Back from the North and BLESSED!

Hello! We are back from Northern Ontario and we have so much to share about our adventures and our big news about our future location!!

First of all ... I guess we should share the good news ... we're going to Angola!!!!! (Lord-willing, barring any unusual circumstances!)

I say barring any unusual circumstances because we are only in the beginning process of applying for visas. This can take upwards of a year! And in that time, a lot could change, as is often the case with missions work and moving overseas!

But in the meantime, I'm going to get very excited about Angola and all the cool things we can look forward to ... especially all the cool work God is already doing in Angola! MAF serves some interesting and exciting ministries in Angola--including a flying doctor service, a de-mining organization (yes, as in de-mining active mine fields!), and other Christian and secular groups! I've done my fair share of scoping around the Internet about Angola, and it looks like such a beautiful country with incredibly beautiful people! However, after years (27 years to be exact) of civil war ... it is a country that is only just now beginning to rebuild and stand on it's own two feet. Check out this video below to learn a little more about Angola ... and maybe it will make you want to visit us while we're there!

So what does this mean for us over the next few months? It means working like crazy to get everything together to move by January. Yes ... January! Again, Lord-willing, we would move to Portugal in January for a few brief months of language school before we move to Angola in March/April ... because at that point, they'll be desperately needing an aircraft maintenance engineer!

Wow ... wait? Did we just say language school in Portugal? Yes, as Portuguese is the official language of Angola. We're saying goodbye to speaking English all the time and "Oi!" to Portuguese! 

Now ... I'm going to move on and share a little bit about our Northern road trip, but if you have tons of questions, don't worry, so do we! We'll be blogging now much more frequently on Angola specifically, so stay tuned for more updates on that front.

Revisiting the North

We returned from Northern Ontario a few days ago after a week travelling around. Time flew by! We had the opportunity to visit many relatives and friends ... including Marcel's aunts, uncles, and cousins in Grand Rapids, Massey, and Manitoulin Island. It was my first time to Grand Rapids, so Uncle Ted kindly took us sailing for the afternoon! Visiting with relatives, knowing that we may not see them again before we move, was SO special. Many of them have stood behind us in prayer and financial support, and it meant the world to hang out with them!

We also had the fantastic opportunity to go up and join the crew of St. Joseph Island for their Vacation Bible School week at All Tribes Camp! We were the "featured missionaries" for the week, meaning kids brought in coins each day for our MAF ministry! It was both humbling and encouraging to see such young kids wanting to learn about Jesus, share their money with our MAF ministry fund, and have a blast at camp. Our favourite part of the week was probably the "water fight of death"--an hour and a half of getting pelted with sponges and water guns on a not-so-warm day ... so we like to think we earned our coins on that day! :) Special thanks to the whole amazing staff (they were incredible!) and Marney and Jonathan for organizing everything!

No visit to St. Joseph Island is ever complete without seeing Pam and Joe Hawdon ... who were two before we left, and are now three as of Tuesday morning! It was a blessing to see them and Marsena Henderson (and family, and boyfriend, Scott), some of our favourite people in the world! 

Here are a few highlights of the trip:

Sailing with Uncle Ted.

Hours of entertainment by Carter ... but Ben doesn't seem impressed!

Red-necking it with Ben and Rick! 

Building a fort with Jordan and Joe.  

Exploring Kicking Mule Ranch and playing with the kittens.

Spending time with Aunt Willie and Uncle Rick, and attending Mindemoya Missionary Church.

A chilly trip back on the Chi-Cheemaun!

Prayer Requests

With the discovery that we are going to Angola, the craziness of summer and the upcoming busy fall season, we have lots of prayer requests! We hope you'll take some time and pray with us or for us! Thanks to so many of you who already do pray for us on a regular basis!

1. Pray for learning: MAF has decided that before we go, we must audit three courses with Prairie Bible College via online/distance learning. This is an awesome opportunity to learn more about what we believe, but it is also likely to be a source of stress and busyness along with other elements of our job.
2. Pray for funding: We are almost at 70% of our monthly ministry support, but we would still appreciate your prayers for the remaining 30% as we anticipate this may be the difficult to come by!
3. Pray for Marcel’s maintenance license: We are awaiting confirmation that Marcel has completed all the necessary logbook work to apply for his M1 maintenance license. Marcel already has an M2 license for larger aircraft, but in order to sign off the smaller aircraft of MAF, he must have an M1 license. Please pray for success in this venture, and God’s continued hand of mercy as we may run in to other difficulties associated with licensing in future months.
4. Pray for visas: The visa process for Angola can take upwards of a year, so please pray for smooth sailing as we apply for visas. Pray that the process will be quick and painless!