Getting Fattened Up

It's Friday afternoon and we have just finished our final session of orientation for the week. Only two more days of orientation to go until we "graduate". MCC is doing a good job of preparing us to meet many different cultural issue, but its tough to be so specific, since we are going to such a broad range of assignments. There are people here going to Kenya, Bolivia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Haiti, Egypt, Ukraine, Uganda, Sri Lanka and of course South Africa. All of those different places have different cultural norms, in one place its polite to shake hands, in another you shouldn't look people in the eye, in another you should never cross your legs, in another its wrong to smile in public (people will think you are insane!). I figure we will just keep our hands in our pockets, and try to blend in. That shouldn't be too hard, eh?

We have been eating pretty well while we are here. Last week Friday we went to an Amish house for supper, mmm good. I was suprised that the family spoke with a clearly mid american accent, no trace of german. Of course, the Amish have been in Pennsylvania for three hundred years. Here's an Amish tip - add a little Velveta to your buttered noodles to give them that extra creamy flavour. We ate a lot. Another culinary highlight was an early morning trip to the local grocery store. They make homemade doughnuts, so we arrived there at seven and got a dozen that were still warm. Yummy, but oh-so-fattening. I've also developed a fondness for a local brand of potato chip ("Grandma Utz") which are fried in lard. Can't be good for me, but they sure taste great. In any case, I'll work it all of when I get to Africa...by running back to back marathons for a week.

This is our last weekend in North America, so we will do some last minute shopping, for things like books (there is a used bookstore nearby), camera accesories and other little things. Tonight we are going to the "Green Dragon" farmers market, tommorow to the Target, but on Sunday we are going to the nature preserve, and won't buy anything.

We also got our airline tickets and visas, so now we can actually arrive in SA without getting thrown in jail or being deported. I have ordered a computer, so hopefully by the time we get to our new place it will be in place and the next blog entry will be from way far away. Stay tuned!

Here we are in Akron PA

Hi everyone from Akron, PA. We are in Akron, which is where MCC headquarters are, for two weeks of Orientation. We got here yesterday, after a week of leave taking and goodbyes. It was hard to say goodbye to our families, but also good to get "the show on the road" so to speak, as it seemed the preparations to leave were going on for a long time. We have to point out again how much love and support our family, friends and church have shown us while we were getting ready to go.

The last few days had a few minor challenges. Air Canada changed the baggage allowance, so our bags could only weigh 50 lbs. each. We spent part of our last evening moving things from bag to bag in order to ensure we would be under the weight limit (and we were!). However, I have to beg forgiveness for my surlyness while sorting out which shoes should go in which suitcase, its obviously not a task I am well suited for. We still managed to bring over 500 pounds of luggage all together so we can't really complain.

We have already met a number of great people on very interesting assignments, and we are really looking forward to getting into the heart of the orientation. The campus at MCC is very nice. We are staying at the "Welcoming Place", which is a grouping of buildings, each having a different contintent name. Our building is "The Americas". The girls are thrilled that they get their own room to share and don't have to stay with their parents.

The Last Week in Winnipeg

We are down to the final week in Winnipeg, and things are starting to really wrap up. I (John) left work for the last time on Friday, and I have to say it was a bit of an odd feeling wrapping things up. I'm sure that Ian, Perry, Kurt, Tom, Geoff and all the rest of the eHealth people will make do without me, but they sure are taking on a lot. It will be very interesting to see how things look in three years!

We have just celebrated Thanksgiving at home and at church. As usual, its been a great weekend to reflect on how good we have it in North America, at least at the material level. Much turkey and pie has reinforced the need for exercise. We also had our blessing/send-off at church, which we very much appreciated, and for us it reinforced the idea that it takes a church to send out an family on an MCC assignment.

Ahead of us now is a weekend of leave taking and wrapping up. We are going to miss all of our friends and family a lot! We have a few items to take care of before we leave, including selling the Honda. If you are at all interested, please give us a call. Without being too tounge-in-cheek, buying our car at this time would make you a blessing to us. And its not like this is some terrible charity case car, its really very decent and reliable.

Its a 98 Honda Civic LX, four door, 5 speed with AC and remote start. We are the third owner, Stacey Boschman, our sister-in-law owned it before us, and she bought is from one of her relatives. Long story short, a reliable and practical car thats good on gas. Please give us a call at 781 9989 if you are at all interested.

We got a picture of our house in White River. The picture really has us excited! If you look closely, you will see that there are mountains in the background. We have been told that the C4L campus is on a bit of a hill, and is quite scenic.

14 days and counting

Two weeks from tomorrow we will be in the air, flying to Akron Pennsylvania for our orientation. It's been a whirlwind of activity since the last post, its hard to keep track of all the things that have happened, but let me try to summarize:

• We've officially moved out of our house. We have rented the house, and last weekend moved into the Wieler parents basement. It's a little odd to be living in Mom and Dad's basement after so many years, but the hospitality and support shown to us has been fabulous. The move itself was great, a HUGE thank you to Simon at Wiebe's Moving and Storage, and Ken Klassen for the help with the move and the storage of our furniture, that took a great load off our mind. We, well actually Charlene mostly, with the help of a bunch of our friends and family, spent the last week doing the final house cleaning, and we handed the keys over officially on Friday afternoon.
  
• The good-bye parties have started. My work goodbye reception was Wedenesday evening, and I had a great time. Ian (my Boss) had some very nice remarks, and it was wonderful to see so many of my friends and colleagues come out. Its a funny feeling wrapping up a sixteen year career. This weekend we have a bunch of family gatherings, which will be a lot of fun, but busy. We have already attended one party on Saturday, and there are two more today (Sunday). Our church "Small Group" also had a send off for us at Crescent Drive park last week, that was both a lot of fun, and very meaningful to us. We can't emphasize enough how greatful we are for all the help and support that has been given us. I guess we are learning (to paraphrase the famous saying) that "it takes a village (or a church community) to move a family to South Africa", or something like that. I can't image how difficult this move would have been if we would have had everyones help.
• We are giving everyone our "Missionary Picture" with our email and blog address (you probably already have one if you are reading this).
  
  

Some folks have asked for our actual mailing address in South Africa. Here it is

John and Charlene Wieler, c/o C4L
PO Box 2510, White River,
Republic of South Africa 1240.

Click here to go see our geographic location using Google maps.