Gideon at 1 month

Gideon Arthur is officially one month old today! He came for a visit yesterday. We’ve been gone for ten days so I haven’t seen him in two weeks. When last I saw him, he was just barely opening his eyes to peek at the world, far more content to keep them closed, sleep and hang out with mommie. Not so yesterday, he was alert most of the time, content to sit on a lap with a face to look at and look he did. He let his little eyes roam all over the room taking in everything around him without a peep.

On first meeting yesterday, he sported a full-face smile for Grandma and then again for Grandpa. How they put their whole face into it, I don’t know, but it was very cute. Baby G is awake and ready to get to know his world. He let both of us hold him to our heart’s content. He has a lot of reddish hair, more than his brothers at this age. He’s grown and gotten heavier in two weeks. He looks more like a full-fledged infant and less like a little burrito.

His brothers seem to easily embrace their new family member. Lewis was in three months of denial when Evander was born, but now having a brother is a normal part of life. Evander frequently comes over to give his baby a kiss. The very first thing Evander did upon arriving yesterday was go straight to the bookshelf for “book-ahs” which he loves. He had Grandpa on the couch reading before Heather even got settled in. Evander’s language skills are increasing rapidly. He loves all kinds of books, long and short. He sat and listened to regular bedtime story length books yesterday. I think he has “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” memorized.

Meanwhile, Lewis headed straight for the new books shaped like bulldozer, fire truck and dump truck to play with and read. He had out all the heavy equipment toys and was excavating first thing. Later in the day, I took the boys across the street where a real back hoe had arrived and let them check it out. We even stopped to ask the workmen what they were doing. Evander is repeating, “Ex-ca-va-tor, Ex-ca-va-tor.” Lewis knows more about equipment than I’ll ever know. After lunch while little brother naps, Lewis and Grandpa watch Bob the Builder and Mighty Machines together. Well, I suspect that Granpa naps and Lewis watches.

About six, Heather straps in three little guys in her mini-van. Tired Lewis cries because he’s had no nap and “wants to sit by the baby.” He’s only three, even though he’s the big brother. It’s been a good day at Grandma and Grandpa’s House.

[November 17, 2009] (See the late development down a bit)   It’s pretty common these days for most friends to greet me with “So, how are you feeling?”  Most of my friends are aware I had a heart attack one year ago this week. For the past 5 months or so, my answer has been pretty much the same.

“I’m feeling great, except when I’m not.”  Most weeks I’ve continued to experienced short episodes of angina- the body’s reaction to stress or over-exertion causing cholesterol to be released near the blockages I still have in two arteries.  When that happens I experience symptoms such as chest tightening, a sensation of loss of breath, and maybe some aching anywhere from my chin or shoulders to upper body. My cardiologist and family doctor have been trying to control that by changing up medications.

Recently I completed most of a cardiac rehab course at Portland Adventist. That wonderful program taught me about all related issues such as diet, exercise, drugs etc. I also started a series of workouts designed to help my heart rebuild and hopefully stimulated my two blocked arteries to start charting new “natural bypasses” around the blockage. My angiogram last year while in the hospital revealed one had already started to recreate its own new blood path.

So, the bottom line is I’m still struggling a bit. I appreciate your continued prayers.  I’ll try to update again after I see my cardiologist in a week or two. (See the late developments below)

[Last minute news-- November 18, 2009] I ended up getting in to see my cardiologist today when someone canceled at the last minute. The short story is he said I should expect to have ongoing angina issues from now on. There are several smaller arteries that branch off the larger ones with 80-90% blockage. He said those in themselves are not life threatening as they would have been if they were higher up in the larger sections of the arteries. The problem is my blockages are some distance from the locations they normally treat with angioplasty, stents of even bypasses, plus the sections are narrower than Most. While they haven’t ruled out “trying” (he clearly said “trying”) to use stents etc., he was certain I would still have ongoing angina because they definitely would not be able to treat 100% of my blockages. So I left with more instructions on what I could try with medications, but no certain hope of a surgical solution. So let’s continue to pray for God to intervene where the surgeons may not.

[March 19th] Somewhere around age 45 I noticed conversations with peer-aged friends usually included a 15 minute ice-breaking introduction comparing health issues, current ailments, medications, and hospital or doctors stories.

In our 20′s we usually compared scars and muscles which over the years degenerates to our present sad state.

As a young pastor of 20-something I recall wondering if ‘older’ folks knew how self-centered, and need I say “boring” these health conversations quickly became. And, if things got too bad or drug too far out, I’d run the other way when I sensed one of those prolonged stories approaching.

Truth be told, the majority of us really do not want the long story when it comes to asking a question like, “How’s your health been?” So how do you answer that and keep people liking to hang out with you?

Never-the-less, in recent days I’ve fielded a round of 10 or more friends asking this very question, so for all of you 45 and over, here it is… a current answer to “How’s My Health Doing?”

First off– in case you missed it- last November 15th I had a heart attack here in Portland– a “4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10″ I was told by cardiac nurses. There’s more about that if you care to scroll back through our older notes.

Since then its been up and down.

And… overall, I find myself answering the health question generally– its one that often comes upon various doctor’s forms– by now saying “fair” instead of “average” or “good”. Its a little disconcerting right now.

Each day I take 14 medications or supplements– 14 is a huge number to keep track of. Recall also, that I have not had bypasses or other surgery– doctors have chosen to treat with medicines like Plavix.

I’m getting tired- as in tired in my chest area where I start noticing heart related symptoms (that is generally called ‘angina’ whether its actual pain or not)- much easier than I like- sometimes just a trip up the stairs or in the house with a load of groceries.

Our trip to Hawaii last week demonstrated that travel and lack of sleep really take stamina out of me and increase my incidences of mild angina (at least I assume its mild). Because of that I’m canceling my involvement at an upcoming April Chi Alpha ELT meeting in New Orleans.

I’m starting a cardiac rehab program at Portland Adventist Medical Center for 20 weeks or visits on the 30th, so I’m hoping that time with nurses, exercise physiologists, nutritionists etc will help me.

So– I appreciate your continued prayers. They are all still very important to us.

For those of you familiar with our non-profit world of fund-raising for our ministry/program… (others of you should skip the next paragraph if it offends…)

You know we have to raise all funds for things like salary and health benefits– with the economic downturn, we’ve been on the verge of having to cancel our health insurance coverage to make ends meet. We still haven’t made much progress to get that $1400 per month covered (yes– that’s what insurance costs for a self-employed couple at our age/stage). Of course this is a considerable challenge and issue for us as well as a source of ongoing stress in our lives. So our hope is we can identify 50 people immediately that can contribute $25 per month toward our non-profit budget.

So there is the answer for any that are interested.

Love you all! Thanks for being part of our Community.

Vic & Kathy Varis

……people in Tunisia do not have superstitions about pictures taking away their souls—yessssss!

My morning started out in Le Kef, Tunisia. The scene? Me running up and down three flights of stairs in a hotel looking for an empty bathroom—-it took me about 40 minutes to find one and lots of times up and down the stairs. (I’m leaving a lot of details out of that story)

We ended up walking the streets in the mountain town, starting our walk outside of a junior high. There were about 150 junior highers on the street, all eager to find out what language we spoke and if we had any candy. =) We hung out there for a while, talked with them and took pictures. As we walked away we acquired a group of four friends, about 13 year old girls who giggled us all the way up small mountain staircase to some Roman ruins. We explored those and I smiled as I thought about how all 13 year olds girls are the same in every country—the whisper, giggle and run back and forth and then do it all over.

We winded our way down from the ancient site and walked through alleys of quiet neighborhoods with carpets hanging from windows and ended up in a bakery kitchen taking pictures of the staff who were really friendly and gave us some awesome cake. We got lots of kisses on the cheek from local women who were gracious and very sweet. We even kept meeting up with junior high friends throughout the town all morning.

We met a friend for lunch at “Planet Food”, a shop modeled after Planet Hollywood. I ate a beef schwarma with Leonardo Dicaprio looking down on me and drank some hand squeezed orange juice. It was a good morning in Tunisia.

We’ve been traveling so much via cars, trains and planes…we’ve hardly had time to sit down to reflect on all that we are seeing. Tunisia is really amazing with TONS and TONS and TONS of young people everywhere—50% of the country is under the age of 25 and it is obvious as we travel. Anyone want to come impact some teenagers lives—this is the place!

©Redcouchphoto.com

It’s been a good day in Morocco when…

[Shannon and Alec posted this update on their Facebook page-- they are in North Africa for 3 weeks.]

• you drive over what seems like the rocky mountains (can’t believe there is so much snow in North Africa), into wildflower covered fields, followed by a Moroccan grand canyon and then arrive at the dunes of the Sahara Desert in beauty shock.
• you realize your i-phone picks up wi-fi in the Sahara Desert.
• you are excited to eat at road side vendors because you haven’t gotten sick yet and tagines taste SO good.
• one of the road side vendors gives you a fossil after eating at his restaurant.
• the berber guild your brother picked up at the top of a Sahara sand dune deserves to have you look at his jewelery at the end of the hike—you are relieved when after seeing ten “made in china” bracelets, he pulls out something Jurassic that your mom will like.
• 

  © Redcouchphoto.com

  you find the RADDEST old guy out in a farm field who LOVES to have his picture taken and looks like he’s been hiding out for 400 years because he left his pirate ship. *pictures to come, he’s one of my favs

• you get another cup of mint tea
• you laugh while watching your brother jump away from snake charmers who are trying to show him some tricks.
• you are lead through an ancient city by someone who’s family has lived there all their lives (no, not you Carlsbad) and they take you to their mud house and let you see inside.
• on a snowy mountain road, you see a herd of 200 sheep walking in a single line on the side of a mountain and you are OH SO GLAD you have your camera.
• you wake up and get to go on a sand hike.
• you realize that out of all the African countries you’ve visited, Morocco has an amazing absence of large bugs—much to your delight.
• your traveling partner is your one and only brother and much to the surprise of everyone around you, you speak a special language called “OP”—passed on to you by your parents and used when you need to talk without other people understanding you.

It’s been a bit of a bad day in Morocco when…

• You don’t speak French or Arabic
• You realize that superstitions in the country say that an evil spirits lives in the shutter of a camera—-you are there to photograph the country.
• 

  © Redcouchphoto.com

  because of #2, 9 out of 10 of your photos (especially of women) depict a face that reminds you of the scowl of the wicked witch from wizard of oz. *pictures to come

• You realize that you might have to watch your brother watch his spit ball roll down a sand dune….one more time.
• Mcdonalds becomes a good meal option (this hasn’t happened here yet)
• you forget to ask for NO SUGAR in the jus de banana and because so you feel like you are drinking a cup of banana syrup from a sno cone shop.
• you wear out your welcome at the chicken killing/defeathering booth at the local market (whoops)
• you and your brother have a hard time figuring out which train is yours without making a scene. (ha ha)

Jet lag is kind of like being drunk on time for a week, it creates lots of moments of delirium that lead to inappropriate laughter. Alec says that I keep blaming everything on jet lag, but really…it takes me about 10 days to get to full normality.

One instance of laughing blunder happened today when Alec and I were boarding a train. We packed really light, but we still have two backpacks and two small overnight suitcases. As we launched our bags onto the train we discovered the narrowest hallway EVER, Alec was leading the way but was managing to knock people, glass and things at every step. We couldn’t find a compartment with two seats open and upon realizing that the train wasn’t made for Viking men, Alec’s outrageous faces then turned to delirious laughter. I followed along in the knocking things over and the laughing.

Morocco is beautiful, especially this time of year. There are flowers covering fields of foothills and there are gorgeous mosaic tiles & beautiful architecture everywhere. We’ve seen amazing Mosques and cool ancient towns with winding alleys of colorful doors and veiled ladies. We’ve discovered that the women don’t really like to have their pictures takes for superstitious reasons having to do with genies.

We have videos but we’ve been non-stop busy so it’s been hard for us to sit still long enough to upload them. Be patient however, we have coverage of Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakesh & Meknes. Tomorrow we drive 6 hours to the Sahara Desert. We’ll be there over the weekend and then on Monday we go back to Spain, then on to Tunisia this week.

More of Shannon’s Notes are available at Facebook.com

The Black Market II: Alec & Shannon in real life (from Facebook)

Shannon and Alec leave Thursday for three weeks of photography in North Africa building a new archive of digital photos and video for use by various non-profits and NGO reps serving peoples of the region. Check out this video he made today promoting his trip!

Donate to Shannon & Alec’s Mission Online

I arrived at church and discussed my plan with the Middle School Pastor and we agreed on the times for girls first and then guys. He told me which room he reserved for us. One of the girls from last week ran up to me and said, “I’ve been so excited all week for drama class!” It really started the day out right for me.

I went upstairs to join Vic for the singing part of the church service. Half way through, I realized that I hadn’t run copies of the scripts, so I went to the education office and ran the girl’s script and started on the boys when the machine jammed in three places. I cleared two of the three but the girls were arriving right at that minute and I couldn’t stay and finish.

All the girls arrived plus one new one and they were definitely excited to be there. That always makes a teacher feel good. Instead of trying to win them over, they were already with me and wanted to work. We did a couple of warm up exercises and talked about voice and diction. Then we read through the script twice. Each time they took a different part. It’s a multi-character script that has only been performed as a drama solo. The soloist did all six parts, with ethnic voices. This time the six parts will be done by the girls giving it a whole new life.

What surprised me is that two of the girls really nailed a couple of the accents. Now if two others can manage the other two accents, it will be downright exciting. I told them to take the script home and practice reading all the parts and next week, I’ll decide who gets what part. However, I had six speaking parts and seven girls.

Today, I reworked the script, so there are more speaking parts and figured out how all the girls will be used in various ways. It should be good.

When the girls went back downstairs, I ran to see if the boy’s script had gotten run off by a good Samaritan. No luck there. I went back to the room and the boys were a no show. I checked downstairs and one of the guys told me, “We talked and we decided that we have too many other activities, so we’re not going to do it.”

Later, the youth pastor’s wife told me they were mostly excited about getting out of Sunday School and really didn’t want to work on anything. So, I didn’t need the guy’s script anyway. I wish they would’ve told me at the beginning of the hour, because the girls could’ve stayed for the whole hour then.

I did talk to the high school pastor to see if I can get a helper from the high school group and he’s working on that for me. So thus ends my second week at Middle School Drama. Seeing how excited the girls are made it a ton of fun for me.

2. Have won one contest in my life– 2 $500 Amex gift cards by using the now defunct MetroWiFi (free city wireless) in Portland.

3. I generally hate horror movies– Can’t understand people that love them

4. Have seen Saving Private Ryan 5 or more times, but never watched the first 30 minutes covering carnage on the D-Day beaches (guess I hate gore on movies too)

5. Addicted to popcorn– and it is always part of the overall film experience

6. I score a different combination every time I take a personality test like Myers-Briggs– I can’t figure myself out

7. A professor once told me he thought I should do at least one year of grad study at Harvard– that was an encouraging day

8. I don’t know how to utilize a secretary or admin assistant very well

9. Its important for me to know that people working with me are really happy in their work

10. I love Hawaiian shirts

11. I have a reputation for taking outrageous road trips

12. I almost never ever get lost

13. Enjoy deconstructing flavors in different kinds of sauces and recreating them or improving them

14. The past few years I started buying only one kind of plain black socks so I’d never have a drawer of singles

15. Embarrassment is the personal emotion I most dislike

16. In elementary school I was always envious of the cool cowboy/ranger hats the boys from Royal Rangers always wore to class on meeting days

17. Was confirmed at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church in Seattle

18. Met my wife at 1st Free Methodist Church in Sunday School

19. Always love driving in the country because people wave whenever they pass

20. As a kid I never figured out that my Norwegian Mom had an accent– got in lots of arguments about that in school

21. Was rescued from name pergatory when my 5th grade teacher,Mr. Orsborn, nicknamed me “Vic”. Everyone but my family and one or two others calls my that.

22. Never really drank coffee until about 5 years ago… now I’m a coffee snob

23. Australia may be my favorite country outside the US

24. I don’t know how to play poker

25. Still searching for the perfect Baja Fish Taco

Last week, I did a Drama Bootcamp for about 30 teens who wanted to learn basic drama skills. We started with body language, facial expressions, stage space, imaginary props, then moved on to speaking skills with a partner, drama solo, brainstorming ideas for skits and then an intro to human video. The kids from my church did not attend.

Yesterday, I met them all for the first time. I had never met any of them before and didn’t recognize their last names. There were nine of them from age 11-14, six girls and three boys. They all volunteered so I’m assuming they wanted to learn something. After brief introductions, I started with a warm-up of “Freeze” – a very popular game to help people loosen up a little and get them used to being in front of others and doing funny antics. They got right into it but were surprisingly unimaginative and stiff at first until I jumped in and started doing ridiculous and over-the-top things. Then they seemed to understand that they were also supposed to follow suit. They informed me, “This is fun!” Phew–I managed to do something right.

Next I had them work on some of the exercises from the Drama Bootcamp. Pantomime making a salad with three ingredients and make it so the audience can see what your invisible props are by using your hands, face and body. They took five minutes to prepare–much quicker than I imagined. I think I need a couple of “coaches” to help.

We played another game then I told them that next week we would begin working on scripts. They boys informed me that they wanted their own script because the girls had cooties. I laughed to myself and thought, “In two or three years, you won’t be thinking that.” For now, I think I may get better results if they are separate.

We played another round of “Freeze” to end the session and they were much more animated and engaged for the most part. The boys and girls were exchanging insults a little more freely than I remembered and using words I would never use in church. A couple of the girls were almost withdrawn.

It was a rather interesting experience. When I went upstairs to find Vic, the students came by and weren’t ashamed to acknowledge that they knew me, so I take that as a plus. Thus, I begin another adventure with kids.

We all made it more or less out of the woods by Christmas Eve to enjoy a quiet meal together with some activities and games. It was great except we had to cancel invitations for some of the guys in our community group to join the family while our yellow flag of flu quarantine flew. Better safe than sorry though– trust me, this was a bad one.

Christmas Day we again stayed in sharing the moments together including traditional Dutch Babies breakfast, assorted Norwegian mostly raw salmon and herring tasties, a few cookies and lots of games and Christmas music.

The babies have all gone home now. It’s a bit quieter and we miss them all!

My Heart Update

When our snow hit followed by the 3 day flu, my walks pretty much went on hold. We have snow everywhere outside. Unfortunately, I am not well equipped for trekking through that stuff much these days. Instead I’ve gone out for measured periods of light snow shoveling workouts instead. I figured if it was broken up into checks across hours and days, it would be a safe activity.

I’m still here and haven’t had to resort to taking a nitro tablets or anything, so success.

I’m actually feeling better and better.

Hopefully the snow will be washed away in a day or two so walks can resume.