So, nine months since the last time I blogged. Pretty pathetic. Long enough to have had another baby, but THANK GOODNESS I don't have THAT to report!! In my own defense, I have about three drafts started on here that I just never got around to finishing. Now however, in my attempt to do anything but the TESOL course I am supposed to be doing (who invented grammar anyway?), I have decided to attend to my long neglected blog.
Just shortly before our house in Hay River sold, I had borrowed a book from the library to distract myself from the craziness of putting the kids in school for the first time, wondering if we were going to move or not move and what the heck we were even doing considering this crazy Brazil thing anyway. In the front cover of the book was the Hebrews scripture I have typed out in red above.
Basically, I took it as God saying that if the father of our faith could just pack up and go without having a clue, what was I bellyaching about? So that is the attitude I took. I don't have to know everything (or in this case anything), I just have to obey and go.
So, we obeyed and went and here we are. And has He blessed us beyond anything we could imagine? ABSOLUTELY. This week especially, has been a 'moving forward week'. It started with a phone call from Delaena's teacher asking if we would like to explain what our family is planning to do in Brazil and how we got here, etc. What an amazing blessing and opportunity to share at the school! So this Friday, we are going to give the fabulous staff and students of Duncan Christian School a bit of an idea of what we are about. We dug out the video we had made of Koos' trip to Brazil in the summer of 2009 and then realized that we hadn't even posted it on here for people to see. So, only a couple years too late, here it is at the bottom of the page!
So that was Sunday, and here's how Tuesday has gone...
When we first started attending New Life, we got wind of a ministry they are doing on one of the local Cowichan reservations. Something in our spirits got excited about that, so we started attending as a family. We go spend a couple of hours each Sunday afternoon at the 'broken' park. So named by Kael. We hang out with the kids who live in the area and play games, put on puppet shows, etc. Up until this point, we've just been there to support the team. Well, today, since the lady who runs the team has other commitments beginning in April, we and another couple were asked if we'd like to help lead the team! What an unbelievable opportunity! Everyone is so excited, especially since our Pastor is very open to us using some of the ideas that the kids and I had been given back in Hay River in our homeschooling days! We just really feel that this is a major piece of the puzzle that has clicked into place for our time here in Duncan.
Here are a few shots of what happens down at the broken park. He truly is a God full of blessings and surprises!
Last year two gorgeous butterflies lived in a 'butterfly house' in our kitchen window until well after Christmas. We found one on our boot rack in October and the other in a friend's heated shop. It cheered me up to watch them stretch in the sunshine coming through the window or to uncurl their amazing 'proboscises' to slurp up brown sugar water. They were oblivious to the -35C temperatures, (not including the windchill). The winter didn't seem as long with them part of our everyday life. 
A good question to ask here is, "What on earth am I doing in Hay River, NT?" I don't like cold, snow or dark. Well, God brought us here to grow us up in Him and get us ready for the next stage in our lives. Which seems to be Brazil, where there is no snow and very limited cold! I have to admit, I've been a bit like the oak. I was quite surprised when Koos finally got up the nerve to tell me God had asked us to head to a different continent. "What do you mean, I'm not supposed to be in Canada for my whole life?" and oblivious like the butterflies, "You mean, this wasn't just another place to live? God was actually doing something in us here?" 
