Giving Thanks!

Paul and Steph at the Dicksons !

Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God...(Ephesians5:1-2)...Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus. ( Ephesians 5:20)

Paul and I want to give thanks to our all of you, our friends and family who continue to uphold us in prayer and continue to bear witness in our lives of the TRUE love of Christ. On this week end of Thanksgiving, we acknowledge everyone who has brought so many blessings into our lives! We would not be where we are today if it wasn't for your love and support and of course, our heavenly Father's grace on our lives. Thank you for serving us, thank you for ministering alongside us, thank you for sharing your lives with us, thank you for crying with us and laughing with us. Thank you for sharing meals with us, thank you for taking care of the ones we love so much, thank you for praying for us, thank you for taking time for us and loving us in your own special way, and thank you for speaking truth and wisdom in our lives. You are all very special to us and we are grateful to have been involved in your lives in one way or another.

We want to thank our heavenly father for having provided us with everything we need in Toronto, especially a very unique church family who are already demonstrating God's love to us in many ways! We give him all the praise for equipping us with everything we need to overcome our journey from Thunder Bay to Toronto with Joyful hearts!

I will continue the story of our journey to Toronto at a later date but for now here are a few people among many who have impacted our lives in this past year! Please note that it would be impossible to have a picture of everyone who has been present in our lives... and therefore either from a lack of pictures or out of respect for some individuals who prefer not being seen on camera this display of pictures will surely not portray everyone we are thankful for.

Peter (Paul's brother) and Paul at High Falls, Thunder Bay, Peter we have been so blessed by you! your friendship means so much to us! You would take your shirt off for anyone who needs it! How precious you are!


Trudi, Mackenzie-Skye & Poul-Erik Binderup, you are dear
friends of ours and consider you sisters and bother! Thank you for loving us!


Carla, Trudi, Mona and Shannon (From left to right to bottom). To the women who spoke into my life, who made themselves vulnerable and who gave me courage, thank you!


Paul, Steph, Angie Hedrick, Rod Kapitan, Alicia Hedrick, Justin Hedrick, Sky Hedrick and Richard Lebar. To our friends who minstered alongside us and served the Lord and who invested in our lives, Thank you!


Steph and Michele A.K.A Mom! Merci maman pour ta presence continuelle et ton amour si radiant! Je t'aime!


Mackenzie-Skye and Sarah Vanderleest! Sarah, you have been my friend through thick and thin and I thank you for your valuable friendship even through this move I feel you close to me! Thank you! Mackenzie-Skye, well, you are Paul and I's little sunshine! Keep on shinning for Christ!


Steph Abronzo and Dan Muzzin! Thank you for sharing your lives with us in the past year or so! You are fun to be around and have let us in your lives! Thanks guys!

So thanks to all of you who were not shown in pictures! You mean so very much to both Paul and I!

Have a happy Thanksgiving !

The Journey

Paul and Stephanie In front of Don Cherry's Restaurant in Sudbury

Greetings to all of our friends and family!

I have been thinking of my blog every since last Wednesday when I last blogged. I have been strangely longing to get back into the writing mode. Whether it would be free verse or simply conversing with you about our journey to Oakville, ON, which ended up being Paul's home during his studies at Sheridan College in Media Arts before we met! Ever since then, Paul had a desire to return to Oakville and here we are. God can hear the simplest of wishes! But to share with you how we got here I will start with our move down.
Paul and I rented a U-Haul to move down. We desired to bring a little bit of Thunder Bay to Oakville so we thought what better way than to make a transition from our home, where we met, got married and lived for the last 5 years, and Oakville, the new place, full of adventure and growth. We both felt like we were leaving a part of ourselves in Thunder Bay. What comforted us was the certainty that God was leading the way and that even if we didn't know what the next step was, He did, and that was all that mattered. Of course, on my part, it helped that I was getting closer to my mother!

However Don't be fooled! As we distanced ourselves from our home, we realized that it was much harder to keep our eyes ahead than it was to look back at what we were leaving behind. Paul and I took time to reminisced about our time with our family and the times spent with friends.
When we arrived in Toronto, it hit us both in different ways but nonetheless, it hit hard as we realized how woven we were with our dear ones back home. I guess that is why we call ourselves "The Body of Christ": the heart cannot function without the head and the foot cannot function without the leg. We are all connected by the Spirit of Christ. As some of you might have heard me say this before, it was like cutting the umbilical cord: hard to let go of the past, but still full of God's goodness ahead which we would be fools not to embrace and trust Him for what lies before us.

Here are a few pic from our trip down.

Some glances at nature on our way to Southern Ontario...

As we travelled South, the vegetation became more lush!

Paul in front of Don Cherry's NHL team photo in the Restaurant!And if anybody asks...Yes! It did rain the entire trip down! Well almost...

Until soon my friends and with Love and prayer, I pray that you would seek wholeheartedly after the Truth!

Steph

A walk in the woods!

Hello everyone!

Today was a weird day for me. I felt as though I could conquer the world and then I was reminded of how I don't have it all together. I guess the lesson to learn is that I don't have it all together but there is one who does and has enabled me to come back on this page and recommit to the pouring of my heart in writing to whomever cares to read. Since I can do all things through God who strengthens me (Phil 4:13), I do conquer the world, a little bit each day. One day at a time.
As I walk through the woods some of you might know me well enough that I enjoy pondering on the promises of Jesus Christ. A prayer turned into a conversation as He showed me today that I too could have a disciplined and enjoyable lifestyle.
I feel like the prodigal son having been gone from the blogging world for the last almost 8 months now! Wow that is a new low! I must say discipline is just not my bag. ;)
I miss you all, my blog friends, the ever so supportive people in my life that encourage me through your own blogs.
Many things have happened since last February and there is too much to recap it all in words but I have a few pictures to give you a glimpse in our lives and feel like you were with Paul and I this whole time. But in a nutshell, Paul and I had one last presentation at Fort William Baptist Church to show the documentary for Sky and Angie Hedrick that Paul filmed and edited for 'An Eagle's Cry Life Centre'. It was a very encouraging evening for many people and we witnessed that night what Paul and I long to do for missionaries all over the world! We saw the church body become unifyed and we saw brothers and sisters in the Lord step up to the plate and Honour their Heavenly Father. What a night that was!
We slowly geared up for leaving towards Toronto with no job or place to stay in sight, only the certainty that it was time to make a step of faith in that direction.
In June I went down to Toronto with the mission of finding a job and an appartment in 1 month. I was positive it could be done regardless of the economic downfall. Indeed, God faithfully provided and here we are in Oakville, Ontario since July 2nd, thrilled to have obeyed our calling and yet sad for being so far away from great friends and wonderful family! We miss them oh so much.

So here are some pictures from the last 7 or 8 months!

Paul taking in the beauty of God's creation at Quetico Provincial Park

Lake at Quetico at Sunset! I'm so mesmerized during the sunset I forget to take a picture on time!

The Muzzin brothers with the two Steph's one last time on Avondale Place! Home Sweet Home!

Paul and Poul-Erik at the Men's Retreat

Providence

Today we were at Providence Bible College and Seminary. It has been a long and exciting day representing World Team and interacting with students interested in local and global missions. I'm learning a lot about mobilization and am being introduced to an amazing community of missionary reps from all over Canada. It's so great that we'll basically be spending the next 3 days together and building gospel centred partnerships. It was a long 12 hour day and so I'm a little fried so I won't say much, but will give you a few highlights:

• two amazing chapel times including worship, prayer and extremely inspirational messages from George Verwer the founder of Operation Mobilization. I am really encouraged by Mr. Verwer's vulnerability, honesty, and genuine love of Jesus Christ. I'm looking forward to hearing him speak at MissionFest this weekend. If you want to read an amazing testimony check out this link: http://www.om.org/history.html

• interacting with some really interesting students from all walks of life at the mission booths, during the workshops, and at the "market place" windup party afterwards. The Market Place was an idea of introducing different cultures to the students in the context of a Market Place where they can purchase different goods and services with the "fun money" they received from each missions rep that they visited throughout the day. I'm telling you, hanging out with all these students makes me miss my college days.

• My colleague, Jake ran a workshop topic on the Unborn: Protected or Exploited? Here's the summary: This workshop engages the participants through an interactive discussion on the underlying motives driving the very people that have absolute power over the unborn - their potential mothers. After this workshop, attendees re-enter everyday life with the challenge to consider what steps to take to reflect a missional approach to the plight of the unborn and their protectors/aggressors.

• an amazing, free, all you can eat lunch and supper in the cafeteria

Well, there's a lot more I could say, but I thought that I would just leave you with a couple of quotes that I wrote down from George Verwer today. I hope I didn't butcher them too much, I was trying to get them down and so hopefully they contain the basic truths he conveyed. Enjoy!

"If you don't understand that God works within a culture then I dare say that you won't understand how God has been working in the last few thousand years."


"In your evangelism make sure you give the other person equal time to speak... and you should also do the same thing in your marriage."


"Whatever the Lord has given you, pass it on... [be a disciple maker]"


"[In our Christian lives] there needs to be a marriage between proclamation and social concern and action."


"Sometimes failure can be the back door to success."

Here in Manitoba

Well, I arrived in Manitoba a little late today, due to a de-icing delay at the airport, but that is about the only hickup that I've had to face. This day has been really fun and enjoyable.

My friend Jacob picked me up and I'm staying and we're staying at his parents place in Steinbach while we represent World Team at Providence College, Steinbach Bible College, and Manitoba Mission Fest.

A few hours ago we had the priviledge to attend a CMC Missions board meeting. Jacob gave a field report and introduced me to the board members. I gave a short presentation about the media ministry that Steph and I will be doing with World Team. It was really overwhelming to interact with a great group of wise and humble men who love Jesus and want to help with the proclaimation of the gospel. I can't sum up the experience into words at the moment (it would take to long and I'm pretty tired) but all I can say is that this trip would be worth it just to be able to get to know Jacob a little more and talk with these guys, hear their words of wisdom, encouragement and love for Christ.

I just wanted to leave you with this section of Scripture that came to mind while the guys were discussing wisdom and our human the tendancy to be overwhelmed by a sense of inadequancy (like becoming a parent for the first time) when God lifts us up into positions of leadership. Our hope for success does not depend on our abilities, charisma, experience, or lack there of, but rather on the saving work of God. We look to Him to glorify himself through us. It is God who prepares us and puts us into these opportunties for His glory.

David said, "The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine [Goliath]."

And [Goliath] cursed David by his gods... and said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field."

Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javeline, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will deliever you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORDS's and he will give you into our hand." (1 Samuel 17:37, 43-47)


- Paul

(P.S. David kicks Goliath's butt)