First kick at the can.

Well, this is our first experience blogging. However, this last year has been full of firsts, so here goes another! It feels like I have an awful long story to tell , but I hope that I will be able to incorporate bits and pieces of it all in to the series of posts that will follow. First and foremost I will start with our current location,  if you have been following us at all in the last year, you will know it changes frequently.  We are in Christina Lake, BC right now. We spent my favourite holiday ever, Easter, in the sun shine here in sunny southern BC. This Easter was my seventh Easter as a saved being. Seven years ago on the first Easter after being married to my husband Bill, I went to the church service where we had been attending since our marriage by Pastor Kevin Haugan..... It was the first Last Supper Service held in the brand new Sylvan Lake Alliance Church building. Pastor Kevin gave a short but impacting service following an amazing time of worship music. I don't know what exactly it was that moved in my heart that night, I can't begin to explain how that evening felt, but some of you that will be reading this, will know the person I was before that evening. God grabbed hold of me in a way that night that I could not predict, wasn't even sure if I wanted, but HE had me. Even for me it is hard to fathom all the ways that my life has changed, and how I have been transformed. It was almost a year later when my husband experienced the same life changing, destination altering,  heart and mind make over! Since then, nothing has ever been the same! And this, really does change everything.

We knew early on in the beginning of our walk with God, that it was maybe not going to be a leisurely walk along the beach, as depicted in the "footsteps plaque" I  so adore. It has been more of a high speed  car chase at times, hiking up jagged mountains to view the majestic views,  followed by rescues out of the bog and mire in the valleys below, wild white water rafting experiences, with intermittent peaceful floating in a still serene lake . Thus far it has been the best GUIDED adventure I have ever been on. Daily, we fall farther in love with our Lord, and each other.

Bill and I had our Lord grab us again last spring. We asked him to use us and lead us, but he pointed  us in a direction we did not ever mean to go back to. Our past, the one town that we both were probably at our very lowest at. Where we were both abusers of our bodies, alcohol, drugs, and much more. Being saved after moving to a new town, and a much bigger one, was a pretty great way to start over. But we went to Atlin for a five day trip last summer and came home to BC five weeks later. We had asked God to take us and use us where he wished. Going back to your old house of haunts is risky and scarey, we both have had a tendency to revert back to our former selves when we previously visited our old stomping grounds. This time was different. The experience God had taken us through the year prior to this trip had us in a great place, of expecting, and anticipating His presence and control in our lives. We know that God brought us there for many reasons but we experienced an amazing longing in our hearts to go back and to reach out to the most remote and forgotten frost bitten areas. Looking on the majestic beauty of the area, contrasted by the heart wrenching state of the people there, left us with a burned impression on our hearts. We had made it, we had been able to escape the poverty, the addictions, the desperation and calloused life style that had once owned us. Our hearts broke.

Bill and I have adopted our third child, a beautiful chocolate princess from Tallahassee, Florida. Our desire has been to work with children, and travel to Africa and other places to work in orphanages. We still hope to adopt another child, a play mate and sibling closer in age to Ella than her two older brothers, who are 15 and 18 now. As we spent time with our Pastor friends Joe and Denise on this trip in Atlin and every word they said seemed to speak directly to our hearts. They have hearts the size of Texas and home the size of most peoples garage. They live full time in their palace on wheels and travel all over to areas of BC and the Yukon with no serving Pastor. They move into churches that are abandoned and broken and heal the wounds there with love and The word of God.  They have hearts and compassion for the Northern remote areas of our own Country.They are real and beautiful people that have been through a lot of testing and trials also. They have a peace upon them, that is transcendent and leaves us always longing for more of their fellowship. We also enjoyed getting to know an amazing man new to Atlin sent to be the new Pastor there. God is clearly on the  move in Atlin and longing to join in relationship  with his  beautiful people there. Pastor Erwin, is sensitive to the Spirit of the Lord, and has dove right in to be a member of the tiny community, to be a physical service to the community and is solidly standing in the gap for the spiritual battle for the area.  Witnessing Erwin's desire to make a difference and commitment to the people he had just met, knowing the difficulties that potentially lie ahead for him, solidified our desire to obey the call that had been placed upon us.

 In distance, we could head the other direction, which was our initial hopes, and be in Mexico.
We have slightly different circumstances in our lives than our new Pastor friends, ie small children, and  nearly grown ones for that matter, and jobs and university schooling for me to become a social worker to work in adoptions, but we decided that we needed to obey the call that God placed on our hearts. To go to the areas that had not been mapped out for missions yet, that are in our own country, and provinces(notice I have to use plural on the provinces due to our transient life style)! We  have since bought a big fifth wheel to pull behind our truck and head up North with. We are so blessed to be able to say we are heading to a land full of God's beauty. We have many new friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. We have experienced the call to pray with and for the people of the north.  We were blessed to part of the start of a weekly prayer meeting in the local First Nations reserve in Atlin. We just received word tonight that the prayer group went faithfully all winter long.

 Before our trip to Atlin I had been healed of allergies, and immediately after our trip I was healed in Spokane, WA. of complete blindness in my right eye due to an injury when I was 15. So, a long time ago, lol! We have since had the opportunity to pray for several others who have been healed by God. We, have gotten to witness first hand many miracles already! But,..................this is getting long already. I will  place links onto the site, and slowly get the stories of God's miracles on here. Of course, I am starting the process of contacting people and asking for testimonies and permission to write about this past year, so sometimes it might be a bit in between posts. We are not Pastors, we are not qualified, nor trained, we are not even very eloqent, but we were chosen, and we are pursuing a time of obedience and blessing. So please pray for us and with us, as we embark on this second year of living in a house on wheels, working when and where it is provided for us, giving where ever we can, and hearing as often as we are able. We are young ( I especially like saying that), new Christians and we know that we do not have the experience of some, but we are seeking it. We cherish your prayers and interest in our journey, God bless and keep you all tightly in his loving embrace!