Getting Ready for Christmas in Vietnam

Today we did a "pre-pack". Our small guest bedroom has been filling up with all the stuff that we will be carrying to Vietnam and it was time to see if it would fit into our suitcases. You would think that after so many trips, we would have this down to a science. Such is not the case! This year we are carrying a very special cushion for Mr. Binh's wheelchair, bandages for people with leprosy and of course "Canadian" Christmas presents for our Vietnamese family.

Thank goodness the generous financial donations from all our friends and the love that goes with them take up only space in our hearts!

• Funds have already gone to Global Village Foundation for three libraries of books for kids in remote village schools and also for relief efforts for the victims of the recent typhoon.
• Elaine has lots of crisp new US fifty dollar bills which will pay the rent for Hoa, a disabled mother of two, recently diagnosed with breast cancer.
• We have sent some of your funds to the Children's Education Foundation to support the education of promising scholars from the Hoa Van leprosy village school. With the support of CEF and their host families in the city of Da Nang these kids will hopefully be able to break the cycle of poverty and discrimination which has dogged their parents and grandparents.
• Bruce has worked hard to raise money for VAVA- Vietnamese Association for the Assistance of Victims of  Agent Orange. Along with generous donations from his comrades in the 4th Battalion 23rd Infantry, he has directed much of his revenue from teaching sailing and sailing charters towards this effort and he looks forward to delivering a substantial gift to this organization which endeavours to help the approximately 1000 victims in the Hoi An district.

And we haven't even left yet!!! Once in Hoi An we will take up where left off last year and resume our work with Reaching Out and join the Global Village team for workshops and delivery of more libraries.

It is fitting that we set out on this third Journey of the Heart at a time when our Western world is preparing to pray for "Peace on Earth", with all the hope and wonder that this season holds. We fly from Vancouver on December 13th and will arrive after a few days of travel in our "over there" home town of Hoi An.

Messages from home sustain us while we are in Vietnam....please comment on this blog or send us an e-mail!

Rememberance Day 2009

As Bruce and I stood in reverent silence today, along with hundreds of our fellow Salt Spring neighbours, we were overcome with the emotions which this Veterans Day service now evoke.

We remembered all those who have fallen in the service of their countries, in seeking a fair, just and peaceful world, through two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

We honored those who returned home, with injuries to body, heart and soul but today marched with their surviving comrades, even if marching meant using a walker or being pushed in a wheelchair.

We thought of the Logan lineage of military men and women who set an example for Bruce.

We were grateful that we were there together, and that Bruce's service for his country has led us both toward the work that we love in Vietnam.