Posts by Trinda Jocelyn

By Wendy Ulrich Our Sister Triangle Winter Retreat was blessed with the sweet admonitions from our guest speaker, Sherrylee Woodward. We were encouraged in our daily faith-walk with the Lord, so that we would become filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy! How better to express our lives than as being a ‘Breath of Fresh Air’, our theme for the weekend, as Sherrylee read this passage from The Message. Philippians 2:14-16 Do everything readily and cheerfully-no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with…

By Jennifer Wallace I have been struggling with my article.  Too many ideas have been in the forefront of my mind.  I have been acutely conscious of my struggle as I see the news, as I teach in my classroom, and as I sit with my mom. So I decided I needed to wear my thoughts.  I am trying them out and putting them on. It is September 2016. Babies are being pulled out of rubble in Aleppo.  The world watches and does not watch as Syria is bombarded.  I put the images out of my mind.  I put on…

By Andrea Muirhead My ten-year-old nephew and I went on a road trip. We drove from Saskatchewan to Manitoba to North Dakota to Minnesota, over 1200 kilometers to watch some Major League Baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays taking on the Minnesota Twins. Usually when I road trip, I like to get to my destination fast. I must have learned this from both of my grandfathers. Road tripping with either of them was an experience where there was only one Captain and the rest of us needed to buckle up and hold on for the ride! My nephew and I enjoyed…

Over the past year, tensions have grown all over the world related to how we look and where we are from. Sometimes, it’s easy to turn off the news or look the other way.  A cherished friend of mine recently wrote the following on her Facebook page and I have asked her permission to share what she wrote. Some of you may know her, Jennifer King (nee.Williams). She wrote this the day after another shooting in the States and a man’s life was taken by violence. Her words resonated with me because I grew up with Jennifer.  I have kids…

By Katie Pippus This summer, I worked for the parks department for the city of Estevan. I absolutely love my summer job because it is such a refreshing change from the demands of the school year. At my summer job, I get to spend my days working outside with a group of great people, doing mostly menial tasks. The best part of my job this summer was that I got to drive the John Deere mowers. I got to spend the majority of my summer on the mower, driving in circles for hours, and it was wonderful. Then I got…

By Sara Pippus Spring arrived early this year. Still, it crept in soooooo slowly. I’ll admit I watched it closely, day by day, desperate for signs of refreshing. I watched in awe this year as each leaf unfurled and each morning brought new changes. The shifting seasons should be commonplace with no surprises, it happens all the time after all. But after a spirit-crushing winter of mourning my dad, I see spring’s abundance and generosity afresh. Green sprigs struggling up through the warming earth and birds coming home from winter holidays bring a wellspring of joy. As seasons go, spring…

It’s Saturday morning and I’m lying in bed. My phone buzzes and I see a text from an old friend, her black letters floating on a yellow cloud. We text about green tea and dreams and soon we are discussing the nature of truth, and how two opposite things can be true at the same time, like I can be disappointed and relieved at the same time. (I had applied to start a doctoral program at the University of Lethbridge, but just received news that I did not make the final cut.) We move on to the topic of memory,…

Note: This article was written earlier in the year, but it is too good not to be published. We hope that you enjoy Arlene’s ramblings. By Arlene Manson The month of May is a bittersweet month for me.  It is both the month in which my father was born and the month in which he died – 45 years ago this year.  Also, the first week in May is Mental Health Awareness week which reminds me very much of my mother and all the struggles she had with her bipolar disorder.  The month of May also encompasses Mother’s Day, where we…

By Janelle Ross A year ago, my mom had a heart attack. She was in Hawaii when it happened. She’d been feeling rough and finally went to see a doctor and within a few days she was airlifted back to Canada, had open-heart surgery, and was eventually sent home with a bunch of pills, a list of instructions, a schedule of follow-up appointments, and a heart-shaped pillow to hug when she was getting out of bed or up from her chair. I saw her in the hospital, the day after her surgery, and to be honest, she didn’t look great.…

By Leslie Dempsey In January, my best friend of 35 years and I took the trip of a lifetime to celebrate our fiftieth birthdays. We had been planning this trip for over three years. We didn’t know where we were going or how we were going to get there, we just knew that we were going to spend a week together. Somewhere. Anywhere. We handed our budget and our wish list over to a travel agent, eventually settling on a week-long trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One day, while we were lazing about on the beach- reading, napping, and discussing…