Calling

Lyn and I lived in Vancouver on the west coast of Canada from 2000 – 2001 where we worked for two Vineyard churches. Whilst we were there Grace was born! When we left there was a sense of ‘unfinished business’ whilst believing that it was right for us to move back to the UK at that time. We then moved to and worked in Bournemouth.

From about 2004 Lyn began to have Canada on her heart again and together we began to pray about the future. Whilst on holiday we set aside a day to pray. We drove to a lakeside, parked, prayed and waited on God. Lyn reached down for her purse, and on the floor she discovered a Canadian coin! We have no idea how it got there. It was the first sign that perhaps God wanted us to return to Canada.

In Autumn 2005, the sense of calling began to be felt keenly by both of us. One Monday morning whilst in a church leadership meeting, I had a strong feeling that I should go and look up the east coast of Canada on the internet. I’d never even thought about going to the east side of Canada before as all our relational connections were out west. When I got home I turned on the internet, only to see in the internet history that Lyn had been looking up the east coast of Canada that very morning! We hadn’t even discussed it.

We set aside more time to pray. When we were praying one evening, Lyn felt a strong sense that we were to pray for someone called amber. She didn’t know that I had just had a picture of traffic lights. I felt that God was saying ‘get ready.’ That very night a storm blew in (the residue of a North American storm). When I opened the door in the morning there was a red Canadian Maple Leaf on our doorstep! As there were no trees with those shaped leaves in our area I felt like God was saying, “After the storm, Canada will be on your doorstep.”

When we worked in Canada before it had been on a temporary visa, which placed a lot of restrictions on us. If we were to go back, then things would have to be different. As we began to sense that God was indeed calling us back to Canada we took the step of initiating an application for permanent residency (emigration) to Canada.

On Lyn’s 31st birthday we were having a coffee in Bournemouth and she sensed God told her he was going to give her a rainbow to remind her of His promise to her about Canada. (Jeremiah 32: 37-41) It was a bright sunny day, but there were two rainbows, at separate times, later that day! At this point I felt it was right to make contact with people in Canada. One of my mentors who lived in Western Canada gave me a list of contacts that might open up some doors in the East.

Contact

I sent a very raw and honest email to 3 pastors and 1 professor! One of the pastors replied within 15 minutes. His name is David Hayward, and through correspondence we seemed to have a very similar view of church, and to be on a similar journey. He was based near Saint John in New Brunswick. I was very anxious to check this man out to see what I could find out and so did a little search on the internet. I discovered that he was an artist as well as a pastor. I was blown away visiting his website to discover some paintings he had done that were almost identical to some photos I had taken just that week.

During our discussions I sent him an audio meditation I had produced, using one of the 5000 loops on my computer. Within 10 minutes he sent me something he had recently produced using the very same loop! Some coincidences one can overlook, but when things begin to stack up, I begin to wonder if God is involved and speaking in some way.

I arranged a visit, and had a wonderful week with his family and church in March 2006. We began believe that God was putting us together.

Confirmation

On returning to the UK I had a strong sense that Easter would be a significant time of change for us. On Easter Sunday afternoon I was tidying up some videos, and I picked up a video ‘Far and Away’ which I had borrowed from my parents; it had been released about fourteen years previously. Lyn had not seen it. The film is about pioneering and I immediately recalled a picture a pastor friend had recently had of me standing in the middle of a vast plane as a pioneer. I thought “I need to watch this again soon.” I didn’t say anything to Lyn. 15 minutes later, as she was ironing she said “God has just spoken to me. He said four words : Go claim your land.” He also gave her a picture of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman standing in a field planting a stake in the ground. This is the last scene of that movie; that Lyn hadn’t seen.

Believing this was significant, I emailed David Hayward that evening saying “God spoke to Lyn today saying ‘go claim your land.’ can you pray into it.” I didn’t mention the movie. In the morning he had replied:

Go claim your land. What I hear in that? What I hear is that God is giving you a choice. It isn’t a “must do or die!” thing, but a wonderful choice set before you. I see options. Blessing. You are free to go. Funny: Casile and I just watched “Far and Away”, an old movie about a young man who leaves Ireland to claim land in America when it was being given away. Plenty of obstacles and persecution along the way, but he pressed into his destiny. He didn’t have to. Neither do you. But it awaits you. It’s already yours. All you have to do is: 1. “go”; and 2. “claim”.

This was amazing. He had seen the same 14 yr old film on the same day. We were hearing the word GO from God loud and clear. However, Canada wouldn’t let us in until our visa came through. In the film, they set out on a journey, and don’t reach their destiny until the end of the film. All we could do to ‘GO’ was sell our house and set out.

Setting Out

It was around about this time that David Hague, an old friend and vicar in Stevenage (Hertfordshire, UK) first spoke to us about coming to help at his church whilst we waited to hear about Canada. Finally, God confirmed this was a correct step to take. We weren’t sure how long we would be in Stevenage as we thought Canada would somehow happen quickly.

Things did not go as quickly as we expected. However, some very important things happen whilst were in Stevenage. Firstly, when we moved, our son Benjamin was referred to a paediatrician in our town. She was wonderful, and we found there to be renewed determination to help us understand some of his emotional and perceived learning difficulties. Benjamin was particularly struggling with the social environment at his school, and this was making our home life difficult. We had long pondered taking the step of home educating our children. We finally took the plunge. Around about that time Benjamin was diagnosed as being on the Autistic Spectrum, and was later diagnosed specifically as having Aspergers syndrome. This helped us develop strategies to help him manage his emotions and behaviour. Our home life was transformed and Benjamin began to excel in his schoolwork at home.

The church and people in Stevenage wee very supportive and wonderful, however we struggled in the sense that our hearts and minds were very much set on being in Canada.

In January 2008, with no sign of our case progressing we decided to book a visit to Saint John for a holiday and to have an opportunity for the whole family to see the area and meet the community from Rothesay Vineyard. The week after we booked the holiday we received a request from Canadian Immigration for us to update our information. It seemed as if we would get our visa before the end of the year. The holiday was a great opportunity to prepare for our move.

Before we went we met with some of the intercessors from our church. One of them had a picture come to mind of Lyn sitting in a rocking chair, looking out of the window. They also had a sense that we wouldn’t have to search too hard and that God would reveal His plan. When we arrived at our vacation rental home, we walked into the living room to see a rocking chair by the window looking out over the ocean! One of the opportunities that came up whilst we were there was with a company who were prepared to contract out their web design and some of their graphics work to me. This would provide a source of income if I was not employed in church based ministry.

Prior to our visit, I had been praying with our prayer coordinator about pursuing graphic and web design. When she got home from praying with me, she found a leaflet through her door saying “Canada, Jump 2 it, amazing spring offer!!” It seemed that this was the path that God was leading us in, although I see this as an opportunity to minister among people in the community rather than just in church.

Around about the same time we heard that a family, who we were close friends in Vancouver, was moving to the exact same community that summer. Things were getting exciting, and I began to prepare my church in Stevenage for our family to move on. We returned home from our holiday to find out that our medical requests had been issued by Immigration. This meant that they had accepted our application, and if we passed our medical we could move to Canada within a couple of months.

Delays & Doubt

We discovered just prior to our medicals that Benjamin’s autistic spectrum diagnosis could be a major complication. We were blessed in that the doctor who did our medicals had a son with similar special needs, and was very encouraging about the information we had provided for Immigration. Despite this, at the end of July, when we were expecting the green light to go, we instead had a request for extra information and costly psychological testing for Benjamin. This was particularly distressing, as we wanted to avoid any association for him to the visa decision.

This was a very stressful time. We were able to get Ben tested by an educational psychologist within the required time frame, but it was in two evening sessions between 7pm and 10pm at a house two hours drive from our home, with someone Benjamin didn’t know. These were seemingly not the best conditions for Benjamin as children with Aspergers often find new situations difficult to cope with – and the evening is not the best time to test anything in a 9-year-old boy. The testing was helpful as it confirmed Benjamin’s Aspergers, and his scores showed an average IQ. Whilst he was being tested, Lyn and I had to sit in a summerhouse that was surrounded by trees at the end of the garden. From it we could see the smallest piece of sky directly over the Ed. Psychologists house. We prayed, and we prayed. At the end of the prayer we looked up and saw a massive rainbow in that small piece of sky over the house Ben was being tested in. Was this a sign to us of God’s faithfulness to his word to us about Canada?

The reports were back with immigration in the September. We chased immigration at the beginning of November only to discover that they had mislaid the paperwork. On discovery they told us to standby for further instructions. Then … nothing. Finally we heard in March 2009 that we should hear by the end of month. When the news came during Easter week it was did not seem good. We were blessed by the help of a Canadian MP’s assistant who let us know that Immigration were concerned that Benjamin would ‘cost to much’ if we could not continue to home educate for any reason. This seemed like the end of the road. We had an opportunity to put forward a plan to alleviate their concerns, but there was no indication what they were looking for in such a plan.

Final Push

We worked hard to submit a comprehensive plan, and many joined with us in prayer, both in Canada and in the UK. We were told that our medicals expired on the 3rd June, and that if our plan were accepted we would have to repeat them, otherwise we would be rejected. In prayer Lyn and I both laid Canada down again. I was taking on greater leadership responsibility at church as our vicar had left to move to a new church, and we thought that God must want us in Stevenage to help with the transition. In human terms we were not very confident, but prayed that God’s will, whatever it was, would be done.

We had been informed that Immigration would begin to process our case again on the 4th June. We emailed friends and asked them to pray one more time. Specifically we asked that God’s will would be done, that He would show the visa officer His will, that there would be truth and justice and for blessing for our visa officer. That morning there was a short service at church where the congregation prayed for this once again. When we got home we discovered a phone message from our visa officer saying that they had accepted our plan, and that we would not have to repeat our medical IF we could land within 45 days! Praise God! We jumped at the opportunity as several people had said to us that they had felt than when ‘it’ happened, it would be quick. The next morning we booked our flights to land in Canada on the 2nd July, which is the day after Canada day. It will be a special long weekend for us in future years. We picked up our passports with their visas inside on Friday 12th June.

We could never have made it to this point without the support, constant prayer and encouragement of so many friends and family, as well as people in our churches whose hearts were turned towards us whilst we were in this journey. If you are one of those people – thankyou. Deuteronomy 8