Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Navidad a Todos y Dios Te Bendiga!

This year marks our second Christmas away from home, our family and all of our friends at ROL and around Lethbridge.  Things are a bit different this year though as we are celebrating inside the completed first stage of Rio Vista Guest House! 
This room with the tree in it is what we call the "Common Room": this is an area where teams can come together while staying at Rio Vista and do Mission Field briefing and follow-up as well as a quiet room for prayer and relaxation.  Eventually we will provide a computer center with Internet so teams can communicate with their families back home.

I am sure many of you are familiar with the saying, "absence makes the heart grow fonder"  I write to tell you that it is more true than I could have ever imagined.
This year we are especially mindful of our immediate family, separated by a great distance between Canada and the D.R.  Both Laura and I have extensive families with four of our own children as well as numerous brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces and this year our first grand-daughter!  While I realize our decision to move to the D.R. would come with the sacrifice of limited time with our family and loved ones I must emphasize the condition of our hearts during this most important season.  Even though we are here without our  loved ones; our children, our parents, and our friends it is during this season that family is most on our minds.  Even when we still lived in Canada our large, extensive family always tried to come together to celebrate the season.  Maybe not all together, but whoever could, they did get together.

It should come as no surprise that now while we are here in the D.R., I wish we could have all of our children around us to celebrate Navidad in our new home.  This year however, it will not be so.  Our hearts look forward to the time when we can be together.  I want to encourage our readers to seek out the time you don't think you have to reconnect with a brother, sister, father, mother, son or daughter.  Make the time to include as many as you possibly can in your busy lives regardless of their circumstances or yours. 
For Laura and I we will at the very least, be available to skype with all of our family during the Festival of Navidad.  Later when we make our way back to Canada in the new year (No date yet!)  we will definitely take the time to seek out our loved and immensely missed family; then we will take the time to deliver the hugs and kisses , gifts and blessings to as many as time will allow.

Laura and I would very much appreciate your prayers for our family, especially for our children Johnathan, Gabrielle, Forrest and Louellen;as well as our grand-daughter Liliko Rose.

We love and miss you all immensely
Bless you all at this special time of the year, Feliz Navidad a Todos!
God willing we will see you soon!

Mike and Laura

The Real God Market (4) The Indomitable Spirit

Greetings all again from the sunny D.R!

Indomitable Spirit:  a spirit that cannot be subdued or overcome...Urban Dictionary

Two days ago I took my wife to the airport and put her on a plane bound for home.  She returned home to be with our oldest daughter who is set to give birth to our first grandchild!  Truly a momentous occasion for any family for the gift of a child is a blessing we are expected to enjoy; to celebrate as best we can with all the circumstances of our busy lives getting put on hold when birth occurs.  At least for most of us.

While the gift of the birth of a child is a gift to the parents who conceived the child it is interesting to note that within that conception reigns a furious debate over just what it is that causes life to start.  You see today scientific advancements have allowed man to look deep into the inner happenings of cellular development of all kinds of animals including humans but something mysterious still eludes the scientists.

WHAT starts the life of an animal or human and for that matter WHY?

Scientists have recently viewed cellular development of embryos with the aid of strong microscopes, and in "real Time" as it happens and they still have no answer as to What causes life to occur.
They speculate that the combination of the thousands upon thousands of cells forming in different ways and are triggered into development by many other factors, far too many factors for the average person to get their head around.  But even as the scientists watch all this happen right in front of their eyes, they do not know why the heart begins to beat in our bodies.  They cannot scientifically figure out what starts the life of an embryo.  We know this because science cannot create life in the lab for surely they are trying.

Of course believers know the answer but we need not consume our lives with trying to understand the HOW.
Mainstream science has classically demonstrated the conundrum of trying to prove that all life is a product of one accident after another, and that we are the result of course of millions of years of evolution as one prior species develops into the next.  Through scientific investigation man has determined that the odds of life today, in any form, whether it be a simple plant to the complex human, these odds are so astronomically impossible that there has to be something behind it all.  Something has to be manipulating the experiment in order for life to have occurred.  Science has shown that Mathematics cannot be incorrect, therefore their solution of the creation of life to be an accident is mathematically impossible.  However the scientists of today are not yet ready to abandon their theories yet, for to abandon them would mean they would have to admit that God definitively exists. Or at least something like God.

Do any of you see the irony here?

Life is a gift, the life of a child conceived by parents is a blessing.  But each parent provides only the physical evidence required to start life, the two cells that come together and join in a miracle that even science has no answer for.  Once those first two cells join and begin to double and double again, the point where life enters is an equally bigger mystery.  Somewhere between conception and the first heartbeat a greater thing is applied; something bigger than science can explain.  Bigger because Spirit is infinite, without form, and without time.  It has to be Spirit because man has already examined and determined all the chemicals, all the amino acids that make up DNA, all the chromosomes of DNA that determine hair color, height, eye color, skin color and shoe size for that matter.  The trigger is still missing from science.  There are no wires connected to each embryo to some invisible minute battery inside every mother that somehow "jump-starts" the heart.
 Life happens because God touches each embryo with His Indomitable Spirit, His Spirit that He places inside each one of us; His Spirit that touches everything alive in our world around us; His Spirit that then stays only with humanity after life begins.  We know this because humans are the only sentient species on the earth, the only species that can reason and produce results from reason.  His Spirit stays within because this is the only way God can talk to us, through His Spirit within us.

C'mon you scientists, when are you going to admit that there is no solution other than God?  The Philosophy of Logic dictates that there can only be one solution to life, because even logic dictates that all life starts in some way, but it all starts!

Rest assured that science will likely continue to ignore the obvious truth and press on looking for the needle in the hay stack.  As for me and my family, we will enjoy the blessing that God has given us in the gift of our grand-daughter.  Liliko Geyer/McMullen will be born soon, (Due on August 16, 2012) and will already be filled with the Indomitable Spirit of God within her.  May the Indomitable Spirit continue to inspire her, encourage her and empower her to be all that God has willed for her; for this is the truth of WHY we have life, since the Indomitable Spirit of God has most certainly touched all of us first, for you are alive with the same Indomitable Spirit as well.

Abuelo Michael

Navidad!

Feliz Navidad Todos y Dios los bendiga! Laura and I had an awesome opportunity to attend a traditional Dominican Christmas Celebration this past Dec 24.  We have become very close friends with our Dominican Lawyer and her husband (who is also our building contractor!) and we spent the day with them in preparation of the fiesta that night.  Yamilka and Francis always have a traditional Navidad with their closest family and some friends.  This year Francis and his brother Miguel organized the festivities by preparing the farm they own with a new structure.  The small casita was built out of local materials gathered from the farm, smaller trees make up the roof support and larger trees make up the columns.  The roof is put on using hammer and nail and has been built this way for generations; a "canas" roof or palm leaf is very easy to apply and keeps everyone dry for many years.

We are going to build a similar structure on our project, only it will be slightly larger than this one.
During the day the brothers had contracted a local friend to attend to the meal, a fire roasted pig.  The 100 lb pig is butchered in the morning and then hung on a green pole; held on with wire.  Then the pig is slowly roasted over an open pit fire all day.  The process takes about 8 hours to fully cook a pig, talking as a chef though, this one was definitely well-done!  Not surprising though as this is typical of roasted meat on the island, cooking it thoroughly is very important here as animals are not always raised with the same standards we may enjoy in North America.  After the pig was cooked we watched as the chef prepared our pig for transport, placing the pig on a clean piece of plastic sheet and then dividing it up into manageable pieces with a very sharp machete!  From my perspective this was just incredible as each blow with the machete went right through the animal cleanly.  Three of us then gathered up the ends of the plastic sheet and lifted the pig up and carried it into the back of our waiting jeep, onto clean cardboard, we closed the back of the jeep and headed back to the apartment to prep our dinner.  The pig was so hot the rear window of the jeep steamed up quickly and the heat radiated throughout the jeep, smells of sweet smoke and the roasted meat tempted everyone to try a little piece of loin right there on the spot, wow!

  Our Dominican friends insisted I gather my knives and use my culinary skills to separate the animal from his bones, I jumped right in and soon a bag of bones and about forty pounds of roasted pork was separated nicely.  The rest of the meal consisted of a typical array of Dominican Foods from "moro de guandules" (rice with spices and chick peas)  potato salad, coleslaw salad ( more like regular salad only no sauces and made from cabbage) Dominican bread (like pita) and desserts.  The family trickled in to the fiesta as the evening wore on and finally by 9:30 everyone had arrived; finally!  I was starving!

Yamilka gave a prayer and blessing for our gathering in Spanish, (I actually understood most of it!) then we all bellied up to the buffet line and filled our plates.  The food was amazing and the experience was one that we will never forget; even with cultural differences and significant alternatives to the way we might celebrate a traditional Christmas Dinner, we found the nature of the event was entirely centered on the relationships within the family.  How the families involved each other and their children and genuinely created an environment of love within the room.  Laura and I watched and listened (trying to understand as much as we could with our limited Spanish!) as we participated with this family's Christmas.  After the dinner was over, and yes, only 20 minutes of madness to consume food here as it is in Canada, we relaxed a bit with the conversation never even skipping a beat throughout the meal!  They began a gift opening soon after and the eight children at the fiesta enjoyed a couple of frenzied minutes of paper tearing and excited banter between them; the parents all watching intensely as their children received each gift.  Parents only gave to their children and nothing to themselves, although this might have been traditional, we did not know for sure.  After the gifts were opened it was near 11 pm and we excused ourselves and went home with everyone telling us it was very early and the fiesta was just starting!  I must be getting old.

Thoughts from Laura

Christmas day brought us to another Canadian missionary's home for the traditional turkey dinner and games day. First sharing tears for the family missed in Canada, we soon began working together to lift each other up and encourage each other throughout this day. It was hard for us, but thank the Lord that we weren't the only ones that needed the others. I believe that God kept them here in the country for us and vice versa. We celebrated the Lord's birth together with other friends and missionaries. That's what is important.
Watching the news this morning, there was a broadcast about young teen girls who video tape and air on the internet their "haul" they received this Christmas. My stomach started to turn as there is so much more to Christmas than what we get given to us. I felt so sad for those girls as they don't even realize the true meaning of this festive time. We are to celebrate The Only Gift that matters, not stuff. Sitting down to the beautiful 2 celebratory meals we received made us think of the people who were literally just down the road from our feast. Some with just the beans are rice that were given to them, some with nothing. Humility in this season has gone the way of the dodo. Yet Christ came to us with nothing but humility. Being born in a barn and with straw for warmth. This is the King of Kings showing us how we need to be. Come before Him and each other. Heirs in Christ yet humble servants with thankful hearts. God, help us never to commercialize this time of remembering in our hearts.

2 Cor 10:17-18
17 But, "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."   18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
NIV

Going Home!

Well the day has finally arrived and I must say with mixed feelings, Laura and I leave Canada today for the return to the D.R.  This trip although unexpected has brought us closer to many of our family and friends.  We have thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of family and close friends in each city where we stayed.  A big shout out of love to my family in B.C. who endured the hardship of family loss with us, God bless you all!  I know that you rest in the comfort of the Lord and He has our backs as we leave you again for a time.  Our extended family in Alberta is also huge in our hearts as we again are reminded of how strong is the bond that ties us together with John and Denise McNeil, may the Lord keep you and your household strong blessing you with good times and a calming presence.  (I know you need that because of those little angels who bless you daily!)  Thank you for putting up with us as we moved in and out of your house several times over the past three weeks!  We extend another prayer for our good friends who put us up in Lethbridge, feeding us and praying with us while we reconnected with supporters in L.A.  Be blessed James and Sylvia for the Lord knows your hearts and He is pleased.  We pray for a blessing over them as they support us from Lethbridge, they are our anchors while we are away and we ask that they be held up in prayer while they walk out the mission with us.  Pray for protection over them and God's provision, we love you guys!  Laura and I were blessed to be able to meet with so many supporters while we were in Lethbridge for the week.  I apologize if we could not meet with many others who support us as we simply ran out of time.  It has been an amazing time of rediscovery with many of you about the mission God has given us and what has been happening with us so far.  Many times I felt my voice straining to keep up with my mind as we shared our experiences with you.  I know my wife says I talk too much but I can't help it, I have to tell of the work He is doing with us in the D.R.  It is a glorious opportunity for us to be able to share with you all that we have seen and done so far.  Thank you all for your time, your hospitality and your love towards us.  Laura and I look forward to the day when we can return the blessing to each of you when you visit us on the mission field in the D.R.  We will soon begin to build our Mission House and then all of you are invited to journey with us more closely, sharing in the experience of seeing God at work with us in the D.R...with His people.
Finally we wish to thank our parents, each of them in turn have been absolutely inspirational to us, my B.C. mother Debbie, who now stands on the rock of the Lord, bless you as you continue on without my father, I know you will miss him as will I, but I know we are stronger today for how he enriched our lives...no more suffering.  To my mother and step-father in Huxley Ab. keep the faith, for I look to that faith in you as inspiration for myself.  The light of the Lord shines bright in Huxley, thank you for all you are in my life.  Lastly but certainly not least, our parents in Windsor, Laura's father and step-mother, from whom I can say I received good Godly counsel, amazing blessings and profound love.  The Spirit of the Lord is the center of Dearl and Annette's life, this we know.  Bless you all our
earthly parents, bless you all our families extended, bless you all our friends and supporters and a heartfelt thank you for all you do for us!

Dios los bendigal!

Mike and Laura Boisclair

Remember

Today I visited with an old friend from high school.  I called Chris after I arrived back in my home town of Oliver B.C. to see if he could meet up with me for breakfast.  Chris immediately said yes and then gave me his condolences for the loss of my Dad Charlie Boisclair who passed away suddenly on September 6.  While we had gone to school at SOSS Chris had not always been in Oliver, he arrived at the school at the beginning of the Grade 10 year for me.  Chris was big and tall and full of personality, played basketball and was labelled "a jock".  Certainly not the crowd I hung around with.  I guess you could say I was a "wanna be jock"  but was too small and slight to play that serious paced game.  Neither did we have a football team, like it mattered.  We ended up in several classes together and became friends as we often studied together.  What an unlikely pairing, but we became stronger friends and he offered me a summer job through his father.  I accepted because money was right up my alley as a teenager, I mean food was pricey!  What followed was several years of friendship that continued even as I moved away and began my adult life.  My father and Chris always had a great relationship and Dad even helped Chris start his first business when he was in grade 12.  It was great and I know Chris always had a great respect for my Dad throughout the following 30 years.  Even as I returned to my hometown for visits from time to time, Chris was always a welcome part of our family.  So solid was that bond.  When the news of my Dad's passing came to the family of course shock and sadness ran its course.  Each of us facing the news with different but similar circumstances.  When I had received the news about his passing I sat and stared at the email and read it again.   Slowly I began to realize that I would never again be able to talk to him, hug him or just sit with him.  Never again would I be able to jump in the truck and race up McKinney to see how quickly we could get to the power line and settle down for an afternoon hunt.  Oh how he loved that part of his life.  It seemed that throughout the years of growing up that was all he ever did.  All his brothers ever did, even some of my aunts embraced the overwhelming desire to provide for their families in this way.  It seemed that even when hunting season was not on we were always up the hill cutting firewood to ready ourselves for the winter.  Dad even turned firewood into a small business as he hauled truckload after truckload of wood down the mountain for us kids to split and chop for resale customers.  As I sat at the computer reading the news the flood of emotion came over me like a wave, welling up from inside and filling my depths first and then moving quickly into my head.  My thoughts raced to how everyone was reacting to this shocking news and the floodgates opened onto the desk.  I gasped and sobbed uncontrollably for a few minutes and then suddenly, as if a tornado had suddenly ceased, calm washed over my body.  Peace came into my mind as I knew suddenly that God had taken him now for a reason.  His suffering was over, time to go home.  His family must stay behind and continue on without him but surely not in pain.  Some of us might continue to grieve that he is gone but the peace I felt of God's will was overwhelming.  God took him to ease all of our suffering.  Dad had endured over 10 years of progressive illness through Alzheimer/Dementia.  An extremely debilitating disease that traps people in their minds and traps the families that have to watch their loved ones suffer.  Enough God said.  Enough.  Chris said to me confirming words of what I knew God was doing.  "It is truly a blessing for Charlie and the family that God has released everyone from the burden of this time"  he said to me this morning.  Chris Jentsch is not a Christian.  But God uses people all instruments of His will, even when they don't even know Him!   Chris continued to comment about my Dad as we sat there and listened to his reminisce about all the times he had spent with my Dad.  "That man had the biggest brain in any man I know!"  he said, "I mean he was so quick with a comeback or a joke and he always had a smile on his face!"  "I wish I could come up with the quick retorts or have the witty little jokes that made people laugh!  Chris spoke for quite a while about the way my Dad was around people.  He was absolutely right, confirming for me that my Father raised me up to appreciate and respect those around me.  That he in turn respected my relationship with y friend so much that now my friend could edify all that my Dad was to all of us.  Charlie Boisclair was loved by all, not a fighter, not mean.  Level, strong and always sure of what he did and who he was.  I knew that, so did my brothers and sisters, all of his brothers and sisters, all of his friends, anyone who met Charlie knew he was alright.  Chris knew it and still does. Thank you Lord for the gift of friendship in a man who I have known for more than 30 years and can still call me brother at the same table.  Your confirming presence is gratifying to me that I am still to continue working for you the rest of my days.  Thank you Lord for your continuing presence in my family, for your peace and love to them as they seek solace in each other and in you.  "Blessed are those who mourn" Jesus said "for they shall be comforted" Matt 3:4. Thank you Lord for your Holy Spirit who comforts all of us when we rest in you as we mourn.  Charlie Boisclair lived his life and now he is gone, but his legacy lives in all of us who were touched by his spirit.  Pray Lord that we never forget him and help us celebrate his life.  Amen