Canadian Christian Writing Award Winners!

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Lynn

Since I congratulated the winners and finalists in the Carol and Christy Awards, I thought it only fair to congratulate the winners and finalists in the Canadian Christian Writing Awards.  Twenty-nine of Canada’s top writers were awarded on June 15th at The Word Guild Canadian Christian Writing Awards for books they published in 2010, along with 18 awards for periodical writing.

Book—Academic

Winner—James K. A. Smith of Grand Rapids, Mich., for Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)

Award of Merit—Deborah C. Bowen of Hamilton, Ont., for Stories of the Middle Space: Reading the Ethics of Postmodern Realisms (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

Award of Merit—James R. Payton Jr. of Mount Hope, Ont., for Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings (IVP Academic)

Book—Apologetics

Winner—Dr. Grant Richison of Saint Cloud, Fl., for Certainty—A Place to Stand (Castle Quay Books)

Book—Biblical Studies

Winner—Robert Russell of Camas, Wash., for One Precious Pearl: God’s Design for His Church (Infinity Publishing)

Award of Merit—David Sawler of Glace Bay, N.S., for The Disciple: God’s  Blueprint (Word Alive Press)

Book—Children

Winner (Tie)—Connie Brummel Crook of Peterborough, Ont., for No Small Victory (Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited)

Winner (Tie)—Marla Stewart Konrad of Oakville, Ont., for Just Like You (Zonderkidz)

Book—Christian Leadership

Winner—Eleanor Shepherd of Pointe Claire, P.Q., for More Questions than Answers: Sharing Faith by Listening (Resource Publications)

Award of Merit—Karen Stiller of Port Perry, Ont., and Willard Metzger of Drayton, Ont., for Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches Who Have Embraced Missional Life (Word Alive Press)

Book—Christian Living

Winner—Brian Stiller of Newmarket, Ont., for You Never Know What You Have Till You Give It Away (Castle Quay Books)

Book—Culture

Winner—W. Harold Fuller of Stouffville, Ont., for Sun Like Thunder: Following Jesus on Asia’s Spice Road (Centre for Contemporary Christianity)

Award of Merit—Karen Stiller of Port Perry, Ont., and Willard Metzger of Drayton, Ont., for Going Missional: Conversations with 13 Canadian Churches who Have Embraced Missional Life(Word Alive Press)

Book—General Readership

Winner (Tie)—Tim Huff of Toronto, Ont., for Dancing With Dynamite: Celebrating Against the Odds (Castle Quay Books)

Winner (Tie)—Denis Shackel of Grand Bend, Ont., and Tara Bradacs of Toronto, Ont., for Five Seconds at a Time: How Leaders Can Make the Impossible Possible (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd)

Winner (Tie)—Elaine A. Small of Belleville, Ont., for Priests in the Attic (Author House)

Book—Inspirational/Devotional

Winner—Stacey Gleddiesmith of Vancouver, B.C., forWelcoming the Stranger: Readying Ourselves for Christmas(Regent College Publishing)

Book—Instructional

Winner—Tony Gentilucci of Mississauga, Ont., for Stop Preaching and Start Communicating: Communication Principles Preachers Can Learn From Television (Castle Quay Books)

Book—Life Stories

Winner—Denis Shackel of Grand Bend, Ont., and Tara Bradacs of Toronto, Ont., for Five Seconds at a Time: How Leaders Can Make the Impossible Possible (Harper Collins Publishers Ltd)

Award of Merit—Marshall Lawrence of Echo Bay, Ont., for The World at My Door (Guardian Books)

Book—Relationship

Winner—Mary A. Kassian of Sherwood Park, Alta., for Girls Gone Wise—In a World Gone Wild (Moody Publishing)

Book—Special

Winner (Tie)—Marianne Jones of Thunder Bay, Ont., for Here, on the Ground (Friesen Press)

Winner (Tie)—Laurie Lamb of Hawkestone, Ont., for The Way of Ducks: A Cottage Devotional (Word Alive Press)

Award of Merit—Kathleen Gibson of Ebenezer, Sask., for Practice by Practice: The art of everyday faith (Word Alive Press)

Book—Young Adult

Winner—Cynthia d’Entremont of Lakeview, N.S., for Unlocked (Word Alive Press)

Novel—Contemporary

Winner—Donna Dawson of St. Marys, Ont., for Rescued (Word Alive Press)

Novel—Futuristic/Fantasy

Winner—Cynthia d’Entremont of Lakeview, N.S., for Unlocked (Word Alive Press)

Novel—Historical

Winner—Janette Oke of Olds, Alta., and Davis Bunn for The Hidden Flame (Bethany House)

Award of Merit—Shawn J. Pollett of Golden Valley, Ont., forWhat Rough Beast (Word Alive Press)

Novel—Romance

Winner—M. D. Meyer of Norway House, Man., for Jasmine: The Group—Week One (Word Alive Press)

Article—Blog Series

Winner—Lynn Dove of Cochrane, Alta., for “The Author of Life” and “Even Though I Walk Through the Valley”  (lynndove.wordpress.com)

Article—Children/Young Adult

Winner—Corinne Mordaunt of Toronto, Ont., for “In the Beginning” (Nature Friend)

Article—General Readership (articles that explain or encourage faith for mainstream readers)

Winner—Thomas Froese of Kampala, Uganda for “There’s Lots to Learn About Life, Death from Developing World” (The Hamilton Spectator)

Award of Merit—Thomas Froese of Kampala, Uganda for “By Losing Fun We Risk Much More” (The Hamilton Spectator)

Article—Inspirational/Devotional

Winner—Jack Dueck of Waterloo, Ont., for “The Burning Bush or the Plastic Mulberry” (Institute for Theology and the Church)

Article—Long Feature

Winner—Donna Mann of Holstein, Ont., for “Mother’s Day—A Day to Celebrate, But How?” (Christianity.ca)

Award of Merit—Jack Dueck of Waterloo, Ont., for “The Burning Bush or the Plastic Mulberry” (Institute for Theology and the
Church)

Award of Merit—Jayne Self of Toronto, Ont., for “Ghana: Boogie to the Front” (Presbyterian Record)

Article—Personal Experience

Winner—Ella Sailor of Elbow, Sask., for “I Can’t Find Him” (Inscribed)

Article—Profile/Human Interest

Winner—Jack Dueck of Waterloo, Ont., for “A Tale of Two Trees” (Canadian Mennonite)

Article—Review

Winner—Violet Nesdoly of Langley, B.C., for “Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends by Mark A. Yarhouse, PsyD” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Article—Short Feature

Winner—Marcy Kennedy of Wallaceburg, Ont., for “Dying to be Beautiful: The high cost of believing the lie” (testimony)

Column—Single

Winner—Kurt Armstrong of Winnipeg, Man., for “Jesus Loves Your Penis, Son” (Geez Magazine)

Award of Merit—Stacey Gleddiesmith of Vancouver, B.C., for “My God, My God, Why? Understanding the Lament Psalms” (Reformed Worship)

Column—Series

Winner—Kathleen Gibson of Ebenezer, Sask., for “When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Like Mom” and “What About that Dead Robin?” (Yorkton This Week)

Poetry

Winner—Alvin G. Ens of Abbotsford, B.C., for “Blossom Blessing” (Rejoice, Mennonite Publishing)

Scripts and
Screenplays

Winner—Terrie Todd of Portage la Prairie, Man., for “Once More with Passion” (Eldridge Publishing)

Song Lyrics

Winner—Kelita Haverland of Mississauga, Ont., for “Deep Dark Secret” (Heart & Soul Music)

 

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Ever Have One of Those Days?

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Lynn

One of my favourite children’s books is “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day“.  The plot line is simple:

From the moment he wakes up with gum in his hair, things just don’t go right for poor Alexander. When Alexander gets out of bed, he trips on the skateboard and drops his sweater into the sink while the water is running and at breakfast, his brothers, Anthony and Nick reach into their cereal boxes and find amazing prizes while Alexander ends up with just cereal.

In the car, on the way to school , he is “scrunched” and he doesn’t get a window seat.  At school the teacher criticizes him for his “invisible castle” drawing and his mother forgets to put dessert in his lunch.

After school, at the dentist, he is the only one with a cavity.  His foot is slammed in an elevator.  He doesn’t get the running shoes he wants.

Even at home his day doesn’t improve when he’s served lima beans for dinner (which he hates), there is kissing on TV (which he also hates) and finally he has to wear his railroad train pajamas to bed (and, you guessed it, he hates his railroad train pajamas).  No wonder Alexander wants to move to Australia!

The book ends with his mother assuring him that everybody has bad days, even people who live in Australia.

Ever have one of those days?  How ’bout one of those weeks?  Months?  Years?

We went camping last weekend.  It was a wonderful time to get away and on the last day I got up from my chair and felt something “snap” in my knee.  A visit to the doctor confirmed that I had torn some ligaments in my knee.  He told me to elevate, ice, and stay off of the leg for at least a week.  Unfortunately that put me down for the count to teach at VBS (Vacation Bible School) this year.  I LOVE VBS and it would only be the second time in over twenty-five years that I haven’t been involved with VBS.  That sort of bummed me out.

Of course the weather just happens to be the nicest it could possibly be and I am stuck in a recliner, elevating, icing, and staying off my leg…indoors.  I feel restless and I’m having just a little bit of a “whoa is me” party at all the fun I’m missing.  Then God puts it all into perspective (as He usually does) when I start whining and complaining, bringing to mind those dear ones who are struggling far more than I could even imagine today.

One of my friends is having mastectomy surgery today.  Another is undergoing more chemo treatments because her cancer has returned.  One of my son’s best friends is laid up for six weeks with a broken knee cap (a soccer accident).  Another dear friend just lost her mother-in-law, another friend is grieving the loss of a dear aunt.  Here I am bemoaning the fact that I have a sore knee when others around me are struggling so.

My son posted on his facebook wall the other day that “your additude determines your laditude.”  All that registered with me was that he had incorrectly spelled “attitude” and “latitude” and I called him on that.  Made fun of him a little even.  I didn’t even ponder to think about the wisdom of the words (misspelled or not).  (Sorry Brett).

According to Scripture your (my) attitude towards life, circumstances and towards all people should be like the Lord’s (Gal. 5:22-23).

I definitely needed an “additude” adjustment and God pointed that out to me today.

 

    

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The Royal Tour to Canada – 2011

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Lynn

Last year I wrote about our nation’s National Anthem, O Canada to celebrate Canada Day.  Last year Queen Elizabeth was the visiting Royal on Parliament Hill.  This year her grandson, Prince William and his new bride, Catherine will visit Canada on their first official visit overseas.  Already the newlyweds have become more popular than, well…the Queen!

According to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, “Heritage Minister James Moore predicted the royal visit (by Will and Kate) will break all records and pointed to the record-breaking 1,300 journalists accredited to cover the visit — compared with 848 who covered Queen Elizabeth’s most recent Canadian tour. And the number is still growing.”

Although they are predicting the young couple will attract more attention, and the estimated crowds of people who will want to catch a glimpse of them during their eight-day tour of our country will be decidedly more staggering than the crowds for the Queen last year, the cost to taxpayers will be less than half of the Queen’s visit.  Go figure.

Media has been quick to point out that the two young Royals are very savvy to working a crowd and using social media and the like to their advantage.  The Canadian Government has even set up a 2011 Royal Tour site complete with a Facebook page and Twitter account, and there is a greeting from Prince William on the front page:

Message from His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge

“Catherine and I are very much looking forward to our Tour of Canada.  We hope to be able to meet as many people as possible and to see as much of the extraordinary and diverse country as we can”, said The Duke of Cambridge. “I have wonderful memories from my last times in Canada, and as such we consider it a great privilege to have been invited to Canada for our first joint Tour.”

Now being a Calgarian, I am looking forward to their last stop on their tour.  Ottawa will get to see them first on Parliament Hill for the Canada Day celebrations on July 1st, but here in the Cowtown, we’ll get to see what they look like wearing jeans and ten-gallon cowboy hats at the Stampede Parade as they help kick off the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth – the Calgary Stampede!  I gotta admit that I can’t help getting that “Yahoo” type of feeling at the thought of them chowing down at one of the gazillion pancake breakfasts around town that are a Stampede tradition.  Wonder if Will will even try his hand at calf roping?  (OK now I’m being facetious 🙂  Unfortunately they’ll miss out on getting a little mud splattered up at them in the stands during the “chucks” – that’s Chuckwagon races to you easterners 🙂 but no doubt they will enjoy the western hospitality the short while they are in Calgary and as they leave our fair land, they will have plenty of Canadian memories to take with them back to England.

I don’t think I’ll be brave enough to tackle the parade crowds to get a glimpse of the young couple while here in Calgary, but there’s no denying that their visit is good for Canada, for the cities they will visit while on tour, and all eyes will be upon them and our Nation during their time with us.

It’s a great way to kick off Canada’s 144th Birthday celebrations!  Welcome to Canada, Will and Kate!  Yahoooooooo!

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