May 1999

Getting lost! A blessing? Sometimes.We were having special services at our church and we were armed with a list of five homes to visit and invite to church. The first one was easy to find but on our way to the second one we missed a turn and travelled way out of town before we realised that we were not in the right place. Finally we reached house number two.
It was starting to get late and we wondered if we should just head back to church, but then decided to do at least one more house before stopping. We pulled up to the next house and after visiting the lady on the list Joel invited a lady and a girl on the street to come out. We decided to go to the other two houses since they were near by and by the time we reached the church the lady on the bike, her daughter and another man were already at the church. That night they all accepted the Lord. The man had been on a business call at the third house on our list. Maybe if we had not missed our turn we would have missed the family at the third house.
Perfect timing! God has been doing quite a bit of that lately in our lives as well. A gift that arrived at just the right time; A delay that kept us with friends instead of stuck on a highway where there had been an accident. Little and big things that tell us God cares for us all the time.
So what have we been up to lately? There is so much that I don't know where to start. In April we had a poor month for bookings but God opened two doors at the last minute. May arrived along with our Canadian East Coast Tour. It was a trip into the past that showed us that God is still faithful in the present.
Our first stop was Murray River, PEI. We have been gone from the island for ten years now and the pastor we were ministering with was from our PEI Assembly. Their youth pastor had been one of our young people. We renewed friendships and caught up on all the news. Eight children made commitments for Christ and that was the whole purpose for us being there.
We took a day and did the tourist thing visiting Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia and then our second stop was Woodstock, NB. It was here that Joel turned sixteen while his dad was pastor and while we were there Charity turned sixteen so that in itself was a special event. Saturday morning we enjoyed a Prayer Breakfast. After a great breakfast of ham and eggs we went to the sanctuary and spent the next hour in prayer.
In the afternoon we were able to spend some time visiting with Joel's best friend from highschool. And our hosts for the weekend, not only treated us royally but also brought back many special memories with Joel. The crowning touch for the weekend was the seven children who committed themselves to Christ. Again it's the reason we do what we do.
Everyone is fine. Our family has had a temporary increase - three puppies. They are giving us a lot of pleasure right now as they run and tumble all over the place.
Catch the Vision has been coming along nicely. We have received about $700 in gifts since we began just over two months ago. We have almost reached 5% of our goal. We want to say a special thank you to all of you who have been such a blessing to us.
In a few days we are off to Ontario's North. We will be ministering in two native churches, travelling by road, rail and river before we are done. Then home again for a couple of weeks before summer is here.
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June 21, 1999
In case you haven't figured it out, we are a little late in sending out this newsletter. Maybe that was because God was still busy teaching us about Perfect Timing!
We were to leave for our Northern Trip, first thing Thursday morning - right after we voted in our provincial elections - but we had a slight problem. Actually the story begins the day before.
We had been invited out to supper on Wednesday and we were right out of gas. We borrowed $10 from one of our daughters so that we could go to our friends for supper, but here we were less than 24 hours away from leaving and we had no money and would soon have no car insurance.
We walked into our friends home and they handed us an envelope. "We keep forgetting to give this to you." they said. It was a cheque for $200 - now we had enough money for gas to get up there. A post-dated cheque for Friday meant we could pay our fare one way to get into Moosonee, and pay our canoe-taxi fare across the river. But we had no money for food or accomodations on the way, and still no insurance.
We had discovered that our car insurance was inadequate and if we were involved in an accident while involved in ministry we could be denied coverage. We also wanted a local insurance agent so we had changed brokers as well. For six weeks our new broker had been trying to get us the correct insurance and no one wanted to insure either a "ministry" or someone who travelled in the States. So we still couldn't leave.
Through the night Joel had been up praying. Joel felt that we were to leave as soon as we were able to and that He would continue to provide. We had experienced in the past that the level of difficulty we had in getting somewhere was directly proportional to the quality of services we had when we finally arrived. So we were expecting great services.
The phone call finally came from our Insurance agent that he had a company who would insure us. We would meet him at his office at 1:30 in the afternoon. What we didn't know though was that he was unhappy with the policy we were getting so he was still trying. Ten minutes before we walked into his office, our former insurance company agreed to give us commercial insurance at the same price as we were paying before. Had we arrived any earlier that would not have happened.
On our way north we stopped at one home and we were given more money and then still later that day, we received a phone call while we were driving that said money was being put into our account the next day. God truly did provide, but we had to put our feet into the water first before the miracle came.
So what happened while we were up north? Between the two churches we saw over 70 children respond to an invitation to accept Christ. We had the opprtunity to give a presentation to about one hundred 4 - 6 year olds at the town community center. The services in which Joel spoke were followed by powerful altar times. So by the time we left, we knew why satan had been trying so hard to keep us from going.
We hope to be returning to the north while the winter roads are still in use. Then not only can we minister in these two communities again but also possibly three other native reserves that we can drive into as well.
So know we are busily getting ready to go for the summer. Last Sunday we had two great services in two churches. Before we leave next week we have three more engagements. We would appreciate your prayers for safe travelling. Also we are planning a US West Coast tour this fall but other than the pastor who has booked us, we really don't know anyone else out there. So please pray that we will be able to make contact with others who will find favour with us and ask us to come as well.
For the summer we will be having a family stay in our home. So if you want to reach us you can call our cell phone at 905-351-4158.
With much love,Joel, Mary, Anya, Charity & Rhian