2022 - A Year to be Reckoned With

For years now, we have managed to be in South Africa in the worst part of our winter, namely January and February. We’ve always considered this our just reward. Somehow in 2022 we slipped up and lost our way and decided we’d just “stay home”. Bad mistake. We had opportunity to be very graphically reminded how long and miserable a full Canadian winter can be. Let’s blame it on Covid - with all the caution around Omicron we were stuck at home for days and weeks on end. 

This is not photo shopped!! Thank goodness
we have a snowblower

Anyway in 2023 we have decided to fix that mistake by planning a two week trip to Cuba in January with neighbors, where the prices are amazing, the beaches are reputed to be blissful, and the hotels excellent. We will also get our annual South Africa fix in March to see family and friends. So we can breathe again. We will have managed to dodge another full winter in Canada bullet. Whew!! 

So, how has 2022 shaped up? Read on for the full deal. 

Tricky Turning Points 

Garden of the Gods - Colorado Springs

At the front end of the year we decided to stave off some of the winter blues by planning some fun travel in the USA. As usual Cher excelled at the detail required to accomplish this. It was a fun exercise. It is wonderful how internet travel allows us to explore the nooks and crannies of this planet from the comfort of our living rooms. This exercise took us off to warm and fun places and sent us to bed at night with lots of sweet dreams of good things to come. 

Cave Dwellings - Colorado
Springs

Petrified Forest National Park - Arizona

Bryce NP, Utah
Lots of smiles walking down into
the canyon - not so much
climbing out. 

James and Peter - posing at 
top of Island in the Sky, 
Canyonlands NP, Utah

Our starting point plan was we had to find an activity big and fun enough to obscure the unwelcome thought for Rob that he was turning 70 in March. We decided we would treat our direct family to a once in a lifetime tour of some of the delights of Colorado, Utah and Arizona. We had covered much of this ground during an RV trip in 2016. It is some of the most spectacular scenery in the world and we wanted our kids and their kids to enjoy it as we had.

The two of us departed for Phoenix, Arizona, to rent a 15-seater van, which we then drove to Colorado Springs, via a rather dramatic blizzard en route, where we met the family who had flown in to check off the first item on our itinerary of visiting Focus on the Family headquarters.

Horseshoe Bend, Colorado 
River, Arizona

We went Mexican to add a bit of spice to 
celebrate Rob's birthday. 

Our two weeks was a wonderful blur of amazing sights, fun, fellowship, good food and comfortable beds. We did celebrate Rob’s turning of Old Age, but the fun and laughter going on all around, was sufficient to mute some of the darker thoughts Rob had percolating on that topic. Thank you, Lord. 

Boys being boys
 L-R James, Sammy, John, Peter.
 Gdn of the Gods, Colorado Springs. 

What a wonderful way to celebrate Rob's 70th - with all the most important people in his life. 

The next leg of our planned Adventure Year, starting in May, was a six-week RV trip to New Mexico and Texas with Julia and her boys. The plan was that Chris, Julia’s husband, would join us halfway through. After a week it became clear that Rob’s brother Neville in South Africa, whose health had been failing for a while, was not going to make it. We decided to cut two weeks off of our six week plan, and managed to get as far as Dallas, Texas before we got the bad news that Nev had passed on.

We received the news of Nev's passing whilst 
exploring ancient footprints at Dinosaur Valley, NP

Chris flew down to help Julia and take over the driving of the RV, while we did a hasty pack up to head for South Africa and the funeral. We did have time to celebrate Cher’s birthday (Clue – she’s not yet 70) at the wonderful Dallas Botanical Gardens. Rob was particularly sorry that he had to miss our planned trip to Nashville and Dollywood in Tennessee, which he had arm wrestled Cher into reluctantly agreeing to.

Attending Nev’s funeral was another big turning point. Nev, being the older brother, along with being a dynamic force of nature, had played the role of family patriarch for many years. His passing was a shock to us all. Even though we knew there was a good chance he would not make it, we never expected his passing to be so sudden. The pain of losing him was softened by the knowledge that he had recently made his peace with the Lord and was in a good place spiritually when he died. Thank you, Lord, for that. Nev’s kids, Janine, Lindy and Doug did a wonderful job of giving him a good send off. The nagging thought turning in the back of Rob’s mind, was that we are now one step closer to being the “next in line”. It disturbed him more than he cares to admit. 

Nev's direct family from all over SA and Australia were
able to gather to be with him over Easter. What a blessing!

Nev's wife Maureen has had 
strong support from her family
and household staff 

Seeing as we had spent the money in getting to SA we thought we might as well make the most of it and decided to stay for five weeks, before duty called us back home. It was lovely having a relatively unrushed time to hang out with family and friends who we often don’t have time to see. We were glad to be able to spend time with Nev’s wife, Maureen as she began the journey of learning to live without Nev. 

Cher's Mom is surrounded by excellent 
care and friends in her Old Age Home
in East London, SA. 

By the time we got back from SA in mid June, we were done with any more travel plans and were happy to have a relatively quiet summer ahead of us. Just to be at home, enjoy our garden and the great weather was nice. So nice just to relax at home… Ahhh!! 

Family Round Up 

Elaine lives a hectic life. She loves her teaching at Peoples Christian Academy – she teaches grades 6 – 8 the Bible. Cher and I both wish we could sit in on her classes. She takes her students quite deep and gives them a wonderful grounding, especially the kids who are coming from mainland China or elsewhere in Asia who have no Christian background at all. Being a single Mom adds to the challenge of keeping house and home together, so her life is full. 

Fairhavens - August 2022. Sadly Chris
couldn't make it this year. 

Sammy at 13 has now officially attained the awesome rank of Teenager. He enjoys school and his friends, but often comes home laden with too much homework and his diligent nature cannot countenance the idea of Just Saying Enough is Enough, so he spends a lot of his home time with his nose buried in the books. He is flourishing at his piano playing and is now, along with the neighborhood, exploring the agonies and ecstasy of learning the saxophone. 

Esther, at 11 has started to sprout like a beanstalk. She is very enthusiastic about her ballet lessons, which she does twice a week. Like Sammy, she loves to read and is presently hotly engaged in a battle of the books, to have read 10 books by the end of December. She has lots of friends and has recently enjoyed her role as a School Ambassador. She loves to confound her teacher, Elaine, by doing zero studying for her Bible exam and scoring 99%, apparently effortlessly.

A few days after our return from South Africa, we remembered that Elaine had been asking for a while if we would go with her and Sammy and Esther to Quebec, to join them in checking out that part of the country. So, we were only home a few weeks when we were off again to check out the sights and practise our French. We knew from our last visit 30 years earlier, that the Quebeckers are quite hard nosed about refusing to speak English, even if they can. Because of that attitude we had avoided Quebec ever since. 

Elaine, the bearer of a bucket
load of impossible clues!

Exploring the streets of Old Quebec City
was a rare treat. 

As it turned out we had a lovely few days in Old Quebec City, the longest lived European settlement in North America. Exploring the historical city was right up Rob’s street. A couple of highlights. We visited a Quebecois restaurant one night to experience some typical cuisine. Rob chose something with a quaint sounding French name and a very poor English translation. They neglected to mention that the meat portion was raw venison. Rob’s good upbringing and Scottish meanness insisted that he eat what was put in front of him. Unfortunately, his stomach delivered a different message, and he was forced to abandon the effort after a couple of mouthfuls. Elaine, ever the good teacher, had signed us up for a kid’s educational treasure hunt on the Plains of Abraham, the sight of the British defeat of French forces in Quebec in the 1700s. The clues were so cryptic and obscure it took the combined genius of three moderately bright adults and two very bright youth to figure out where to start. We were just heading off to find the first clue when the organiser came rushing over to turn us 180 degrees in the other direction. We’ll say no more about our success level in that department. Suffice to say that the writer of the clues seemed to have no respect for logic and clarity. It must be a French thing. 

Poutine - sloppy French fries, 
topped with gravy, melted 
cheese and pretty much 
anything else - A Quebec delicacy

We wrapped up with a trip to Montreal where amongst other things we found a world-famous poutine restaurant which completely lived up to its reputation. We’ll say no more other than we had a lovely trip and despite my best intentions, my French speaking has not improved one iota. 

Mariah and Julia - catching a
break at Fairhavens in August

Julia manages a busy household with hers and Chris’s three kids, along with nieces Mariah, Thalya and Mariah’s two-year-old Kairo. Julie home schools and Chris works from home, so at times there are a lot of bodies to contend with. Fortunately, their house is large enough for everyone to find their respective corners. Thalya has been living with her mom in Germany for a few months, getting some work experience, which reduces the body count by one. Chris, who is settling down into a new job, barricades himself in his office and does his best to ignore the chaos. 

John, Julia, Peter, Chris and James

Julia somehow manages to stay sane and is giving her boys a wonderful education. They impress me with their knowledge of just about everything. John, 11, now makes a regular task of wiping the floor with Rob at chess, James, 9, is a character, who likes to act tough, but deep down, is a real softy and Peter, 7, loves to oust Rob if he can from his favorite chair at our home. Fortunately, he is still of a size that Rob can forcibly remove him. Nothing else works. Rob never challenges the three of them to wrestle with him together anymore. They have no respect for the amount of force that is appropriate for a septuagenarian. Rob is thankful to the Lord for keeping him humble. 

James helping Rob to track
which States we've visited. 

We have loved our various RV explorations we have done with Julia and her kids. It is wonderful to see the world through those young eyes. We were sad when we had to abandon our USA RV trip to attend Nev’s funeral. We are planning a trip to Eastern Canada next year, so that is something fun to look forward to. 

On the Homefront 

We, like the rest of the world, are still trying to get back to a sense of what is a normal life these days. Nevertheless, our lives are pleasantly full. We have lost some of the frenetic activity we used to engage in. We spend more time at home, but we are not lonely, nor do we get bored. 

James, Peter, Kairo and John - amazingly
they all still fit in the little red wagon. 

We have continued with our role of leading our Oasis group. Oasis is a network of Christians in our hometown Port Perry, who work with about 10-12 Syrian ex refugee families. It has been wonderful since 2016 to have been part of a town wide team that has helped these families to build new lives in Canada. Our Oasis Team meets monthly to pray for these folk. We meet the families whenever we can and try to help in practical ways. This year we rounded up about 10-12 used laptops from the community, so the kids could use them for their online schooling. Cher and Rob also helped one of the families start a lawn mowing business called Mow ‘n Go, which has been a moderate success and will definitely continue next summer. The Oasis Team will be hosting a party for these families over the Christmas season. We continue to pray that some of these folk will come to know Jesus as their own personal Lord and Saviour. 

Churchwise – this year Rob joined the leadership Board at our church this year. It has taken a while to get into the swing of it, but he is now getting the hang of it. Our church is starting to emerge from Covid. We are down about 30% in our numbers and our youth and kids’ programs are pretty much gone. It is a sad situation. In an effort to rectify this we volunteered at a Sport Camp that we ran during the summer. It was fun, but Rob was rather dramatically reminded that he’s no longer 7 or 17. His body ached for weeks afterwards. 

Exercise wise – We walk 2- 3 times weekly and have now signed up for a weekly seniors exercise class. Rob is the only guy in a group of about 30 old ladies. Sigh. On one level it is a bit of a come down. On another level, we are impressed every week at the great work out we get. If Cher can’t go, then neither can Rob. It wouldn’t be safe. Rob has also started playing Pickleball, North America’s fastest growing sport amongst all ages, at our local community centre a couple of times a week. It is a lot of fun and gives him a good workout. Also there are a lot more men around, so it is safe for him to go out and play on his own. 

Wrapping Up 

On Rob’s desk there is a poster of a cat with its arm up in the air that says, “Raise your hand, if you think the whole world has gone crazy.” That pretty much captures our exact thoughts. The rise of woke ideology in this part of the world is disturbing to say the least and we find ourselves thankful that we are on this end of our lives. It is tempting to feel despondent on behalf of our kids and their kids. Where will the craziness end? 

And Yet….. 

God’s free gift to the world is Jesus. He is the Reason for the Season. With Him in our lives, life makes sense. Even in the most disturbed of times, we have the Prince of Peace who is our personal Friend. In Him we can find reason to rejoice, no matter the circumstance. If you, like us, find the world a troubling place, then let’s together decide that we will put our trust in Jesus of whom it is said, 

“For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given, And the government will be on his shoulders, And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace….” (Isaiah 9.6)

On that wonderful note, we wish you, and all of those precious to you, God’s richest blessings in the year ahead. 

God Bless, 

Rob and Cheryl, 

Christmas 2022

From the Cornish, Philip, Trotter and Tibbit Clan - we wish you a Merry Christmas. 

Rob and Cheryl