Ontario Tour: Accomplished!

It wasn’t a surprise when the flight was cancelled. We had already heard lots of horror stories about travel in Canada – and around the world.

So we were flying from Mexico City to Vancouver, and then Vancouver to Calgary. The cancelled flight was the second one. But the new flight that we were assigned to was only 1 hour later. And once we arrived in Vancouver, we realized that we actually needed that extra time to catch our next flight. God is good.

In fact, a verse was going through my mind during our time in Canada – the words of Joseph to his brothers: “…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” (Genesis 50:20). There is so much going on that is intended for evil – but we saw God use these things for our good. We don’t always see how God is working, but this summer He allowed us a few glimpses.

That being said, we certainly saw for ourselves how difficult travel is becoming. But God allowed us to make the trip!

We went to Alberta first to spend some time with family, and to take care of a few practical matters. And, of course, to actually plan our trip, which happened very last minute!

We enjoyed a week off, all four of us, which was a real blessing!

And then we had a time of ministry in Ontario, travelling as far south as Dunnville and as far north as Moosonee.

We’ve never had a tour quite like it, for several reasons. For example, we were able to see firsthand how much Canada has changed in two years. Drastic changes. And we were able to talk to all kinds of people – from many walks of life, many contexts, two provinces, believers and unbelievers, old and young, people from all over the world (we used a lot of Spanish!). And we were able to hear their stories.

What kind of stories? Well, first of all, Christians especially can see how quickly the culture around them is falling, and they see what’s coming. They may not agree on all the details, but they can see what’s happening to some degree. They are also personally experiencing the results of their community’s active rejection of Christ. Families are being attacked and destroyed. Churches are being torn apart. Jobs are being lost. Resources disappearing.

But once again, we saw God’s Hand. Although we heard a lot of sorrow and concern, we also heard people sharing the gospel. People finding new ways to reach out and help others. People getting on their knees and calling out to the Lord. People being faithful. What an encouragement!

I just went through some notes and pictures from our trip, and I’m amazed again at the number of activities and visits that we packed in, the experiences we had, and the variety of people we saw and/or talked to. And, of course, an important part of our trip was reporting on our ministry to our supporters, and serving them where we could. And we will certainly continue praying about some specific needs we heard about.

We’ve only been home for just over a week, although it seems longer! I think I’m still “debriefing” in my mind, and we’re still dealing not only with things that relate to our trip, but also things that we intended to do over the summer (originally thinking that we would be here in Mexico), and with our re-integration into ministry here. We’ve essentially been disconnected since we left for the conference in Panama on the 7th of June. There’s lots to talk about, but I’ll stop there for now!