Answered Prayer No. 1 (From July)

Remember this post?

My friend's sons have now been home for a week, two years from the start of the process! The transition has not been easy but they are thankful that at last, their boys are home with them.

Please pray for our friends, the Waldinspergers ...

They have been trying to get a neat ministry off the ground. It's a combination emergency housing for abused women and children, and therapeutic riding operation. They have built the emergency housing portion, and are living in it until they can afford to put a house up for themselves. They've only been in it for about 6 months.

Yesterday they came home to find the house on fire (I believe faulty fireplace; modular housing). Please pray that they were well insured and that God will bless them with something even better once the house is rebuilt. And they would not be discouraged from their vision despite this, only one of many setbacks they have faced.

Thanks.

Update Dec 5: The house is a write-off and insurance will completely rebuild. Insurance co. will also move a trailer onto the property and attach to septic/well so they can stay on property to care for horses. We will be puppy-sitting for two weeks until their trailer is set up :-) ... an un-housetrained 12 week-old chocolate lab pup.

More High Ropes Photos!

Left: Alison doing hanging vines.


















Coming down ... I did it (nooooo problemo) !


















Claire on her way up the final climb.


















A better view of the height of this climb.


















"Do you trust us, Pastor Andrew?"

The final exercise was one where the girls were responsible for belaying Andrew as he climbed. Quite the responsibility! They all love Andrew, so took their duties very seriously.



I hope you enjoyed this little expedition with Alison, Claire and their friends!

Flying High at Wesley Acres

We had a fabulous Junior Youth year, and one of our final activities was the chance for the kids to do the high ropes course at Wesley Acres. It was a fabulous, stretching experience!


Here is part of our group standing beside the zip line. It is 50 feet high and sends them 300 ft out into the forest at a pretty rapid pace!










Here are the girls getting into their harnesses and safety equipment. The gentleman in front, Bill Boone, is the director of the High Ropes course at the campground; he did an amazing job encouraging and exhorting the girls.










Claire getting ready for the climb up to the zip line, involving a very high ladder and pole, then a catwalk over to the zip harness.
















Here's a shot of Alison almost to the catwalk so you can see how high the girls had to go! You'll notice that I am in no pictures; once again, I was in charge of the camera :).

Truthfully, it's not that I am unwilling to do it. However I am unwilling to do it at the same time as a bevy of athletic 12 year olds :). I'm hoping someday to get a chance with a group of over 40's who've never done anything like this before (such a wimp, am I :) !)










Here is Claire traversing the rickety bridge.


More photos in the next post!

What is Great Church?

This is a copy of a post I submitted at a favourite message board. I decided to post it here as well! This was in response to someone wondering about trying a smaller church nearby, OR moving to the community their large church is in.

Chiming in a bit late here ... great church

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When we moved to our community, we went to quite a few churches and "committed" to one 30 minutes drive away. It was (and still is!) a great church; met all our needs. By our sixth week, God was convicting us big time as we drove home (very funny ... both dh and I were silent most of the way home thinking all the same thoughts).

Church is ALL about community. Great worship is wonderful; fun Sunday school programs are icing on the cake. But great church is being close enough that if one of your church friends is in labour you can pop over at 1:30 a.m. to watch their kids. Or when someone who is upset can drop in and you guys can drink tea together and pray. Great church is getting to know your unsaved neighbour and being close enough that your church friends can help you help them out and let them see Christ in action and feel what it's like to be enveloped the love of community, which is sadly lacking for many. Great church means not escaping on Sunday, but working out issues before they fester because you see these people all week, and have no choice but to resolve things (and truly, how many of us LIKE to resolve things?). Great church (for our family, anyway) is church where we are overly-involved , and from a stewardship perspective, driving long distances is not wise (now we have a tight budget so this may not apply for many people).

We knew FIRST visit that our little rural church was the one for us. We weren't comfortable with the worship style, there were not many children. But it was warm and welcoming, and God spoke to both of us withing three minutes of entering the building that this was it.

God has dealt with any areas of "concern" I might have had, either by using us with our gifts, or in His wisdom making changes, or by changing us. One thing that so far hasn't changed much is the number of children the age of my own, but I see now that when my children aren't part of a "herd", the adults are way more able to love on them and encourage them as individuals. I love these networks building in our community; I love that other people love our children. And numbers are slowly increasing as my children make friends and we include them.

Anyway, I'm so glad you decided to give the local church a chance. I'm praying that your dh is able to meet good, godly men and find real connection there.

Karen

Claire scales the heights!

And here are photographs of Claire. She also successfully climbed "The Chimney"; alas by then both available cameras had dead batteries :). Here she is climbing up to the window to check out the scenery!

It was a great outing all in all! I already have two requests for "Boiler Room" birthday parties; those of you who know the children will be able to guess who :) !

Great photograph of Kevin, to go with my previous post "all about him"

Our pastor, Steve, and his wife had a beautiful baby girl last night! Here is a photo of Kev holding baby Mary.

Steve and Janna now have a beautiful family of five, including eldest Ben who is almost 4 and Eli, who is almost 2.

(Never mind the baby; isn't he handsome?)

Karen