Face forward - even if not moving forward

Here in Hamilton we have a precious aviation museum. It's the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. It's mandate is to preserve warplanes of any vintage and, where possible, get them into flying condition. It's crown jewel is a Canadian-made Avro Lancaster bomber - one of only two in the world from WWII that still fly. Most of their piston-prop planes in the museum still fly. It's a real labour of love for those staff and volunteers involved.

Our ministry's annual banquet was held at the museum this year. It was thrown upon my lap about a month ago to get the audio/visual equipment together and run it for the evening. We contracted with Soundbox here in Hamilton. They are top-notch and do most of the big-time concert productions here in Hamilton and the area. I was pleased to have their equipment to work with. It was a stretching time for me because I have never done anything on this scale. There were 10 boxes dropped off at 9am at the museum. Two other guys were there to help me get it all set up. The one fellow knew more than I did, but in the end, it still took over 5 hours to finish. Then there were technical glitches to overcome and last minute updates to presentations for the evening. It's not normal for me to handle tens of thousands of dollars of tech equipment, but it all worked well in the end. The following picture shows some of the gear I had to handle for the night. The fellow in red is Bob Lawson, one of the other sound techs from my church who ran the lighting and presentations. The Lancaster bomber was our main platform backdrop. The nose towered about 20 feet above the platform.


Oh yeah; there is one benefit to working a special event like this: you don't eat much, and whatever you do eat is usually cold becuase you're so busy concentrating on getting everything hooked together and working. I touched the food Bob went out and bought for me about 4 hours after he brought it in.

The special singers we had were three sisters who's last names were originally Crozier. They did a fabulous job of the songs and were a vocal treat. They had a great time doing their music and were very comfortable with the setup. Everyone enjoyed them. The guest speaker was a former U.S. Air Force pilot who has the distinction of logging more flight time in an F4 Phantom than anyone in the force's history. He left his distinguished aviation career to be Galcom's U.S. Director over 20 years ago. It was great to have him speak in a venue that was so reminiscent of his past days.

The following picture is a meeting of old friends: Everett Ford and Howard Bryce. The backdrop here is a Tudor trainer jet. The same kind used by the world famous Canadian Snowbirds aerobatics team. Everett is 94 years old! He worked as a volunteer at the office until just last year. He "retired" to spend more time looking after his ailing wife. But he is always smiling. Howard is a member of my church, not quite as old as Everett, but these two guys have known each other for many years. I snapped this while they weren't looking.

A week ago yesterday we had some pleasant news at work: a volunteer couple, Chuck and Marilyn, were going to be bringing a soup lunch for everyone. Marilyn is a terrific cook. She makes yummy home-made treats for us at work every week. But this was special.

Michelle's boyfriend heard about this and sent a notice to be posted to promote the upcoming day (his said, “Why sit at your desk and stew when you can come out for a soup-er luncheon?”). Well Michelle then got the idea to put a sheet up so others could add their promotional sayings too. The list was posted on the door and here are what people wrote (I take bragging rights for putting the most up there; they're the ones in poor printing):



- Come out for the fellowship and we'll soup-ly the food.
- Stir something up on soup-er Wednesday!
- For a souperlative lunch, come on over to Galcom next Wednesday.
- Want a fast lunch? Soup-it-up next Wednesday.
- Mr. Wang say, “No mystery: come for a soup-lise lunch next Wednesday.”
- CSI soup at Galcom: the broth thickens...
- No soup for you! (from Seinfeld's 'Soup Nazi' episode)
- So...this soup was walking into a bar, I mean church...
- It's a bird...it's a plane...it's Souperman!
- Hey! This Wednesday should be souper-dooper!
- Yer lunch is being souplanted today.
- Soupercalifragilisticexpialidelicious!



The soups were absolutely delicious! The one on the left is 'Mexican Chicken Corn Chowder' and the one on the right is 'Cheeseburger'. The lunch also came with beautifully soft bun rolls and for dessert there was a 'Strawberry Cream Pie' on a home-made crust. We went about 10 minutes over on our lunch time. When I get the recipes, they will be added to this post.

Additional recipes are here.

As a few Opera friends have known, I've been looking for full-time work for 2 years now. Today was the day I began a full-time job with a missions organization that builds fixed-tune radios.

Let's back up a bit...

Eight years ago I went back to college to begin what I believed was God's direction to integrate my hands-on work with a formal education in manufacturing and engineering. It was very hard work; the program at the time was one of the hardest in the province. I believed it also provided the best value for my educational dollar and provide better job opportunities when finished.

In April 2005 I finished full-time studies. I was also 2 courses short of my diploma. Guess how many jobs I could have done that required a diploma? Lots. I tried falling back on what I had done before going back to school: working as a service technician for home health care companies; fixing wheelchairs, walkers and other durable medical equipment. My finances were in bad shape and by September 2005 I declared personal bankruptcy. How much worse could it get?

A company who wanted to strong-arm me into doing additional work for far less than minimum wage and outside of our original work contract let me go in March 2006. Until last week, I've been working temp jobs with a local agency. They have been a blessing in providing work when needed to help pay the bills. If additional things were needed, God somehow provided extra work or food or whatever to keep just ahead of my commitments. It has been a time of proving the line in the Lord's Prayer, “give us this day our daily bread”.

Coming to today...

Believe me, I had given up hope that what God spoke to my heart 8 years ago would ever come to pass – until two weeks ago. My hairdresser had also known I was looking for full-time work and the missions emphasis on my education. She called me at home on a Sunday afternoon to let me know there was an opening for an assembly worker at Galcom International. They had actually put a notice in their church bulletin. I called first thing the next morning to a fellow there I had teamed up with to do a volunteer project earlier and he let me know who to forward a resume to. They liked the resume and an interview was scheduled for the week prior to the Easter Weekend. The interview went well, they checked my references (the people told me the company had called), but it was the waiting throughout the Easter Weekend that was the hardest.

Yesterday morning at 10:30 was the call of acceptance and to come in for this morning. There was about 20 minutes of shock and then a period of crying with thankfulness beside my bed. It was not only over, but it included a missions element as well. Proverbs 13:12 says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

Today I learned various aspects of tuning and building the radios pictured above. Now each one of these radios is the vocal agent for a person called of God to transmit the Gospel to a region or peoples that is being neglected by large-scale missions operations. Some of these regions are so remote, they are actually dropped by plane with little hand-made parachutes! So even though I personally don't go, what I build does, and is the representative for a person who brings teaching and music to the person holding these little radios.

So today, I became a missionary.