Christmas 2005

Greetings from the Great White North.
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Well this year has taken some unexpected turns. Instead of going South to Texas for mentoring to help start a church in New England we ended up going North to Calgary, Canada for Mark to go to Seminary. God has a sense of humor. Not to long ago Lynn told a friend of hers who asked us to move to New Hampshire, “I could never live that far north…its too cold and snows too much.” Important safety tip… never tell God what you won’t do.

2005 started with us being extremely busy. Mark preached at Faith Baptist for the first time in January (and they asked him to preach again afterwards). Jenna started walking at 11 months old. We began our home addition project of turning the garage into a family room so we would have more room (thinking we were going to be living in Warwick for awhile longer). Mark made numerous trips to the town hall as the Town hall lost the permit paper work and learned patience.

In March, Mark took John to a Monster Truck show. This caused great concern for Sarah who became very worried that there were monsters that were trucks and they were going to get John. Also in the beginning of March, Sarah asked God to come into her heart and change her heart. And in the second week of March, Mark and Lynn escaped to the Berkshires for several days thanks to a wonderful college student, Ruth Elliott, who sacrificed part of her break week to watch our trio. The following week the transmission of our 95 Plymouth minivan blew, leaving Lynn to put around town stuck in second gear with a top speed of 45 mph. So Mark asked his work for a raise and they were very gracious to give him one and the end of March saw us buying a 2003 Grand Caravan. Lynn is now driving around in style.

We met and started to become friends with Randy and Sandy Bond in April. Randy came to preach at our church several times and is doing student ministry at the Coast Guard Academy. Later in April, Randy and Mark went to a conference together in Pennsylvania and began to pray about teaming up to plant a cell church in New London, Connecticut. Randy had really encouraged Mark and Lynn by sharing how God had been faithful to them when He called them to go serve as the Student Recruiter the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary. They were asked to come on staff to help the school, but it was a complete step of faith because there was no money to pay him and he had 3 young children. But certain that God had led them to do this, he quit his job and they moved without knowing where all the support would come from. By the time they arrived in Canada, they had all the support that they needed and served there for five years until they moved to Connecticut. Seeing God’s faithfulness to the Bonds and seeing the powerful ways God was working through Randy challenged Mark and Lynn about stepping out of the comfort zone. Of course we thought that stepping out of the comfort zone would mean moving one state over to Connecticut to help the Bonds start a church.

Then Faith Baptist also asked Mark to preach more regularly in the Fall while the church was looking for a new pastor. So Mark and Lynn decided to take a vacation to Canada in the end of May to go hear a man who had been very influential in Marks spiritual journey, Henry Blackaby.  Henry Blackaby wrote a book called Experiencing God about how to know when God is speaking to you. Many thoughts and ideas come into our minds and this book helps people to discern which come from the inner voice of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God comes to live in and counsel those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord.

Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” - John 14:16,26

Henry wrote that when you remember a truth or a scripture when you are praying and facing decisions, that is God speaking to you, counseling you about His will. Henry has become a spiritual counselor to over a hundred of the Fortune 500 CEOs who have read Experiencing God and have asked him to give them counsel as they try to lead their companies in a godly and wise way. More recently in the past year, Henry has begun to meet with some of the ambassadors of the United Nations, particularly some of the national leaders of Africa. Because Henry is being used by God is such significant ways, we wanted to go hear what he had to say about what he had learned in serving God.

This is Lake Louise

During our trip to Alberta Canada, we celebrated Lynn’s birthday by going to Lake Louise, which is an incredibly beautiful deep blue lake nestled in the Rocky Mountains in Banff National park. (Come visit us and see it… its incredible.) During this week we took time to ask God to show us what was the best course of action for the coming fall as we prepared make adjustments to go into ministry work. And during that week, Henry Blackaby and his son Richard (who is the president of the seminary), were very kind to go to lunch with us. During that lunch they shared that the hardest choices were often not between good and bad, but between good and best. Henry counseled us that the best preparation for what God wanted us to do would be to go to seminary. We asked God to make it very clear to us that this was His will (being that it was a big change and not what we expected), and God spoke in one of the clearest ways Mark had every heard Him, reminding him that at the beginning of the week Mark had asked Him to show the best course. “Henry told you what was best, now are you going to listen to him?”

So we came back to our house in the final stages of renovation chaos and began to get ready. Immediate confirmation came a week later that we were going in the right direction when a large freelance web redesign project got approved. This company had been delaying and postponing committing to the project for over a year. The project would pay about a third of a years salary and provided the transition money that was needed to begin the move.

Marks Mom and Dad arrived to visit in mid June to see Jenna (and John and Sarah… we know who’s really important though) and our house project. They got to hear Mark preach the Fathers day sermon, which was a special time. It was the first time they had heard Mark preach.

So the house went on the market in July and Mark gave his notice at work. Mark flew to Canada in the end of July to buy a house there on faith that our RI one would sell. The week before we moved, we got an offer on our RI house. And the week before we left Mark had the joy of baptizing a good friend, John Negri, who we had become good friends with at Faith Baptist. John had come to a bible study through the gospel of John that Mark taught on Tuesday nights in Mark and Aileen Quinn’s house. As he took a serious look at who Jesus is and what he did and continues to do, John decided he wanted Jesus to be Lord in his life and committed his life to Christ.

Here is our new house!

So in mid August we packed up a 26’ truck with all our stuff, thanks to the help of ten of the greatest guys on Earth. Wouldn’t you know that the day we got the truck to load it, it was 100 degrees… the hottest day of the summer. Many, many of the deepest tanks go to you guys who helped us and stuck in there on that day. You never realize how much junk you accumulate over the years until you try to stuff it all in one truck. We packed that truck to the ceiling and then proceeded to stuff every available inch of the minivan too. Then Mark and his friend Jim proceded to drive 2700 miles.

Meanwhile Lynn was flying cross-country on a daylong flying marathon with three little kids. Thankfully, Lynn’s mom, Mary Lou, flew with her and helped. We were all safely reunited at the Calgary airport. Three days later we were moving into our new house in beautiful Cochrane, Alberta. And a few days later Mark started classes and we had another offer on the house. And the RI house closed on the same day the original buyer would have taken possession. God is good. At the end of August Mark and Lynn celebrated their seventh anniversary in a different country!
Canada has always had a special place in our hearts ever since our honeymoon in Victoria, Vancouver Island. It is an incredibly beautiful country. From the back deck of our house we have an incredible view of the Rocky Mountains. And we had a wonderful garden all ready top harvest when we moved in to our house thanks to the previous owners. We had all manner of fresh lettuce, carrots, potatoes, onions, and even rhubarb to welcome us. 

This is the view of the Rocky Mountians from our back deck.

In September, we joined Bow Valley Baptist Church which Mel Blackaby, Henry’s son pastors. Mark began to learn Greek and all kinds of interesting historical background things about the Bible. Sarah began to take dance classes. John started learning to play soccer and loves it. Its prefect for him… he gets to run around like crazy which is the ideal sport for him. He did T ball over the summer and wasn’t nearly as excited about that. They have a really good soccer coach here who relates really well to the kids.

John started Kindergarten too and loves it. Being the total extrovert that he is, afternoons in structured playtime and learning with other kids has been good for him. We really like his teacher. Lynn also has started to teach John and Sarah how to read. Sarah is so smart that he can keep up even though she’s only just turned four. John learned how to ride his bike with out training wheels this fall and we are very proud of him. Jenna meanwhile is outdoing everyone in the cuteness and charming department. She has developed a real affection for all things four legged. Cowies. Doggies. Kitties. She loves them all.

The fall has gone by in a blur. It has been one of the mildest falls on record with record-breaking temperatures in the low 70’s in mid November. Lynn is convinced God did this just for her. Though we did have a light snow in the end of September. But it couldn’t last forever. In late November things reverted to the normal sub zero temps. We are told it can get down to –40 degrees here.

Mark has been busy studying, learning, reading, so most of the week he is buried in books. It has actually been fun for him to be back in school and he is learning so much. It is a dream come true to be spending time with the Blackaby’s and learning from how God has worked in their life. Mark is beginning to realize how much of his Christian life was still him trying to do good things for God rather than really being aware of what God is doing and allowing God to work powerfully through him. So it has been a good time of growing in faith as well as knowledge.

And God has been faithful to provide freelance work to stuff into the spare moments of time here and there. The company Mark worked for over the last five years has been generous to let Mark continue to do some projects on a contract basis. Mark really enjoyed working with them and they always treated him well, so he is glad that relationship has continued. Thank you Tonya and Eric at Mediaweave! And Eric Holter also sent some work Marks way as a gracious Christian brother. Thanks Eric! And the Blackaby Ministries wants Mark to do some website work on their website, www.blackaby.org. So Mark hasn’t had anytime to let moss grow under his feet. Yet another confirmation that this was Gods timing to take this next step to go back to school recently came when we found out that Marks company, Mediaweave, laid everyone off at the end of the year.

But we are grateful to God and our friends and family who have helped us and supported us in this great adventure we are embarking on. We have no idea where He is taking us, but it has been good so far.