We went to Edmonton for Sam Ministries AGM and annual banquet. More people than usual reserved a place at the table so we had to move into the main sanctuary of the Richfield church. We owe a debt of gratitude to the church and our Sam Ministries team who worked so hard to put it all together. It was a wonderful time of getting caught up on what is happening in both in Brazil and Mozambique. We spent the next few days in strategic planning meetings with our board of directors and it was certainly time well spent. Dwight just keeps us all on our toes, and moving ahead.
We are so proud of Russell and Amanda, they both graduated with distinction from their studies at the U of A. God has surely blessed us with highly intelligent, good looking and well-adjusted grandchildren. Had we known how much fun they would be we would have had them first. Both children and grandchildren truly are a gift from God.
It’s been too rainy to do much in our yard, but we won’t complain because the rain is so welcome after the mildest, snow-less winter we’ve ever seen in Salmon Arm.
We were saddened at the loss of our niece Nichole. Nichole was my brother Gerry & Trudy’s adopted child. They had her since she was 9 days old, and they discovered she was HIV Positive when she was just over a year old. They fostered her for the first 12 years and then adopted her. She’s been a very sick girl all of her life and had taken every imaginable medication that made her life absolutely terrible. Nichole lived the longest for any HIV Positive child in British Columbia, which was remarkable even to the doctors. We celebrated her life in a memorial service yesterday in Penticton, and the church was packed. Surely, Gerry & Trudy’s reward will come from God. They loved her unconditionally through all of her moods, depressions, and painful times.
We plan to travel to some of our supporting churches this fall and look forward to seeing pastors and friends and sharing with them about the opportunities God is giving us, and the advances being made at the mission in Brazil. A young pastor and his wife (Doug & Trudy Gordon from Morinville) are paying a visit to Brazil in July and will be spending a few days at the mission. We are excited for them, and ourselves … one never knows what God is putting together, but we do know His plans are for us are for good and not for evil. Serving God is so rewarding.
