It was an outdoor wedding and blazing hot, but thankfully we were in a mostly shaded area, so no one fainted or anything!

After the rehearsal going smoothly the morning before, I wasn’t concerned at how the wedding would go. Lorelei had only met my cousin once before when she was a baby, so she didn’t remember her at all! Lorelei was happy to go with her and with the little ring bearer whom she hadn’t met before either! As Lorelei and the little boy walked across the grass, they started wandering off to the side in their own little world. We had to call them to walk down the actual aisle. I guess they were a little confused because there had been no chairs at the rehearsal and they COULD just wander wherever. Oh well, they did their job…they were cute!

We had a lot of fun leading up to the wedding as well because most of our clan all stayed at the same college residence, so we were able to meals together and spend time together. The girls especially enjoyed one particular cousin who came all the way from Switzerland!

The drive home took FOREVER! We left at 10:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until 10:30 at night! There was a LOT of traffic on the 401, so after inching along for awhile, we decided to take back roads. I’m glad we did that because, although it took longer, it was relatively stress-free! So we were beat when we got home, but it was worth it for the good weekend that was had!

Check out more videos from NTM and let me know what you think of them. My co-workers are working on adding French subtitles to a couple of these. Which videos do you want in which languages?

Much of my life is spent doing childcare. Okay, all of my life is childcare, but on Monday and Thursday mornings I spend half the morning looking after other people’s children at New Tribes Mission. I help look after the children of students who are training to be tribal church planters. It’s a fun time for me because I get out of the house and my kids LOVE it. Every morning Lorelei asks if we get to go to childcare and both her and Delna get extremely disappointed if we don’t end up going, usually because of sickness.

It’s a nice set-up — there are three rooms side by side so I have one of my children in each.  I’m normally in with the toddlers, but every-so-often I end up with the babies and last year I was 3 days a week with the pre-schoolers — so I’m fairly comfortable in any of the rooms.  It’s nice for the children too because when they have the same workers fairly consistently, it gives them a sense that all is right in the world.  I really enjoy getting to know the children and their parents through this ministry.  Definitely a highlight of the week!

Also since then, our baby turned one! Myelle had her first birthday on March 30. That same week, only a few days earlier, she decided that she was done with the whole crawling stage. She still will crawl every once in a while, but our little one-year-old walks all over the place. She really likes crawling up and down our stairs too and tries, desperately, to keep up with her older sisters.

She was the typical child as far as cake-eating goes and had it all over her face as the pictures show. What the pictures don’t show is all the neon-pink icing that is smeared into her nice white church stockings! You’d think I’d remember by the third child that I should remove all clothing for the cake event! Thankfully it all came out in the wash!

The next thing on the calendar was Easter. This past weekend we had a four day weekend. Something unusual happened…we didn’t have ANYTHING planned for Friday OR Saturday! We had two days in a row with just our family. Okay, so there was ONE little thing planned –an Easter Egg hunt over at Delena’s school. We took the neighbour girl with us so I stuck with her and Delena while Jason had the two younger girls in a different section. They all came home with a basket of goodies, and, of course, they got to see the ‘Easter Bunny’.

The two days were cold, but sunny days, so we went for a family walk the one afternoon and played in the park and the next afternoon we drove up to Walter’s Falls and walked the trails there. We need that relaxing time as the next two days were filled with people. On Sunday we drove down to Jason’s mom’s place after church. We re-celebrated Delena and Myelle’s birthdays, as well as, a few other family members birthdays. There was LOTS of cake to be had, plus an Easter egg hunt which provided us with plenty of chocolate.

Monday was my family Easter which was turned into a surprise 40^th birthday brunch for one of my cousins. We ended up having close to 30 people and my cousin was completely surprised. What a great way to end the weekend!

This week is Norm’s first week in the office. Norm is my new co-worker. We are sharing an office, so we appreciate your prayers as we settle into what that means.

On the weekend a co-worker in the office let everyone know they are moving on the end of May. They were tribal missionaries in North Asia, then worked in the home office. They were with NTM Canada for some 16 years I think. So they will be leaving a hole.

Tomorrow some co-workers are going to Toronto to invite some Chinese pastors and elders to an NTM informational event on April 24th. I am involved in promoting this event on the 24th. Please pray that I keep balance with all that I am responsible for. Yesterday was a little overwhelming.

Thanks for praying!

This video created by some friends and co-workers of ours gives a fantastic explanation.

On the long weekend in February, after a lot of preparation, Jason, along with co-workers, hosted a Chinese youth group from Toronto. The group arrived late Saturday night and stayed until Sunday after lunch. Everyone had a great time.

Friday night they did some role-playing where they ate some things they didn’t recognize. Then Saturday morning they talked about the importance of communicating clearly across cultures. After a few brave souls went tobogganing Saturday afternoon, everyone spent the evening in a tribal hut around a fire talking with Pete Humphreys, a veteran missionary, about the challenges to planting a church in an isolated tribal group. The Sunday morning, Angie’s brother, Sean, wrapped up the weekend with a challenge out of Habakkuk.

All weekend long, the youth were exposed to NTM and tribal church planting!

Here are a few pictures of the evening:

The caller, aka, me!

One of the ladies shared her testimony.

We, of course, had lots of good food…

And good conversation!

Jason is still up in the air with his health.  He has a Dr.’s appointment on February 17, so please pray that we would get some direction from the doctor. In the meantime, we suspect that Jason has Crohn’s on top of the Celiac Disease, so we’re trying to limit his fibre and his stress.  He’s been doing very well at not opening his laptop at home to do office work and is taking time to read for enjoyment and I think it is helping some.

Delena recently brought home a certificate saying that she knows all her letters – upper and lower case.  The teacher has also started sending home little readers.  It’s so fun to see her recognize words!

Lorelei is at the age of potty-training.  She’s very consistent at telling me when she has to go, but she doesn’t like to tell anyone else if I’m not around, so we’re working on that!

Myelle is SO close to walking!  Just yesterday, she took her first steps!

Here she is on her way down – if you didn’t know better, you might think she knew how to dance already!