Yearly Archives: 2004

Millions Dissatisfied

So my sister only just pointed out to me that the guestbook was not working. Seeing as the last entry was in May, this means that there are potentially millions of people who went to sleep disappointed at night because they were not able to sign the guestbook. This is now a very cordial invitation (yeah, command) to sign the guestbook immediately. Heidi is always complaining that no one signs it.

This update is being written from a very familiar sofa at 130 MacKay street where Heidi, Jake and I have been spending the last week. The clock just struck midnight, Christmas Eve, but we have yet to hear reindeer on the roof. Instead, the room is filled with the lively and very wonderful sounds of family and home.

The last week has been filled with … sitting. According to Heidi, this is all that ever happens when I’m back home in Stellarton. Is that true? Of course not. I go to the “New” mall, Andre’s Pizza and we were down in Bridgewater yesterday. All very wonderful things in a wonderful place with the salty smell of home in the air. Did we ever need it! Smile all.

Perception Change

Heidi and I are the happy and thankful parents of a beautiful little baby!

It used to be that when I heard of a little baby being born, I would very much be excited to ask what the gender, name, and weight of the little one was because I love little babies. I would always follow this up with a question on how the Mom was doing because that was the “proper” question to be asked. Of course, the answer to the latter was always that she was doing “fine”, as was the little child.

Saturday changed all that. I have been in many difficult and challenging situations over the course of the past 28 years. For those who know me well, they would tell you that the more challenging the situation, the more I thrived. If that happened to be diving to the maximum recreational depths, snowboarding down the hardest cliffs and mountains, climbing up the most challenging rock faces, whatever. Given all these times, there is no question in my mind that the most difficult time in my life was on Saturday … and I wasn’t even the one delivering the baby.

There is no question that beautiful little babies are wonderful, precious and the gifts of God from the hand of a loving Creator. I do not want to take away from that. His purposes are loving and eternal and He “lends” us these ones to bring up for Him – as Hannah did Samual. I’ve thought about that over and over in the past nine months. But it is also true that there are millions of untold stories of difficulty and courage that lie behind those same little babies – including you. There were times in that room on Saturday with Heidi that I was praying more hard than I think I’ve ever prayed for my wonderful and special wife, Heidi. I know that I will never forget the miracle and answer to prayer as long as I live. Heidi. I’m not going to give you the story (as it is not mine to tell), but those of you who have had children or gone through the birth of a little child, whether it took 3 hours, 12 hours or more than 24 hours will know a little bit of what I mean.

It was a perfect and wonderful little baby boy. Jake Bertram. He weighs in at 8 lb even and was about 22″ long. He had a little bit of stress during delivery, but is doing very well. I’m going to put some pictures up (although I don’t have a lot yet), and you can decide who he looks like.

And yes, Heidi and Jake are not just doing “fine”, but are doing well. The Lord has truly given us cause to smile.

Sushi

I really did mean to send an update while I was in Japan. However, I guess I never did get around to writing this up and now I’m back in Boston. Better late than never.

If you have the opportunity to visit either China or Japan, I would definitely put my recommendation on the former. While Tokyo was interesting and fun (I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much raw fish in my life), it didn’t have the same cultural feeling as Shanghai, China. There were two chief differences in my mind: the first was the sound and the second was the architecture.

Japan was just so quiet compared to China. Every time you went out in China, you took your life in your hands and the noise level was incredible. Horns, horns and more horns. There was no such thing as lanes and turns, it was a fight with noise and size to make it anywhere. The first thing that hit me about Japan was that there were no car horns at all. (They also drive on the left, as in England and Australia.) It just seemed that the traffic flow was so quiet. It carried over into conversation as well. People spoke in low, muted tones and were very withdrawn and hushed.

The seond chief difference was the architecture. China had huge towering new architecture everywhere you looked of all shapes and sizes . To contrast this, Japan seemed to have been built in the 1960’s with little new development since then. It was just another Western style city with square block buildings. Outside of the Emporer’s palace and park, the city reminded me of any other in North America. Perhaps it was just the zip and zest that seemed to be missing.

There were many other differences as well. English seems to be spoken much better in China than in Japan where I needed an interpreter for several of my meetings. The food also seems to be more singular around sushi, tempura and raw fish (all very good). There were many more McDonald’s and Starbucks in Tokyo, but that could simply be because of the capitalist government. Another very fascinating aspect of Japanese culture was that no one shakes hands. Everyone bows to each other several times. From a sanitary perspective, I would say that this is generally a good thing.

Anyway, back to work today and catching up on a million things from last week. I forgot to take my camera with me, but I will certainly be uploading some pictures tonight or tomorrow. Smile all.