November 30, 2006

Church Life It's been almost a year since we decided to make Terwillegar Community Church our home church. Not only do we get to sleep in on Sundays as service is at 4:30pm (woo hoo!), but the people there are great. I grew up in a fairly large church setting at Millwoods Pentecostal Assembly and while we were in Calgary we were attending First Alliance which is also a fairly large church. However TCC is a church plant that is only 3 years old and with about 80 people on average every week, it's like a breath of fresh air. You have the chance to really connect with everyone and not just a small segment. Pastor Ken McDonald is a great person and listening to his messages every week is a blessing. I will always be grateful to Pastor Ken for coming out to our home the first week we visited. Since then Jen has become involved with the Child Care services and occasionally attends "Ladies Morning Out" on Fridays. I have recently started helping out Pastor Joel Nikkel and Tiffany Smith on Wednesday nights with the young people. Joel is a great person to talk to and he really connects with the kids - Mya and Yasmeen have also started taking a liking to him as they were showing him Yasmeen's new underwear (pull up diapers) recently! I know Joel loved that one! Tiffany is a great person as well and we're very happy to be supporting her as she is involved with Campus for Christ at the Universtiy of Alberta. Tiffany is a great artist as well - check out some of the paintings she's created on her site.

There's oil in them there hills ... ...and then some. For those that aren't familiar with, or for that matter have never heard of the Great Canadian Oil Sands - here's a little primer on that lump of mud you see over on the right. The fact that there's heavy oil trapped in that mud is unique enough in that it costs a bundle to extract the oil - relatively that is. 25 years ago it was costing companies about $20 to $25 per barrel to extract the black gold. The problem then was that oil was selling for about $20 - $25 per barrel. That resulted in only 2 major players exploring the region - Suncor and Syncrude. Fast forward 25 years to the present - Advances, mainly by the previously mentioned 2 companies, lowered the cost of extracting the oil to about $10 per barrel - (I was at a company function last year where a senior V.P. of Suncor was stating that they were close to pushing the cost down even further to between $7 and $8 per barrel). So, what's the big deal? Well, you push the price of oil beyond $70 per barrel and voila! These companies are starting to make huge profit. Still ... what's the big deal? Well the big factor now is the amount of this stuff that is scattered all over the northeastern part of the province. For years Saudi Arabia has had the undisputed distinction of having the world's largest conventional oil reserves. Well for years Alberta has pretty much had the distinction of having the world's largest unconventional oil reserves. Now when you look at the amount of recoverable oil reserves Alberta is now a very close second to Saudi Arabia (this is no exageration). With further advances in extraction methods and Saudi Arabia's oil slowly being sucked dry, Alberta's recoverable reserves will exceed not only Saudi Arabia, but the Middle East as a whole. Regardless, what is known is that with current conditions, companies are literally flocking in from all over the world to grab a piece of the pie. In case you're not convinced of the magnitude, watch this piece that 60 Minutes did on the Oil Sands earlier this year. Next post I'll comment on how this is affecting our province in ways no one thought possible.

Lots of pictures this month. September was a time to pick ourselves up after Dad's passing in August. October was fun as Jen's cousin Shanty her husband Chris and their daughter Madison paid us a visit. November was busy as Yasmeen and I celebrated our birthday's, Jason George was celebrating his engagement, and the girls got to celebrate their new bunk bed!

Jason's engagement was a great chance to catch up with some old friends. I was especially happy to run into Chris George (aka 'ChungLao') - webmaster of IndaPhatFarm - check it out. Chris's connection with our family is through his sister and brother-in-law Christy and Jaeson Abraham and his family. Jessica, Jaeson and James are friends that I have literally known all my life. Although we don't see each other very often it is always a pleasant time when we do run into each other and especially when I run into their parents, Kunjumon uncle and Ammini aunty. In fact Kunjumon uncle and my dad were room mates in Calgary during their bachelor days. Some of their stories are quite amusing. Uncle in fact has 2 younger siblings - Rajan uncle and family (Lily aunty, Julia, Jessy and Justin) in Calgary and Kunjumol aunty and family (Kunjumon uncle, Leesila and Lenisa - aunty and uncle are now in Windsor, Ont). Along with us, all three of these families were in Calgary in the 'early years'. And it has to be noted that each of them made treks up north to good 'ol Fort McMurray when we were there. The Abraham/Varghese family - friends that I will never forget.

Pictures from August, Sept and Oct have been posted as well. Just click on the tip right corner of the viewer below and you'll go directly to our photo site on Parazz where you'll see 4 new albums listed.