Posts by Trinda Jocelyn

By Deanna Cook Have you heard of Kahoot?  It’s a game but it’s also designed for social learning in the classroom. The questions have four multiple choice answers displayed on the whiteboard.  Points are rewarded for speed and answering correctly.  Students get to enter their nickname and at the end of every question, the five highest scores are displayed on the board.  My grade twelve class plays it every Thursday in homeroom.  I have created numerous games centred on Bible stories.  Some games are general- Old Testament stories or Jesus’ parables.  Sometimes the game is centred around specific themes- like…

By Sara Pippus “Kitimākēyimiso,” I heard him call to me as we pulled away from the old school house, so many summers ago. Be kind to yourself — what a beautiful way to say goodbye. I can close my eyes and be back there and feel the midsummer sun putting endless freckles across my nose and helping turn the crops around the yard a golden hue. I have not forgotten him or the summers we spent chasing grasshoppers and each other all over the dusty prairie. The smell of wild clover drifts through the yard mingling with laughter from the…

By Mary Muirhead And so we pray … for success for wisdom for health for peace for ourselves for others for those whom we love sometimes even for those whom we do not love maybe – sometimes sometimes for those whom we consider enemies “Who is my enemy?” as no one asked Jesus how would He have answered I wonder? during a war we seem to know and are we not always ‘at war’ with somebody somewhere for reasons both clear and unclear in the Psalms we read mixed right up there with the psalmist’s praise deep repentance and humility…

By Janelle Ross I am supposed to be going to a church thing today and, the truth is, I’d rather stay home. I’m writing this to those of you who know what I’m talking about. Maybe even to those of you who don’t.    It’s not that I hate church things. It’s just- well- it’s been a really long, people-y week. It’s been jam-packed full of working hard with some super-awesome children with special needs while still trying to spend quality time with my homeschooling teenaged son and the rest of my coming-and-going family.    And then there’s all the “stuff.”…

By Trinda Jocelyn Faith has been a concept I have always struggled with. I have spent far too long battling with my misconceived notions of what faith is. Somehow, I have always thought that faith was something that is solely my responsibility, something I was going to have to develop on my own. I was going to have to get this faith thing straightened out if I was going to reach my eternal home and perhaps I would stop feeling so darn guilty about my failure to live the picture of a faith filled life I had. My faith was…

By Erica Bailey I’ll be home for Christmas. You can count on me. Eric and I have moved quite a bit over the past 22 years. Each time we move to a new place, like Dr. Seuss’s mother seeking bird, my heart asks, “Are you my home?” The answer came to me as I was driving my commute to Saskatoon this past winter. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree. When I think of home, a lot of pictures flicker through my head. The year everyone got an iPhone for Christmas and we jokingly took a picture…

By Jennifer Wallace Be in the moment was an expression that was imprinted in my thinking and became like a mantra when I took drama classes in University and in improvisation over the years.  Actors are often told not to anticipate what comes next. The character, and person an actor embodies, does not know what is going to happen or what someone is going to say next.  The actor herself may know but not her character.  I have tried to remember this as I have grown older. I was often looking forward as a child, teen, and young adult.  My…

By Deanna Cook I really should throw it out… it has no value.  Why do I hold on to it?  I have a t-shirt that should be thrown out.  But I continue to wash it and place it back in my dresser.  It’s 18 years old, so it has served its purpose.  This week, I noticed it has become so thin that I have little tears developing in the front.  Some day soon, I may have an Incredible Hulk moment, and the t-shirt will just be rags.   It started out as a regular t-shirt, later becoming just a t-shirt to…

By Lisa Vance During the family weekend in February 2013, our family rented a cabin at Cypress Hills and went cross country skiing.  On the first day, four of us went out: Kevin, Caleb, Carissa and me.  The kids didn’t enjoy skiing that much, so Kevin and I went on our own on the second day.  We found out there had been cougar sightings and had spotted some tracks leading to a tree right on the trail.  I was nervous. We set out, Kevin skiing faster than me. (You might understand my fear when I say Kevin told me that…