• Health - Travel

    Two Hands are Enough – My Experience Travelling with World Vision Canada

    September 30, 2014 - By 

     People told me I’d be changed after travelling with World Vision Canada. That’s fair, of course and true and yet also trite. Inadequate.  Changed Words sometimes are so thin, evasive and even limiting. Changed doesn’t begin to capture the depth or range of emotions that I felt when walking through Asimiflor, a brand new area development program in Bucaramanga, the saddest place I have ever seen children living. My week travelling with World Vision Canada was jam packed with big adventures and interviews and so many stories shared that I will be recounting them for a decade or more. Eye…

  • Health - Parenting - parenting - special needs

    Learning Resources For Kids with Special Needs

    September 29, 2014 - By 

    It’s the time of year when updating Individualized Education Plans and getting all the specialists lined up again takes a front seat here at my house. This past week I spent a few hours juggling the numerous doctors and people I want sitting at the table when my daughter’s new IEP is revised. She has been identified now with a learning disability in one area of math. It took me four years of pushing the school to believe that and it also took a private educational assessment that cost us a lot of money this summer. But it’s all good…

  • infertility

    Three Things You Can Do to Help Advocate for Public Funding for IVF in Alberta #abhc4ivf #abpoli

    September 29, 2014 - By 

    1 in 6 people struggle with infertility. I talk about that often here in this space. Why? Because I believe in a Canadian health care system that is accessible and great. And because infertility is a hard emotional and financial journey. It is devastating to far too many. That’s part of the reason why I help advocate for public funding for IVF. Couples, and singles, who are diagnosed with infertility, are sometimes prescribed In vitro fertilization as the best course of action. In Vitro Fertilization is a process by which sperm and egg are introduced in a lab and left…

  • Giveaways - Health - Parenting

    Levana Sophia Digital Video Baby Monitor #Giveaway ARV $100

    September 29, 2014 - By 

    Every new parent is nervous, I think. But new adoptive parents are a whole different level of nervous and anxious. We are crazy from the waiting sometimes and so grateful for our precious gift of parenthood that we can be hyper vigilant about our new roles and responsibilities. I can easily recall how we (mostly I) spent many nights hovering outside the door of Payton’s nursery. I remember how I didn’t trust that Payton would keep breathing all night long on her own. I read a lot about SIDS and I worried about the things that could go wrong. I…

  • Health

    When I Sponsor a Child With World Vision Canada Does My Money Really Go To Them? Child Poverty #TMMWVC

    September 26, 2014 - By 

    When I sponsor a child with World Vision Canada does my money really go to them? This is the number one question I am asked most in the days leading up to my trip to Colombia. I spent a week finding the answer to this question inside many impoverished Colombian cities where violence and drugs are a threat to childhood and family health. I witnessed extreme child poverty and the work World Vision is doing to try to help. I hope these posts help answer that question and many others too. Meet Miguel and Juan. I introduced you to them…

  • Giveaways

    Madame Picasso Paris 3 DVD Prize Pack Worth $75

    September 25, 2014 - By 

    (When this book arrived here late in August you can imagine the kid’s comments.) Madame Picasso is a pageturner and a well written tale that is thoroughly enjoyable. I haven’t had a lot of time lately to read or review books here. Time has been at a premium, but the moment I picked this one up and read the first line, well that was it. Anne Girard is a skillful storyteller and she weaves a truly captivating story here. It is rare that I am drawn in by a character instantly. Eva Gouel is memorable and charming and a character…

  • peace_keepers_1
    Travel

    How Soccer Balls Make an Impact in Taminango Colombia

    September 25, 2014 - By 

    I never thought a soccer ball in Taminango Colombia could make me cry. Let me explain… How Does the Gift of Sports Change Lives? This is what the gift of a soccer ball looks like in Colombia. A team in the middle of a dirt field practising every night. Two young men, sponsored as children, now coaches, committed and clear-headed. Mentors in every way. This is the living breathing outcome of presents from a World Vision gift catalogue. A vulnerable space made into a soccer field in a community where drugs, gangs and crime are extremely big threats to a…

  • Travel

    Peace Keepers – Youth in Colombia #TMMWVC

    September 24, 2014 - By 

      I travelled with World Vision Canada as a guest so I could tell these stories.   This week I am sharing my posts from my trip with World Vision Canada. These are two youths, Peace Keepers, we met in an area called Taminango, near Santander De Quilichao. They were incredibly inspiring. You can read about them tomorrow. You can read all of my stories if you follow my hashtag #TMMWVC or follow my blog and read about some of the incredible work being done in Colombia. Peace Keepers is a unique program here in Colombia that builds strong youth…

  • world vision canada child sponsorship
    Travel

    Hope Lives In a School Called Policarpa – Defeating Child Poverty Near Santander De Quilichao, Colombia

    September 23, 2014 - By 

    Hope is the thing you see in the faces of the students here. Inside a small school called Policarpa, in an area of Colombia called Santander De Quilichao, where domestic heroin use rages and gangs and guns are very real threats to children and entire families. But here, inside this school the children celebrate Amor Y Paz Month – Love and Peace Month. What Hope Looks Like Here Words hang in Spanish on the pillars in the school. Loosely translated they read: Tolerance, Love, Punctuality, Respect, Friendship. It is September and I have flown to South America with World Vision…

  • Travel

    The Colombia Briefing Trip

    September 22, 2014 - By 

    We’re discussing guns, heroin and child trafficking inside a World Vision Canada meeting room in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. This is my first security briefing ever. I have squeezed this Colombia Briefing Trip into a frantic first week back to school. My uniform for the week in Colombia Security Details These are the practical details that can help keep you safe in the field, which in this case is various vulnerable ADPs (area development programs) in the Colombian countryside. Soon I will take a Colombia field trip with World Vision Canada. Protect Your Documents and Money Get a money…