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| whoa, wait a minute!!! It's been almost 7 months since I've updated everyone! How sad for you! (and for me, mostly. Tells you where my priorities are :) Someone emailed me today to say that they were checking out my blog and I realized it had been a little while since I wrote, but I didn't realize how long! Yikes!
Well, to make a very long story very short, we have resigned as missionaries as of August 31. We had a huge falling out with the missionary and felt it best to leave. It seemed as though God was closing the door for missions for us, so we decided to move back home and look for work. Ministry positions weren't working out, so we are looking for secular jobs right now. It's a competitive market out here and jobs are a premium. Get your resume out now! It's tough out there. We would like to start a church in the area in the next couple of years so we feel that this time will be a learning and growing process for us.
Our daughter was born on May 25 of this year, 5 days after we returned to the States. She's growing like a weed and is so beautiful! We just love her to death and her big brother loves her just as much, if not more! She loves to watch him sing and play and is learning right alongside him. I'll be interested to see how much like him she is!
That's basically the long and the short of it. There's not much else going on right now! We have let all of our churches know about our decision to resign and they've been very supportive. Though the financial end of the support will be running out soon, so please pray for jobs! God always likes to work at the last minute **sigh**
Everything else is pretty much status quo. Just getting through the days, looking for work, playing with the kids, and enjoying the cooler weather. I'm excited for fall! Apples and pumpkins and pretty leaves. Nolan's birthday is in October and he'll be 3! I can't believe how big he's getting and how smart also. He's awesome.
I hope everyone's having a great day. I'll update sooner next time :)
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| as to how we are doing! Wow, time flies when you're busy busy busy and having fun, sort of :). Things here are crazy hectic with church and personal stuff, but good. We moved our church meeting location to a new school just recently and that's going great. It's better exposure and in a more family-friendly neighborhood. We're growing; just this past Sunday we had a family visit and the woman teaches at the school we meet in! It's very exciting. We're starting a new campaign in a few weeks called Guess Who? (www.guesswhooshawa.com). It's a spoof off the child's game and we'll be looking at some attributes of God. We had postcards and business cards made up, and it's because of one of those that this family came on Sunday. It's exciting!
I can't remember what I said last time, so I might say it again. I have started a ladies ministry here at church. We call it girlfriends; non-threatening, non-churchy. It's going well. We are currently reading a book called "Hadassah, One Night with the King." It's a story about Queen Esther, and it's actually quite factual. We'll be discussing it next month at a Maple Season Breakfast that I'll be holding here at my house and we'll be starting Secret Prayer Sisters as well. We'll be holding a wedding shower for one of our ladies in April, May is Mother/Daughter Day out, June is a tour of 11 historical bed and breakfasts in one of our towns, August is our retreat, etc. We're busy, and it's a lot of work planning them! I had no idea how much work it would be to plan all these events, but we want our Girlfriends ministry to be more than just events. We want to reach out to our unsaved friends, grow closer together and pray for one another. I'm looking forward to see where God will take this ministry.
I'm now also the coordinator of the Nursery. We've made a few changes to our Kids Ministry, which we now call ABCKids, and it's great, but we're in desperate need of workers. Please pray! Our biggest change that we made is implementing a new curriculum. It sounds great and is very user friendly. For the nursery and preschool it's called My First Look (www.myfirstlook.org) and for the elementary ages it's called 252 Basics (www.252basics.org). They both sound promising and we're looking forward to using them.
As far as personal stuff, well I probably told you that we're expecting baby #2 in May. That's exciting for us. The pregnancy is going very well and we're looking forward to meeting him or her! I'm currently working on painting Nolan's room as the kids will share a room and it will be a jungle theme. It's lots of fun, but also lots of work! I"m looking forward to the day when it's finished and I can admire it!
Nolan is doing great. He's every bit 2, but without a lot of the tantrums so far. He loves to pray and to sing and play with cars (specifically from the movie, Cars). He loves church and is starting to know everyone's names and who goes with whom. (eg Paula is Caleb's mommy, etc).
We're going to be very busy the next month. Next week is a missions conference at our sending church, the week after that is Nathan's mom's wedding and 2 more churches to present in, the week after that is our ladies event and a church in MA, 3 weeks after that is a conference in Worcester, MA, the week after that is a wedding shower that our ministry is planning for one of our ladies, 2 weeks after that is our Mother/Daughter day out and 2 weeks after that the baby is due. It goes so quickly when you talk about it that way! But in between there's so much to do, so please pray for us; for Nathan and his work at the church that he can effectively minister to families in our church through events and our children's ministry, for Nolan that he will grow up knowing Jesus and that we will have wisdom in raising him, and for me as I balance all of this!
Thanks for your prayers!
Melissa | | |
| Hi and Happy New Year!
Things here are going great. Our ministry is going well and we have some great plans for 2007. We're changing meeting places starting next Sunday and we're very excited about the opportunities that will present to us. Ladies Ministry is also going well and we'll start a book reading once the books come in. I think I have decided to name it "girlfriends" as it's unthreatening and just all around fun.
We had a new lady saved just before Christmas. I think I may have told you about her. She's been coming for a couple of months and finally it all just clicked with her! We're excited for her and I think her husband is also going to start coming to church too. He has had to work on Sundays but said he would change his schedule so that he could come to church on Sundays. Who does that? Obviously the Spirit has been working on this family for some time. It's so much fun to watch!
Our family is doing well. Nathan and I have made a New Year's Resolution to go out together more and to be more spontaneous as a family, so we started on that this week. Nolan has never had a formal 'babysitter', and neither did I growing up, but we would like for him to have one so we can go out as a couple more. More and more I hear people in the ministry talk about that, and I believe it to be true. A wise missionary wife told me once to make some time for marriage and family and let your kids know that they come before your ministry. I have never forgotten that, and am grateful that she let me in on that secret.
We had a great Christmas with my family being here. Nolan had a lot of fun with his aunts and grandparents. Nathan's parents are supposed to come out here sometime soon as well, as is his mom (his parents are his dad and stepmom, just to clarify). We're looking forward to that, as they haven't seen our home yet here in Toronto.
I hope you're having a Happy New Year so far! God Bless!
Melissa | | |
| Again, embarassing. I'm averaging a month between blogs! How sad! I was hoping for one a week, but I guess some is better than none!
Some exciting things are happening here and in our ministry. We just wrapped up our first homegroup session and it went pretty well. We ended with a 'dinner party' and tonight we brought things to fill baskets for the Fire Stations here in our town (city, really). We were able to get to know some of the people better and really connect with them.
Church is going great. We have had one lady visiting for a while now and she and her son have so many questions. They came to our homegroup party last week and seemed to have a good time. It's just a matter of time, I think, that they'll both be saved and I'm looking forward to that.
My ladies ministries here at church are going well also. We had a Christmas Brunch Gathering here at my house on Saturday and it was so much fun. We didn't have any visitors come, but it was nice to get together with ladies from church and just have some food and Christmas fun. We'll be reading "Hadassah, One Night with the King" together next year and everyone seems to be looking forward to that.
Nathan is hoping to start up a college ministry in the new year and there's a possibility that a spot at a new retail center going up right across from Durham College (5 minutes from our house) could be rented to us for a coffee house ministry and we may also have someone to underwrite it! Nathan is really excited about that and we will be praying for God's direction in that.
We're hoping to have a great Christmas here. We had a great Thanksgiving with Nathan's family and my family will be coming here for Christmas this year. We're excited about that. I finished my shopping yesterday and I feel so good about that. It's all wrapped and everything...I'm so on top of things!!! (not really, I'm usually done by now).
We find out on January 4 what the baby is and we're so excited. Everyone here is wondering why we're finding out, but I'm such a planner and stuff that I just have to know! It's more of a surprise to me; it would be torture otherwise. Everything seems to be going well there also. Thanks for praying!
Well, that's about it for Affinity news. We have a new website...www.affinitycares.ca. We're hoping for great things this coming year!
Have a great week!
Melissa | | |
| Wow, this is embarassing. What, it's been a month since I've updated everyone? Sorry about that! Life happens...
Things here are going well. We have told everyone at church and now we can officially tell you that we're expecting our second child next spring. We're very excited and hoping for a girl this time. Nolan is convinced it's a girl cause the only name he can say understandably is Abby. So that's it I guess!
Church is great. We just finished a series called "Building for Life" and today was the last of the series. It was the beginning of our building campaign and it worked much like a Faith Promise Sunday would work. These commitment cards were handed out at the beginning of the series and we were to pray about an amount God would have us to give over the next year toward a building. Today the commitments were taken and from 18 cards that were received, $38,000 was committed! We're so excited about that and Praise the Lord for a great miracle. Now if it will only come in....
We've already started decorating for Christmas. Nathan is having a competition with our neighbor about whose house can be better lit up outside and we've had our lights up for a couple of weeks now! We'll probably be decorating some more this week. It's funny here because there is no holiday between Halloween and Christmas they start celebrating Christmas right after Halloween! It's actually really fun and gives you more time to enjoy the Christmas spirit. We love it.
Speaking of Christmas my parents and sisters are coming up for it this year. That should be lots of fun. We also have no place to meet for Christmas Eve church service either because the school is closed, so we're considering renting a movie theater because there's a Christian Christmas movie (how ironic is it that I have to specify a Christian Christmas movie...) coming out that Jarret would like our church to see. It's something we're praying about.
One last thing then I'll let you stop reading. I have started a ladies ministry here at church. Friday night was our first event and it was a gathering (a "Girls Night" if you will) at one of our ladies homes. It was SO much fun. I was a little nervous about it, but it went really well. We did all kinds of girly things and watched a movie and everyone seemed to have a good time. Next month the obvious theme is Christmas and it will be here at my house. I'm so excited about it! If anyone has any ideas...you know where to send them :)
Well, I'll let you get back to your lives. Thanks for reading. Have a Happy Thanksgiving! (cause I'm sure I won't write before then...) We'll be at my in-laws for Thanksgiving and we're looking forward to a good time.
Melissa | | |
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