HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We want to wish HAPPY NEW YEAR and GOD’S RICHEST BLESSINGS for 2012! It’s been quite a week here in much rainier Vancouver. It rained almost nonstop for about 6 or 7 days, so today’s partly cloudy skies were a welcome reprieve. With Chara’s parents visiting this week, we did a few things we wouldn’t do on normal weeks, including a trip to Whistler on Monday. I really didn’t want to pay the $106 for a lift ticket and I was also coming down with a cold, but for all who know me well . .  . yes I did get to go skiing at much cheaper Cypress Mountain once I recovered from my cold, which turned about to be a great time! Here are some pics I took at  Whistler for your enjoyment, and we look forward to hitting the ground running ministry-wise as we enter the final few weeks of training! As always, thanks for your continued prayers!!!

Merry Christmas!

Greetings, intercessors! Hopefully you are having a wonderful time this weekend worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ, the only One with the ability to cleanse sin and restore us to the Father! We have just gotten done with a full week of training and ministry here in Vancouver, learning more strategies for evangelism as well as hearing some lectures from the person widely considered to be the father of the modern church planting movement! Believe it or not this week, we have found people not wanting to talk as much as in previous weeks, but one notable encounter was with a very kind senior citizen named Laura. She comes from a Catholic background and had just experienced the tragic death of her husband and niece. She kept saying, “they are in heaven, right?” to which we responded about the glorious hope of all those who trust in Jesus. We shared the Gospel with her, but it may just take some time for it to sink in and make sense to her. Pray for the Holy Spirit to enlighten her mind and heart, as it is exactly for people such as this that Christ was born, died, and rose again! May the rest of your Christmas be blessed and we’ll continue to look for those who need to hear!

Encouraging week!

Intercessors, thank you so much for your continued prayers on our behalf. We have been hitting a little bit of a dry spell lately, attempting to turn conversations to spiritual matters but not really getting much response. Yesterday, we decided to go to Walmart after class to do some shopping, and met A, a 40 something Muslim from Africa on the bus. What an excellent conversation. We were able to share large portions of the gospel with him. He said that he believes in Jesus, but his issue is one of trust. It is important to remember that anyone can "believe" in Jesus, but unless that belief expresses itself in trust, there is no salvation. Pray for A, as we will continue to followup with him. We had the opportunity as well to go snowshoeing at Seymour Mountain this past Saturday, so here are some pictures to get you in the Christmas spirit!

I

Week 7 Recap

Greetings, all! Another great week of spiritual conversations here. As far as training, we had some very good generalized church planting training on Monday and Tuesday, followed by more training on conflicts with colleagues and supervisors on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, we went to a store called Russian World near downtown to look at Matroshka dolls and visit a lady we met at one of the craft fairs we have attended. She lived in Novosibirsk a long time ago. We continue to throw out spiritual "seeds" here and there and see how she responds, but nothing yet. David also went with a team down to Hastings Street, which is where the homeless and drug addicted hang out. He and the team engaged several people with the gospel. Here is a list of a couple of other good conversations we had:

M -- from Africa, met on sky train, was reading a religious book and is a Christian. Invited her to plug into the small group we attend.
I -- Russian World owner (see above).
A -- college student from India, we talked to her a little about Christmas, and she has just started celebrating Christmas. Is interested in possibly learning more about Christ once she is on 2 week Christmas break.

Thanks for all the prayers!