Presenting... the last 7 months in a nutshell.

Since my last post...

This new little guy (let's call him the Bear) was born on October 31, 2013...

...and has grown into a chubby, smiley 4 month old boy!

We enjoyed this crowded, city view for 4 months...

...and have now exchanged it for a more rustic one.

In January we finally moved in to our little house in the village, tucked away in a remote corner of the world.

We're excited to look back and see how God has led us to this point, and look ahead confidently as we know He goes before us too!  We hope to share some of our adventures in our new home and community with you soon.

So Blessed

I think a normal part of growing up in North America is dreaming that one day you'll own your own home and be able to buy your own appliances, etc. Long ago when our dream of owning a house was forefront in our minds we went to the bank and had a little discussion with a mortgage consultant. He stared at us in disbelief when we gave him the facts. It makes me kind of laugh now to remember it! God really shut that door and He had great timing, as usual.

After the home owner hope dissipated I eventually gave up all those type of dreams and was really content with whatever hand-me-down things we had.

When we moved here to the Philippines I first imagined that apartments here were like apartments you rent back home. All the nice appliances are included, etc. Well, that simply is not the case. Apartments are listed as "partially furnished" if they come with light fixtures. Quite literally there are wires sticking out from our apartment ceiling where we need to wire in a new light socket.

The fun news is this: we got to buy a new stove, fridge and washing machine! I've never owned these things before! I feel like I've made it through a rite of passage or something.

Thank You, Lord for blessing us with simple pleasures like having a brand new fridge. You didn't have to do that.

One Day Left

This is our last day in Canada (for awhile)! Today is shaping up to be a big one. Dennis is loading our luggage into the back of the truck right now, the girls are eating breakfast, and we're planning on making our way down to airport-land in a couple of hours.

It is hard saying goodbye to every thing. Funny how sentimental you can feel about inanimate objects. Silly, really. Anyway, we're freeing ourselves up. It is refeshing.

It is even harder to say goodbye to every one. I am bottling it all up for now- it seems the safest thing, but I'm sure it'll come out on the other side. Watch out poor Dennis and Brenda! And my little kids!

God is preparing us for this. Just this morning I was encouraged by Psalm 68: 34-35.

Ascribe power to God,

whose majesty is over Israel,

and whose power is in the skies.

Awesome is God from his sanctuary;

the God of Israel-

he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.

Blessed be God!

12 Days...

Only 12 days until we leave!

One snowy day last week we prepared our boxes to be shipped to the Philippines. We have a great shipping company available to us who will ship these huge boxes without weight limit from here to our door in the Philippines. Pretty sweet deal.
Squeaky loved being Daddy's helper. Anything with tape and scissors is right up her alley.Winnie is convinced that she is taking a boat to the Philippines. So we let her sit in the top of this box for awhile. We took her out before taping it up. Every time we tell her to get her coat on she says excitedly, "Time a go Pillipines?"I had an injury right before I took this picture. These guys were hauling the heavy boxes up the basement stairs (whose idea was it to pack those down there, anyway?!) and I was trying to help. My foot got caught up under one the heaviest boxes and my ankle was pinned between the box and the sharp edge of the step. WOO, I sure yelped. I took a picture of the damage for posterity but didn't include it in this blog in case it would gross someone out.

Load 'er up!Good bye, stuff. We'll see you on the other side... hopefully.

We're Here

I just thought I'd let everyone know that we arrived in our new home safely on Tuesday night. This is the first time I've been on the internet since we've been here- I think that having only dial-up is both a blessing and an inconvenience! I remember when I thought having any internet at all was amazing. So funny.

Maybe now I'll get through that enormous stack of books I've been wanted to read. Maybe Dennis and I will have time to play games in the evenings again. One thing I do know, I probably won't be loading videos on here very often.

Thank you for praying for us as we moved and as we are getting settled. There are boxes everywhere and the challenge is finding a place for everything!

Next time I'll post a few pictures.

Moving Day

I woke up this morning at 5am- went to bed at 1 am... something doesn't add up right. Today is the big leave day. The girls are happily settled at Coco and Sabrina's place and are hopefully still sleeping as I write this! Thanks guys for taking them- it is a huge help.

Today:

-finish loading truck and van

-scrub this place down

-have breakfast with friends (thanks, Peter and Kathy!!!)

-drive 4 hours; Dennis in the moving truck and me in the van with my eyelids pinned open

-unload on the other end

-stay sane

-remain aware that it is God who provides strength for every step

Moving

We are busily packing boxes and cleaning every surface in our home. What a mess. What a huge amount of stuff we've managed to collect! Why do we do that?!

Our official move date is Tuesday. Tomorrow we will be away all day, so all the final things will have to be done on Monday and Tuesday. We are moving into the basement at Dennis' parents' place. They have generously offered it to us and have put a lot of work into it this spring getting it ready for us. Thank you, Dad and Mom E! We are excited to be able to spend the next few months with you. The girls are especially tickled to have so much time at Grandpa and Gramma's house.

I wanted to show you a few things we've found in the mission barrel recently. We found this little bike for Button. Squeak already has one, so this bike will help Button keep up with her. Squeaky is getting pretty good at riding hers- Button has a ways to go. :)

Dennis found this shirt in the mission barrel last week. He couldn't believe his eyes and there was several moments of collective jubilation after he got home and showed it to me. :) We will miss that old mission barrel (which is really two rooms and more like a freebie store than a barrel, in case you were wondering).

The first year class has been working hard on their Jungle Camp homes for the past two weeks. We've had fun keeping an eye on their progress and remembering what we were doing a year ago. Last night we took one last stroll up there. The homes look good and I thought more than once that I could easily live in one of those for a month again.

This year they are keeping some live chickens. The girls had fun looking at them.


After Tuesday we will be on dial-up. I'm hoping to arrange some way to go to a wireless place every once in a while so I can blog with pictures and not have it take 20 minutes. Until then, I'll probably be posting shorter updates with only one or two pictures (sorry, family).

Only a week and a half to go!

August has arrived, and we are counting down the days until our big move. There are boxes everywhere and we are trying to get rid of many of our things. The girls busily unpack everything we pack. :) Right now we plan to pack the moving van on the 21st and move on the 22nd.

Right now we are thankful and praising God that I (Valerie) got in to see the neurologist today! He was booking for October but slid me in when there was a cancellation. He thinks the dizziness and other symptoms are related to stress. So please continue to pray as it doesn't look like life will get any less stressful in the next month or so. :)