This year's Zone E-8 Picnic will be held in Riondel, B.C. on August 26, 27, and 28, 2005 and will be hosted by the Kootenay Lake Lions Club. Riondel is located approximately 15 minutes north of Crawford Bay, B.C. on Riondel Road. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Activities described in previous newsletters include a nine-hole golf tourney; a Bean Bag Tourney; local lore and history in the Riondel Museum, a group of fiddlers, dancing jigs and reels, a Chili feed, "All You Can Eat" pancake breakfast, and a bring your own meat BBQ on Saturday!
Please RSVP to the Kootenay Lake Lions no later than August 1, 2005. To contact them for information on accommodations, agenda, activities, and to let them know when you will be arriving, please contact Past Zone Chairman Chuck Lloyd at P.O. Box 52, Crawford Bay, BC V0B 1E0, email chucklloyd@telus.net, or phone (250) 227-9541 and leave a message.
K2 NOTE: The trip to Riondel is lovely and is only a short ride from North Pend Oreille Valley! The scenery in southern B.C. is great and you will travel on the longest free ferry ride in the world across beautiful Kootenay Lake. Crawford Bay has a delightful community of Artisans located in close proximity to each other and their talents include weavers, blacksmith, glass blower, broom maker, potter, etc. It would be a lovely weekend excursion, not to mention all of the fun you'd have with the Kookenay Lions!
Please consider attending this event and representing the NPOV Lions Club!
A Lesson
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.
In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.
Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me, what do you see?"
"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"
Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity... boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"
Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?
Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy.
The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything, they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
Lion Kimberly McNaughton has done an incredible job collecting money for the Lions Mints! It must be all of the folks in town buying mints to get rid of their coffee-breath! ;-) Thanks, Kimberly!
Happy Birthday to August Lions Jim McNally and Jack Sherry!
