Project update

I have thought long and hard about whether or not I want to go back to Safeway or if I want to do something more meaningful with my life.  The problem is that meaningful pays less then Safeway does and doesn’t give me nearly as good of a dental plan.

Over the last year I found myself spending more and more time at the Salvation Army Community Centre and have become quite good friends with much of the staff at the Centre.  Jordon’s staff is a lot of fun but the entire place has been very good to me.  I started to help Jordon with Sunday evening coffee houses once in a while and that has been a good experience and it made me feel like I was giving back to the community.

There was a staff opening the other day and rather than apply for it, I volunteered to do part of it in the interim while they fill the entire position.  I don’t have a job title but I am hosting the drop in centre on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the afternoons.  On Tuesday and Wednesday we play cards and I talk to the guys while on Thursday we watch a movie.  The kitchen provides snacks and what they call coffee (Jordon doesn’t refer to it as coffee) and I have access to some stereos, games, magazines, and other stuff.

The drop in centre doesn’t fall under Jordon but another manager who gave me my own set of keys (sadly they aren’t Jordon’s all powerful, super power giving, crime fighting, mighty morphing power ranger, manager set of keys) and for a short time my own office to use.

I have some ideas and plans for it but I will have to see if I can twist the arm of the Residential Coordinator and get him to help me out.  Everything from getting a Playstation down there to doing some resume services in the future.

Mustard Seed Sized Solutions

Jordon wrote the cover story for a recent edition of Next-Wave about the complexities of homelessness, and social services, and the disconnect churches have in understanding, and engaging them. He says churches are outside of the system for the following reasons.

An awkward relationship with the social gospel. Fundamentalists equate it with liberalism, while many evangelicals see it as secondary mission. 

Despite humble roots on the fringe of society, evangelicals have become upper and middle class over time. Part of it is most larger churches are upper middle class and full of people who choose to live in the suburbs to get away from the social problems of the core neighborhoods. It isn’t just a quality of housing and financial differences, but a difference in values.

While much of the discussion on poverty and homelessness deals with financial issues, this is often a superficial treatment. It isn’t just financial problems that lead people to the streets. There are complex mental health issues that haven’t always been addressed and in some cases, the people refuse to address them. Those issues take a lot of time, training, resources and physical presence to overcome and in case you haven’t noticed, in times of tough economy, coming up with the money to have a long term presence if you are all not committed to the cause, is a tough, tough sell.

FINALLY TO MANY CHURCHES SEE THE PROBLEM AND SEE THEMSELVES AS THE SOLUTION AS OPPOSED TO BEING A SMALL BUT AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE SOLUTION.

Mark

I have blogged about Mark getting bullied here.  A lot of you have been worried and have been praying for Mark and us as we figure out how to get through this.  On Friday we got the news that the kid at the centre of the problems had been expelled from the school. 

In talking to other parents of kids in Mark’s class, the feeling was one of relief and you could see it in the kids body language.  Sadly it doesn’t really solve anything but hopefully at his new school he will have more resources to deal with his problems.

Oliver

I haven’t blogged very much about Oliver lately, partly because he has been doing really well.   Recently I was talking to someone about Oliver and I was shocked to hear that they had been told he wasn’t doing that well and he struggles as a preemie.  That wasn’t true at all and the opposite has been true. 

It’s hard to believe that he is 8 months old now.  He is sitting up by himself and can roll over but when he is on his back he generally doesn’t roll that much.   He hates being on his stomach and if put on his stomach it is 50/50 on whether he will roll over or just scream in rage over the indignity of being placed on his stomach.  He isn’t crawling but Mark didn’t crawl until later but then was walking soon after that.

 

He occasionally sleeps through the night but normally wakes up at least once.  Neither Mark or Oliver were great sleepers but it isn’t that bad to deal with.

Right now for a hobby, he enjoys hitting Jordon as much as possible.  He has also in the last week hit all of us in the eye balls which is about as painful as you can imagine. 

Medically his only concern is that he gets a lot of needles.  Saskatchewan Health has a program for all kids who are premature and it is a series of really expensive needles to help his immune system.

Oliver and Maggi continue to get along well.  Maggi enjoys liking Oliver’s face while Oliver enjoys fighting back.  For a dog that isn’t that gentle, she continues to treat Ollie very gently and we haven’t had a single incident.  Hutch just kind of does his own thing, regardless of whether or not Ollie is around.

It’s hard to believe that it is only four months until Ollie turns one.  That will be a fun birthday to celebrate.

Family Day Long Weekend

It’s a long weekend in Saskatchewan.  We call it family day and this year it slides up against Valentines Day.  It started with us getting some Hershey Chocolate Kiss Valentine’s Day cards for Mark’s class.  He had some extra and so he made them up to give out at Jordon’s work for his staff.  After he dropped one off for a staff member that wasn’t working today, we got a phone call Saturday morning from her with a message for Mark thanking him for the Valentine.  The people who work at the Centre are really great people and Mark had a big smile on his face as he got the message.

On Friday Jordon took me Old Navy and we did some shopping.  Actually I shopped for me while Jordon and Oliver looked at stuff for the dogs.  I picked out a shirt and we picked up Maggi a Frisbee and a stuffed bird that looks like the Twitter logo.  I liked my shirt and Maggi loves a Frisbee and was thrilled with our gift.  The bad part of it was that we now have a Frisbee in our bed every morning.  Saturday the plan was that Jordon and I would go to Indigo! and get each other a gift but in the end we didn’t see much that we wanted.  Jordon wants The Gamble by Thomas Ricks but he said to hold off on it until his birthday in March.  We picked up Mark a Star Wars “Choose your own adventure” book and then headed to Giant Tiger.  I have to admit that I wasn’t thrilled when Giant Tiger came to Saskatoon.  It seemed like pretty junky garbage to me.  After it opened a new (and some say higher priced store) in the north end, we started to shop there more.  I bought Jordon a Denver Broncos bunny hug and some San Francisco 49ers wind pants while I picked out some more clothes.  During the weekend I was surprised by a box of Lint Lindor Chocolates as well.

On Sunday we went to the Western Development Museum with the boys.  We have meant to go before but it is not open on Mondays so we finally realized that Sunday is the day to go.  It was quite busy but it is a massive museum so there was still lots of room to get around.   For those of you who have not been to the WDM, in Saskatoon it is designed around Saskatoon’s main street in 1910.  We visited Coad’s Drug Store (which is still in business today) and I enjoyed the display of old and antique cameras.  Mark was quite taken up with the working blacksmith display while Jordon got a kick out of seeing the old one room school house.  Jordon’s mother taught in one of the last one room school houses in Saskatchewan so it was neat to see.

Sunday night we spent at the Salvation Army Community Centre and served at the coffee house.  It was packed in there and we went through a lot of soup and sandwiches in almost no time.  One of the clients was quite aggressive in his sexual references and like an idiot I didn’t say anything to Jordon or his staff that was there.  With Jordon and his staff around, I didn’t feel like I was in any danger but at the same time I should have been smarter.

On Monday I slept in and we ran some errands.  It is a stat in Saskatchewan so we enjoyed hanging out as a family.   Jordon has been looking at a MP3 player for his office and found this one.  He isn’t sure if he wants this one or just use the computer at work so while he agonizes over a fairly insignificant purchase, I am finding some time to blog.  The plans for the rest of the day are to lounge around and relax and hopefully stay out of the snow.  Hopefully your weekend was a good one as well.

Technorati Tags: Coby,Western Development Museum,Old Navy,Lint Lindor

gov.uk

I just checked out the new Royal Family’s website as well as 10 Downing Street.  I don’t know about you but I think they are substantially better than the Prime Minister of Canada’s website and the Governor General’s site.   Now that I think about it, the Government of Canada could use a web facelift.  The top navigation bar looked good in 1997 but it is looking a little long in the tooth now.

While the Whitehouse.gov has gotten a lot of attention, I think I prefer the design an implementation of 10 Downing Street a little bit better.  The interesting thing is know that 10 Downing Street, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, and the Whitehouse are all using Twitter and 10 Downing Street and Harper’s office are also using Flickr.

The ties that bind

A little known fact is one of the reasons why I was attracted to Jordon is that he is just a big of a pen geek as I am.

Bullying (revisited)

Thanks for all of your suggestions about bullying.  After talking with a lot of other parents, this problem isn’t isolated to Mark.  Several other kids in his class have been beaten up by the same kids.  One parent talked about catching the kids involved stealing from their yard on a consistent basis.  This has been going on with one of them for a couple of years without resolution.  While it doesn’t take away from what happened to Mark, it was good to hear that it isn’t just happening to mark.

The school has been involved and they are taking some steps like suspending the kids and providing alternate dismissal times.  Since stocks have fallen out of favor, there is a limit on what can be done with kids of a really young age, plus much of this happens outside of school hours.

As for the parents of the kids, they don’t really care that much what their kids are doing.  We could go to the courts but Jordon deals with young offenders all of the time that have pages upon pages of offences and probation violations.  While the Young Offender Act was toughened up in 1999 and is called the Youth Criminal Justice Act and look better on paper, a lot of it doesn’t get enforced and not at this age.  In Canada you can not commit a criminal act when you are under 12 (which these kids are).

To deal with it either Jordon or myself is walking them to school and then picking him up again.  As one of the other parents have said, the kids don’t respect adults or kids so this problem isn’t going to get fixed easily.

Uncle Lee

Our desktop computer around here is in need of replacement.  It has served us well as a file server but our old 900 mhz AMD Semperon will become Mark’s computer.  We drove over to Future Shop today and while we were looking around, we saw a guy that looked exactly like Lee and oddly enough, he answered to Lee’s name.  To our shock and amazement, it was Lee and he was in looking for a new surround sound speaker set for his computer. 

As soon as he said hi to Ollie, he was off looking for Mark in the games area and they emerged with a Mario Kart DS for Mark.  Beyond getting Mark stuff, Lee has been a great uncle to both Ollie and Mark.  While Ollie is still too young to head over to Lee’s apartment for a night of playing the Nintendo Wii and playing PS3 games that I may or may not approve of, he does a great job of spoiling Mark without undermining Jordon and I as parents.

He also doesn’t get upset when Mark says to him, “How’s it going in making me some cousins?” or “Isn’t it time you start dating someone?”.   Well he may get upset but he directs his guffaws at Jordon.

Bullying

Mark has had some experience with bullies before.  It had been going better but yesterday three kids who have caused him problems before waited outside the school and beat him up pretty badly.  It crossed the line from bullying and rough housing to assault.  Mark was badly hurt and we are left with the question of whether or not to pull Mark out of school or not.  The school took some steps last time but here we are again.  This time the violence was worse.  Sure the three kids lost their recess but it didn’t stop them from threatening Mark again.

We aren’t sure what to do.  There is a Catholic school in the neighborhood but is there going to be any difference?  Jordon and I can do what other parents do, that is escort Mark to and from school which seems ridiculous as it is only a half block away. 

His teacher has been supportive and I don’t blame her at all.  At the same time, unless the other parents are going to take some responsibility for their kids (which they don’t), there is only so much that can be done.

We would appreciate any prayers and advice that you have.