I am still alive – just.  This week I worked 60 hours in 4 days – including a 1am shift, a 4am shift, a 10.30 shift that felt like getting home early, and not a lot of time to eat. The result … my first professional magazine at the printers. A steep learning curve but I am proud of the results.

I also (thanks to a friend) seemed to have secured graphic design work for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation – which is exciting. Finally, a local real estate company has hired me to give their website a face lift. Life is busy, but if all this comes off, them by the end of September I won’t be too far short of breaking even.

I have had today off to catch up on being a part of my family, but have been hindered by my neck and back being really stiff having been stuck in the same position all week! Now we have to prepare for Hurricane Bill who is dropping by some time Sunday.

This week I confess that my prayer life was reduced to a very regular cry for “help.” I don’t anticipate life being like this regularly, and would appreciate prayer for that. Meanwhile the kids continue to settle in very well, as is Lyn, although I think she is missing her husband.

For those of you following this blog you probably haven’t been overwhelmed by the number of posts. The reason for this is basically that life is very very very busy. This week I (Jonathan) started my new job in graphic design and running a digital print office. The sheer intensity of this environment has proved very challenging – a huge change from the comfort zone I had become accustomed too. I find myself exhausted this Friday evening and wondering when Lyn and I will get the energy to prepare to ‘preach’ at church this Sunday. As my job is full time it appears that my masters is going to have to go on hold for the time being.

Church life has been wonderful. The people have been very encouraging and supportive. We had a house warming at our new home last Friday evening with nearly 40 people. The church organised a gift bowl which went to pay for a new propane gas BBQ for us – essential cookware here in Canada. We’ve really cemented relationships with our new church family and have spent lots of time with people aside from Sundays.

God really blessed us with our new home, but it has needed a lot of work doing. The basement, previously carpeted, was home to a couple of cats who had more than left their mark! I had to scrape the smelly underlay off the concrete floor before turning my hand to laminate floor laying, not to mention dismantling a bar from the 70’s. This has all been challenging for someone who struggles to screw a nail in straight – but all in all it is beginning to feel like home now.

Ben and Grace have settled in to our neighborhood well, and enjoy climbing the maple trees in our garden which has become the social centre of kids all around – it is amazing how many friends they have.

Our main prayer requests continue to be:

• that God fills in the color to the picture of why we’re here.
• financial provision – my full time job is only currently paying about 2/3 of our basic needs.

Thanks everyone for your support.

We miss you all in England.

Love

Jon, Lyn, Ben and Grace

Most people think that moving to Canada the adjustment is easy because they speak english, you have McDonalds and in our case – you’ve lived there before. If only it were that easy. If our immigration process was stressful, then the adjustments this week has certainly put a new twist on stress for me. Some of the conversations are about topics I have no experience of: outboard motors, rural lifestyle, fishing and hunting! I feel like I am the fish out of water. The cream on the cake was to discover that one of Gracies shoes she had left on our deck had gone missing. The person managing our log cabin told me “it was probably the raccoons!” Not something we have to deal with in the UK. Although our cabin is very rustic, it is beautiful. It is very peaceful with a great view of the creek where the loyalists first landed in Canada. We have seen blue jays and have had humming birds feeding at our deck! Ben and Grace have been catching the biggest tadpoles and frogs you have ever seen at the lake. Both seem to settling in well!

This week we have set about all the paperwork required on moving to a new country. We have also been buying a home, which is stressful in any country. For quite a while I have been saying to Lyn that I have the feeling that the right house will come up at the right time. The home we are buying is in the community we wanted to live in but couldn’t afford. This house came up the day we arrived in the area this home came up and was just within our price bracket. We were helped with a morgage offer that required 5% less downpayment than the one we already had. We were in a bidding battle with other people, but when we had offered the same, our proposal was accpeted. Presently, the date to move in is set to be 24th July. That is just 3 weeks after landing. Amazing.

Church was good on Sunday. We enjoyed a potluck BBQ lunch with other families, and another family offered for us to come round and do our laundry, and ended up having us for dinner too! I’ve met with the people I hope to be working with and am doing some example work for them so they know what they are getting. I feel that the adjustment from ‘ministry’ is huge for me, so prayers are appreciated – especially that I maximise my creative potential and adjust quickly and professionally to the world of print media. Although stressful, I think it is a really positive thing, and all church pastors should have sometime working outside of the church bubble to help them connect to the the realities of how everyone else lives. It is certainly challenging to see how God fits in to the work, but that is what I’m going to try and find out. Stay tuned!

Tonight we are just finishing our final preparation before we head off for Gatwick airport tomorrow morning.
Please pray:

• For safe travel to the airport tomorrow.
• For a smooth, stress free flight.
• A good appointment with the airport immigration official.
• Safe journey to our 1st night hotel.
• For the kids, especially Ben who is very apprehensive.
• For Lyn, who doesn’t like flying.
• For us all, the we seize the day with confidence and faith.
• A good appointment with the Bank in Saint John on Friday.
• For wisdom as we look at houses on the weekend.

So, not many prayers

We are truely thankful for all your love, prayers, best wishes and support.

God bless,

Jon, Lyn, Ben and Grace

I used to be very afraid of dogs – one day, when Ben was little a large dog jumped over our garden fence. I had to place myself inbetween the dog and the rest of my family. Since then I’ve made an effort to be friendly to dogs when we visit friends who have a dog – I’m not really fraid anymore.

When I visited Quispamsis for the first time I had a very strange experience one night. I can only describe it as an apparition. I decided at a later time that this experience was about reaching out and touching my fears. Now, as I wake on the week when we move to Canada I am set on a headon collision course with my fears. Fears of not being about to support my family. The fear of failure. Even though many people confirm that this step we are taking is of God, that (in my book) doesn’t necessarily equate with success, whatever that is. I’ve often wondered how Abraham felt when God asked him to leave his land and his family – God was asking him to leave all the things he was dependant upon and to become depeandant upon God – did he have complete confidence that God would work everything out? Was he anxious? Nervous?

When we moved to Vancouver in 2000 I had none of these nerves. This time it’s a different story. I have fears, but I am reaching out to touch them.

We heard this week that there is a mortgage that we meet all the conditions for. The downside is that we need to put 35% down, and that leaves us with some serious decisions to make about contingency cash flow. If I earn enough through the web and graphics work then this won’t matter, but there are so many unknowns.

Only 6 days to fly time now and I have to make a conscious effort to trust God, and not to ponder all the things that could go dramatically wrong. Sometimes Faith is about carrying on and not letting your fears, or even real possibilities divert you.

Well the loft is empty now – and that has to be good. Big farewell with Lyn’s family tomorrow – I would appreciate everyones prayers for them as well as for us.

The grim reality of two messy kids bedrooms after beginning to sort out what should stay and what should go. We’ve put the kids into one room so that one room can be a storage center. We’ll see how well they go to sleep tonight :-<
Two weeks and 2 days until the removal men come, and our task seems impossible. The excitement of getting the visa is turning to the realization that we still have a mountain to climb, or a mountain to pack anyway.

We went to the Canadian High Commission today to collect our passports with our visas in them. I was wearing a very cheesy grin, probably due to our joy at the end of this stage of a very long and stressful process.
Now we only have the small matter of flying, landing and discovering what God has for us in Canada.