Fall Kick Off

Next week our classes start up and so this morning we had our Emanate staff "Kick Off".  It was good for us to get together as a team.  We started off the morning with an ice breaker of sharing some light hearted fun stories from our pasts.  Then we were challenged through a devotional on PS 78.  We looked at how God wants us to tell His praises to the next generation.  Each generation should set its hope on God, so that we do not forget His glorious miracles and so we will obey his commands. There were so many more good truths that were shared. We then had a report from our jungle camp team.  Vern and I also did a report from our Africa trip.  And then we ended the morning with another challenge from the Word.  Some of the challenges in this sessions were: There is nothing more exhausting then doing the work of the Lord in the power of the flesh; Abide in Christ; We need to move from a stressed out achiever to be a grateful receiver; All the fitness God requires is to see our need of Him; Since we have never traveled this way before we need to stay close to the Lord.  It was so good to be refreshed in the Word.  This evening we enjoyed a cookout and hanging out together.  We are so thankful for our Emanate team and the priveldge we have to serve together. We would appreciate your prayers as we head into our fall semester as we continue to prepare missionary candidates for cross cultural church planting.

Into the Heat of Africa

As I have already shared, we spent some time away this summer.  Two of the weeks we were away, we went to South Eastern Africa.  There were so many challenges in working out this trip from tickets, to visas, and to the timing of it all.  I won't go into details but we do thank the many people who prayed for us on our journey.  With traveling, no sleeping on the plane, jet lag, the heat and traffic I did come down with a terrible migraine the fist 24 hours we were in Africa as we traveled from one country to another.  That made for a very difficult day but after that God gave us good health.  It was a good learning time to be exposed to what God is doing in that region.  It was also so good to spend time with some of our graduates and to see the reality of what they are living in.  Pray for our overseas workers as they face many challenges.  It also became very clear that there is a tremendous need for more workers.  Are you the person to help meet the need?!?

The Story Behind the Microphone.

We have all heard about the POWER of telling your story and how that can impact others.  This afternoon we had the priviledge of telling a bit of our story.  A friend of ours is putting podcasts together.  He has been interviewing and recording missionaries sharing their stories about what it takes to reach the unreached people groups with the gospel.  I have to say, as he was putting all of his equipment together and got everything set up it was pretty intimidating to say the least.  As we got going he was asking us questions and we began to share different parts of our story.  As our story unfolded I was overtaken with emotion on how incredible our God is.  God uses ordinary people to do the impossible.  I hate bugs, don't like camping, I don't enjoy trying exotic foods, hate the heat, I am not an adventure seeker, and I do not enjoy flying, I am a homebody and the list goes on and these are just the surface things.  I am so glad so many years ago when God was nudging and challenging me to serve overseas as a missionary that I said: "Yes".  I would have missed out on seeing  so many incredible things that God did in the people group we were working in.  It was so cool to have a front row seat to the hand of God at work.  I am so thankful for what sharing my story did in my own life this afternoon in being able to review so many "Yea God" moments in my life.  Don't be afraid to get out there and share your story with someone.  You might be surprised what an encouragement it will be to you as God reminds you of his faithfulness to you on this journey in life.

Summer Road Trip 2019

It is time to update those of you not on face book or instragram on what we have been up to.  This summer we spent a good chunk of time out in Western BC to visit our supporters as well as our two supporting churches out there.  This is the first summer in years that we have not had any of our college age children come home for the summer so the timing was perfect.  We traveled MANY miles and some days stopping in at three different places.  God has so richly blessed us by people who love us and faithfully pray for us.  It was so refreshing to have good deep conversations with dear friends spurring each other on in our walks with the Lord.  Our time with our home church in Salmon Arm was so good.  The first Sunday we were able to celebrate at the lake as over ten people professed their faith in the Lord and got baptized.  It was also fun for me to help out at VBS.  There were around 150 children that came out hearing the Word of God, singing, and memorizing Bible verses, as well as having a really fun time with all the activities and games.  We made our way up to Vanderhoof where we have another church that has been a part of our ministry for many years.  The time we spent with everyone seemed too quick and brief but it was SO good. We didn't get a picture of everyone and every place we stopped.   (Unfortunately time did not allow us to see everyone we wanted to.) We do thank the Lord for the body of Christ and the team of people that are behind us praying and giving towards our ministry of equipping believers for cross cultural church planting.