Winter did come in fast, first it was so hot and then almost without warning we were rustling to get our tomatoes off the vines and our plants cut back for the winter. We had a FCA conference at the Richfield in Edmonton in mid Oct. so we decided to leave early and visit several places while we were in the area. But it was so cold we decided to do some winter preparations, all the summer clothes went out and the winter clothes came in … to the closets that is. The yard got a quick once over and we had to be sure our car was ready for the cold weather in Alberta. Once it starts snowing in our area it’s quite unforgiving. We spend the best part of winter shovelling our way out of the driveway!
We visited Living Faith Bible College first and had a great time of sharing with the student body. Our good friend Paul Reich is back as president again and we had such a good time catching up on things. From there we drove to Camorse and spent the night with my sister Dorothy Litke, so we could make it to our next stop at Hardisty, where we spoke to the Messianic Congregation. Then we wound our way up to Westrose where we spoke in the morning service (one of our favourite places to visit.) We spent the next three days at the conference in Edmonton. What a good conference it was, with excellent speakers!
We got home in time to receive a quest for two days, wash and iron our clothes, and re-pack to go up to Ft. McMurray. We just couldn’t face driving four days to attend a three-day mission conference, so we decided to fly to Edmonton and catch a ride to McMurray with our good friend Carole Argo. We had a great time and were treated like reality, of course just lapped it up! The McMurray Gospel Assembly has been a staunch supporter of our ministry in Brazil for years, and going there is somewhat like coming home. To our surprise we met some long time friends we didn’t even know had moved there. One was a childhood friend Les Gill, and his wife Staci, that are very involved in the church there. We also saw Steve & Wendy Schrappel, formerly of Salmon Arm, that used the attend Living Waters Church, where we attend. We love pastor Glen Forsberg and his wife Lois of the Ft. McMurray Church; our relationship goes back many years. They’re a couple that never seem to age, I think they just get better. We stayed with our good friends Winona & Dawson Windsor, whom we’ve known for a long time. In fact they visited us in Brazil way back when and came laden with goodies from the McMurray church family.
Pastor Glen & Lois Foresberg
Steve & Wendy Schrappel
Les & Stacy Gill, Earl's friend from childhood days
Winona & Dawson Windsor, our hosts and long time friends
It snowed in Ft. McMurray, while we were there, but fortunately the ground was still black when we got home. We are glad to get stuff put away and maybe we can really hunker down for winter now. Earl will be going to Brazil alone next spring. He is looking for someone to accompany him, he doesn’t exactly like to travel alone, but we plan to visit Lynn & Dwight in Mozambique in late summer, and I don’t feel like I can handle two overseas trips in one year. Things are going well in Brazil, our director and staff are launching a new ministry in the rural community of Cacador and plan to set up a smaller version of Mount Horeb out there. Everyone is so excited and there’s lots of activity already going on. Talking about Brazil, while we were in Ft. McMurray a few years back, we met a Brazilian girl, recently married to a Portuguese man, who had just moved up North. It was a delight to see them again, and another member has been added to their family! A lovely talented couple, whose friendship we enjoy.
Elisangela (Brazilian), her husband Rogerio (Portuguese), with their 10 month-old Canadian/Brazilian/Portuguese son :)
