P.P.S. Did you know, you can click on the picture to enlarge it? Brenda

Hi Y'all!

It's good to get updates. Thanks! Al & I just really enjoyed our trip to Brazil. What a highlight, a great memory of our first Christmas!

Things are back into swing. Thursday we had Home Group at our house. Pastor Keith came and prayed for our group. He is gifted in the prophetic, which was new to me, but it was encouraging to hear him pray for each of us.

Saturday we went for supper with Danny and Irene to The Old Spaghetti Factory at the Forks. But it took us awhile getting there! We were driving down Portage Ave. when we were suddenly hit from behind. We knew within a minute that it must be a stolen car. Instead of pulling over to talk to us, the young driver, about 14, pulled into the right lane which was under construction - in the process he hit a construction sign which went flying - and then he gunned it! Al said right away, "That's a stolen car." And off we were, like in the movies. It took me until then to realize this guy ain't stopping to talk to us! Al got on his cell phone as we raced after this car. The young punk made a quick right off Portage and we followed close behind. He led us to Osborne village, River Ave., Scott St., etc. in and out of residential and back lanes, until after 10 minutes or so we lost him. All this while, Al is on the phone with the cops, telling them where we are. The car was damaged noticeable with the hood bent up into a V-shape. I'm sure the guy bailed shortly later, because the police would have combed the area for the car. We ended up meeting with the police in a back alley in Osborne village where they took a detailed description of the incident. Then we hurried off to meet D &I one hour later than we expected. We had already called them on the cell to let them know what was going on. Thankfully, they had waited half an hour for a table anyway, so it wasn't too long a wait for them. It made for a good story. I told my class on Monday and the kids thought it was great. The cop told us about 30 cars a day get stolen in Winnipeg, by kids ages10-12! They rarely catch the kids. Isn't that disheartening?! It was an adventure.

Mom and dad, we miss you. Al said his pants are getting loose on him, because we're not eating at your house anymore. There have been numerous times I've wanted to pick up the phone and give you a call and then I remember, "Oh yeah, they're not home." Especially when we came home from Brazil, I almost called your number, wanting to tell you all about our trip. So instead, I called Al's mom, and Brad was on the line too, and so they listened to me talk for about half and hour. They were excited to hear about our trip and had lots of questions. We visited them the following Sunday and brought our picture disc. It worked in their DVD player! We watched it on the TV! So cool. Teresa and Markus, did it work for you too? Does anyone know why it doesn't work in our DVD player? Does it have to be a newer DVD player with a special feature? Dwayne, I thought you or Shannon may know that, since you burnt the DVD for us.

Since we got back, we have been going to the YMCA together three times a week. I have been riding the stationary bike and doing some of the machines. My goal is to drop the 10 lbs. I've gained since I met Al, by August. In three weeks I've only had one chocolate bar, and very few Tim Hortons' capuccinos. That's 1000's of calories less, plus I'm burning up fat cycling. It really feels good to be healed enough to ride the bike! Praise God. The physiotherapist told me months ago that would be the best form of excercise, since it's not jolting to the joint. Al goes to the gym 5 days, but I don't want to over-do it. We are making healthier choices in terms of how we eat.

Well, it's time to go to bed. Dwayne it was nice talking to you on the phone. Mom and dad, maybe give us a call Saturday. We should be home most of the day. We curl at 7:00p.m.

Love, Brenda

P.S. The picture was taken in Florianopolis.

Hey Everyone,

Yeah, it´s busy here, but it is going great. Hannah says that she loves all of her cousins that live in Germany.

We have our camps just about full, and it has been a great staff training and first 2 camps. We now have 3 week long camps left for go for this summer.

Mom and Dad are helping out and Dwayne is speaking this week at camp, with Scott translating.

I wanted to let you guys know that a few months ago our support was very low and we knelt as a family and asked God to show us through our support if we were to go back or move on. We surrendered that fact that if He wanted us to stay on, then He would have to send the support. The first month we got in just a little more than we needed. The second month almost double and in December we received almost 4 times what we need for the month. Our account at JTB is now in the black and we are praising God, feeling most assured that we are still where He wants us to be.

I started reading Houses that Change the World and am really enjoying it, although it is a little uncomfortable to think through what this might mean for us. Please pray for us. 4 families from our house group have brought their kids to camp, and that has been fabulous! May God continue to do His work!

The kids are doing the summer thing...pool, lego, watch the campers, etc. etc. etc. We are almost finished reading the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia and we are really enjoying it. Muki is already done camp for the summer and Caleb and Jaden start on Tuesday.

Anyway, we are doing well. Of course, it´s a little difficult to find time for everything, but I thought I´d drop a short note today.

Have a great day...love to hear from you.

Patsy

Brenda,

We got someone to put our pictres from the DVD onto a CD for our computer so we could edit them and your pictures came out just fine on the CD. Maybe you could do the same. Now we can rotate ours and edit what we want.

Thanks for Liz's phone number, I couldn't get it off the internet.

Mom,

Thanks also for her email. The cheque from Puratone is for $1300.00 so this will help toward our oil costs. We are hardly heating again this winter and it is very cold this year. Last winter was cold with snow - this winter is very cold with no snow.

I'm glad things are going well at camp. Hows dads heel feeling? How about his sunburn?!!

Markus met with Howard again this morning, I haven't talked with him since.

Teresa

Hi Wiebes & Schalms,

Good to hear from you. Here it is extremely busy, not that I am doing something all the time but its the computer wisdom I need to do this and others don't have time to show me. Dwayne is teaching Shannon and me so here we are. The sweat is pouring off me it must be about 35 outside, a little cooler here in the office. The first camp is finished, they are just having the staff meeting now and then its off for the staff till Tues. when the next camp starts. This camp had the little kids 6-8 yr.olds, Muki was in it. This a very creative staff they make things out of almost nothing, do they ever need a thrift store here. I helped sew or remodel some costumes, well try and send you some pictures of the final results. I do the cooking for the staff on days off, I really enjoy that, nothing very fancy trying to k iseep the cost down. Tmorrow it will be tacos and cinamon buns for lunch and egg quiche, that we had at Christmas and watermelon for supper. Dad is working on rebuilding that trailer for the tractor, it fell apart, and they need that all the time. Today is a day of rest its Sunday. Jessi is growing, Jasper is having fun all the time and is sleeping well at night. The boys are just waiting to use the pool every day, Jaden and Muka have learned to dive now. Hannah has been playing with Ingrids little boy, her very best friend, and also had a sleepover there.

Teresa, I know Brenda gave you the telephone no. for liz here is her email add. jwson@mts.net
She went on a holiday but will be back this coming week.

How is the election stuff going? How is the weather, we are hearing that it is nice, very little snow?

Did we really have Christmas? What a memory.

mom

Hi Tres,

I happen to have Liz Braun's ph.# 388-5413, if that helps you. Regarding the pictures, we can only view yours and not ours, though the file with our pictures is there, it appears. Luckily we still have them on our camera. There must be a way of opening that file but we haven't figured it out yet. Hopefully you'll find them on your disc too. If not we could always put ours on a disc and mail it to you.

Hi everyone,

I guess we are all into our summer/winter routines. Will that mean there is no time to write on the blog?

Dwayne our dvd of pictures only works on our dvd player not our computer so we can't get any pictures off it for friends to see. A friend here will try to put it onto a cd. Also, our dvd didn't have any of Al and Brendas pictures on it. Can we still get those somehow.

Hope your all doing okay.

Mom, how can we get ahold of Liz Brown?

Teresa