Aaronm.NET

Well, I’ve been back in Townsville for about five days, now.

In a lot of ways, it’s good to be back… it’s really good to see a lot of my friends here, again. On the other hand, it’s been straight back to work, on a brand-new website, and the news I’ve received along with that has not been favorable, to me. As many of you know. I have been hoping to move away from the whole IT/web thing and pursue some things that I’ve really become passionate about. As our communications area grows smaller due to the Ship Tour and people leaving, there are two of us who are being left with what seems to be immense responsibilities.

So… in a way, this cyclone they are predicting might hit us, Cyclone Ului… is a great representation of how I feel, inside. Coming back to work has been a tremendous struggle, and at this point it seems like the worst is yet to come.

Keep me in your prayers, please!

Well, I’m sitting here by myself, watching the Flames game, playing poker on Facebook, waiting for Chinese food.

I haven’t updated for a while (since I was in London) so it’s about time!

Right now, I can’t even remember what I’ve done in the last week.

I suppose there have been a couple of highlights, though! On Saturday, we drove up to Red Deer to Scott’s Parable Place to do some shopping… I was able to get a whole bunch of books that I’ve been hoping to get. I am bringing them — a whole box of them — back to Australia with me, so that’s quite exciting. I think all in all, as of this moment, I’m taking 13 books back to Australia (not including the ones I brought with me). That’s really awesome.

On Sunday, I spoke for about twenty-five minutes at my Church, skimming (and I mean REALLY skimming) over what I’ve done in the last two years at YWAM Reef To Outback. I was really encouraged by the response I received and the generosity of the church towards me… I was very blessed! They had a barbecue fundraiser for me, and it was great!

Sunday afternoon my family (and a friend) drove out to Canmore for some mountain experience. I’ve been here nearly a month and I still hadn’t gotten out into the mountains! So that was really good to be able to do that.

So here we are, lef to right: me, Weston (brother), Sienna (sister), Kelly (friend):

I just noticed how obvious my knife is in the above picture. Ha!

We spent quite a bit of time breaking off the ice shelves you see above, using the biggest rocks we could haul (you can see a rather large one in the above picture, too. Here we are in the act:

Finally, the end of the day in my beautiful country:

Well, I sit here, smile on my face and a warm glow in my chest, toes feeling like they are about to fall off with cold.

Yep… Canada just won Gold in Men’s Hockey at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver! It’s like the most delicious icing imaginable on an Olympic-sized cake!

For those of you that know me well… I am not the most patriotic Canadian, ever. Right now, though, I am extremely proud of my country (as is, I’m sure, everyone else in the country). Not only did we get past that historic first-ever gold medal at a Canadian-hosted Olympic games, but we pulled through to both set the record for most gold medals won by a host country at the Winter Olympics and set the record for the most gold medals in a Winter Olympics (both at 14)!

So yeah… on this day in history, it is a sweet thing to be Canadian!

I do have to note, though, my extreme irritation that french is the first language used at the Olympics hosted in Vancouver.

On another note… yesterday I was blessed to be able to head with my uncle and grandfater up to Goderich to visit my grandparents, aunt & uncle (who drove something like seven hours to come see me for only a few hours!) and cousins (and their daughter). We spent a lot of time looking at pictures from my time in Australia, playing Lost Heir, Skip-Bo, and War, and talking about our wonderful God in the wee hours of the morning over a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee. We also had quite an adventure on the way back following GPS directions back to my current location in London instead of going the normal route.

Yup… so I’m back to Alberta tomorrow morning. I leave here at about seven (London time), which means I arrive in Calgary somewhere around eight (Calgary time). Probably will sleep part of the day… or not… don’t know. Hopefully I get an aisle seat, this time… I need space!