11 Years?

Really? Has it been that Long? Julie and I have the privilege of celebrating 11 years of marriage on August 28. It has been a wonderful adventure full of love and laughter and many happy memories. Looking back it hardly seems like 11 years have really gone by. We would love to share with you a few of the high lights of the last 11 years! We met during our first year of college at Prairie Bible School in Alberta and married a year later. Our first place that we called home was a one bedroom apartment at the college while we finished off our college training. After renting a small house for a year Greg and I had the privilege of buying are first house. It was an old 850sq' bungalow in Bowden that we called home for five years. While in our small house I started my Electrical apprenticeship and we welcomed our three treasures (Franklin, Isaac, & Jaclynn) into the family. Life defiantly grew cramped in that small house with three small children until we sold and upgraded to a newer split level house with a finish basement. Didn't know what to do with all the space at first, but it didn't take long for us to fill it up. God allowed us a few years in that house until He called us to a new life and began preparing us for a whole new chapter in our marriage. We moved our family to Steinbach MB were we live now in the summer of 2008. And just this past week we started working full time with MAF as pre field missionaries. Julie and I are looking forward to this new life as missionaries and thank God for all the blessing over the past 11 years.

Lots of Kms

Arrived Safely in Sayward BC after a 4 day trip driving 2950kms. Also had a great time stopping to see some friends along the way. Awesome trip

Life On the Road

Life on the road has began for our family this week as we left Steinbach early Monday morning. We traveled to Frontier, SK and was able to stay are first night with friends. The children had a blast running and playing with their four children and just getting out of the van. Our next stop was Greg cousins house in Calgary, AB on Tuesday night. On day number three we made it to Mission, BC and stayed with MAF friends for the night. The children have loved traveling through the mountains as it was the first time for them. So today we will finish the last leg of the traveling for this week and head the last few hours to the Island. This means the the children will get their first ferry ride and look at the ocean. They are so excited and looking forward to the boat ride. Thank you to all are great friends who have opened their homes to us this past week it has been a great blessing.

Tight Fit

How does one pack a van to live in for two months? Well maybe by the end of the day we will be able to answer that very question. What to leave what to take could make a person go crazy! Well I think we did it now for a picture.

Even have a little space left over I think but Julie's not quite finished yet.

The End and New Beginings

As a chapter closes in our life a new one is about to start as I finished off well at Harv's on Friday. I wasn't quite able to finish the training of all my students unfortunately but we did our best to do what we could. I think no matter when I left it would have not been any different however just different students. I wish my students all the best as they carry on in there aviation journey. I counted it a great honor to be your Instructor, thank you.

Monday the 23th the family and I start full-time with MAF and sharing about their ministry. We will be starting out with a grand drive to Vancouver Island for about two weeks. We will then be heading to AB where we will spend about 6 weeks. Then back to MB for the remainder of the year. We are driving a well experinced van so if you think of us pray for our van. It seems good but as mentioned it is well advanced in expericne.

Finishing Strong

Finishing Strong what does that look like? I've seen it before and probably even done so myself in the past were we tend to fizzle out at the end. How does one avoid the fizzle? Well it's my belief and struggle to keep the job personal even to the end. If one invests oneself in the job it becomes important and hence done well. I know recently I have been struggling with keeping it personal. I been having to battle thoughts of lets just get through this flight and it will then be someone else's problem to fix the mistakes the student is making rather than me. I have been reminding myself "no I must treat this flight as if I will have to deal with the consequence in the future with regards to what to teach and what to let go". I believe that God calls us employees to work in such a way that will make our employers successful even in our last days. And my prayer and desire is to continue to do so until the very end. As the Lord has blessed me with a full schedule this week as I finish off and it is my desire to finish strong as it were and not to fizzle out.

Flight over Lac Du Bonnet, MB

Just before a recent x-country with a student I realized that I hadn't ever taken my camera along and my time is short here at the flight school so thankfully I remember this time to capture some of the sights in MB from the air.

Lac Du Bonnet Airport

Quarry Near the Airport

Town of Lac Du Bonnet

Happy B-Day Franklin

Sunday was a day filled with laughter, balloons popping, and kids running or splashing through water. It was a wonderful day spent with friends and 14 children gathering to celebrate Franklin's 8th birthday. Thankfully, it was a very nice day and everyone was able to be outside instead of crammed into our house. Greg and I are very blessed that God chose Franklin to be our son and have enjoyed these wonderful eight years with him.

One Day At A Time

Managing ones, time throughout the day can sometimes be very overwhelming and frustrating at the same time. I use to think to myself that if God would only just add five more hours to my day then I would be able to fit everything in. Well, yesterday was defintanly one of those days as I received four boxes of homeschooling material at my doorstep. Talk about mind overload! As I opened each box the boys became very excited about seeing all their new books and finally realizing that mommy was their new teacher. Both of the boys are looking forward to doing school together as they have both grown very close over summer break. I on the other hand kept hearing the sentence " how am I going to accomplish this task Lord, I am already near overload" in my head. Then my husband reminded me of a wonderful saying that we heard a few years ago. "Yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift that is way it's call the present." My man saved the day by reminding me, that today is a present and that I should treat it as such and stop worrying about tomorrow. Please remember to pray for our family as we have just over two weeks till Greg is done at Harv's Air and we hit the road. We are looking forward to visiting with everyone and sharing our passion and heart for the mission field and how we will be apart of MAF. And remember that today is a gift so enjoy the present!