Ministry Update :: March 11, 2008

It’s amazing how good you feel when you’re miserable, when you were just recently really miserable.

I have had a rather miserable week, physically at least. Last Tuesday I started to have a slight cough, which overnight turned into a high fever and headache that lasted for another six days. Ellie came down with it too after a few days so we went to the walk-in clinic to see a doctor. She didn’t think it was anything serious, but 5:00AM Sunday morning Ellie’s temperature was 40C (105F) and she was diagnosed with strep throat at the emergency ward. I went in later and was diagnosed too. Adelaine came down with it later that day and we are all now on penicillin. Now I am just dealing with a cold that I picked up as a result of not getting much sleep for a week.. but that feels much better relative to how I was a few days ago. Very thankful to be feeling better and see the girls doing better too.

In other news, we have changed our housing plans in the last few days. We had made arrangements for an apartment here in town and were to take possession of it this week. It was going to be a small, middle apartment in a complex without a yard for the kids. However, the Lord has provided a much better solution for us. A local family has made us a generous offer to use an old house of theirs. This is still a temporary solution for up to two years that will give us more time to save up and look for our own house. This will also give the girls an opportunity to have a yard to play in outside and some horses to watch! So with this change we now plan to move in June. The Lord continues to provide for and watch over us.

Ellie’s third birthday is tomorrow, March 12. We had planned to have a big shared birthday with friends whose son is also turning three this week, but the sickness in our household forced us to cancel that. So instead we will just have a small family party. We are so thankful for our two wonderful daughters!

Northern Lights

Northern Lights

Since I arrived in Alberta I have been waiting for the opportunity to photograph the Aurora Borealis. I have been wanting to try and photograph them for years, but we are still a few years from solar max, so the night sky has been pretty quiet.

I had signed up for auroral activity email alerts to let me know when they may be visible and it paid off. Friday night at about 11:00 PM I checked my email and saw the possibility of aurora so I checked some space weather sites (Canadian Space Weather www.spaceweather.gc.ca/forecastmap_e.php and www.spaceweather.com) and saw that the sky show was on!


(the auroral activity ring that night)

I quickly packed up my tripod, camera, some warm clothes and headed off to a friends farm. I knew he was a poor shot so I would be safe walking around behind his house. I spent a couple hours out getting pictures from different locations. That time of night it is very quiet except for the distant howling of the coyotes.

Northern Lights

Usually I was taking 30 second exposures and the camera would do a noise reduction for another 30 seconds. So I had a lot of very quiet minutes to just watch and contemplate God’s beautiful creation and thank him for the opportunity to witness it.

Northern Skies

After awhile the auroral display started to calm down to just a dim green glow so I packed it in and was home around 2:30 AM. Late night, but definitely worth staying out.

Northern Lights

If you would like to see more of my photography of the night sky and Northern Lights, go to my Astrophotography gallery