Roll-up the Rim

 Tim Hortons, the ultimate Canadian Coffee Shop and cultural centre does a "roll up the rim" contest every year. For a few weeks every year all of their drinks give you a "1 in 6" chance to win something from coffee to a car. I'm always disappointed because I never win. Even in trying to use David's cup I still never won, but when I wasn't there he won free coffee twice...what's with that?

I don't remember there being any kind of promotional contest like that at any American restaurants, I wonder if any have started up. It is a really fun thing.

Especially because...I have finally won on a French Vanilla Hot Smoothie this year.

 I won a donut!!!

After three years, maybe I'm finally Canadian...I've won a roll-up the rim.

A Cement Floor!

We got our cement floor poured...it's really looking like a "real" basement now. The change from the big area of gravel to a big empty space with a cement floor to now having stairs and a few walls downstairs is incredible. We were able to put the real support beam and walls now that the floor is in.

The first set of stairs that David put together for the upstairs...no more ladder!

 Umm...Honey...didn't your mother teach you to not use your chainsaw inside on the house?! 

(I guess if you're really good with a chainsaw it can be useful for expanding the size of the staircase by 4 inches.)

 David's Uncle Tim was the most incredible help by spending a week with his crew installing the HRV and hooking up the furnace! What an amazing blessing!!!!

We have stairs inside!!! They are "construction" stairs since they're pressure treated wood, but work inside for now and will eventually be used outside on a deck. David has a few walls to level and to build the final stairs and then we can have the framing inspection.

Summer Programme

Please pray with us that the Lord will provide the right summer contacts for the six weeks of clubs to be held (that means we have 24 club locations in our area). There are so many children that need to hear about Jesus and this is such an incredible opportunity for them...but it takes people that have a heart to reach those kids in their own area to take the time to find a location and invite the kids, along with finding room and board and transportation for our teams.

I keep getting more and more excited about the summer programme as I see more and more parts of it coming together. I'm even working with a recording artist about the possibility of recording a song for us and although I originally thought there was no way it would ever actually happen, it looks like it just might be a possibility...we'll see! Whatever happens, my hope is that the Lord is glorified and the kids can praise Him and come to know Him better through the music.

March Break Camp

We are in the midst of planning our first every overnight camps! We have been at camps as kids, helped at them, taught at them, cooked at them...but never planned and been in charge of camp before. We're planning a March Break Camp for kids 6-8 for one night/two days and ages 9-12 for one night/two days. We are super excited for those opportunity! The Lord has even provided the counselors we need!! Besides chapel, camp games, craft, food,and  cabin devos we're trying electives. The kids can choose from broomball, cross-country skiing, snowball blaster and baking. We'll see how it shapes out but everyone seems to want to do baking...even the 7 year old boys!

Please pray with us that God will send the kids that He wants to be there (we're only taking 20 in each session), for safety, fun and spiritual growth for each child.

Radiant Lines

 I thought I had posted these pictures but it seems I hadn't! This is from a few weeks ago. The red tubes are the radiant heat lines. The pink stuff underneath is a form of insulation.

The inspector told David he couldn't use those radiant lines in the floor so David unattached them all, only to have the inspector call a couple days later and say that "actually, they're fine"! Then a few more inspector issues later and an added compression test the cement floor is finally being poured in the basement today!!!!

TCE and an amazing God Story

 Last week we had the joy (and exhaustion) of teaching at the Teaching Children Effectively Course. Nine wonderful students got to have the 30 hour course all in one week! They worked diligently and went home telling us how excited they were about the new ideas and methods they learned.

 We even got to have "our daughter" Ashley in the class! The Lord has really gifted that wonderful girl with a love and compassion for others.

 Kayla made an adorable little "John" for her verse game.

Now for a story that only God could author: Travel back 3 years ago. Place: Iowa. I was doing my internship under Beth Lamb and she had Becca and I go with her to a college's missions fair that was across the state (I don't even remember what school it was!) We spent a couple days there with the booth and doing promo amidst the 50+ other booths spread throughout the school. Knowing that I was marrying a Canadian and moving to Ontario in a few months, we were excited when we met a couple of ladies that had a ministry in Ontario. I went to their seminar to see what they were about and heard about "Cross Trainers" in Bradford, ON. They were hoping to begin some children's ministry things in the near future. At the time I had no clue where Bradford was or even where David and I would be living. I took their business card and went on my way.

Two years later, I was going through some things and came across the business card. I emailed them, asking how the children's ministry outreach was going. I was put in touch with the children's ministry person- Laura. She and I emailed a bit and then summer happened...(that means that a lot of things get put to the back burner that aren't urgent.) While David and I were teaching at a camp we met a local pastor...long story short, 3+ hours from Laura, we met her dad! It sparked my memory to get back in touch with Laura and we eventually met for the first time last fall. She felt really alone in ministry and was very excited when she found out about CEF and the material, program and training that is offered...and other people that love kids.

What an amazing joy it was to have Laura be a part of the TCE class last week! She didn't know until she got there that I would be one of the instructors. We kept marveling at how God works in crazy, amazing ways! Keep Laura in your prayers that she'll be keep being encouraged and will have the volunteers that she needs to reach the children God has called her to.

Is God Loving to Exalt Himself?

Our small group started doing a study on worship this fall. It has been an incredible study, so challenging and eye opening. Even though I've grown up in church, I realized just how little I have known and experienced about true worship. My real problem is not just knowing the truth, but living it out. Instead of just cliche sayings of "it's not about me, it's all about God" I've been seeing how much God cares about His glory. In our human minds, God desiring all the glory seems like a prideful sort of thing, yet it's not pride if it's something that you really do deserve because you are worthy of it...and God is!

I read this quote in John Piper's study "Gravity and Gladness" --  a quote from C.S. Lewis. I thought he explained things so well I wanted to share it with anyone willing to read through it...it's worth it. =]

"But the most obvious fact about praise...strangely escaped me.... I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise....The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game-praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least . . .

I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise what ever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: "Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?" The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed."

C. S. Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms

Windows and Doors!!!

 I never knew that windows and doors could be so exciting, but they sure are...once they are all installed and everyone is still alive (I found out what a miracle the "still alive part" can be when our single door dropped while David, and friend and I were trying to install it.) Praise the Lord, He moved David out of the way! Five guys from church graciously came and helped install that door and the our giant window and it took them around 10 minutes! What an amazing blessing!

 Here is David entering our front door! It's very exciting to be able to lock our basement now.

 This is the side view of the house showing my favourite window that will be our dining room. Notice how big it is compared to the sliding glass doors and us standing in front of it (first picture).

David is finishing up the plumbing and hopes to have it pass inspection before the new year. He was lying in the trench where the septic line runs and was connecting the pipe to the septic tank. The picture doesn't capture how funny it looked to see him completed surround by snow in the trench.

Snowstorms and a Roof

Wouldn't it just be the way that the very day David planned to begin putting the roof on, we got our first snow dump?! His whole family came to celebrate American Thanksgiving and planned to help get the roof started but spent most of the time shoveling off the 2 feet of snow...that was Nov 27. Since then, that faithful, hard working man has continued to work day after day on his own to get the steel roof on. Today, Dec 14, he hopes to finally finish it. We've continued to get snow nearly every day in that time too. The last couple days the cold has been added to what he has to contend with.

 The weather cleared up for one day at least!

This was my work done for the roof (notice not on the roof). I got to pound a nail hole in 5 places on every sheet of steel. My hammer skills have improved quite a bit!

Ultimate Verse Visual

So this is definitely my favourite verse visual that I've made so far! I got the idea from an old Teach Kids! magazine of decorating a Christmas tree as part of teaching a verse. It worked really well, especially since Victoria one of our wonderful volunteers was the one teaching it! All of the "ornaments" were in a box and kids would get to chose one and try to put it in right spot (they're held on by velcro). If they got it right they got a big candy cane and if they got it wrong, a little candy cane.

I will admit it took way longer to make the visual than I expected...but even after being hauled around in a van for 2 weeks and used for 4 clubs, it is still looks pretty good! Yay, for clip art, google images and colour printers!

Isn't God's gift to amazing...it's indescribable! May you celebrate the true reason for the season...Jesus!