Oh Deer!

We hit a bump along the road!

"Nice to meat you, deer." says Harold
Deer: no response

So we literally hit a bump along the road by running over a fresh road kill deer day one of our travels. Fortunately we were not injured and the accident happened 40 kilometers away from our aunt and uncle in Brandon. Who knew being related to angels would come so handy at 2am?!

The van was not drivable, nothing to show on the body as we literally drove right over it, but the van's belly valiently tenderized and seared the venison to rare, very rare at great speed. But we had no appetite for the meat shreds that remained attached to our van. The tow truck driver confirmed that there must be some serious damage as he tried to maneuver the van on and off the flatbed. Steering, brakes, floor panel, and who knows else what, all stopped us on our track in our journey in need for a tow truck and a very gracious aunt and uncle to take us all in. I mean, if you have a home of 2 people, what's another 6 in the middle of the night, right?!

So we sat in our injured rattling and seized up van and waited in the darkness of the night. Out with the glow sticks for the kids, we had a midnight roadside party! :) Turn up the music, make a few joke, but mostly wait and pray in our hearts that God would work all things out for His glory. And he did!

Long story short, God healed our van and we were on the road again the next afternoon! How??

Defying all odds and MPI's lengthy protocol (ok, and perhaps some assertive pro-action), we made our van insurance claim, estimation, and mechanical work done the very next morning within about 4 hours! Our initial advisory was that it could take about 7 days to process, estimation and approval alone, but God had other plans.

Did you know God can heal vehicles, not just humans? The night it was dropped off, the van had difficulty even getting into a parking spot, but next day the mechanic said it was working perfectly. They did a wheel alignment in the process, had several mechanics test it on the road and did various tests and could not find anything other than a dented floor panal (which did not compromise driving or our safety and will be done when we get back to MB). Wow, good to know we have proof that we were in fact in an accident (with the bent floor panal),

 not to mention the hanging meat, tuffs of fur, smell of a butcher shop and blood under the hood - otherwise no one may believe that we got into an accident. We picked up the van and the administrator said she'd never seen something like this and that we must have had many hands laid on this van to be driving off the lot in such timing. So for all you praying ones, we are truly grateful for your prayers as we know this trip is sustained by them.

So after getting the kids new car seats (compulsary by our our insurance coverage) and submitting all our towing and mechanical bills for full coverage, we were on our way, and made it safely to Papa and Mama's (my parents) in Hague Saskatchewan. We are enjoying our visit.

This afternoon Harold and I go into Saskatoon to meet with the ED of the Adoption Support Centre of Saskatchewan.

Tomorrow we "plan" to get to Edmonton to continue our exploration, with the first-hand knowledge that God is in charge of this trip and is our mechanical healer and provider.

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God Chasing

Our life these days has been kind of random, a lot of this and that (kind of like this blog entry), but in midst of pure circumstantial chaos there has been increasing clarity and purpose to this phase we are in. We are embracing ambiguity, trusting God's timing is perfect and we simply need to take one step at a time. From dry-walling and building bunk beds to teleconferencing and chatting with leaders around the world, from rearranging the whole house set-up in order to accommodate more people to planning our itinerary on our upcoming exploration trip. We have been blessed to have Omoni (Harold's mom) out from Vancouver this past month, as she has been a good source of encouragement and help with cooking and bonding with the kids.

...Speaking of trip, we will be letting my tool belt rest a bit while we devote the rest of this month to God chasing. God chasing?! you may ask. Well for us, we have been discovering pockets of activity in Western Canada where people are activating the Church in the adoption and foster care through advocacy, education, and practical support. We have already been connecting with them and will be meeting with them on our trek to get a deeper sense of what God is already doing in Canada and how we are to collaborate with the things God's put on our hearts. Along the way we will also have the opportunity to meet up with family and friends in SK, AB, and BC. Not to worry, we are not taking a U-haul. We will be back, and are not looking to relocate. Much work is needed in our province of Manitoba. Please pray for us while we go on this God chasing exploration trip, for safety and increasing clarity as we meet with others in this field.

You know Kehlen and Mikhala are getting into this whole adoption thing, when they start emulating what we do. The have been pitching in to "help" with the renovations and yesterday they called their own kids meeting to discuss raising funds for adopting their brother and sister. It was cute to observe. Mikhala had a crayon and paper and was "taking notes", Kehlen lead the meeting with a kids devotional and then proceeded to talk to his sister about planning "an expensive" garage sale to raise more than $100. Meanwhile they had their dolls and stuffed animals in a separate room and insisted that their big sister Isinino babysit them during the meeting. Never too young to be part of a movement!

Good news! We finally heard back from CFS and are scheduled to start our homestudy August 21. This is a critical, and long awaited, step in the process of adopting. It will also shed more light into how our adoption journey will take shape. We discovered in April that DRC (Congo) is not a possibility any more, as political winds change as rapid as our Manitoba weather, so we roll with it and are certain God's desire to increase our family through adoption will not be thwarted. We now have another possibility brewing, and the boundaries of our hearts have been broadened. More on this later...

We have enjoyed the addition of Isinino into our family. She is adjusting well, and finally unpacked all her belongings. In fact, she is the only one with a room that is set up fully, as the rest of us are being rearranged into different rooms too. She is working part-time with Youth Peacebuilders, helping in fine arts which communicates with kids her life story and adjustments as a refugee teenager to Canada. Isinino is a very gifted writer, and one of her poems will be presented at Winnipeg's Fringe Festival in a couple of weeks. We are so proud of her! It is a poem she wrote for an English assignment about her connection with me as her Canadian mom. Very special. She is looking forward to going on our trip, as this is her first time out West.

We welcome you to journey with us in the weeks to come as we update you on some of our discoveries.