My Return Eastward

First of all: I would like to apologize for the extended time period without any sort of update. I hope that nobody thought I was dead, although that could have been a possibility.

Secondly: I have returned to Ontario and I am back living with my parents for a period.

The third and by far coolest thing I must say: I have a titanium collar bone! I'm only a few bones, a different metal alloy, and a set of sweet claws away from being Wolverine. Ok, so it's titanium instead of adamantium and it's only a single plate and eight screws in my shoulder but it's still pretty freakin sweet.


In order to explain this metal plate I will need to take you back to Banff. As you may have read in my last post, I went snowboarding in Banff. It was awesome. The mountains were gorgeous and the snow was wonderful. I was curving and gliding down the mountain when suddenly a larger drift of snow came up over top of the front side of my snowboard as I was trying to stop. Angry at the mountain, I decided to dive shoulder first at it in order to steal my revenge. Sadly, my organic collar bone was far too fragile to withstand the shear force of my assault and shattered into 4 pieces.


*SNAP*

I stood up, feeling slightly strange but still wanting to do some more snowboarding. I was about three quarters of the way down the run and finished up. As I was gliding over more snow drifts I felt as if my shoulder was bouncing up and down. "That can't be good.", I said to my friend. As I made it to the bottom of the run I wondered if I should get some medical attention. It was about this time that I began to feel dizzy and took a seat.

To make a long story short, I broke my collar bone snowboarding and needed surgery. The next day I went in to the hospital with a useless, feeble, shattered, and organic collar bone and left the hospital with a shiny, mighty, and new collar bone reinforced with titanium. It then occurred to me that I would not be able to carry a pack and therefore my hitchhiking ministry trip would need to be postponed. Luckily my friends that were in Calgary were already planning to drive back to Winnipeg shortly after. Hitching a ride with them I then stayed with my good friend Adrian Miller until my parents were able to pay for me to fly home.


"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15)

Even though it seems that God did not have a trip in store for me that was as long as I had planned, this was definitely a beneficial and valuable adventure. Through an interesting turn of events my injury actually caused the group of friends I was with to stay longer in Banff and even saw one of them make a commitment to Christ. I also would like to believe that I was a witness to some of the nurses at the hospital. I had a few chats about missions work and Bible college with a few of them and I am sure that God used those conversations for His glory. God also taught me quite a few valuable lessons through my injury and through the shortened trip. I hope to share and expound on these lessons that I have learned through my blog as I have time to reflect in the coming weeks. If the Lord Wills, we will live and do this or that.

As I sit here in Ontario I have about a month to go before I start work at Christian Horizons Conference Centre in Paisley I have realized that I not only have about a month to relax and regain my strength, but I also have about a month to read the Bible, read some books for next year's courses, think, and connect with God.

Shalom,
Matthew Peter

We've made it to Calgary!

So we hitched a ride with some friends all the way to Calgary. They were already headed that way with a moving van and told us they had space for Jeremy and I. It was a fairly uneventful thirteen hour drive across the prairies. I have been told that that is the toughest stretch to hitchhike on my journey and we were thankful for the ride.

After getting to Calgary we've been staying in the houses of a friend of our friends. They are moving things out of one of their houses and were trying to keep the other house clean because they are trying to sell it. They are a fairly large family with plenty of kids running around. We've spent the majority of our first day here in Calgary helping them move, cleaning some stuff up, and playing with the kids. It's definitely been a fun time. Things seem fairly chaotic for them at the moment and it's great that God's given us the opportunity to help them out and a safe and free place to stay here in Calgary. The kids are incredibly cute, the family is nice, and it's very good exercise helping the family move the furniture and things.

Calgary is a very beautiful city. As we were driving into town today the first sight to catch my eye was the skyline. It's a fairly modest skyline, not an insane amount of tall buildings, but it was definitely a gorgeous view. Then suddenly the mountains came into view. It wasn't a perfect view, it was fairly hazy, but my first glimpse of the mountains was very impressive. Seeing the mountains is definitely a big thing on my list of expectations on this trip and I'll be able to see them even closer up on Monday as we head for Banff.

As I write this blog I am without internet access in the house they are moving some stuff out of. It's a fairly nice place and we even have a very faint but very beautiful view of the mountains!

Sunday we did some more moving, I was up around 7:45 to unload another van load before church. We then spent more of the day after church traveling with the kids towards the mountains and towards the new place the family is moving. It was the most incredibly beautiful place I have ever seen. With the mountains as a backdrop there were ranches in among the mixed tree forests and picturesque views. As we drove into the town that is about three minutes from the ranches, we discovered that there is a biker meet every weekend. The parking lot was filled with hundreds of gorgeous bikes! The mountains, the horses, the steel horses, the fun crazy kids. Overall the day was fabulous.

We'd like to thank everyone that has been praying for us so far! God definitely has been protecting us, especially during the long hours we've spent on the road so far!

Shalom!
Matthew


PS Tomorrow I'm going snowboarding in Banff...