Good morning! We’re just heading out on the first leg of our journey. We’re heading to Caronport today to see some friends there, and I will be taking an exam tomorrow. Is this what’s called a “vancram”? Anyway, I’ve got to put the rest of the stuff in the van and get in myself, so we’ll catch you later! 😎
It’s the home stretch! Well, actually, “home” stretch is probably the wrong term to use. What I mean is, we’re almost ready to embark on The Odyssey – our cross continent ministry trip. Two of the most common questions are: Do your children travel well? Answer – we don’t know! Nathanael is too “new”, and it’s been a long time since Hannah has had a trip this long. Hannah wasn’t a great traveller when she was younger. It’s hard for her to be pinned in one place for so long, and she almost never slept in the car. However, hopefully now that she’s more mature she’ll be able to handle it better. 😉
The other question is: Are you completely out of your minds?! Answer, yes, that’s quite likely! There are reasons why we’re doing this trip the way we’re doing it, but insanity may indeed play a role. 😯
For the next few days we’re tying up the last loose ends, completing the last doctor’s visits, planning, and packing, packing, packing. We’re planning to take a day off before we go – my parents will be visiting (actually, they’ll likely be staying here for a few days before they move to their new home). We’ll be sharing on Sunday at Calgary’s First Evangelical Free Church (our home church). Loading up on Monday. And heading out on Tuesday. What awaits us? I guess we’ll see what God has in store! 😎
| Interested in praying for Mexico? Here’s a great way to pray for some of the groups that don’t even have the Bible in their language. The Seed Company is a group related to Wycliffe Bible Translators. The Seed Company is involved in translation work, in places such as Mexico.
Translation work, for example, needs to be done among the Las Flores people. Numbering about 5000, these people are largely rural, though many have gone to cities such as Mexico City as the local economy becomes unable to support them. I’ve mentioned to many of you before this phenomenon of unreached and less reached peoples coming to the cities, many finding Christ there (although many also find the wrong crowd!). Actually, the translation project is being headed by Gulmaro, a 30 year old man who himself found the Lord while in the military in Mexico City. The first book ever written in their language was Jonah (the book of the Bible). This is a group very much in need of the Scriptures and the salvation that they can hear about from the Scriptures. If you want to know more, you can read about the Las Flores project here. There’s also a link on this page to a pdf file which you can print off for your small group or prayer meeting. The team working on the translation (Gulmaro, Juan and Cecilia) is looking forward to the Gospel of Mark being put on cassette, so that the literate and illiterate alike can hear the Word of God. Visit this page to see more work being done by The Seed Company in the Americas. |
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Did you know that this blog has an RSS feed?
Huh?! A what?! If you don’t know, an RSS feed is a simple format that allows you to see headlines and perhaps part of the most recent blog in a news reader or other compatible program. A huge amount of information on the net is available this way. You may already have a program that does the job.
I use Trillian, the instant messaging program, for example. If you use the mozilla browser, click here to install a sidebar in a couple of seconds that will do the job.
There are a lot of stand alone programs you can use, such as awasu, which is free to windows users. Also free is abilon. For more options, check out this list of programs you can use. The main purpose of any of these things is simply to update you when there are new blog entries.
The RSS feed of this blog is located at http://feeds.feedburner.com/findingdirection
If you want to recommend other programs that can read RSS, please leave a comment here and share with us. Thanks!
We had some roast beef the other day. We probably don’t cook it enough, it can be an easy and inexpensive meal if you do it right. Anyway, we tried a variation on a common recipe – if you haven’t had roast beef for a while either, why not try it?
We used a slow cooker, but you should be able to use waterless cookware or a roaster. First we seared the meat in the waterless cookware, then placed it in the crockpot.
We then mixed up the following ingredients: 1 can low fat mushroom soup, 1 can Coke, 1/2 envelope of onion soup mix, and some salt and pepper. Wisk all that together, pour it on top of the roast, and let it cook.
If you’re using a slow cooker, add some potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms during the last hour of cooking. If you’re using waterless cookware, put them in a few minutes into cooking (assuming the roast takes about 45 minutes). Then take it all out and eat it.
There you go!
If you’ve been following our praise and prayer requests for a while you may wonder what ever happened with the eye wear. At one point we were both urgently in need of glasses and contacts, and asked you to pray that the Lord would provide.
This one is both a continuing prayer and a praise. Shari was able to get the eye wear she needed. I was able to get some glasses, but the contacts were delayed because they’re just so expensive for me because of my particular eye issues. But the Lord actually provided through modern technology – my contacts are now available in ‘daily wear’, which means I can buy them for just a few months at a time, rather than just one pair to last for a couple of years or so. Daily wear contacts are actually slightly more expensive in the long run, but since you can just buy a few at a time, they’re cheaper in the short run.
When it came time to buy more, I discovered a great company that could get me the exact same prescription and brand for a much cheaper price. That’s Vision Direct. Check it out if you’re looking to save a little (or a lot) on contacts. Once you have your prescription from the doctor, you can input the details and you’re off and running. They’re packaged and shipped right to your door. Vision Direct is run by the popular online drugstore, drugstore.com
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So praise the Lord for all these little savings! Shari is in the process of getting her eyes checked again, and so you can pray about God’s continued provision through that. My glasses were not quite the success story. Like clockwork, when the warranty ran out the frames broke (frames I spent extra on because they looked more sturdy than most!). So they were now always crooked to wear. And then in a freak accident they got badly scratched. We don’t have the money to replace them now, so that’s another prayer request.
The good news is that once we have closer to our full support, some of these medical related things will be covered, so that will be a big help. In the mean time, God is providing in various ways! Actually, He’s even led me to some great savings as we’ve been preparing for our trip, and some things I’ve needed I’ve either been able to get cheap, or discover I could live without them. Praise the Lord!