Steve the Bear

 Once upon a time, at the home of David and Sarah, there was a black bear. For some reason, this bear didn't like David and Sarah's new house, so he decided to show them this by pulling of the trim box and breaking some siding.

 He also decided to bend their screen and rip a hole in it.

 One day, several weeks ago, Sarah was walking around the house and noticed this destruction. She was not pleased. David was not pleased when she showed him. At first they wondered if a person had tried to break into their house. This troubled Sarah very much.  Then Sarah talked to a neighbor and found out that a bear was making it's rounds each week among the neighbors: trying to climb in a swimming pool, knocking over an old fridge, etc.

David had to go away for a week and so Sarah had to stay in the house for a few days by herself for the first time. Many people prayed for Sarah to not be scared. The first night went by smoothly. The second night things were going well as Sarah stayed up working on things....until she looked down from the dining room to see a black bear  walking right under the window where she was working! Terrified, she froze. The bear moseyed along the house and off into the night. A few minutes later she heard a neighbors dogs start barking like crazy, knowing the bear had continued on to their house.

Only then did she realize that while her heart was pounding and her adrenaline was pumping, she had lived through one of her fears. She learned that day, that it's only when you look fear in the face and see it for what it is, can you give it to the Lord and move on.

Now that weather is getting colder, Sarah hopes that Steve the Bear has gone away to hibernate and will not come back to gnaw on their house.

The end.

*Steve was named through a conversation with Melissa on the phone a few day after the event. She didn't intend to name him, but she did. He now seems much friendlier since he has a name...as long as he really is a boy.

Dining Room & Kitchen

 To finalize the "finished" parts of our house tour we arrive at the dining room, which opens to the living room and kitchen. I didn't know if I would like the high table originally, but I've come to really like it. I feel like I'm eating a restaurant now. I feel like I'm eating in a restaurant now.

 Besides the food, my favourite thing about eating now is the amazing view from our ginormous window.

 Off to the left you'll notice some cupboards just sitting on the floor. Eventually...someday...we hope to put in a counter below with the cabinets above. David has to build the lower cabinets using the extra doors from other places in the kitchen, so it's not as easy as just installing it. It'll take some creativity.

 One of the things I really enjoy about my new kitchen is having a pantry to store all our food!! Yay for David making shelves for me! I was always disgusted at storing our food under our sink in our apartment...but no more! I even have a spot for cleaning supplies.

 Next to the pantry is the "door to nowhere". Eventually it will lead out to a deck.

I really like the tile and how David laid it in a cool pattern for me.

 We are currently using the dishwasher spot for our industrial sized garbage can. We just heard that a dishwasher is in the works from David's parents! Yay for having a dishwasher after 4 years without one!!! We will be so spoiled! Now we just have to get a proper garbage can to go under the sink.

 In case you're wondering, the green countertop that came with our kijiji.com kitchen is eventually going to be replaced (hopefully sooner than later) and David will finish off the corner cabinet. Until then, I just try not to push things over to far. There's so much more counter space as it is that I don't mind waiting a little while.

 Thanks to David's mom for the loan/gift (whichever it ends up to be =]), of their marble slab cutting board. It fits perfectly in the empty spot over our drawer. Now I don't have as many crumbs falling into the top drawer.

 The view from the kitchen sink. Now don't you want to come and do dishes at my house?!

Sadly, the leaves are already starting to go. Since I took the picture last week and got it posted today, all of these pretty leaves are gone. =[ I don't want winter to come. Please don't let it come. Please! (Stacy you can have it all, really, I won't mind.0

We are so blessed to live in such a wonderful home that God has provided for us! We do not deserve his Goodness! The changing of the leaves each year reminds me of His faithfulness- every year that passes He still remains the same.

Thank you Lord for providing friends and family to come and help with some of our house building! We wouldn't be in our house if it weren't for their help alongside of David.

More of the House

 Our office! We finally have an office to work in and keep all of our CEF stuff in! This has been a huge highlight of our new house. It's so nice to keep all that stuff contained to one room...as long as I don't sneak work out to the kitchen table. We've made the main floor second bedroom into our office for now and will someday finish the "office" room downstairs. I'm getting spoiled since there's more room in our current spot, however.

 Here is our storage closet that David made shelves for. It's hard to believe that it is already packed with CEF stuff! Maybe someday we'll even have closet doors!

 Here is David's desk (that was given to us with the rest of our furniture!) We only have one office chair right now and since we only have high chairs, the seating thing still could use a little work.

 And here's my desk...next to the big window!

 This is my favourite light fixture in the whole house. David refused to have a chandelier or low light in the dining room because he always hits his head on them. I had one light fixture to buy and found this one on super clearance at Canadian Tire. I'm not sure why everyone that comes in considers it a "Sarah light". =] Thankfully David's head does clear under it, not by much, but it does clear it.

 This is the hallway from our office, with the bathroom on the right and our bedroom in front. Turn to the Left to get into the living room.

 Our living room!

 We are so blessed to have been given this wonderful furniture by our friends moving to the U.S.!

 This is the famous "crazy yellow chair" that some of you have wanted to see.

 I think it's so neat that the couch came with green cushions...the same green as a doormat I had and as some of my placemats and that matches my teapot.

And last of all the greeny coloured chair.

The Newsboys Concert

Most years we are at the International Plowing  Match over David's birthday, for the whole week so it's very hard to do much celebrating besides buying a poutine, so this year, since we weren't at the Plowing Match I got to pull off a few surprise celebrations. We were scheduled to be in Brantford doing a Teacher Training weekend, so it worked out perfectly when I discovered the Newsboys were having a concert in London after the training was finished. The Newsboys have been one David's favourite groups (although he confesses to being a  true DC Talk fan.) The concert included 8 other music groups.

 We arrived an hour early to get good seats...and ended up waiting in line 3 1/2 hours because two of the semi trucks with all the equipment got stuck at the border for 2 hours. So, Johnny Diaz came out a did a spontaneous performance and worship time about 15 feet from us. That was pretty cool.

 A fun part about the day was that we got to hang out with our "daughter", Belle. We were each planning to go to the concert without knowing the other was attending. It made our extra long wait fun because we got to visit with her.

 They certainly have some amazing props as the robotic arms move up and around with the guitar player and keyboard player.

So, besides getting to sleep far past our bedtime, we had a lot of fun. It was the first concert we've ever been to together...it took 4+ years to make it happen!

Prayer Card Photo Shoot

 One of the interesting things about being a missionary is the necessity of having a prayer card to give to people to help them remember to pray for us and the children, along with being able to get in touch with us or with CEF...which requires correct information. Since the CEF Ontario office moved last year and we moved this year, we knew that David's dreaded event awaited us...the prayer card photo shoot. I use to take pictures for fun with my friends when I was little, David did all he could to avoid a camera (and still does). I do admit there is something a little unnerving about knowing you're going to give this picture to a few hundred people to look at for the next few years.

So, since we're cheap and his sister Melissa has a good eye for photography and is willing to oblige us I asked her to help us out a couple weekends ago when we were visiting. She did a great job considering who she was working with and the weather.

 We were having trouble keeping our eyes open. I will spare you the 30 pictures where we alternated who closed their eyes because of the wind.

 We walked around a park by their condo which is by Lake Ontario trying a few different spots. We had a friend Daffy the sick duck that also wanted to join our pictures. We were rather disturbed to see his tongue stuck out of his mouth...maybe he licked a flag pole?!

 David likes to get in his thoughtful, pondering look.

 Another result of the wind blowing was the my hair would NOT stay in it's spot.

 Then the light wasn't bright enough...

And we saw a squirrel friend. (I still think black squirrels look strange after growing up in a solely gray squirreled world.)

However, in the end we did find a nice picture that worked and once we get the lettering finalized, we'll be mailing them out to you all to put on your fridge.. so I'll hold you in suspense until then.

Our house!

 David finished the siding a couple weeks ago! We plan to put a deck on the front under the kitchen door that extends to the left side, but will drop to 2 ft on that side.

 We got to spend Labour Day weekend with David's family in Pickering! Yay! His parents gave us the mums and planters...now it looks like a real house!

 Here's one side.

 The back.

The other side.

 The mum before it goes into full bloom soon. =]

 Our bathroom! Yay for running water! I never knew how amazing it is to have the toilet fill itself up with water.

 It's so wonderful being able to brush our teeth with water from the tap!

 Our bedroom with the furniture that God gave us. A couple from our church moved back to Virginia and didn't want to move their furniture with them again so they blessed us with it! What an incredible gift! We didn't really have any furniture and they gave us exactly what we needed: a bedroom set, living room set, dining room set, and desk.

 Our closet that will someday have doors. I was just glad that we had a closet rod by the time we moved in.

The end of Summer

Sadly summer seems to be coming to an official close for us, now that we've finished our final week of camp and "summer ministry" as of yesterday. David's trying to convince me that it'll be easier to see fall come now that we can watch the leaves change from our windows...I'm still not convinced. The summer seems to go by so fast and we never really have time to stop and enjoy it in the midst of ministry crazies. I'm wishing we'd get some of the 90* F Minnesota weather sent our way to make it feel like summer a while longer.

So besides the sadness of summer leaving, a lot of wonderful things happened this past week.

A camper's view on life at Monarch Bible Camp.

 Going into the week at Camp Kwasind I really didn't want to go. It's always a rough group of kids from inner city Toronto (Jane & Finch) and all my insecurities get brought out to the extreme. I was feeling ready to be done, a little jealous of all our co-workers that were taking vacation and not a lot of love for the kids. I had been asking God to change my heart but it still hadn't happened. Then, during the third day, David and I retreated to our car pray (since we didn't have a cabin). After being honest with God, it was amazing how he changed my heart over the next few days. When we left camp and were driving home, David laughed as I began saying how much I would miss the kids...only a few days after saying the exact opposite.

Kids enjoying the canoe one last time before going home.

One girl in particular is heavy on our hearts, as she goes home to a mom that is dying of cancer. She and I went canoeing one day and she told me how they hope her mom will make it to Halloween. Please pray that her mom will give her life to Jesus before she meets Him.

Summer Ministry

 Randy Raccoon & Jr. Explorer take part in the wilderness adventure.

It's hard to believe the CEF Ontario summer wrapped up on Saturday! It was a whirlwind of a summer as usual, but especially since I had to handle the summer ministry on my own, since David is furiously working to finish up the house by August 30 (besides getting it to the livable point by August 1)...so his main time was devoted to camp.

We had some wonderful summer missionaries. What a joy to get to know them and work with them. I already miss them! Marian even came all the way from Syracuse, NY...yay for a fellow American! Welcome Home was on Saturday and she started school today (college no less)! What a brave girl! Shailynn & Marian worked really well together and even still liked each other after being together non stop for 6 weeks. Their longest trip was from Sault Ste Marie to Peterborough...15 hours of travel via buses and cars.

"Saul" came to visit on his way to Damascus