In the nitty gritty

I'm often surprised by the things we end up doing as part of our ministry. When you hear the word "church planter", you might think of a person that is doing constant preaching, evangelism, and leadership training, among other things. And we do these things. We have our Bible studies, where we study and point others to Jesus. We share our faith as we interact with others. We plan outreach events.

But then there are the other things that go with this - the nitty gritty of becoming involved at an intimate level in the lives of the people you work with. Living life with others through the thick and thin.

Recently Dallas and I have been doing quite a bit of one-on-one with people that are asking for guidance in certain areas. 

Mentoring a teen as she works through things of the past.

Mentoring another teen as she processes life, boys, and the future.

Walking with a dear older woman who recently lost her husband and won't talk to anyone else.

Mentoring young men as they make decisions for the future and looking for what's truly important in life.

Counseling a couple as they try to better their marriage. 

Counseling a mother who needs help with a rebellious daughter. 

These are just some examples, and with all of these, they come to us looking for Biblical and practical guidance. They know where we stand in our relationship with Jesus and it's neat and humbling to have others put their trust in you and our hope with all of these is that they will put that trust in God. He really is the only One that give peace in the midst of struggle. There are times where people need help beyond what we can give - professional counseling, etc. and we need wisdom in knowing where to direct people as well. 

It's interesting also how we work with such a wide variety of age groups! We often feel like we are so young (even though we are older than we sometimes think...strange how that works) and we're thankful that God is the One who gives us the abilities, cause we sure wouldn't know what to do or say without it! 

There are also the other interesting we get to do as part of our work here - like helping people apply for visas to Canada! I actually enjoy filling out forms and have been asked to help with this recently.

Ministry gets busy, as there are no set work hours! Through it all, we look for those moments to connect well with our kids and as a couple. When we get busy or stressed, emotions can fly a little off the wall, so we need to work always at maintaining a good rhythm of life and keeping our eyes on the author and finisher of our faith (God).

People are super important to us, and that includes our family! They are our #1.

Logan and I had a little fun in the school line-up this afternoon....

And on Monday there was no school so we took the day as a family day and headed to the forest to take the boys mountain biking for the first time. It is hilly with rocks and sticks and uneven paths, so they needed some help and encouragement but did well overall and we had a good time! This is definitely something we will keep doing as a family when we can. 

They of course looooved flying down the hills (there was a paved one at the end of the route) and I can see that we have some future falls on our hands :) 

I have done trail riding with Dallas before but it's been a while since I've been out in the bush biking, rather than on the paths here in our park. It was a lot of fun actually.