P.A.T.H. Book Report (vol. 1)

P.A.T.H. training is looming, as a part of the course requirements we are required to read several books and give report on them. This is the first of the five that I have read, I thought I'd share a few thoughts here to give you an idea of what we will be looking at while we're out at P.A.T.H. training in April, May and June.

The Grieving Indian
by Arthur Holmes

The Grieving Indian is written by an Ojibwe man by the name of Art Holmes. It is not a lengthy read, but it is packed with powerful insights and practical illustrations. The practical life experiences of Art serve as a poignant backdrop to his book and as a powerful base for his ministry.

His understanding of the fundamental needs of those grieving and suffering loss or separation is clearly presented throughout the book. And although this is written with a focus on Native peoples, the truths are something everyone should understand.

I personally found his expounding on the stages of grief and the correlation to abandonment or separation to be very insightful. It is interesting to me to see how the attitudes of generations past have deeply impacted the attitudes and reactions to personal suffering in people today.

Social Networking

You can now follow Arrowhead Native Bible Center on Twitter! If you look down the right column of our website you will find links to the Arrowhead Twitter and Facebook accounts! Feel free to join us and stay up to date with all things Arrowhead! If you look you will find also that Grant has a personal Twitter account and that both Liz and Grant have Facebook accounts, feel free to drop in on us in the digital world!!

the stuffs

I decided to get out of the office this week. Last week I spent catching up on a lot of office work. There is quite a bit to do (and still the list grows).

This week, Kevin and I spent the day cleaning out the shop and main lodge. The dumpster seems to fill too quickly, so when we were in town running camp errands we looked into the possibility of having a larger dumpster. The collection company (Alternate Waste Management) will provide us with a new dumpster (this one will actually have doors) that is twice as large, at no extra cost. We spent time this week doing some cleaning up outside as well, with the help of Mr. Cole our neighbour we burned a large pile of brush that has been accumulating for several years. A perfect winter task, we will likely need to have another fire before Spring arrives. Every year brings lots of windfall and in order to keep the property looking tidy we need to collect it and get rid of it.

We're still working on getting quotes for having an office renovation done at Arrowhead. Headquarters would like us to work out of the Center instead of our homes and as such has agreed to help us make a suitable workspace. Kevin and I are quite excited about having an office to share, it will certainly streamline a lot of our tasks.

It's a beautiful day here, the sun is shining and the fresh snow is glistening. I hope you have a wonderful day where ever you are!

much-a-doo...

Well folks, Liz and I had a wonderful vacation over the Christmas Holiday. We spent slightly longer than two weeks with Lizs' family in Granville Beach, Nova Scotia. As you know we had a very busy Summer and Fall, and made great use of our time to relax.

We returned home to Cumberland Bay this past Sunday and dove right into work. I've been working with the books to try and bring everything up to date, I think I am just about done catching up, a few more minor details tomorrow and I'll be able to move ahead with
the books on a week to week basis.

Kevin and I traveled to Sussex on Tuesday and met with Arbing Equipment to finally put to rest our tractor woes. We received some financial assistance from NCEM headquarters and paid the bill. It was an unfortunate situation, and has left us a little wiser. (if you don't know the story, you can read my post in December) The tractor was delivered yesterday, Kevin & Ron Cole put on the snow blower today and we are in business.

I will be getting at the website in the next few days as well. Arrowhead, and the NCEM Eastern Field will be having a fully interactive website developed and put into operation prior to April (Lord willing) I will share some more details with you about the functionality of the website in another post, suffice it to say that we are hoping it will not only be a wonderful ministry tool, but will allow us to reduce some of our postal and printed form expenses.

If you are wondering just where our prayer letter is for January, I am hoping to get that to the post next week. We will be publishing the 'Just Mind The Gap' Prayer Letter just four times a year from now on. We initially were sending it every two months, but have decided that it might be more prudent to send quarterly. If you aren't receiving the prayer letter in the mail and would like to, we'd be more than happy to add you to the mailing, just let us know!

I will be working on producing the next edition of 'the Quiver' to be sent out in March. This little magazine is Arrowhead's own prayer letter and will be sent out quarterly as well. We are working on some printed collateral for Arrowhead (a camp brochure, and flyers for this summer's upcoming camps), these will be available once the details of this summers camps are neailed down. Kevin and Marcia are working hard at organizing the programs, speakers and staff for this coming Summer Camp season.

As a bit of an extra side project, I am working with Conrad Flett on a short series of videos geared to First Nations youth. The videos will focus on some very real issues for Native young people in Canada. Each will feature a short message from Howard Jollie, a native pastor in Winnipeg, as well as some testimony and music. It is Conrad's vision that these will be a valuable tool to reach out to youth by addressing, in an engaging way, some things that are important to them. I'm excited to have been asked to work on the project and hope to complete it prior to travelling out west to P.A.T.H. training this April.

We are beginning to think a little more about our travel out to P.A.T.H. in April. We have our book list from last year, and will each have to read five books from the list and write reports on them, due upon arrival in April. I have already read a couple of them and written brief reports for you, I will do the same with the remaining titles as I go.

In thinking about our upcoming training, I will be posting some details about our upcoming 'Penny Rolling Party' in conjunction with the fundraiser we are running... 'A Plethora of pennies'. We have been receiving some great support from churches, friends and family, we're excited to have you all share with us in this acute financial need.

Well, I think that catches us up for now, I do apologize for my absentee Blogging over the Christmas break. I hope to check in two or three times a week to keep you up to date on our shenanigans!

God Bless and Happy New Year!