God is so good!

I have to admit, it is easy to get discouraged when you are calling churches, day after day, trying to schedule meetings.   Don't get me wrong, every pastor and secretary has been very kind.  It's just hearing, "I am so sorry, we can't have you in right now, due to our men being out of jobs, the economy, our mission's budget is down, etc." 

Yesterday took its toll on me as I called all day long and got to talk to just 4 pastors.  Thus when I woke up this morning, I grabbed my prayer list and Bible and headed to the living room before the children woke up.  I poured out my burdens and cares on Lord and asked Him to give me some help from His Word. I began to read in the book of Ecclesiastes which the title simply means "preacher".  As Solomon began to say "vanity of vanities; all is vanity", I thought maybe this was his response after trying to call and schedule meetings all day!

But then I came to chapter 3, verses 9-11.  I read the words, "What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?  I have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons of men to be excercised in it.  He hath made every thing beautiful in his time....."  and thus the Lord began to speak to my heart and encourage me. 

My "travail" or work that God has given to me and to every other missionary is having to schedule meetings and making calls.  This is a travail that we must be "excerised in", we have to keep at it.  We must work at it and keep going.  So I asked the Lord, as in verse 9, "What profit hath he that worketh?"  (I have called and called over the past few days, and nothing.....where's the profit?  Where's the filled calendar?)  But this is where God is so good.  He gave me the beginning of verse 11, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time..."

You see, it is my responsibility to do the work which is call and call and call.  It's not up to me to say when, how many, or where I get meetings.  It is up to me to just work and keep working.  God will bring everything together in His time.  And when He is finished, it's a beautiful, amazing, wonderful thing!  I cannot count the times that things didn't work out my way.  However, in the end, when God worked everything out in His way and in His time, it was beautiful and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Today is a new day, with hopefully some minutes left on my cell phone.....and I thank God for the "travail" he has given to me!

Answer to Prayer & Prayer Request

-Thank you so much for your prayers for me.  I was able to pass my kidney stones on Monday and I am now doing great!

-Please continue to pray for our upstairs neighbor, Gabe.  When we first witnessed to him over a year ago, he said that he was an atheist.  He said that evolution was real and there is no God.  We have had chances to witness to him and get to know him personnally over the past year.  Each time he seems to listen more and more.  About 2 weeks ago, I had the opportunity to give him the full plan of salvation from beginning to end.  He listened intentively and asked questions along the way.  He even came back later to talk some more.  The Lord is working on his heart and you can see the "gears working" in his head.  He even admitted that there is a God but he didn't know who this God was.  This is a long way from claiming to be an atheist.  Our influence and witness to him will come to an end as we will be finishing language school soon.  We hope he will accept Christ before we leave Quebec City.

-Please also pray for the Brind'amour family.  Pastor Brind'amour lost his wife to cancer this morning.  She was only diagnosed with cancer about 2 months ago.  We are thankful to know that she is in heaven, but we also know that the hearts of Pastor Brind'amour and his 3 children are heavy at this present time.  They were in the process of starting another church here in Quebec.  They are a faithful family and have done a great work for the Lord here in Quebec for many years.

Brussel Sprouts and School...

--Brussel sprouts used to be a dreaded vegetable when I was a kid.  So when Kami came home and showed me the bag of fresh brussel sprouts that she bought for us to try, I gagged.  I remember my mother boiling them to a mushy consistency and the smell and taste horrified me.  Well, after Kami made them for dinner tonight, I have to admit....my tastes have changed and I like brussel sprouts.  In fact, everyone in my family loved them!  I have noticed that the veggies that I didn't like when I was younger, I am starting to like now.  Kami says that our tastes change as we get older.....but I still hate liver!

--The kids have had a great 1st-week of school.  They love their classes and  have had a great week.  Joshua loves his New Testament survey class.  In fact, he is going to be teaching us a devotional each Friday night from his notes from his class.  I am glad that he is excited and wants to share the things he has learned.

--I know we still have several weeks before we leave, but we have begun to pack-up some of our belongings.  We are being merciless when it comes to throwing away things that we don't need in the West Indies and things we really do not use.  We have packed all of our books already.  I think thus far we have 5 boxes of books.  My family loves to read and Joshua wants to start his own library!  I just hate moving the heavy boxes.  Our time here is running short and we ask that you please pray for us as we try to schedule some meetings back in the states after we finish language school.......

Until next time.....

Biz E.B. Bakery completes another order!!!

The girls are wanting to practice making more cakes.  So I decided to order an Eagles cake to celebrate tonight's second pre-season game.  I told them that my only request was that it had the Philadelphia Eagles logo on the cake.  Elisabeth and Brenna (and momma) started right away designing and planning.  Here is their finished result!

The cake is a double-layered vanilla with a chocolate buttercream center!..Mmmmmm!

They also added these "Fly Eagles Fly" cookies covered in marshmallow fondant. 

The grass around the football field is also buttercream frosting.

They did a great job especially being just their second cake to make/decorate.  Great job girls!  Now all we need is for our Eagles to beat them Bengals!!!

An answer to prayer!...and another request....

Thank you for your prayers about the health insurance reimbursement that we have been trying to get for the past two months.  We finally received word that our insurance company issued a reimbursement to us for Kami's pregnancy and delivery.   Although we paid $5,000 out-of-pocket cash, we will be receiving $2,200 back.  We praise the Lord!  Anything is better than nothing!  Thank you for your prayers....

We also have another prayer request.   This past weekend, I threw out my back and have had problems since then.  Then yesterday (Thursday), while we were in language class, I started to have kidney stone pains.  We went home and I stayed in bed all afternoon.  Thankfully, here in Canada, you can get Tylenol with Codeine over the counter and that helped to take the "edge" off the pain.   I am still very sore and feel like the pain will return any moment. 

Please keep us in your prayers as we can see the spiritual and physical attacks upon our family as we prepare to finish language school and move our family in the next step of our ministry....

School is now in session! (and other news...)

If you haven't noticed, I finally updated the section to the right labeled "Family Tips for the Taking" and our "Prayer Requests/Praises" section. The picture below is Silas stomping around in my shoes and fits the topic for "Family Tips..."

---Callie is doing great and sleeping very well through the night. She is beginning to laugh, giggle, and once in a while she lets out a joyful scream! She definitely has the attention of everyone in the family.

---The kids received their school materials today and are very excited to start school (let's see how long that lasts!). They will be beginning tomorrow and we would appreciate your prayers for them for this upcoming school year and for Kami and I as well. Joshua is starting high school and taking college prep courses this year. He is very excited and will also be taking French this year.....although he has a huge head-start since we have been in language school for 14 months!

---Please pray about a situation that we are trying to resolve. Our insurance company has been giving us the run-around instead of reimbursing their portion of Kami's pregnancy and Callie's delivery. We originally filed our claim 2 months ago and we are still no closer to getting our reimbursement. We would appreciate your prayers about this.

Until next time........

Our "Current" Future.......

The past couple of weeks have been a blur. We have had Kami's sister (Tabitha and her family), come for a visit for a few days. Altogether, 13 of us in our home. It was very tight but we had a great time!

After a two-week vacation from language school, as our professor was on vacation, Madame Claire called to tell us that she was sick with the flu and thus we had a third week off. Josh and I took a father/son camping trip to enjoy the great outdoors for two days. We had fun and caught a ton of fish.

Now we are back on track and in full swing of our busy life. We designed our new prayer cards as our old-ones were outdated and missing family members. We have had a couple churches ask for prayer cards so we decided it was time to get some new ones made.
So here is a preview of the front and back:

They are at the print shop and hopefully soon, ready to be passed out.

This leads us to our "current" future. During our 1 and almost a 1/2 year in language school, we have had several churches, because of economical struggles in these times, been forced to stop sending support or lower our support. Thus we have seen over the last 6 months, a decrease in over $500 in monthly support. This is no surprise to our Heavenly Father, He knows our situation.

We will be finishing our language-school term this October and after much prayer and counsel from our Pastor, we are having to return to deputation for a brief time to raise our support level to a place where it needs to be. This is not what we planned but where the Lord is leading us. We are so close to being able to take that next huge step in getting to the field. Thus, I have begun contacting all of the churches that we have had past meetings with to see if the opportunity has arisen for them to partner with us at this time in our ministry. I have also begun to schedule some meetings at "new" churches to present our ministry and mission field. Please pray with us about this, it would be wonderful just to pack up and head for the mission field.

Another prayer request is for our paperwork that is being applied for with the French government. As many of you know, I have not only an American birth certificate but a French one as well. This entitles my family to obtain French passports once my marriage and children are registered with the French government. (This means no messing with VISA's and other such required paperwork that is needed to enter and stay in a foreign country.) With French passports, we can move and live anywhere owned by France. However, over one year ago, I sent my French birth certificate to France to make a change on it and have it brought up to date. We are still waiting for the paperwork to be updated and cannot apply for passports until we receive the paperwork back. So, we technically cannot move to St. Barthelemy until this paperwork is completed by the government. I can see clearly that God's hand is upon our situation and it is His plan for us to not only finish our language studies in October but also to return to deputation for a just brief time. I praise the Lord for my Pastor, Don Strange, for counseling us and helping us in this big decision.

We will update more in the near future, as for now its French, French, French!!!......