Bucket list update……

I suppose it is birthdays, especially once the numbers get higher, that cause us to think about goals, hopes and prayers and bucket lists. When a turned 60 a year ago, I documented a few of these. I thought I’d revisit these. Martha is in Alberta seeing her mom, some of the kids and grandkids and I look forward to her return. I have mentioned previously that working in a shared job is a new experience for both of us. It has worked out well – most of the time (yes we each have our moments J. As an indication that it has worked out well is the sense, this past week, that I really was missing something. It will be great to have her back. In a couple of weeks, one set of kids and grandkids come and live with us for almost two months. We will probably have our moments then too, but we are very much looking forward to having them with us.

I year ago, I listed a couple of categories and I’ve repeated them here along with a few updates. Plus having been able to complete a few of the items on the bucket list, I feel like I can add one – namely, to drive by road from Capetown to Cairo, or at least Addis. Perhaps I can persuade James Alty, a friend who lives in Durban, South Africa and who is on a similar term with MCC to travel with me. Martha doesn’t share the desire to travel by road the length of this great continent, and the trip would have it’s challenges. I’ve read a few accounts of people who have done it and I’d like to try.

Hopes and prayers:
-       See grandkids grow up and develop a faith in the living God.
-       That our family, especially our grandkids, get to experience other cultures to broaden their world view. (the visit by the Corbetts is one manifestation of this – maybe other grandkids will have the opportunity as well)
-       Continue to have discussions of faith with acquaintances.

On my bucket list:
-       Visiting Australia and New Zealand
-       See Addis Ababa (we visited Addis Ababa as well as Lalibela, the place of “stone churches” in October 2009. Well worth it)
-       Visiting South Africa (we saw part of South Africa Christmas 2008 – quite different from Eastern Africa, the region that we live in)
-       Road trip across Canada and down the east cost of Canada/US, then across to California and up the West Coast to Vancouver Island – Duncan, B.C. specifically.
-       Attending CIS Basketball nationals with all 3 of my brothers at least once.
-       Attend one NCAA regional, divisional or final four game.

Maybe on my bucket list:
-       Bike trip from Calgary to Chilliwack (depends on knees and this is looking more dubious each year)
-       Drive a motorcycle on the roads of Kenya (not sure if this is wise J) That is what I said a year ago, now I say I know that this is not wise and this will be eliminated from the bucket list.

Best wishes to all of you that have had a birthday this past year. Thanks for reading…… we see from the BLOG stats that many of you return as regular readers. That’s what makes us willing to post weekly.

Our work email is mccrep@kenya.mcc.org
Our personal email addresses are:
martharatzlaff@gmail.com or ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca.

Music Sunday in Najile, Maasai-land….

One of the high-lights of this past week was visiting Najile for “music Sunday”. A CD recording group from MCC Alberta was visiting recording a CD and a DVD to support the HIV/AIDS program of MCC worldwide. The plan was to use Maasai choirs and groups to add some local color (yes, all puns intended ).

The group spent approximately 10 days with the Maasai community in Najile and in addition to recording they also did “handy-person repair”, assisted with the HIV/AIDS program, visited local schools, took an excursion to Maasai Mara and Kisumu, and immersed (as much as you can in 10 days) themselves in the local community. Some of the challenges that recording a CD faces in Najile include the following: doves in the rafters, fluctuating power, wind with no windows. Thankfully the group had state-of-the-art equipment with adequate voltage regulators so no equipment was wrecked – that we know of.

Several of the choirs participated in the morning worship service followed by about an hour break. Hey, you too would need a break after a 3 ½ to 4 hour service  The choirs were scheduled to sing in the afternoon. When they reassembled the church was PACKED. In fact, we couldn’t find a place to sit down. We want to sit in a place where we could sneak out as we wanted to leave in time to avoid travelling in the dark. Turns out we couldn’t find a place to sit so we listened from the outside for a bit and then left in plenty of time. We arrived home before nightfall.

We will let you know what the CD is published and push our readers to go buy a copy for yourself to support the program.

I (Ron) am alone for about 10 days as Martha is visiting her mom, kids and grandkids in Alberta for a bit. She is missed – lots.

Have a good week.

R2 (not edited by Martha J)

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

From quarry to retail shop in North America….

If you are not interested in soapstone or how it is used to produce some of the fine items that you buy in shops in North America, just ignore this BLOG post. This is not meant to be a business case study but we spent the last few days in the Kisii area of Kenya. Kisii/Tabaka is home to soap-stone carving in Kenya. We were there to meet with suppliers and a suppliers meeting.We received a crash introduction to the business of carving. While we might not have all the ratios and mark-ups exactly right, here is the general idea.

Soapstone is mined from subsurface (immediately below top-soil) in western Kenya. Soapstone is so common that instead of driving on gravel roads, we drove on soapstone roads. The raw rock has a slippery feel to it. From Wikipedia, here is the technical description…Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a metamorphic rock, a talc-schist. It is largely composed of the mineral talc and is rich inmagnesium. It is produced by dynamothermal  metamorphism and  metasomatism,  which  occurs in the areas where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx of fluids, but without melting. It has been a medium for carving for thousands of years.

The quarries are owned privately, and soapstone miners are subject to some “rules” about mining. These rules have been enforced recently as there have been several deaths resulting from unsafe practices in the quarries. The mining hours for the quarry we visited are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Carvers come to pick out the size and quality of stone and then haul the mined soapstone out of the quarry. If it is a very large piece the carvers do the rough carving right at the quarry to make sure that the piece that they are purchasing has uniform consistency. Not to mention that the more soapstone left in the quarry location the less the carver has to pay for as he leaves the quarry with his raw stone.

Carvers either carve to specs (in response to an order placed by “suppliers”) or they create original pieces that they hope to sell at a premium. There was, and is, much discussion about “design rights”. Kind of reminds us of the intellectual property discussion in the Information Technology world. However, here, there are no contracts, and much disagreement about who “first designed” a particular piece. There is to be a commission paid back to the original carver but that often ends up going to a producer.

Here is the basic chain – quarry owner allows soapstone to be mined with miners being paid on the basis of weight, colour and uniformity ; soapstone is sold by quarry owner to a carver; carvers design  and carve pieces and sell to suppliers; suppliers take the carved product and “wash” it (wet-sand it with very fine sandpaper), polish and sometimes paint it; suppliers sell to a marketing organization; marketing organizations package, document then sell and ship to buyers to North America or Europe where the buyer places the product into retail shops (either their own or third party). As you can tell with this length of chain, and the number of middle-men/women, there are many opportunities for exploitation. Fair Trade has caused some positive changes to occur but more work needs to be done – including paying the carvers a fairer price for the work that they do.  Bottom line, the carver gets between 5% and 10% of the retail price and out of that the carver has to also pay for the stone.

We were able to observe the large group discussion among suppliers – an interesting and sometimes emotional discussion because as much as the words may say “we are here as a group”, what really comes out is “we are in it for me”. Progress was made, no fisticuffs, and we returned to Nairobi knowing a little more about the artisan business and marketing model. There is much more to learn.

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

Learning the culture….

Even though we have been here a little over a year, there are still surprises that come upon us. Here are a few examples.

Words used to describe things or actions. When asking someone to give you a ride, the words are come and “pick me”.  This past week, we were surprised to hear what people call their mothers in law. A term of endearment for a mother in law is not “mom” but rather the phrase used was “mother of the woman that cooks for me”. Now before you write R2 nasty notes, realize that this is not what he calls Martha’s mom. When asked as to why this reference, the answer came back – she is so revered that we do not give her a name directly – like the older testament where Yaweh was the name used to address God. I did mention that it would not be acceptable to, first of all, refer to my wife as “the woman that cooks for me”. They looked at me as if I had two heads. Lastly, we were reminded that this is a patriarchal society – when a married couple says that they are “going home for Christmas”, they mean going to the husband’s parents home. Once married the family home is the home of the parents of the husband. When we described our situation with having three daughters, saying that then none of our children would ever come home for Christmas, well that’s just the way it is. Lastly, the term “cup of tea” has a new meaning for us. Having been stopped at a police check-point to find out that our Kenya driving license had expired a week or so earlier, we were being asked by the police officer to go to the police station, be charged, and appear in court the following day. We agreed to go to the police station with him.   After quite a while he let us off with a warning. Ron then made the error of thanking the police officer for pointing out that our license was expired as we would not have known otherwise. (we thought it was valid for two years – turns out we were wrong and it was only good for one) The officer returned to the window to request his “cup of tea”. Knowing full well what he meant, we pushed off and went directly home. BTW, our driving license has been renewed for a further three years. Lesson learned – keep documents current and R2 needs to leave well enough alone and keep his mouth shut.

This past week also presented us with a new situation. We currently have visitors from MCC Alberta who are here in Kenya recording a CD in order to raise money for HIV/AIDS work done by MCC worldwide. We were taking part of this group to visit one of our partners and the road was a divided highway. As we were a few kilometers outside of Nairobi, we could see a mob of about one hundred people running down our lanes in our direction. Matatus (public transportation mini-vans) were peeling off the road, crossing the median and leaving in a hurry. Not knowing the intention of the mob running down the road, we too followed the matatus across the median and away from the group of people. We must be getting paranoid – we never did find out where the people were running to but decided to avoid the situation nonetheless. An adrenalin rush start to the visit by the CD tour group.

Halloween is not observed here – kind of nice.

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

Start of the short rains….

This past week began with a church service with the Maasai in Najile. An MCC agricultural/water sector person from Winnipeg, joined us in Najile and we enjoyed worshipping and visiting with the Maasai at the Presbyterian Outreach Mission Church. October 18^th was the 35^th anniversary “Bread for the World” Sunday, declared by the United Nations and celebrated worldwide. We were reminded by those that know a whole lot more than we do about food and scarcity, that what we have here is not a famine, but rather a drought and hunger. The difference is that in a famine, there is no food available – there is food in the region, it is just not getting to those ten million at risk of starvation. Guess the difference in definition isn’t that important when you are the person/family hungry.

On the two and a half hour drive home from Najile, we came across two herds of giraffes (about 20 in each) grazing just off the road. It was great to see young giraffes playing.

We have also had some rain in most parts of Kenya. Not enough yet, but at least a start and the meteorologists are predicting more rain because of the el Nino effect. We received word from our partners that the sand dams are filling with water with each rain. The government is warning people to prepare for floods and mudslides. In the paper this morning they indicated which parts of the country were predicted to be susceptible to floods and mud slides.

One memorable event of the past week was being invited to, and attending a reception at the Canadian High Commissioner residence here in Nairobi. There were approximately 40 Canadians at the reception and it was rather interesting “hobnobbing” with some people that we normally don’t meet in our day to day interactions.

We are looking forward to welcoming a group mostly from MCC Alberta who are coming to Kenya to record a CD. The recording artists plan to record some songs with Maasai choirs. It will be interesting to see how this goes. The CD being recorded is the fourth of a series, the sales of which will support the HIV/AIDs work done by MCC around the world (not just in Kenya). The group arrives on Sunday (25^th) and will spend the majority of the time with the Maasai, rehearsing, recording and generally “hanging out”.  Some of the group come with handyman skills and tools and will assist the local community to repair and maintain some of the machines, buildings, and infrastructure that needs some of both.

We have run into one of the downsides of skype. While we are able to have video chats with our children and grandchildren, skype does not allow us the opportunity to “hold & hug the grandkids”. Seeing them does make us want to hold them – some of us more than others J

Have a great week and drop us a line when you can….

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

Saturday morning with the Maasai

We spent Saturday morning visiting farms in Maasai-land. We joined a Winnipeg MCC colleague who knows a whole lot about water and agriculture and, together with one of our partners, visited several Maasai farms. The Maasai are not farmers by tradition so are being introduced to tilling, planting and hopefully harvesting.

Tracts of land had been offered by the government to the Maasai to assist them in becoming more self-sustaining. When first offered these tracts of land – about two years ago—the Maasai  were not keen on the offer and most chose to stay where they were in the lowlands, herding their cattle to wherever they could find pasture – often hundreds of kilometers away. But some Maasai settled on the land but then returned when they found it “too cold” due to higher elevation, or the crops didn’t produce as they had hoped the first year. But those that stayed,  were able to harvest  enough to avoid the worst of the drought. Our partner, along with MCC, is working with these farmers to teach them about drought-resistant crops such as dolichos lablab, pigeon peas, cow peas, millet, sorghum and certain types of beans and by planting these crops they have reaped well. Well, now, many more families from the lowlands want to move to the highlands and farm one of the five acre plots, of which there are still some available. Kind of reminds us of the Menonites when they came from Russia to Canada, given the opportunity to homestead tracts of land.

At one of the farms, we were invited in for a cup of tea. Here, “tea” means “tea with milk and sugar” or as it is called in Kiswahili, “chai”. We entered into a small Maasai house made of mud walls, iron sheeting or thatched roof, and crowded around a charcoal cooker, cozily shared tea at Esther’s house. Many Maasai joined us and we had a good visit. When they were asked what they “missed  most” from their old locale, they mentioned, firewood, water and friends. When we ask what they enjoy about the new place, they respond with, good soil, some rain, and self sustainability.

MCC sponsored a seed bank program during this past year which has worked out very well. 183 farmers were given bean seeds to plant with the understanding that they would return 4 kg of seeds to the seed bank after harvest. After the current harvest 163 farmers received seeds from returned beans. Farmers had returned 4 kg of seed beans and some had contributed an extra 2 kg which had been distributed yesterday to 163 farmers. They were still collecting seeds from some of the original 183 and hoped to distribute been seeds to another 50 farmers for planting this season.

Our timing was good as they had received rain last night and many were in a hurry to plant. We went to visit four women planting beans in the field and even though the soil was quite wet they were making good progress making holes with the pangas, whipping in the seeds and then covering the seed. They were happy, lots of laughing between us all. Seeing the women working in the field reminded Martha of working in the sugar beet fields of southern Alberta.

The only downer was seeing the number of dead cattle, some recently died. It was a reminder that if the Maasai  have only cattle to rely on, they will remain vulnerable. We are trying to work alongside our partner, the Presbyterian Outreach Mission Church, which works with the Maasai, to introduce more goats (who have thrived throughout the drought), drought-resistant crops and perhaps sand dams at some point.

Pray for continued rain – we have had some!

Sunday we head back into Maasai-land to participate in the church service in Najile and also to deliver groceries and  motor bike accessories to volunteer service workers there. The motor bike that we purchased in May for these service workers has FINALLY been registered and was delivered to Najile today.

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

Climbing to 3200 metres …. Part way by mule

This is Sunday, Oct. 11, and we have just returned from a week in Ethiopia. We will celebrate Thanksgiving this evening here in Nairobi with some fellow Canadians.

As we mentioned previously, we travelled to Ethiopia for an MCC meeting and tacked on a few days to visit the stone churches of Lalibela. We hardly know where to start but rather than bore you with a travelogue, here are our hi-lights. After attending the MCC meeting we flew to Lalibela, site of the stone churches – most of them carved out of rock and are monolithic. How this was done is the stuff legends are made of. The rock is a combo of lava and granite and the churches were carved, by all accounts, somewhere between 1100 and 1200. Lalibela is at 2500 meters. We toured 12 stone churches in Lalibela and also climbed to 3200 metres (for those of you that cling to imperial distances that would be 10,400 feet – just short of two miles high) to see another church carved out of the cliff – again, out of solid rock.  Our breathing was short at that altitude and we felt the strain for a few days.

Here we are on the unfortunate mules who carried us approximately two thirds of the way. We then climbed by foot to the church. While on this trek, it rained, making it especially slippery coming down so we walked the majority of the way down – especially where the rain had made the going treacherous.

Some of the lasting memories of the 3 day visit were:

-          The seriousness with which the locals take their religion – orthodox. Shoes were taken off of us all before we entered any of the churches. You could see where human feet and smoothed the stone over the centuries as worshippers entered.

-          Most of the churches – other than the earliest carved churches – were oriented with the Holy of Holies pointing east towards Jerusalem.

-          Each church had a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, and an altar kept behind a veil accessible only to the priests. One church (Golgotha) allowed only men to enter.

-          Services are 3 hours in length and worshippers stand throughout. Some staffs are available to lean on.

-          They have adopted practices of Old and New Testament. The visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon and her subsequent return to Ethiopia had enormous influence on the practices of the oldest Christian faith known.

-          We were there Friday and our guide, as well as the muleers were fasting.

-          As in most parts of Africa, visitors like us are the targets of requests – we have come to anticipate “the pitch” to see what unique angle can be presented. This time it was a promise to Ron, that in exchange for funds for a soccer ball, he would be remembered by these youth for as long as they would live”. The conversation became interesting as we debated the relative needs of starving people compared with their need of a soccer ball. It didn’t take long before they saw a more promising prospect emerging from one of the many shops in Lalibela.

We wish our Canadian readers a happy Thanksgiving Day. We are reminded regularly of all that we have access to in Canada and how privileged we are compared with the majority of earth’s inhabitants. Enjoy your time with friends and family.

Peace.

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

One year in

October 1^st marked the one year anniversary of our arrival in Kenya to begin our term of service with MCC. We were wondering what to write and didn’t want to recount what we had already written in our previous BLOG posts, so we have decided to write about “what has changed” in us, and around us.

What has changed around us:

-          Our family has grown by two. Seeing Cole and Jesse change before our very eyes (on skype) and not being able to hold them, is one of the largest challenges about living overseas. We miss all of our kids and grandkids.

-          Roads in Kenya have improved markedly during this year. We don’t think that it’s just our level of tolerance that has changed, or that we just drive faster, but we notice that the main roads, in particular, have improved.

-          Internet service, speed and availability have improved. With the arrival of the under-sea internet cable, this should continue to improve. A wonderful antidote, if not complete, to being separated from family.

-          The drought has taken an awful toll on Kenyans and continues to this day. Seeing cattle die before our very eyes – as we saw during a road trip this past week – is shocking and sad. The change is that the drought’s results are just “so much more severe” than we saw when we first arrived. Pray that rain comes soon. Even if we get rain, it will be one growing season before the results of the rain will be felt.

What has changed in us:

-          Our level of cynicism has increased. We were wondering whether to be public about this or not, but decided that we could be. Whether it is the result of the regular media stories of corruption at all levels, or our own experience of trying to register a motorcycle for road use (bought it in May, still cannot drive it legally, as we wait for the registration to be issued. We have seen the bike with our very own eyes but that’s all we’ve been able to do ).

-          A growing understanding of what it takes to “build capacity” in our partners. It is not just about the money. We are encouraged by the growing ability of some of our partners to plan, execute, monitor and evaluate programs. We hope to continue to help to build this capacity so that after we have completed our term, the partners are stronger, and more capable, than when we came.

-          Enjoyment of reading. While our movie library, stored on our Western Digital external drive, numbers close to 100, we tend to read more, and read more varied genres. Ron isn’t sure if he has read a biography or autobiography (other than Bill Clinton’s) but is currently very much enjoying Three Cups of Tea, the story of Greg Mortenson, the story of a man whose mission it was to promote peace…one school at a time. Don’t get us wrong, we still also enjoy James Patterson, Robert Ludlum, John Grisham and others.

-          Increased discipline to read the Bible through in a year. We are on track to complete this by the end of December. That’s the first time that Ron has done that and the first time that we will have read the entire Scriptures to each other. And, who would have thunk that we would have enjoyed this

-          A realization that more stuff is not what we need. The theme of “enough is enough” has become more real and personal to us as we look at our own lives and those who now have become our friends here in Kenya.

-          Lost a little weight

-          Commitment to peace. While peace is a Mennonite value, it has never been as much a personal value as it has become during our year here. Maybe it is seeing the results of ethnic conflict and the absolute need to try to do something about it, that has raised this in our consciousness. Or, maybe it’s just age

We will spend the next week in Ethiopia. Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

International Peace Day

In 1981 the United Nations designated September 21^st as the International Day of Peace. On the 28^th anniversary of that declaration, we were privileged to be able to participate in an International Day of Peace celebration. As September 21^st fell on a Monday, the celebration date was moved to Saturday, Sept 26^th and held in Lari district – about a 45 minute drive from Nairobi.

The day began with service opportunities for all attendees – in this case, cleaning up one of the local villages. Then shortly after 10:00 a.m. we convened at a local school to hear choral presentations from 11 peace clubs representing primary and secondary schools from surrounding towns. All of the peace clubs had prepared well for the presentations and the themes were mostly national in nature. Topics included the fight against corruption, call of government to act, peace starts with “me”, we all need to do our part, and many included references to biblical passages. The teams judged to have done the best presentations were asked to repeat their performance and the one team judged “best of all” were asked to perform during the formal program in the afternoon. Here is a picture of the winning team.

Occurring concurrently was a volleyball tournament representing five local organizations including Lari Peace Museum (one of MCC’s partners in peace programming). The tourney was won by a team representing the local District Office (government). We noticed that the teams had opportunity to use their peace building and conflict resolution skills during passionate, and loud, points of the tourney. Pleased to say that “peace prevailed”.

After lunch we began with the formal program – speeches by government officials, MCC (us), and a presentation from a professor from a local university. The formalities concluded with presentation of two computers from MCC to the local school – these were symbolic as they represent what we hope will be 8 computers delivered to each of 50 schools across Kenya to enable these peace clubs to communicate across ethnic boundaries. Trees were planted on the school grounds – one by MCC (us), one by the professor, one by the District Officer and one by Lari Peace Museum. Trees are symbols of peace and each of the students that participated in the choral presentations were given a tree to take home and plant. They were reminded that trees need to be nurtured  in the same way as peace needs to be nurtured …….quite a sight.

As the headmaster said by way of introduction to the over 300 attendees, that they don’t see many “white people” in their area (speaking of us) so they were pleased to see us. We were at times the object of curiosity – especially to touch Ron’s skin (for some reason yesterday was Ron’s turn). The day ended with the usual VERY crowded Landcruiser taking as many people as we could possibly fit in, along with the few computer  ……..a tiring but GOOD day.

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com

Life in Canada as seen through the eyes of an African friend …..

We had the privilege this past week to meet with an exchange visitor who had spent a year living in Canada. We had a delightful debrief and we learned much. At the end of the session we asked him if we had his permission to use his observations as the basis for our BLOG this week. He granted us his permission. Our friend is a reader of our BLOG so if we make mistakes or he wishes to add or correct, we will publish his comments.

We will not attempt to list all of what we heard but we thought we’d just list some of the surprises that he experienced during his year in Canada – based in Calgary, but he saw 6 of the provinces. It was planned that he speak about a dozen times during his time in Canada – he ended up speaking at events/meetings 48 times during his 11-12 months in Canada. You may well have heard him. It is a joy to have him back in Kenya working with programs that MCC sponsors in Kenya.

In no particular order, and without judgment, here are some of the surprises that he experienced:

-          Definition of “cold”. While he had been warned to expect cold, he had NO IDEA what it meant to be truly cold.

-          Eating mushrooms. In parts of the African culture, mushrooms are seen as “droppings of the moon” and are avoided. That Canadians eat mushrooms was indeed a surprise.

-          Who gets greeted. When attending a function or in a group of people, in Canada, you expected to great people whom you know or have been introduced to. In Africa, everyone greats everyone – in fact, it borders on rudeness not to great everyone with at least the traditional handshake which varies depending on the area of the country where you are.

-          Honouring your elders by either standing in their presence, giving them your chair, and allowing them to have the floor during discussions. In Africa, age is very much respected. We (R2 and M) notice that as well – maybe it’s a good thing that we waited to come to Kenya until turning 60 . For Martha that day, of turning 60 is today.

-          Equality of status and division of household labour. In Africa, the bulk of the carrying water, housework, field work, is done by women. Our friends observation was that husband and wife share the household chores in Canada.

-          His observation was “in Canada, people don’t need help”. In Africa, offers of help are accepted and our friend felt he needed to accept all. Whether it was being offered a lift, an invitation to dinner, or attending a sports event, these would all be accepted in Africa. Our friend needed to learn to say “no thank-you” as the African norm is to accept all these offers. His acceptance of all offers caused him to “overbook” his life so this he needed to learn to decline offers.

-          Church attendance in Canada is mostly “older people” – people with gray, white or no hair. Where are the young people?  His assumption was that Canada was a Christian nation – and, if so, why don’t people go to church (note how difficult it is for R2 not to make editorial comments at this point ).

-          Church/worship services in Canada end after an hour and “right on the appointed time”. In Africa, church services last between 3-5 hours, and there is no set ending (or starting) time. He observed that “people seemed to have little time for God”.  It caused him to pose the question “is Canada Christian?”.

In the event that you get the impression that our friend did not enjoy the living in Canada experience, that would be incorrect. He said that he would welcome the opportunity again, he learned much, made “oh so many new friends”  and appreciated Canada, it’s people, and especially the people that hosted him as well as those he worked with at MCC Alberta and the Mennonite Church (Foothills).

Our email addresses are: ronratzlaff@yahoo.ca and martharatzlaff@gmail.com