How To Do Anything

First: You get an idea.

Then: You tie a rake to a hula hoop and wrap copper wire around it.

After that: You put little silicone wire thingies in a plastic board, connect everything, and strap batteries to it. 


Finally, you plug that into your computer, and VOILÁ! You have a, um…pre-amp, err…loop antenna thingy that’s used for picking up …uhhh…clicks, buzzes, loud static and atmospheric sounds? Nothing I enjoy listening to, but then, I'm no engineer either.  This seems to be a project worth pursuing for Russell though, and I’m sure that if he doesn’t give up, he’ll succeed at picking up just the frequency he's looking for.

I was thinking about the “recipe” for success (or just plain getting anything done!) the other day and decided I liked this rather backwards approach:

Guarantee for Failure:
1. Never try anything. Ever. Especially the “big” stuff.
2. If you do ever attempt anything:
  a. Quit as soon as possible (especially when things get tough—this usually happens real quick).
  b. Don’t ask anyone for help.
3. Just, don’t try in the first place. OK?

Anyway, let’s move on to some of the things that got done this week.


The Prairie College nursing team arrived in Mozambique this week for their month-long practicum. We’ve been talking about and preparing and organizing for this for quite awhile now, and it’s great to know the team is safe and sound on the ground, ready to get stuck into their cross-cultural health-related experience.

The first few days are spent getting settled and acquainted with the new surroundings (and sounds that go “screech!” in the night).


And visiting a local church on Sunday.


On Monday they’ll be at the mission schools and clinics conducting health assessments and teaching preventive health, then visiting orphan homes, etc. We miss being there with them this time around.

Amid meetings and short trips here and there to share with churches, we’re keeping busy with other things as well.

Dwight is renewing his instrument rating on his pilot’s license. He’s doing this with long-time friend, Bob Guzak. They ran into a little snag last week when there was no plane available here for use, so they did an all-nighter and drove to Mara Lake, B.C. where they picked up Bob’s plane and flew it back to Edmonton so they could continue with their review and flying.



As for me, I managed to squeeze in a few hours of studying my “Introductory Statistics” course. Yay…everything I ever wanted to know (or not) about Standard Deviation, Chebyshev’s Theorem, and more! I know that the actual nursing courses, once I get to them, will prove vital to my community health work in Mozambique. In the meantime, I just have to stay the course through the tough stuff. And not quit. And get help from my daughter. “Aaagh! A-MAN-daaaaaaa?! What do I do here again??!”

And don’t you quit either. There’s a harvest out there and apparently the workers are few already!

Take care and ttyl.

PS: Click here to check out our new Current Projects page.