Hey everyone! We have arrived safely in Singapore! It is so nice to see my brother and sister again. Little Mikaela is so big! She walks and says baby things and smiles and laughs all the time! It took her less than a minute to warm up to us. She is a sweetheart.
Today we played with her all morning, then walked to the Takashimaya mega mall, which is exactly what the Bishop would call 'ze worlled' (his way of saying 'the world', which he calls all the wordly pleasures). It's the first time since we left Canada that we've seen a mall, so we were a little overwhelmed, especially since Singapore is an expensive place, where stores like Hugo Boss abound. The Bishop always makes fun of us by saying that 'we love ze world'......and man is he right!!! We both wanted to buy all these sweet new clothes, even though we would be unable to wear them until we got back to Canada. We had to slam on the brakes and agree to not buy anything on day one, and just to have a looky, and we gave each other a budget so as to not go crazy. Sadly, the iphone is more than that budget. I did see, however, on the Emirates flight to Dubai, something called Power2Go by Philips, which is a little device that stores up to 60 hours of charge for a laptop or any other mobile device. This would be sweet for mission work, as we do not always have electricity, and I need to charge my iPod :)
Oh yeah, Christine is apparently getting wiser, not through any fault of her own. Yes, this came as a shock to me too :) She's been having a bit of tooth pain, so we went to go see the dentist at the mission, and, you guessed it......widsom teeth! Thankfully, God has kept the pain to a minimum and there is space for them to grow out, so no removal of teeth is necessary.
God really took care of us on the flight to Singapore. We didn't book though a travel agent or website because we managed to save a lot of money by booking individual flights directly from the airline's websites. So the first flight was from Nairobi to Mumbai on Emirates airlines - that was sweet. The next flight was from Mumbai to Singapore on Singapore airlines, but the problem was that we had to get our bags in Mumbai and re-check them in onto Singapore airlines. In order to get our bags, we had to go through immigration and get a visa, but India does not issue visas at the airport, but rather expects you to have a visa already. So, we told a man at the help counter our situation, and he said to have a seat and someone will come and help you. We sat for a minute and doubted the man. Then we said a prayer and told God that we trusted in His Holy Name and asked Him to take care of His two children. Just then, a young man approached us and asked us to follow him. He asked us have a seat in this other room, while he went to get our bags from the airplane and check them in for us on the Singapore flight! And if that wasn't enough, he then took our passports and got our boarding passes for us! We sat patiently for an hour and a half, and when he returned, everything was done and we walked to the gate and that was that. We didn't do anything. God did everything. We were really thankful for His help, especially because we were so tired by then and had no idea what to do. What a loving God we have. God, we love you so much and we will stand up for you, defend you, and be witnesses for you where ever we go, just as you do the same for us. Thank you for caring.
JC
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Update - Nov 4
Christine:
Hey guys,
sorry we haven't blogged in a while! we really don't have too much to share these days. Juan is unfortunately sick again but it's nothing serious, it's just a stomach flu. The interesting thing is our friends Mikey, Mina, Sherry and Sherine are also sick. How did they get it you ask? well ALLEDGEDLY, I cooked my famous fish on Saturday night and ALLEDGEDLY, that fish may have been bad and ALLEDGEDLY, I single-handedly took out half the missionary team...ALLEDGEDLY!!!!! ok, but serisouly I'm not sure if my fish had anything to do with all of them getting sick all at once but I do feel pretty bad. Juan is feeling better today than he was yesterday though so don't worry about us.
Otherwise things are going well here. Still going on visitations during the week and we're starting to make friends at the houses we visit. Some of them even starting coming to church on Sunday. It's encouraging to see!
We have some vacation booked for later on this month which we're very excited about! Tomorrow, we will be going to Mombasa which is a little tourist-y city on the coast of Kenya. All-inclusive BABYYY!!! Then we come back on November 10th and a week late on November 17th, we're flying to Singapore to visit Carm, Jeju and Mikaela. We can't wait to see you guys again!
Juan:
Do you guys remember the blog about me in Congo? Well Congo was a spiritually "high" experience for me, and the Bishop warned me that after a spiritually high experience, the devil comes at you hard and you may experience spiritual low. Well it happened to me, and it was aweful. For almost a month, I could not feel God's prescence. Despite all efforts (praying, quiet time, fasting, reading my Bible), I couldn't get out of the spiritual drought. I felt like a walking dead person, a zombie, just surviving day by day. I remember that my buddy Rick Warren wrote in his book 'The Purpose Driven Life', that no matter how much you feel or don't feel God's prescence, it will never change the fact the He accepted to be beaten and whipped and NAILED to a cross and die. That is what kept me going. That is why I kept praying and reading my Bible. About a week ago, God delivered me from my drought. It happened as I took communion and it was AWESOME! I was so relieved to know that it was over. God and I are back on track baby!
Christine lost her bag a couple of weeks ago. She was really bummed because in it were her Bible, some confidential mission stuff, and most importantly, a picture of me. Mostly though, she was upset about losing her Bible because it had all of her personal notes in it. It was lost for a few days, and here in Kenya, if you don't keep and eye on your stuff, it might just find it's way into someone else's hands. So this one day we had a liturgy and I prayed to St. George (who is well known for finding lost things) and Christine prayed to Baba Kyrollos to please go find her bag and bring it back. And wouldn't you know it....after that liturgy, she went upstairs to the Bishop's room and there it was, nicely propped up, sitting on a chair. She was so happy! Thank you St. George and Baba Kyrollos.
The missionary team prays often for the God to take the devil away from this place. It is a guarantee that where ever Jesus is at work, so is the devil. Well, the devil has gotten a bit creative. We received a letter from Revenue Canada stating that our last tax return has been re-examined and we owe them $7000. If that weren't enough, apparently our credit rating has been red-flagged (whatever that means). Christine and I got worried last night, but realized that it's just the devil trying to take away our peace. So immediately we prayed and asked God to take care of the situation for us, to bless my dad (who is helping us out), to bless the government people dealing with it, and to maintain our peace. On a personal note, money and credit ratings and whatever are not as important as they used to be. We both woke up this morning at peace, thanks to our Father.
I learned a really good lesson last weekend. After Sunday liturgy, the servants get together and talk about all the services. We had a problem that morning. Our Church (and our hospital) caters to the poor, so since our members do not have money to take the bus, we have our own bus that picks them up and takes them home. That morning, we had to take 215 people home, but the bus only holds about 200 (and it is PACKED). So we discussed it at the servant's meeting. We brainstormed about how to solve the problem. Each threw out an idea. We discussed it for almost half an hour and didn't come up with a good solution in the end. After the meeting, Christine and I went home and I realized something that made me feel sad and ashamed: At the beginning of the servants meeting, we prayed and asked God to please be with us in the meeting, but NOT ONE OF US asked Him for help with the 'bus problem'! God comes to the meeting, sits among us, and then we forget about Him for the rest of the meeting!!! I think that what we should have done is say to God, "God, we have 215 members that need a ride, but our bus only holds 200, please take care of it." I also think that if we had the faith of a mustard seed, we would have turned to Him first. In retrospect, I am glad to have learned that lesson. I believe God wants us to turn to Him first, and I'm making a huge effort to do so, both with little things and big things.
Juan & Christine:
MCDN, we love you!!! This is your official pity shout-out! :) Don't forget about the mission website!
Thanks to Bossa and Ginger, who rebuked us for not blogging in so long. We know you guys care :)
JC
Hey guys,
sorry we haven't blogged in a while! we really don't have too much to share these days. Juan is unfortunately sick again but it's nothing serious, it's just a stomach flu. The interesting thing is our friends Mikey, Mina, Sherry and Sherine are also sick. How did they get it you ask? well ALLEDGEDLY, I cooked my famous fish on Saturday night and ALLEDGEDLY, that fish may have been bad and ALLEDGEDLY, I single-handedly took out half the missionary team...ALLEDGEDLY!!!!! ok, but serisouly I'm not sure if my fish had anything to do with all of them getting sick all at once but I do feel pretty bad. Juan is feeling better today than he was yesterday though so don't worry about us.
Otherwise things are going well here. Still going on visitations during the week and we're starting to make friends at the houses we visit. Some of them even starting coming to church on Sunday. It's encouraging to see!
We have some vacation booked for later on this month which we're very excited about! Tomorrow, we will be going to Mombasa which is a little tourist-y city on the coast of Kenya. All-inclusive BABYYY!!! Then we come back on November 10th and a week late on November 17th, we're flying to Singapore to visit Carm, Jeju and Mikaela. We can't wait to see you guys again!
Juan:
Do you guys remember the blog about me in Congo? Well Congo was a spiritually "high" experience for me, and the Bishop warned me that after a spiritually high experience, the devil comes at you hard and you may experience spiritual low. Well it happened to me, and it was aweful. For almost a month, I could not feel God's prescence. Despite all efforts (praying, quiet time, fasting, reading my Bible), I couldn't get out of the spiritual drought. I felt like a walking dead person, a zombie, just surviving day by day. I remember that my buddy Rick Warren wrote in his book 'The Purpose Driven Life', that no matter how much you feel or don't feel God's prescence, it will never change the fact the He accepted to be beaten and whipped and NAILED to a cross and die. That is what kept me going. That is why I kept praying and reading my Bible. About a week ago, God delivered me from my drought. It happened as I took communion and it was AWESOME! I was so relieved to know that it was over. God and I are back on track baby!
Christine lost her bag a couple of weeks ago. She was really bummed because in it were her Bible, some confidential mission stuff, and most importantly, a picture of me. Mostly though, she was upset about losing her Bible because it had all of her personal notes in it. It was lost for a few days, and here in Kenya, if you don't keep and eye on your stuff, it might just find it's way into someone else's hands. So this one day we had a liturgy and I prayed to St. George (who is well known for finding lost things) and Christine prayed to Baba Kyrollos to please go find her bag and bring it back. And wouldn't you know it....after that liturgy, she went upstairs to the Bishop's room and there it was, nicely propped up, sitting on a chair. She was so happy! Thank you St. George and Baba Kyrollos.
The missionary team prays often for the God to take the devil away from this place. It is a guarantee that where ever Jesus is at work, so is the devil. Well, the devil has gotten a bit creative. We received a letter from Revenue Canada stating that our last tax return has been re-examined and we owe them $7000. If that weren't enough, apparently our credit rating has been red-flagged (whatever that means). Christine and I got worried last night, but realized that it's just the devil trying to take away our peace. So immediately we prayed and asked God to take care of the situation for us, to bless my dad (who is helping us out), to bless the government people dealing with it, and to maintain our peace. On a personal note, money and credit ratings and whatever are not as important as they used to be. We both woke up this morning at peace, thanks to our Father.
I learned a really good lesson last weekend. After Sunday liturgy, the servants get together and talk about all the services. We had a problem that morning. Our Church (and our hospital) caters to the poor, so since our members do not have money to take the bus, we have our own bus that picks them up and takes them home. That morning, we had to take 215 people home, but the bus only holds about 200 (and it is PACKED). So we discussed it at the servant's meeting. We brainstormed about how to solve the problem. Each threw out an idea. We discussed it for almost half an hour and didn't come up with a good solution in the end. After the meeting, Christine and I went home and I realized something that made me feel sad and ashamed: At the beginning of the servants meeting, we prayed and asked God to please be with us in the meeting, but NOT ONE OF US asked Him for help with the 'bus problem'! God comes to the meeting, sits among us, and then we forget about Him for the rest of the meeting!!! I think that what we should have done is say to God, "God, we have 215 members that need a ride, but our bus only holds 200, please take care of it." I also think that if we had the faith of a mustard seed, we would have turned to Him first. In retrospect, I am glad to have learned that lesson. I believe God wants us to turn to Him first, and I'm making a huge effort to do so, both with little things and big things.
Juan & Christine:
MCDN, we love you!!! This is your official pity shout-out! :) Don't forget about the mission website!
Thanks to Bossa and Ginger, who rebuked us for not blogging in so long. We know you guys care :)
JC
Friday, October 10, 2008
Our Flat
This is our flat! Click on the image to see the full size. It's pretty sweet as you can see. The kitchen area is behind that counter you see in the middle. On the right side of the kitchen, you'll see our little stove and our propane tank. A little to the right of that is the sink. The door to the right is the bathroom. The next door is our bedroom (you can see our sweet mosquito net), then finally is our spare bedroom for when you come visit!
Pictures!
I've posted pictures of the Community Cleanup on Facebook :)
I've posted pictures of the Baby Elephant Visit on Facebook :)
I've posted pictures of the Market Preaching on Facebook :)
I've posted pictures of the Baby Elephant Visit on Facebook :)
I've posted pictures of the Market Preaching on Facebook :)
Prayer Requests?
A few people have asked us to pray for them. I thought there might be a bunch of people who would like the mission to pray for them. Send us a comment with just your name, or include a bit of detail if you like (eg Please pray for my health - Janet). I will gather all the prayer requests and gather all the missionaries to pray about them.
Can somebody tell Abouna Aghathon to check his stminayouth email? I sent him an email but he has not responded.
We'd like to give a few shout outs:
Carm, Jeju & Mikaela, we can't wait to see you guys! Give Mocushla a big hug and kiss for me on her birthday. I can't believe she's already 1!
Mom and dad, I miss you guys so much. I can't wait to see you again.
Bossa, thank you for diligently reading and commenting on the blog :) You are our biggest fan! And don't worry, Tina was the one taking all the pictures because she was too scared to touch the elephants.
Mamma & Daddy & George, love you guys and miss you so much! mama, don't worry too hard...or else there won't be anytime for you to send the recipes, just kidding :)
Miryam, thank you for reading the blog. I think you're the only one from Church that reads it :) Tell the other youth to get off their seats and read it too! Say hi to the gang. I miss them all a lot.
Manny, it was nice to chat with you the yesterday. I miss you dearly little bro. Please go with Nashi to Spanish mass on Sundays, ok?
Prab & Shawn, we miss you guys so much! Prab, I got your text and I'm sorry for not replying, it's been so busy! We will pray for you and for Taco Del Mar to be successful. Make sure you save us one or two tacos for when we come, I've totally been craving one ever since I got your text :)
Arezou, I haven't heard from you in a while! send me an email about you-know-what, you-know-when at the you-know-where (j/k) But seriously, I miss you so much, keep us updated!!
Laura Fam, if you're reading this, keep us updated on your plans and if you're coming! We're are all very excited here!
Tia, if you're reading this, please let Alicia know that we've distributed the stickers and kids stuff she gave us and they love here! It really makes them happy to play with things like that because some of them have never had or seen them before. Thank you!! We also love you and miss you and Jim and Abuela and Alex a lot, please pass on the message to them.
Winn & Ginger, thank you for all the help with the banking stuff. You guys rock! I love you and miss you and can't wait to see you guys again. Say hi to Vinny and Geoff and his family.
My TCPL boys, let me know what's new! How is that dang SCADA system? Say hi to Brian for me, he probably never reads this blog, that little whippersnapper :)
Juan & Christine
Can somebody tell Abouna Aghathon to check his stminayouth email? I sent him an email but he has not responded.
We'd like to give a few shout outs:
Carm, Jeju & Mikaela, we can't wait to see you guys! Give Mocushla a big hug and kiss for me on her birthday. I can't believe she's already 1!
Mom and dad, I miss you guys so much. I can't wait to see you again.
Bossa, thank you for diligently reading and commenting on the blog :) You are our biggest fan! And don't worry, Tina was the one taking all the pictures because she was too scared to touch the elephants.
Mamma & Daddy & George, love you guys and miss you so much! mama, don't worry too hard...or else there won't be anytime for you to send the recipes, just kidding :)
Miryam, thank you for reading the blog. I think you're the only one from Church that reads it :) Tell the other youth to get off their seats and read it too! Say hi to the gang. I miss them all a lot.
Manny, it was nice to chat with you the yesterday. I miss you dearly little bro. Please go with Nashi to Spanish mass on Sundays, ok?
Prab & Shawn, we miss you guys so much! Prab, I got your text and I'm sorry for not replying, it's been so busy! We will pray for you and for Taco Del Mar to be successful. Make sure you save us one or two tacos for when we come, I've totally been craving one ever since I got your text :)
Arezou, I haven't heard from you in a while! send me an email about you-know-what, you-know-when at the you-know-where (j/k) But seriously, I miss you so much, keep us updated!!
Laura Fam, if you're reading this, keep us updated on your plans and if you're coming! We're are all very excited here!
Tia, if you're reading this, please let Alicia know that we've distributed the stickers and kids stuff she gave us and they love here! It really makes them happy to play with things like that because some of them have never had or seen them before. Thank you!! We also love you and miss you and Jim and Abuela and Alex a lot, please pass on the message to them.
Winn & Ginger, thank you for all the help with the banking stuff. You guys rock! I love you and miss you and can't wait to see you guys again. Say hi to Vinny and Geoff and his family.
My TCPL boys, let me know what's new! How is that dang SCADA system? Say hi to Brian for me, he probably never reads this blog, that little whippersnapper :)
Juan & Christine
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