Amazing Week....Happy to be Home!

We spent the past 8 days in Vancouver, British Columbia, on mission at Royal Heights Baptist Church. We had an amazing week together. We left last Friday evening out of JFK. I was nervous about flying with Avery for the first time, but she did wonderful. We sat on the runway for almost 2 hours before taking off, and the flight was 6 hours and 22 minutes, so we were on the plane a very long time. We arrived in Seattle at 3:30 am New York time. (3 hours ahead of Canada time). We were all so exhausted. We headed for Canada at 7:30 am on Saturday. It was only about 2 hours to the border. We waited in line at the border for about an hour and a half. It was so beautiful there. All kinds of gorgeous flowers in all colors everywhere. The girls and I got out of the van to take pictures. We arrived at the church in Vancouver at 1:30 pm. Immediately we got our stuff unloaded, toured the facility, and got to work. They were having a wedding reception at 6pm and had asked us to help prepare and serve. There were about 120 guests attending. We prepared the entire meal. Grilled salmon and chicken, baked potatoes, bread, salad, and dessert. By the time everything was cleaned up, it is was midnight. We all crashed hard. We divided the girls and guys into 2 rooms, and we each slept on a twin air mattress that we purchased when we got there. They actually were not too uncomfortable. The more exhausted we were, the more comfortable they became! Sunday morning we attended the worship service and had a great time. Pastor Alan and his wife Wanda, and the missions coordinator, Sheila, took us all out to lunch after church. We can't speak highly enough about them. Sterling and I have known Pastor Alan and Wanda for about 7 years now, because we went on mission in Penticton, where they formerly served, on many different occasions. We love them dearly. We met Sheila for the first time this past week, and she immediately touched our hearts. She is just an amazing woman who loves her Lord, and loves the people of Vancouver. All Sunday afternoon and evening, we prepared for VBS. They had about 84 kids attend VBS. We had a great week with the kids. Sweet, precious, beautiful kids. Emma made 3 really sweet new girl friends. They loved her and she loved them. It will be great when they can see each other again next summer. Luis and Jana headed up the REC team. Jessica headed up Crafts with the help of Fred and Madison. Sterling led the bible study and Lonnie headed up the Free Time station. Hannah worked with Music and Crafts. I did not have a job at first, because mostly everything was covered and I had Avery with me. But the last two days, they had no Guides for the Kindergarten class, so that became my job. It was great, because I had so much fun being in there with Emma. I loved watching her play and have fun with her new friends. She was 1 to 3 heads shorter than the other 3 girls, but I tell you Emma was the ring leader! She is so funny and so sweet with her friends. Monday afternoon was the only day we had to sight see. We were all still experiencing jet lag, but wanted to see as much as we could that afternoon. We walked around and enjoyed the sights. We ended up going to Lookout Tower, where we could see all of Vancouver. It was beautiful. We also saw a Sci-Fi Channel TV show being filmed on the streets. For those of you who remember the movie "LaBamba", we saw the guy who played the brother in that movie. Madison, Emma, and Hannah, were sad when they found out that they missed seeing Zac Effron, who had been there the previous day, shooting his new movie. The rest of the afternoons and evenings, we spent working non stop. Luis and I painted the Nursery, while the rest of the crew cleaned out the entire back end of their building. The church is huge. It has never ending rooms and hiding places. It reminded us a lot of Farmingdale Baptist Church but on a much larger scale. A whole lot of junk stored that needed to be thrown out, yet for some was very hard to part with. We understood how that felt for people after going through that at Crossroads. It is hard to part with things...it just is. But they made the choice to allow us to clean it out and help them with it while we were there. Sterling and Fred ended up taking 1 whole TON to the dump. Amazing. Lonnie cleaned all the outside windows of the church, even the ones on the roof. We were all so very tired by Thursday afternoon, but it was worth every minute! We were truly blessed. The people were such a blessing and so appreciative of all God allowed us to get done. Pastor Alan hopes to have 400 kids there next year. They did not even advertise this year, because they did not think they were going to be able to even have VBS.....so I believe they will meet their goal. We look forward to serving with them again next summer. We also look forward to them sending a group to Crossroads to help serve with us here in New York. We left Thursday evening to head back to Seattle. I can not tell you how excited we were to cross the border! It was nice to be back in America and to know we were that much closer to home. There was mechanical difficulty with the plane on Friday, so our flight was delayed 4 hours. We did not get home until 1am Saturday (today)! So needless to say, we are still exhausted and still feel like we are on Canadian time! It will take some time to get Avery back on New York time. She was happy and wide awake at 2:30 this morning. Anyway, we had a wonderful time together as a family and we had an amazing time with our Crossroads family. We enjoyed getting to know the people of Royal Heights, especially Sheila and Mary. Wonderful ladies! Wonderful Church Family! Sterling and I fell in love with the city and church family of Penticton, BC many years ago. We wanted to pack our bags and move there to help them reach the lost. But, at the time, we felt like we couldn't move Madison and Emma so far away from their grandparents and cousins, etc. Now we realize, God was preparing our hearts so long ago, for the mission here on Long Island. Canada and New York are so very similar. Each have only 3% evangelical Christians, with half of that percentage not attending church. Both places are predominantly Catholic. In both places, it takes a lot of hard work building relationships, one at a time, over a long period of time, to reach each one for Christ. Our hearts were broken for the community in Penticton and for the tremendous task these pastors had with so few workers. God took that experience and began working on what was to come in our lives. He began opening the doors for the desires of our hearts, but in a different place than Canada. We never dreamed back in 2004 that we would now be living in New York, with such very similar conditions. I am happy in New York. Never doubted that. But God revealed to me this week the seed he planted in my heart back in 2004 was getting me ready for where I am now and it reminded me of how amazing and peaceful it is to be right where God wants you to be and that His plan is the very best and only plan for me. That is why I was so very happy to cross the US border and get on the plane back to New York. Back to Long Island. Back to Farmingdale. Back to Crossroads. Because I know with every fiber of my being, this is where we belong. God is so good. God is so gracious. God is so faithful. Sometimes, He does not give us the desires of our hearts right when we want it, but if we remain in Him, He is faithful and He will work all things together for our good. I am thankful for God's provisions on this trip. Sterling and I are so blessed to have 3 such amazing daughters. Madison and Emma never complained, no matter how tired they were. They were so precious and loving and just had a great time there. Avery is the very best baby, and maybe cried twice the whole 8 days we were gone. We grew closer to our Crossroads family and had a lot of laughs together....a lot of laughs!! Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us! We are thankful for the experience and Happy to be Home! Photos are coming!