10 years ago this month – was a busy month, seeing a lot of family and friends in Canada! So it was hard to choose just one picture. 🙂
But I finally decided on this one. We were having a birthday party for Hannah and Nathanael, a little late, in Lashburn Saskatchewan with my parents. The kids had decorated their own cakes. Just click the picture for a little larger version (and stay tuned below for a video):
And since we’re here, I had fun making the video below, which includes June 2014. When we were driving to Canada and then back to Mexico, most days I tried to take a picture on the road. So here is the video of all the pictures, with the 13th of May being my favourite. And the 7th of July my least favourite.
I’m departing from my usual “10 years ago” posts to bring you this special presentation from 18 years ago today.
But first, a little background on this video. Nathanael was one week short of his second birthday. We were still living in Calgary (we would move to Mexico in 6 months). We had put elastics on the kitchen cupboards to keep little hands from getting into things (not that any of our angelic children would ever get into trouble!), and Nathanael discovered that these made excellent string instruments.
So, in a nod to his future ukulele career, he began to play this new kitchen string instrument and sing the song that was on his mind – Cristo Me Ama (Jesus Loves Me). I joined in, but I think he had chosen a key that was a little high for both of us. This amusement kept his attention for an unusual amount of time, until he finally realized that there was some delicious pasta cooking on the stove.
So there we were, right in the middle of Canada, and I decided to ask the dangerous question, “Where are you from?”
No, literally, we were right in the middle of Canada. See?
Ok, well, the middle of Canada from east to west, anyway.
We saw another family there, and my Mexico spidey-sense went off, and I asked them where they were from. Sure enough, Mexico! But they now live in Canada. We enjoyed a long chat with this family right there – pulling out our slightly dusty Spanish – right smack-dab in the middle of Canada.
Well, we’ve had all kinds of interesting experiences here in Canada. For two weeks we travelled through Saskatchewan and Manitoba – and finally, at the pinnacle (or at least mid-way point) of our trip, we visited our mission office in Winnipeg, in spite of rain and hail on the last leg. 🙂 We appreciate everything that the folks at Avant do for us! And we’ve had some good times with various people, and did some ministry in a couple of churches.
And by the way, the new friends from the middle of Canada weren’t the only Mexican people we’ve met. We even enjoyed an evening with a Mexican pastor and his American wife, who are planning to go into full-time ministry in Mexico. It’s always an encouragement to hear of more people joining the work of the Kingdom!
And, once in a while, Mexican food has been a part of our travels…
We’re looking forward to some ministry at the Prairie Tabernacle in Three Hills, and will also be returning to Cremona to run the Where did the Bible Come From? seminar. As always, the upcoming events are all here.
In family news, you’ll be glad to hear that my Mom is doing much better after a fall at the end of August!
Without going into all the details – it’s crazy-busy, we very much appreciate your prayers – and that’s all for today!
If you’re on our Support Team, you should be getting our quarterly newsletter soon, with the theme “Unusual Summer”. Well, it’s been unusual all right, for a lot of reasons! But here on Finding direction, it’s also been rather – silent!
But here I am, finally, taking a moment to write. So, yes, as you might guess, it has been pretty busy, in many ways! If you’ve been following on Instagram or X or Facebook, I’ve at least been trying to keep you up to date on our speaking engagements and seminars (which reminds me, I should send out a reminder about this Sunday! *adding to list*). Our schedule is also here, of course. But there have been a lot of other things going on.
We’ve enjoyed visiting quite a few churches in Alberta. As a bonus, I had the opportunity to teach a seminar on The Environment in Glendon, taking a look at the Bible’s teaching and how it relates (quite often clashes) with current views on environmentalism. We have a lot to think about and talk about!
We’re thankful that Nathanael has found a job – er – jobs. So both he and Hannah are keeping busy, and will likely be even busier as fall activities rev up. But this past Saturday we were able to celebrate Independence Day (Mexico) a little early, by going for tacos together! We even had the chance to chat with someone there from our home state. It was a rare time for the four of us to hang out together for a while!
We’ve had a lot of personal things to get done while in Canada, for ourselves and for family, so that means a lot of trips hither and yon. As I mentioned in our newsletter, when you’re missionaries visiting your “passport country”, you’re usually trying to cram a lot into a short period of time!
Ministry will be continuing in the weeks ahead, in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and back to Alberta, including another Where did the Bible Come From? seminar. I have some fun tweaks planned for the seminar, so I’m looking forward to that.
Anyway, I can’t promise I’ll be stopping by here more often, but I’ll try! Meanwhile, if you’re going to be in the neighbourhood during any of our upcoming engagements, it would be great to see you. 🙂
It may not surprise most of you – but I’ll just say it – it’s been busy!
Someone asked me on Sunday if we were getting some time off, and I said, “Not yet”…. and in fact, the person who asked is a doctor, so I kind of hung my head in shame and decided that we’d better create some downtime, or we wouldn’t get any!
That confession out of the way, the good news is that it’s been busy but not all work – lots of variety, in fact. There’s always a lot of business packed in when we’re in Canada. Of course, there was Nathanael’s graduation and everything that went along with that. We’ve also had some good chances to visit with people, some time with family, and started our season of ministry here with a prayer meeting this past Thursday.
Windshield
Before our official ministry time even began, we were driving down a well-maintained major highway. A semi-truck was heading toward us, and somehow flung up a rock – a large rock – about the size of a baseball – at our windshield. Having driven all over North America, I admit I’ve never seen anything like it. It pulverized the windshield (so we’ll be buying a new one), but thankfully didn’t go through, because it was heading right for me.
So – we’re thankful again for safety in travel! This trip could have been very different already. Thanks for your prayers!
If you’ve been checking our schedule, you know that we’ll be at West Zion Mennonite Church (between Carstairs and Disbury) this coming Sunday (2nd of July) and then Cremona Country Fellowship on the 9th. Come out to see us!
We’re still looking for churches who would be willing to have the Where did the Bible Come From? seminar. Feel free to contact us for details!
We would appreciate your prayers that we would get everything done that we need to get done – and that we would have rest as well.
And yes, we have carved out some time off, in case any doctors ask again in the near future…
