Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

It was four years ago on January 27 that I was diagnosed with NHL, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, not the National Hockey League. Former, bad; latter good :)  It didn't occur to me until this year that our granddaughter was born on this day a year ago. I'm sure if I thought long and hard enough -- or did some clever Googling -- I'd come up with some classic or eastern idea that correlated these two events, but I'd rather dwell on being thankful for the birthday of our beautiful granddaughter, Grace, and being grateful that my follicular lymphoma is not active. For those of you who haven't been following my updates, here's a quick review. got sick in Fall of 2013 was diagnosed January 2014 (was in watch-and-wait protocol because my CT scan was misread: YIKES) did 6 months of Rituxan and Bendamustine: June - November 2014 (CT scan showed my swollen lymph nodes were shrunk into near oblivion)  did one year (February 2015 - February 2016) -- instead of 2 y

(I had the privilege and honour of meeting Martin and Sharon this past November. This story is what followed; it was published this Sunday, February 4, 2018, by Southridge Community Church .) I am told that when Martin Durksen was asked to be the subject of this story, he didn’t respond with an immediate  yes .  In the end, Martin weighed out the discomfort of putting himself out there for our whole community to see against the encouragement and inspiration that his story would bring to our congregation. Fortunately for us, the latter value won out. On a balmy November afternoon, Chris Fowler and I spent an hour and a half with Martin and Sharon (more on Sharon later) on her farm in Welland and then another hour and half with Martin in an empty Chinese restaurant awash with vintage 1980s décor. I was overwhelmed with God’s activity in and through this man, Martin, who humbly and simply says  yes  to God’s leading. Chris and I were also struck with Sharon’s uncomplicated