Fishing in February

Ethan casting into a beautiful sunset at Lover's Key, Florida

We got an unexpected surprise this past month when April's mom (who happens to work for an airlines) called us up and offered us free tickets to Florida!  The drifting snow and sub-zero temps outside convinced us it was the Lord's will and that we should pack up and leave as quickly as possible.  We spent two weeks playing on the beach, swimming in Nana's pool, and fishing with Uncle Andy on his boat.  It would be a serious understatement to say we enjoyed the break from winter weather!

While in Florida we were also able to reconnect with the missions team at Riverside Church and spend some time with them talking about our ministry and how they can come alongside us to reach South Asians in the Toronto area.  We are excited to see how this partnership will develop!  We are asking the Lord to raise up some missionaries at Riverside who can join our team here in Toronto to serve a year or longer.  Please pray for the Spirit to work in the hearts of the right people and call them out to serve alongside us.

We returned to Toronto in the middle of a snowstorm (though today it is raining and the snow is quickly disappearing), but renewed and ready to face the remainder of the winter.  It didn't take long before our doorbell was ringing and kids from the neighborhood were piling into our house once again.  We will resume our after-school Bible club this week.

Please continue to pray for the Muslim family (neighbors) that continues to show interest in Jesus.  They will be returning to Pakistan next week for a two-week vacation.  Pray that the Lord will speak to them during that trip, and that they will become even more discontented with Islam.  Please pray for Pam and Collin's family (neighbors) -- three of their children want to start attending church with us on Sundays and their son (Owen) is now attending Awana club with our boys.  Pray also for Sabastian (a neighbor from Colombia) as he has also been very involved in the after-school Bible club and is attending church and Awana with us every week.  The truth is we cannot fit all these kids into our van along with our family, so we're praying about how to transport all these kids everywhere!  This is a good problem....

Please continue to pray for the new church plant at Floradale.  We started our weekly community Bible study the beginning of February and no one has showed up yet.  It's a bit discouraging and we're trying to discern the Lord's voice in this.  We can't wait for the temps to warm up a bit so we can once again get into the community and begin connecting with people again.  This is such a hard time of the year to start anything new due to the cold weather.  Right now the nations are "hybernations!'  (ha ha)  Seriously, we really are praying that the Lord will do something soon before we're too tempted to move on or seek a new ministry somewhere else.  We want to make sure that we're investing our time, energy, and resources into what matters most.

Thank you so much for your prayer support!  Please continue to pray for Jeremy's health -- the doctor with our company said he might be able to get the drugs we need while he's in Africa next week.  Wouldn't that be great?!  Please pray that he can get those drugs and get them back to us soon.