Our Kids!

Meet the Northern Ontario team for CEF 2009!

(Left to Right) Sarah "Mom" from U.S., Ashley L. from Simcoe area, Ashley B. from Thunder Bay and is Ojibway, Greg from Toronto area with family from Taiwan, Daniel from Toronto area with family from Sri Lanka, and "Dad" David.

We are blessed to be mentoring and working with these four teens! They've claimed this as their family and started calling us mom and dad! =] Please pray for them as they continue teaching their first week of clubs. Please pray that children will come to all of the clubs this summer and God will work in their lives!

It's SOOOO exciting to see the transformation that has already been taking place in these students lives from the time they began the two week "Summer Training Institute". All 62 students were a joy to get to know and work with! How exciting to think of what God is going to do in and through their lives!

Getting in Gear

Tomorrow we will drive off to Summer Training Institute for two weeks. Thankfully this is only a prop car for one of the lessons we are teaching and not what we'll be driving (except that just today our real car did decide to act up by shining it's "low oil light" at me and flattened a tire...all of which David kindly fixed or helped me to fix).

Please pray for the 62 summer missionaries coming to training from all over Ontario. Many will be coming out with CEF for the summer to teach 5-Day Clubs and Vacation Bible Schools while some will return to their home church to serve or a camp. It's an exciting, life-changing time to be apart of!

Please Pray:

-God will prepare the hearts of the students and help them work diligently

-God will give us as staff to know how to best help the students to learn to teach and to grow in the Lord

-for health and rest

-unity and excitement for reaching the children

-Many children will come to know Christ personally and grow in Him as a result of these students' obedience

-our car will stay in working order

It's official!

As of Friday, June 12, I am legally a "Permanent Resident" of Canada! After a long process of many headaches, I am delighted that I can stay in this trillium filled (note flower to left) and maple leaf flag country. I would guess it's a similar feeling like parents with two children - it's not that you love your first one any less, you just have more love to give. I do have to say that for all the horror stories I was fed as an American child, I have not seen any of them be true (yet)! Immigration was David's project since December 2007 when we got engaged, while I planned the wedding. I think I had the nicer one between those two projects!

In the year of time that I've been living in Canada I have had to adjust to some changes/quirks of a new country some consciously and others without my knowledge...

-I'm told by American friends and family that I now "speak like a Canadian" something I can't notice in myself until it's pointed out!

-Learning that the "Collector Lane" does not mean there's a toll booth , it's just where all the traffic collects in a multi lane highway in the Toronto area

-Money can be determined by the color, without even looking at the number on it!

-Hockey is a nationally loved sport (I love that!)

-Tim Horton's is the "all Canadian coffee shop" which I would miss, but there's a lot of days that I definitely miss places like Caribou Coffee, Target, Cub, Kohl's etc... yet somehow I've been brainwashed in this year and am starting to forget what other stores exist outside of the Canadian chains

-Free Health Care is certainly going to be a perk for living here (once I get it in 3 months)

-Over all the biggest thing that I miss living in Canada is my family and friends, yet I've had to realize they live their lives with or without me and now if we ever move from where we are, I would miss the David's family and the friendships that we are forming. I've really come understand in a deeper way why the apostle Paul talks about this world not being our home but that we are foreigners awaiting our true home in Heaven...then we'll all get to party together- those from the U.S., Burkina Faso, Canada, all together with our Lord!

Teaching Children Effectively

The 30 hour course on teaching children finished last weekend. Please pray that the students will use the things they learned and that many children will be reached through these 15 students!

One Year Anniversary

One year ago, we vowed to love, honor and respect each other FOREVER! Although many things have changed within just one short year, we realize that commitment to our Lord and each other is the thing that will last!

May 24, 2008-May 24, 2009:
-Sarah moved from the USA with David to Canada June 10
-We began working with CEF Ontario full-time
-Spent our first three months of married teaching children in a different city nearly every week
-Moved to Port Sydney, Ontario in September
-Found a great church- Harvest Bible Chapel Muskoka (in Port Sydney!!) in September
-Submitted the paperwork for Sarah to become a "Permanent Resident" and tried to wait patiently for the verdict (which means no border crossing)
-Sarah unknowingly began to "talk like a Canadian"
-We both have been stretched in our relationship with the Lord in new ways and the more we get to know Him the more we realize we want to know more!

Minden Good News Club

It has been exciting to see the children continue to come out to the Good News Club each week in Minden, with new children coming every few weeks! We only have 3 weeks left for this school year. Please pray for these kids! There are quite a few discipline issues that we need wisdom in working with the kids on. We are focusing on a series on "Living God's Way". Something we each need His strength to do!

David's sister, Melissa returned last week from working with CEF in Guyana for seven months. It was great to have her come and share as David interviewed her. The flag of Guyana was even hung in the front for the special day. The kid's couldn't believe that she'd found a huge frog in her toliet one morning!

From a GNC Girl

Last week David taught the Bible lesson about Naboth's Vineyard and being content with the things we have. He gave a challenge to the kids at both of our Good News Clubs to give something to someone that week, either something they bought with their own money or already had. (He also told the kids if he didn't do it, they would get to "stone" him with soft balls...which they didn't get to do, since he bought a Gerber plant for me!)

Nearly all the kids came back having put the lesson into action! One of the little girls from each club gave David and I something. The picture shows the card, Birthday banner and old pencil that Sydney gave us. =]

The First Picnic of 2009!

After church we decided to walk down to Mary Lake and bring our lunch for a lovely change of scenery! It's SOOOOOOOOOOOO exciting to be able to get out of "the dungeon" (our apartment) now! It's fun to run in to people we know as we are outside now...it's feeling like home! (We tried to walk to church this morning but some friends stopped and picked us up! We did successfully walk all the way home though, all 10-15 minutes. =])

Our little girl

On a random note:

We were given tickets at the last minute to the Fundraising Auction at Muskoka Christian School (where we hold one of our Good News Clubs). We hadn't even known what we were actualyl going to until I looked at the tickets while we were driving there.

Neither of us had ever been to a real "live" auction, so found the whole thing quite fascinating. After a delicious dessert buffet with crazy fancy desserts (I guess the fact that it was held at a Resort had something to do with that!) we watched in fascination as people willingly bid on great items, paying prices we would only laugh at. I had noticed an adorable picture while viewing the items before, but didn't think David would be willing to bid on it. He bravely fought to get the picture for me at a reasonable rate...and was successful! We are now the proud owners of the first picture we have ever bought! It's called "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" also known as our first little girl. =] We were glad to be able to help support an excellent Christian school too!

72 KIDS????!!!!

Yesterday the 4th Easter Party was held at a public school in Orillia (Uptergrove). A club hadn't been held at this school for the last several years, so we didn't really expect that many kids. However....we ended up with 72 kids from grades 1-4 (out of a school of around 300 kids K-8!) David completely lost his voice for the rest of the day after the party, as that many kids can just about border craziness even with 8 adults. There was a stream of kids (10-20) that came back to ask me questions after the Bible lesson about the Road to Emmaus; questions from "How did Jesus come back to life?" to "What is the Bible?"

• Please pray that these kids will remember the truth they heard and will come to know and serve God!
• Please pray that we will be able to get a church to adopt the school so that a weekly club could be established next fall.