Our friends Danny and Irene are pregnant! This was a total surprise. Irene was excited, Danny was in shock. He's 50 and they had decided no more kids. Ooops! She's about 8 weeks along now. They've both adjusted. (She had a difficult delivery with her first. She's hoping it will be different this time.) Since our trip to Brazil, we have considered having a family. Brenda

Happy Birthday Markus...we all remembered you today. Mom and Dad and Dwayne,Shannon and kids are already on their way back to Gramado, and we~re heading home tomorrow...the beach has been great.

Hope you had a special day Markus...we wish you all the happiness in the world . Tonnes of love,

The gang

If Abe and Frances Klassen do in fact still exist, and they haven't lost themselves in the Amazons of Brazil, what is their date of travel back into real life?


I am taking the train up to Frankfurt on Monday to visit with Barry and Sue Campbell who havea 16 hour layover while on their way to a missions trip.

Festival went well for both Emily and Matthew.

Markus is 41 today!!

Teresa

Hi all,

I just back from the high school retreat. The poor skiers couldn't sky because they had to close the slopes dur to a 100km/hr wind up there. Can you imagine the Swiss Alps closed for a weekend during peak ski season!! The retreat was very good otherwise. I can't imagine that in two years Niklaas will be joining me there (If he'll let me go!)

While we were away and having the winds and rain, they got 40 cm of snow in Kandern. Brenda, look out, that blizzard may come yet. The kids have build tunnels and forts and snowballs. Today was BFA winter day so there was no school - perfect timing.

Tomorrow Niklaas starts track (I'm not sure where they'll run!) Pray that he will enjoy it.

Matthew has a violin scales test tomorrow a.m. He's not very confident with one of the four. The judge will ask for any two out of the four he practised for this. On Friday night is his music recital (solo), on Sunday he plays the same song as a solo in church, on Tuesday of next week he plays the same song in front of the judge at teh festival. Hopefuly by then he's comfortabel playing in front of people. Emily is also playing in the festival - I'm not sure which day.

The auditors come tomorrow. I'm so tired of Markus working almost every evening. It looks like I may actually be working quite a few more hours next year, just with a bit of a break every afternoon before the kids come home.

Brenda, your lives sound very interesting and fulfilling with all your ministries. I actaully don't like the word ministries - maybe I should say with all you do. Everything we do is a ministry!!

Has anyone heard if there is a Frances or Abe Klassen still on the face of this earth. I was use to hearing from them about once a week before Dec, now I haven't heard if they are still around since Christmas. I suppose no news is good news - but it's also no news.

Hope you are all well,
Teresa

Hi All!

Can you believe it's been 2 months since we all met? I just put pictures in an album, highlights of our trip. I love looking through it.

Tres, what kind of letter do you mean, from Markus' dad? I tried calling one day but no answer.

Well, as for us Winnipeggers, we have truly had the warmest winter on record! January and Feb have been about -4 to -7! (These are MY stats, I'm not sure exactly) Maybe a week of days where it was -20 or so, scattered throughout. Overall, it's been beautiful! Makes us all wonder what March will be like! Could be some blizzards, who knows?

Al and I just started as part of the teaching team for a 12 week course for "Marriage minded singles." It's at our church. The class began on Wednesday. Al & I are teaching 5 of the nights. We are following two books, the guys - "Four Pillars of a Man's Heart" and "Knight in Shining Armour" for the girls. So we teach from that material for 45 minutes, then we gather as a group and discuss. They did this course last year for the first time and found it very successful. There are a lot of reasons why people are single, so I feel a little underqualified, but we are really excited that the Lord is giving us this opportunity to share a message of hope! Pray for us. We have divorced people, some twice, wounded people, dysfunctional backgrounds, etc. Al has never taught in front of a group, so pray for him. There are more women than men. 21 registered and there may be more. When we were dating, Al said that maybe someday we'd be able to minister to singles, and here we are. Pastor Aubrey approached us about one month ago and asked us. We are excited to do this.

We are still curling. We watched a lot of the curling during the winter olympics! Yay! Canada's men's team, Brad Gushue, won the gold! and the ladies the bronze. Did you watch any of it? And Markus and Nik and Matt!!! How was the hockey game?!! Too bad they lost, eh? How exciting to be there! Tonight Danny and Irene are curling with us, as subs, since Liz and Leroy are on holidays. Next Sat. we're curling with them again, at a Grant Memorial - church funspiel.

Today is Al's mom's birthday. We are going out for lunch with her tomorrow. This morning I am recuperating from a crazy busy week of marking and doing report cards! Yes! I finished them yesterday. Yay! I always feel like I was hit by a train when it's over. I just veg for awhile. Not for long today though! We want to plant begonia bulbs today. 24! This is an experiment for us. Hope it works. Then we are going to a shower for David and Sylvia! We'll bring our pic's. They've already seen them, when they came to get their bags. We had them over for breakfast. It was great. They brought us an orchid plant as a thank-you gift. It was something I've always wanted! Pink. We have been enjoying it! Anyway, so it's at the North Kildonan MB church. Sounds like a lot of people will be there. Donato and Roneche dropped off the invite one day. We had told David and Sylvia we'd like to come. Tonite we curl.

How are you all? Love, Brenda