed in health, losing her mind by degrees, so that Louise has had to take on all the work and all the responsibility. Mind you, she still took Margaret out for rides and in public, unashamedly, as long as her sister was able to go. Margaret died a few years ago, tenderly loved to the end by her loyal sister Louise.

In March, 1999, Dad and I went on a weekend trip to visit some of his cousins at Lethbridge, and one over the American border. In my heart I hoped to slip in a brief visit to Louise as I’d really like to meet this pen pal in person after several years of corresponding.

[Go to my RoseBouquet Friendship garden to read the rest of this article and see a photo of Louise and me.]

This past weekend I had company from out of town again. This time it was my favourite uncle and aunt from my Mom’s side of the family. Uncle Henry and Aunt Frieda Kroeker from Castor, Alberta, came for a 50th anniversary of their friends Walter and Hannah Andres in Rosthern.

(Remember, my brother Tom and I went to our uncle and aunt’s 50th anniversary the Victoria Day weekend in May? Well, their good friends, the Andres were there too, and now it was time to reciprocate, as these two couples got married the same year and both Uncle Henry and Walter had been school teachers).

Uncle Henry is legally blind now with macular degeneration, so Aunt Frieda has had to learn to drive in her senior years. However, she refuses to drive in a city as big as Saskatoon. So they get around that by driving as far as her sister’s place in Rosetown, a town about an hour and a half from this city. Then they catch a bus to come to Saskatoon, and I meet them there and chauffeur them around.

On Friday I went home an hour early and hurried to get supper ready, and a bit of tidying up, then a bit after 6 pm I dropped everything and raced over to the bus depot, which is not more than 5 minutes away. Their bus pulled in almost immediately, so I didn’t even have to sit down to read. After our initial greetings we hurried out around the corner to my car and I brought them home for supper.

Over the table I suggested that I call my cousin June and invite her and her family over for the dessert, so they could visit with them too. They agreed, so I did, but June came alone. We had a pleasant visit, though she had to be up and going to chauffeur her son to some event with his friend. I don’t think it lasted a whole hour.

My uncle and aunt were willing to sleep on the mats and quilts I brought out (my house is too tiny for a real guest room and proper double bed) - which we laid out in the pantry.

Before noon on Saturday we were dressed for the anniversary, and headed out. First stopping at a WalMart for some camera batteries and a watch battery. We also stopped at a bulk baking supplies place just outside of Rosthern, but still arrived at the church the same time as the Andres and some of their family.

Two things stand out from that celebration. I found myself networking around and realizing that I knew many of the Neudorf cousins from that large extended clan that showed up. (Hannah is a second cousin to Mom and Uncle Henry, etc). But my uncle did not know most of these second cousins of his, so I found myself in the delightful role of introducing them.

Secondly, I think we were all taken aback a bit to discover that the Andres’ daughter Michelle and her husband were expecting their tenth child, and besides the nine they had already, they had adopted 5 more. So in December their count will be 15. Their oldest daughter was married and she and her husband had already adopted three or four too! Aunt Frieda was really flabbergasted.

Now, come to think of it, my great-grandfather Jacob Neudorf had 18 children - with two wives.

Anyway, they had their return bus ticket to Rosetown for 6 pm in Saskatoon, so we had to excuse ourselves before the cake cutting and head back to the city. just in time too. I got them there at 5:45 and in five minutes they were boarding the bus. Not quite a whole 24 hours I had with them.

It’s been a struggle to find time in my busy agendas to do a little monthly chore. Mainly because it has become a bigger one with more and more websites to look after. That has been the matter of checking the STATs to see how many visitors come to each site, and how long they stay and what pages are most popular with them.

I used to fit it all into a couple of hours work on a slack night when I didn’t have so much to do for my clients, but now each evening is committed to a specific project or client and this year I’ve just been falling farther and father behind. Back in July I vowed that I’d take time for this on Wed. mornings when I usually do computer repair kind of projects before the staff prayer meeting. However, it seems each week other things were more urgent - so I still wasn’t getting to it.

Some clients like to have some notes about their site’s STATs when I send their invoice at the end of the month. That motivates me to get a few done.

Last week I got some done on Wednesday morning, but decided that it might work better if I just made a rule to check two sites’ STATs before I start answering emails in the afternoon. That way I should be able to make the rounds each month with less pressure.

Well, I have just two sites’ STATs to check this afternoon and I’m all caught up! Imagine that. Not only for last month, but for all the intervening months that I had missed, - like since April!

There’s just one hitch. It’s when I’m checking STATs that I often catch little things that need maintenance or repairs, like email addresses bogged down with bounced messages, (like yesterday, which turned into a 5-6 hour job to clean up the mess). Sometimes I spot bad links that need fixing. Hopefully by catching problems when they are few and small, will not add too much to my workload.

I mention this because it reminds me of the value of assigning a regular block of time for the things that are important for us. If we do, they get done and we have a clear conscience. If not, we tend to get overwhelmed. Then nothing, not even the work we love, is fun any more.

It has brought the corners of my mouth down to see how my neglected sites are dropping in the STATs. (sigh!) Now how can I make time for them?

As a missionary with Western Tract Mission, Inc, even if just a part-time or Contract missionary, I am expected to provide a newsletter for my supporters and friends to share how things are going with me. I’ve been finding it hard to make time to do this, but I’ve finally managed, after several Sunday afternoons to get one together. Because a number of my prayer friends are not computer people, I have provided a two-page photo story to summarize how my garden has changed over the summer. It just takes excerpts from the full-length photo stories I’ve provided online to my RoseBouquet friends.

This is totally optional, but if you are interested in reading this letter, I have uploaded it as two PDF files, which you can open or download to read. Here are the links;
Birthday-missionary-letter8-10.pdf - and,
PhotoSTory-of-Garden2010.pdf

My Mom used to sketch house layouts on the backs of past month calendar pages. She knew what she wanted when that time would come! I think I have memories of seeing that back as early as 1960. My parents built several houses out of second-hand materials from older houses that others no longer wanted. But Mom always dreamed of the day she would have a NEW house made of new materials.

Later, I used that memory in my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses, and fulfilled Mom’s dream house by having my main character, Ruthe Veer, build her mom’s dream home while they were away on a trip.

Naturally, that didn’t help my real mom, of course, as she never got to see it. Unaware, for many years she kept on plotting and sketching how she wanted her dream house to be laid out, how large each room, and so forth.

Find the rest of this article in my Sharing Library: A Dream House for Mom

Some good friends in South Africa (whom I’ve never met in person) have been telling me about a business venture that is paying off well for them. However, it was limited to people in their country until just recently. Joy sent me the link right away to check out.

Unfortunately, I’m still always somewhat behind in dealing with incoming emails. But I got a look at it last week, and late Sunday night explored the site some more. They have a free trial period so that people can check it out, and it looks like this is a sensible plan that will work out well for many friends.

The essence of it centers around motivational material that is sent out on a daily basis. I normally see that kind of stuff with caution, for I notice that many people look to such things instead of putting their faith and confidence in God, where I personally like to place my priorities. I like to be consistent with my theology.

However, the founder seems to have a Christian background, and most of the stuff can be helpful. I do agree that we need to set goals and discipline ourselves, and that our attitudes will make a world of a difference as to what we can accomplish.

So, with the precaution not to check your mind and heart at the door when you read “motivational” pep-talks I recommend that you check it out. See if it makes sense to you. Be Motivated Today

Another thing. Would you participate in a little quick survey?

Here at the mission we’ve had a debate this morning about whether it is better in printed materials like our newsletter, to refer readers to the website with;
a.) a link to the site and a description of what link to click on
b.) a complete url link for them to type in to get directly to that page.

Now, you are reading this on your computer. So you may be used to links in an email that you click which take you directly to the page you should go to. But if you were reading in a magazine or printed document and found a reference to a website, which would you prefer?

a.) a description of how to find the link on the home page to get there ie. WesternTractMission.org and look for the link to the new calendar for 2011.

or -
b.) the full URL like this; WesternTractMission.org/Signs/order-Faithfulness-Calendar.shtml

To participate in this survey, either register so you can leave a comment, or go to my contact form and put A, or put B, into the comment area.

If you have other thoughts and opinions to contribute, just write what you think on this topic. (Right now Joe is holding up the printing of the last pages of Reflections because of this. I have my opinion and he has his. I’m really curious to know which is best).

For many years already, I’ve been telling people that the best place to go for cheap domains is at GoDaddy.

On the weekend, while updating something there, I discovered that as a client I am already an affiliate. I could be making a bit of income when others go to register a domain name there because of my referral.

Wow, so I got that sorted through and have some banners now to put on my websites. (As soon as I find some roun’ to-its).

Domain Sale! $7.49 .com at GoDaddy