My World Tuesday

Hello everyone,

Greetings from Vancouver where the temperature is still like the middle of summer . 

The weather forecast for the day was 34 Celsius and sunny skies.  The weather will cool off considerably by the weekend.

I guess then it will be time to clear the garden. I usually just leave everything until the Spring but it makes more work for me then to put the garden in. 

If I clear it before the Winter this year it hopefully means I will be better prepared to put my garden in next year.

I wonder if I will ever get the hang of the "gardening thing"?

I'm lucky to get some containers planted each year to enjoy some beautiful blossoms but this year due to prolonged rainfall during the time when we should have been planting gardens, there were fewer options for the starter plants I wanted. I even went to many more places to look for them. I finally got most of what I did plant from Costco (the red geraniums below) and Home Depot (the pink petunias above and black eyed susans below).

Forest fires continue to burn throughout the province and across the southern border in the USA.  Earlier this week very remote communities in Manitoba to the east had to be evacuated as wild fires started there. This was a huge effort because so many people had to be airlifted to safety and taken to Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.

 The area where the fire is burning is covered in dense forest interspersed with a multitude of lakes and so is difficult to travel in and out. 1500 people from a First Nations community had to be airlifted to safety.

 

(Source: CBC News)

(Source: CBC News)

The air quality index for Vancouver today looks like this. 

I postponed my appointment with the Travel Clinic where I intended to get booster shots for my out of date vaccinations because I thought it was going to be 34 degrees today and sunny and hot. I thought I'd go at the end of week when it is expected to cool off.

In making my appointment I discovered that Yellow Fever vaccination used to be good for ten years (the stamp I have says mine is good for ten years). Now the World Health Organization says you do not need a booster shot and one shot is enough for a life time.

I hope my stamp doesn't cause any problems for entering Kenya.

The travel clinic says that affected countries know the updated advice on Yellow Fever.

Sky overhead today, September 5, 2017

Joining in with Our World Tuesday today.

A Bit of Progress

Hi friends,

Last time I wrote about having cataract surgery. It has been 1 week since I had my 2nd eye (left eye) done and I am doing well. The actual surgical procedure was a little more uncomfortable than the 1st eye (right eye) during the procedure but not so bad. After I got home and put some drops in it seemed to be better and I haven't had any issues since then. In about 3 weeks I will return for my last visit to the eye specialist and she will give me a reading prescription. For now I am using the dollar store reading glasses which I had already been using.

I've spent the last week trying to catch up on a whole lot of things: Kenyan missions, laboratory appointments, posting and receiving mail, paying bills, a lot of reading and visiting with a good friend.  I don't get to visit with my friend that often and it is a true delight when I do get to see her.  She is a very busy lady.  She is busy ministering daily to elderly people in care homes of whom have no one to help them.  She just takes the time to help them with their day to day needs, sit and visit with them, pay attention to them, read the word and pray with them.  She will even do special things like give them a pedicure.  They love her so much.  She also takes time to pray for me on a daily basis.   I appreciate my time with her and the love she shows in various ways.

The weather here continues to be in the range of 26 Celsius to 31 Celsius and will continue at least through the early part of the week. There has been very little rain in the past two months and we've had about a tenth of our usual rainfall. The wildfires that started a few months ago to the north are still burning.  Read more here
The entire province is so dry and new fires pop up all over the place including not so far to the east of where I live. Just earlier this week wildfires started in the Province of Manitoba and many people have had to be evacuated.

In my August 4, 2017 post, I wrote about the national elections scheduled for August 8th in Kenya. The elections have come and gone. The incumbent President, Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President, William Ruto were announced the winners. The NASA opposition coalition took the outcome to the Supreme Court of Kenya, arguing that the elections process was not fair and credible, particularly as it came to the transmission of election outcomes results. Last Friday, the Supreme Court rules in favour of the Opposition and ordered that another election be held within 60 days.  Please continue to pray for free and fair elections and a peaceful and clear outcome.

My friend Jonah's mother in Kenya has been struggling for her life.  For quite some time she has been in and out of hospitals, some farther from home, some closer to home.  Advice has been followed, surgeries performed, medicines prescribed, yet there has been no resolution to her health challenges. It has been a stressful time and worrying time for her family and those who care about her. She has been through a lot physically and I believe it is prayers that have sustained her.

After a very long time I am now hopeful that she has the right help. She is currently under the care of a doctor from Louisiana, USA and is doing much better. Inn the last few days her improvements have been dramatic and she is being weaned off of various medications. I do hope and pray that this improvement will be sustained through God's grace but for the foreseeable future she remains in hospital under doctor's care.

Also the young girl with lung problems has been back in hospital with chronic pneumonia. After purchasing medications for her I am hopeful she will be able to return to school.  I pray too that her strength will increase and her health improve daily.  Whenever the Lord enables me to get to Kenya again, I plan to meet the young girl and see what can be done to help her with better nutrition.  She is on my heart because she is so young and totally reliant upon the good wishes of her school for an education and even for all of her day to day needs.
                                      

I started this post with an entirely different subject in mind.  Instead this post primarily about Kenya came out however in the typing of it  had an awful lot of technical problems.  I hope all the typos don't appear in the published version. If they do I will have to correct later. I've never experienced such a problem on blogger before. I hope this is only temporary.

 God bless you and give you all a wonderful week ahead.