Literally. We are now living in Costa Rica. We've got a new blog going. If you are interested in our new life direction(s), head to www.thehiebertfamily.com.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Thursday, November 20, 2008
I sleep not
I was sleeping already tonight. Lukas came by though, along with some tears and some sort of problem he couldn't clearly articulate but I helped him back to bed and he's back to sleep. Lucky kid . . .
I sleep decent enough for the most part. I only mention this because in the 8 or so months since my last post on this blog, enough has happened and is going on in our lives that could keep a guy awake for weeks on end. It's not all bad. It's just that for a guy like me who over-analyzes everything, to not be kept awake at night is a miracle. And by miracle, I do mean nothing short of God's intervention. But tonight I am awake. Some of the things I am thinking about (aka: what has changed in the last 8 months):
The Guatemala mission trip. It was soo good on a number of levels. Was it worth it? Was it worth what? Was it worth the money spent? Was it worth the time? Was it worth bringing my family? I think so, to all of that. We didn't come back with any sort of "call" to missions which we were kind of expecting. I think we were really hoping for some big movement of our hearts cause then it could have made the decision to leave Summerland Alliance Church (SAC) easier.
Was resigning from my Associate Pastor position at SAC the right decision? I am almost certain it was.
I now drive a truck. A 2001 Peterbilt 379 Long Nose with a striaght piped cummins ISX 500hp. Terry, my boss/friend bought it for me to drive. It's the first time I have ever had a truck that was all for me. It's cool that I am trusted and valued enough to have my own truck. It even has my name on the door. A first for me. It's cool and all but at the same time, it is just a truck. And I am not a truck driver. This is important. One of my struggles in life is that I place too much of my identity in what I do for a living and I am working to be free from that. So, again, I drive a truck but I am not a "truck driver" or even worse - a "trucker".
So we are living in a transition. I am no longer a pastor, we moved to a new house across town, I have a different job, life is not the same, there are new challenges, we don't want to live the truck driving life, we are trying to figure out what or next "thing" is and it could be ministry of some sort again, we don't know where we belong (church family), we are still struggling to make ends meet, the list goes on.
Reasons for leaving SAC are long and deserve a post or two on their own - hey maybe this is the start of new life for the blog. Don't get your hopes up too high. But just so you know, the reason was NOT to make more money. Let me clear that up because it seems that that is the impression of most people who don't understand.
Mackenzie is in play school - where has the time gone? He finally can ride his bike! We worked on it this past weekend and he picked it up in no time! That's a bit of a story on it's own.
Should we have bought snow tires this week? Yeah, a good move. I kinda wish I could have afforded nicer rims like Terry (my boss/friend) suggested but on the other hand, who am I to be concerned over the look of my car when a lot of my fellow man can't afford food for tomorrow, let alone shiny rims. Then, maybe I shouldn't have bought the snow tires with that in mind. These tensions become too strong in my head - I don't know what to do with them.
I pulled out the "little legos" today. It used to be something only Mackenzie and I played while Lukas was napping but he is old enought to play now. And oh the fun of it all. Mackenzie likes to play with things that I build while Lukas likes to construct towers and explore the little people, especially the lego men. I loved lego as a kid. It was weird to think that pretty much all my lego is older than my boys. Most of it is probably 20 years old or more. I think I have more memories of surrounding lego than any other toy. Now I get to relive it all, and probably for many years to come.
What would a "failed life" look like? That was what I was thinking about when I was tarping my load this morning. And I have thought about it all day and am thinking about it now. I figure that a failed life would include something about marred relationships - God and people. It would be more about that than accomplishments I think. I think I could be a world changer but live a failed life just as I could be a tarper of loads and live a succesful life. Or maybe I tell myself this because I don't want to feel like I am a failure. More thinking to do on this one, but not know cause I am going to sleep. . .
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Guatemala
Oh yeah, I went to Guatemala. In fact I am there now. I am with a team doing stuff. We have a blog dedicated to this whole thing. I posted on that site tonight but here it is . . .
This is the first time since we've left that I, Chris, have had access to the internet. It has been a glorious fast! I have really had no desire to connect and didn't really want to tonight but since I do have access, I thought I'd let you know what we have been up to.
Working back in time:
I am currently sitting at the table inside the hostel that we are staying at tonight. We are in Guatemala City. We need to be at the airport really early so rather than stay at Fe Viva and get up super early, well, you understand.
We spent the day and the conclusion of our time in Guatemala touring Antigua. A beautiful city! We'll get some photos posted when I manage to get them onto a computer. (It takes to long I am tired - don't ask).
I'm trying to thing of what we did yesterday. It's funny how fast we get our experiences mixed up. Really, the whole trip has been a pile of experiences mashed into one.
Yesterday morning I showed Mike, a guy from Peachland who came to spend time at Fe Viva after we left, how to install Windows XP (in Spanish) and Office onto a bunch of computers that were donated. This was a project I was working on all week at a leisurely pace. Initially, I was told that they had 6 computers they wanted up and running. No problem except that they were plagued with problems. I did get them running, sort of. But like I said, I worked at leisurly pace until they told me yesterday that they have 200 more! What? Yup, 200! There was a communication breakdown somewhere. Well, needless to say, I couldn't get them all up and running so I developed a assembly line system that they can pass onto people as they come and they may have most of them going in a couple of months.
While I did that, the rest of the crew were working on painting a new youth centre that Felix and his wife Teressa are starting. Felix and Teressa were our hosts and you will get to know them as we relive our journey.
In the evening, we said good-bye to the Casa kids. We sang songs with them one last time, Brad shared a devotional with them, and then they sang a special song for us. It was in Spanish so all we could make out was that it was about frogs. It was sad to say good-bye. You wouldn't understand the unique bond that is formed between these kids in such a short time but my heart was sad.
Self portrait - Elvis (the oldest of the Casa Kids) and I
My teammates will have to help me remember some of the kids' namesOnce the Casa kids were in bed, we threw tennis balls with Maria's kids just inside the courtyard. You will get to know these kids. They are a family living in extreme poverty that we invested in as a team while in Guatemala. Some of the money gifts that SAC gave, we gave to Felix to help care for this family. Felix personally is making sure the kids are going to school and being cared for.
We finished the night with a coke, a chocolate bar, and a good visit. A new team had arrived from Saskatoon and it turned out Angela knew one of the girls from over 10 years ago. That's not the only "small world" connection that was made on the trip. Tracy could tell you about hers.
And that was yesterday. Hopefully we'll all find time to recap the other days for you.
Thanks for praying. I was thinking tonight that in a lot of ways, the trip was fairly easy but I caught myself because it was in the air of "we didn't really need to pray that hard after all." Not true at all. If indeed we can say that in a lot of ways, the trip went off without a hitch or that things turned out to not be as difficult that we thought they were - all glory goes to God. He answered our prayers!
Tomorrow will be a long day and we kinda hit the wall of exhaustion tonight. Please pray for good rest, strength, endurance, grace, patience, and a good sense of humor.
See you soon!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
A good friend sent this to me. All I know is that it is from Oswald Chambers
“Jesus said to them again, ‘ As the Father has sent Me, I also send you’ ” (John 20:21).
A missionary is someone sent by Jesus Christ just as He was sent by God. The great controlling factor is not the needs of people, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in our service for God is behind us, not ahead of us. The tendency today is to put the inspiration out in front—to sweep everything together in front of us and make it conform to our definition of success. But in the New Testament the inspiration is put behind us, and is the Lord Jesus Himself. The goal is to be true to Him—to carry out His plans.
Personal attachment to the Lord Jesus and to His perspective is the one thing that must not be overlooked. In missionary work the great danger is that God’s call will be replaced by the needs of the people, to the point that human sympathy for those needs will absolutely overwhelm the meaning of being sent by Jesus. The needs are so enormous, and the conditions so difficult, that every power of the mind falters and fails. We tend to forget that the one great reason underneath all missionary work is not primarily the elevation of the people, their education, nor their needs, but is first and foremost the command of Jesus Christ—“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations ” (Matthew 28:19).
When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, “What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!” But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were “foolish” enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Whitest Boy Alive
Thanks to my good friend Robby King, I found my latest favorite musical offerings: The Whitest Boy Alive. My favorite song right now is "Don't Give Up" off of their album "Dreams".
Ohhhh sooo gooood!
Still beating
My embarrassment grows everyday. I want to post, but I am to busy to post. I feel guilty for waiting so long but then I tell myself that since it's been so long, don't worry about posting now. Then I want to apologize. And then I tell myself that I don't need to apologize cause it's my blog. Well. I guess this is just to tell you that I am still alive. If I don't blog for some time, I'll arrive at this point again and remind the world that I'm alive. If I suddenly go on a blogging rampage, then, well, I guess I don't know it means.
Ah, just rambling. I'm probably more curious than you about what will come next.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Do this in me!
I don’t know how you listen to sermons. I’ll tell you how you should listen to sermons. You should listen to sermons praying. You don’t have to pray out loud while you’re listening. You should just periodically be whispering, “God, do this text in me.” You don’t have to say “do John Piper’s ideas.” Just “do this text in me. Make this happen in me.”John Piper
Treasuring Christ Together Because He Is More Valuable Than All Else
Desiring God Sermon Audio - Podcast
Flavor Discovery
TWe just discovered Buffalo Wings & Blue Cheese potato chips from Superstore. Truly Amazing! The taste is very real. Very spicy. Very blue cheesy.
It amazes me the flavors “they” can get on chips. It also makes me wonder how they do it. Do they just blend chemicals together till they get a great flavor, discern what it may be, and market it as such?
I vaguely remember my high school science teacher Mr. Reed mixing a bunch of chemicals he happened to have “in the back” with crackers and making us try what was supposed to be an apple turnover - the kind you’d buy at A&W or McDonalds. I think they were good. He told us this is how the fast food restaurants actually make apple turnovers. It’s soo much cheaper if you don’t have to use apples. Apparently.
I’ll still eat the occasional turnover and I think of Mr. Reed every time but I have to convince myself that what I am eating contains real apples. But I digress.
I’d love to see a Discovery Channel series on the process of imparting flavors on foods that are supposed to something other than what they are - like the Buffalo Wings Blue Cheese potato chips. I wonder if they don’t want us to know. That’s probably why I have never seen a show on it.
And now that I think about it once “they” come up with a healthy, nutritious potato chip, one that makes us loose weight, we will never have to eat original food ever again! It seems to me that they are figuring out ways to get any flavor you want on a chip. That could be cool. But that could be gross too. I don’t know if I could eat turkey & stuffing flavored chips, nor tapioca pudding flavored chips. Imagine milk chocolate flavored chips.
Now let’s talk about ice-cream flavors. No lets not. I don’t want to get started on that. But they should include ice-cream in the Discovery Channel series on food invention.
R&R
So I’m writing from our little cottage on Silver Star Mountain. We’re spending just under a week at Fairhaven in an attempt at rest and relaxation. We’re been here before so we know this place is conducive to R&R. And being here before, we know to bring a TV & VCR for the kids and my laptop with the rest of season one and the whole of season two of 24.
One thing I did not expect was that I am able to stay connected to the “real” world through Fairhaven’s new wireless access point. I had actually considered “dropping off the grid” or “going dark” - not even connecting at hotspots in Vernon but I can’t resist. I think that the thinking behind my thinking was really: if I could live without a week of internet access, I could wear it as a trophy. I could boast about it. How foolish.
We could debate the pros and cons of internet dependency but I don’t want to go there. I want to now rest and relax. Blogging, surfing, downloading The Office, are great ways to do that.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Envyable or Unenvyable?
I am trying to decide if I am in a good position here. It sure doesn't feel like it.
Our church leadership (my senior pastor, church board and I) are looking to the future. We are asking the tough questions. The questions that make people uncomfortable. The questions that challenge thinking and stretch faith. The questions that shape the mission, direction and purpose of a church. It's an exciting place to be, especially because I believe our leadership and people are really pliable right now. We are ready to hear from God, to make adjustments, apologies if we need to, and ready to be used by God in an unresisted way. This is all good except for a question that has been directed from the board to me. The board has asked me to come up with three or four areas of ministry that I would like to focus on if there were no obstacle. And they want to do everything they can to make those things happen. Essentially, they are asking for me to write up my own job description. They have even used phrases in our meeting like, "you can start with a clean slate" and "tell us what you want to do."
A bit of history: I have shared with the board my tumultuous life/faith journey that I have traveled these last couple of months. I didn't want to tell them and I wasn't going to but there were a series of events that gave me no choice but to be candid. The amazing thing about our leadership is that they are gracious. The stuff I shared would have not been accepted very well had my colleagues shared the same stuff with their boards - mainly that I struggle with my desire to be a pastor, that there is a number of responsibilities that I really loath but that are a part of being a pastor, that I struggle with my own vision and direction for the ministry areas that I am responsible for. So in response, my board has asked me to tell them what I would like to do? What church board does that? That is pretty amazing if you ask me.
But therein lies the difficulty - that amidst the freedom to chose my future at my church, I really have no idea what I want to do. I have no idea what I should be doing. I have no idea what God wants me to do. I do not have an answer to their question.
On one hand, I have the option to 'chose my own adventure' and in church ministry, that's rare. But on the other hand, I have no idea what that looks like. I don't know what I should chose. I don't know where I am most useful. I don't know where I'll find joy or if I will. And really, I don't think finding joy is the point.
I am having a hard time choosing my words because I have an idea of who will read this and being candid, even on this blog, can affect people in more ways than I know. So if you are a friend and you know me well, you can probably guess the mental/heart/faith battle that is raging in me. If you are family, don't jump to too many conclusions. If you are church family, know that I struggle with stuff just the same as you do, I don't know what the future holds, I'm not leaving, and yeah, I could use your support. And if you aren't a friend or don't know me at all, I am curious to know what makes you read my ramblings anyway.
90 Accord vs. 07 Civic
I took a drive in our old 1990 Honda Accord yesterday (first time since we bought our new Civic) and was surprised by how good it felt. Yeah, it still has a problem with the distributor that I am working on but it just felt good. It wasn't that the seats were still very comfortable, or that the steering and suspension were still tight, or that there was relatively little interior noise for a 17 year old car. No, it wasn't any of that. It felt good because the car was me.
Angela and I are extremely grateful for our new car but despite our gratitude, I have found myself thinking, and have at times said so to Angela, that this new car doesn't feel like our old one did. We really love it but it just doesn't feel the same. And since the drive in the Accord yesterday, I think I know why. I think our pewter (or tan, or light brown car - I never really decided) 1990 Honda Accord EXR became for us a significant part of our identity (or mine at least, speaking for myself). I am not saying that the Accord defined me but it was very much a part of who I was. We had that car for over five years so people got to know that if I were driving somewhere, I'd be driving the Accord. They knew that if they saw the Accord parked at a local establishment, there would be a good chance that Chris or Angela Hiebert was inside. Those that knew me recognized me easily when I was driving that car.
Yesterday, sitting where I have sat for most of my sitting time in the last 5 years, I felt I belonged. I have stared many hours through that windshield. I knew where every button, dial, or lever was in the dark - even the ones that were no longer illuminated like they once were. That car, that Honda Accord was me. It was a part of me. I knew it inside and out. I knew what it smelled like, felt like, sounded like - as if it were an extension of my living body. It was me.
I am still getting used to our new car - it's curves, smell, look, feel, sounds. Our new car is a place of peace for us. Seriously. Our boys love driving and I think it is because they sense that their parents are no longer tense when they drive. They sense that their parents aren't wondering if they are going to make it or not. They sense that their parents are really enjoying themselves. Our new car is great - from the 16" alloy rims to the auxiliary stereo input. I love to drive it. I want to drive it right now. But it just isn't me (yet).
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