Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

I am so excited to be alive in 2006. This is going to be a great year. I can't wait to spend time with God this year. He is so awesome! If we give Him this year, He will do awesome things in us this year.

We are having a New Year's Day service at church tomorrow evening. I will be speaking about giving up all that we have for all that He has for us. This is a little excerpt of what I will say tomorrow:

'So, as we start 2006, I want this year to count in my life. Life is short. In England, it’s really common to have New Year resolutions. I always get asked every year what my new year resolution is. And every year, it’s something like, I’ll watch what I eat, and I won’t eat too much fatty stuff etc etc. It’s always something to do with how I look or my weight, or how often I brush my teeth. And they never work.

This year, I don’t have a New Year resolution, I have a decision. I want to draw closer to God this year. I want to make the effort to spend time with Him every day. And I want to look at the areas of my life in my spiritual walk with Him that aren’t exactly blossoming. I want to sow into those areas and sow into other people’s lives. I want to look for opportunities to bless others.

In Matthew 25 verses 14-30, in the parable of the talents, Jesus tells us about a man that calls his servants and entrusts his property to them and gives them talents of money to invest. When he returns, he rebukes the lazy servant who buried his talent, and he rewards the servants that invested their talents. I don’t want to be like the lazy servant who wasted and buried his talent.

I might not be the world’s best children’s minister, or the world’s best prophet, or the world’s best healing evangelist. But I want to sow into those areas of my life, and I want to reap a harvest one day.'

I pray that you all have a wonderful New Year, and that you all know how much HE LOVES YOU! You are all incredibly precious! Draw closer to Him this year, while you can.

Lots of love to you all,
Ash x

In loving memory...

It's Christmas Day. Happy Christmas to all who are reading this. More than anything else, this Christmas day, I am so grateful and thankful that I know Jesus. I really love you Jesus, thank you for coming to this world to die for us and give us the awesome priveledge of being able to have a relationship with the Father.

I had a lovely Christmas morning today. I was really blessed and was given many beautiful presents from dear friends and family. I loved every single present that I was given. Thank you everyone.

At 4pm, Canada time, my sister rang me from England and told me that one of my uncles died (in Iraq) a few hours earlier today. At first, I was really shocked into utter silence - I did not know what to say or think - it was all so surreal. Later, after I put the phone down, I burst into tears. I really love this uncle and I am really upset that he died today. So this, is a little tribute to my uncle.

My uncle Jabar was in his late seventies. He is my dad's brother. My dad is the youngest of 13 brothers and sisters (10 boys and 3 girls). My uncle Jabar was one of my dad's eldest brothers. He was about 18 years older than my dad and practically helped raise my dad. My dad really looks up to him and loves him dearly. I had always heard my dad talk fondly of him and wished I could meet him one day. He lived in Iraq and I didn't, so it was always a dream of mine to meet him one day.



Summer of last year (2004), it was like a dream come true, when my uncle was able to come over, from Iraq to England, to visit us for a couple of months. I really really enjoyed spending time with him. I spent time with him every day of those summer months. I took him out on day trips all over London and chatted with him for hours and played backgammon together. The photo above was taken of us in the gardens of Buckingham Palace when it was open to the public for a couple of weeks that summer.

My Uncle was one of those people that are natural born story tellers. He had travelled all over the world in his younger days and had lots of stories to tell me of those days. He was alive when Iraq was ruled by a King. My grandad used to work for the King, and was also a traveller and a merchant who would travel as far as India to buy things and bring them back to Iraq to sell. My grandad had died before I was born (and my dad had never told me anything about him). So it was very interesting to hear the stories that my uncle was able to tell me of my grandad and of the days of the King. He also told me stories about my dad, when my dad was a child. I loved listening to my uncle. He was very entertaining.

He also owned an antique shop in Baghdad and entertained many foreign visitors in his shop. He was more interested in gaining the friendship of his customers who mainly used to be foreign diplomats than he was in making lots of money. (He would often tell his customers that he wasn't bothered if they didn't buy his antiques that day, because the longer they stayed in the shop, the more value they will have with time). He would offer his customers a drink, food and friendship when they came to his shop, and many of them remained friends with him for years after they had left Iraq.

My uncle was also a very kind man. He never married and he used his wealth to bless his brothers and sisters (and their families) when they were in need. He was especially a big blessing to them during the last 30 odd years of hardship in Iraq. He got on really well with me last summer and was really encouraging to me in so many ways. He promised me that He would show me round everywhere I want to go one day when I visit Iraq. (I always looked forward to that). He told my dad, that if any of us (from my family) were to go back to Iraq one day, he would buy us a house.

He was a very gentle, kind, compassionate, intelligent, creative, funny, entertaining and friendly man with a huge heart and he loved his family and lived to bless others. I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to spend so much time with him when he came to visit us, and to have told him that I love him. I am really sad that I was not able to visit him in Iraq, and I am really really sad that I did not tell him about Jesus, although he did know that there was something different about me. Below is a photo of us taken on a boat cruise on the Thames in London August 2004. I love you Uncle Jabar.

Please pray for my dad when he hears the news. He is working offshore at the moment, and he won't be able to come home to England until Friday.

More Snow :)

Wow - I've hardly been on the computer this week. It's been a busy week writing Christmas newsletters and sending them out. I spent about $130 on just postage! Hope I get given some snow boots for Christmas as I'm not sure that I can buy any now :) . Anyway though, it was really nice writing to people. We've had more snow here too and I took better photos this time.

This is Gary and I shoveling snow from the driveway - we don't have one of those snow blower things Alyn, it took us an hour. The worst thing was, as I was shoveling, a piece of ice fell from one of the branches of the tree that I was standing under. It hit me on the head, and it was as hard as a stone. That was painful and my head was still sore two days later. The dog in the picture is Jake - also affectionately known as 'Minnay' by the girls.

This is our road! It may have pot holes - but when covered up with snow, it looks beautiful! Being out in the country, our road isn't exactly top priority for the snow to get plowed (or whatever you call it). However, I like our road looking like this - it is really pretty. The trees look like candy canes!

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There is a little bridge on our road and this is where this photo (on the left) was taken!

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This is a picture of the icicles on our roof!

This is our back garden (photo below) - you can see the lake in this picture which was taken a couple of days ago. (in actual fact today it is completely covered in snow).

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And finally below are photos of our house covered in snow and also of a fire that I got going in our front lounge. It is really beautiful to look out the window and see the gorgeous white snow and be indoors sitting infront of a warm fire. I love sitting by the fire! I love watching the fire. I also love the snow!

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Last night, Rachel and I took the girls took the girls to see a LIVE 'Hip Hop' kids dance performance in town. It was really good. There were about 15 different dances performed by different groups of kids. One group even had 2 and 3 year old girls they were so cute! There was a also a group of four boys aged from about 4 to 9. The boys were breakdancing and they were really cute too. Some kids had real talent too. I really enjoyed that.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

This morning I woke up, and there was a little dusting of snow outside. It's midday now, and the snow has gradually been increasing. I love snow!

Here are some pictures of our front garden and back garden taken from inside the house looking out of the window.

Since taking these photos a couple of hours ago, the snow has doubled. There is a gorgeous lake at the bottom of our back garden, but you can't really see it very well from the last photo.

I recently took a 'Colour Quiz' where you basically just have to choose colours and it's amazing that it supposedly can tell a lot about you from the colours you choose. If you want you can click on it below and amuse yourself for a couple of minutes and see what it tells you about you. :)

Ash took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Desires protection against anything which might ex..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Branching!

Hello guys! Sorry for the delay in my update but I had been busy this week. I thought I would tell you today about an exciting Nova Scotian activity. I don't know about you, but I get really excited about Christmas (maybe because I never celebrated Christmas as a child).

Over here in Nova Scotia, during the last 3 weeks of November each year, any person is allowed to take part in an activity called 'Branching'.

This is what it's all about:


A couple of Sundays ago after church, I went with a couple from church to a place in the woods for a few hours where there were loads of fur trees. We picked loads of branches from the fur trees and made piles which we later stacked on long wooden poles to make huge bundles (one bundle weighing about a 100 pounds). Then we carried the heavy bundles back to the truck. This was an activity called 'branching'. The idea is that, you then take these bundles to a Christmas shop, and sell them. The shop will buy them off you for 25 cents a pound, so one bundle weighing 100 pounds would get you $25.



I personally only managed to get one bundle on Sunday as it was a new experience for me (I got paid $20 for it). It took me a while to figure out the difference between fur and spruce branches - they looked the same to me at first. We got 6 bundles that day and I rode in the back of the truck with the bundles. Riding in the back of the truck was quite fun as we were driving at 80 km/h. Branching was a truly FUN Nova Scotian experience for me.


This couple though, didn't sell their bundles. They took them home, and then made Chritsmas wreaths from the fur branches. Then they took the wreaths to the Christmas shop and sold those. The shop paid them $2.15 per wreath, so they made more money that way. I managed to make a visit to the Christmas shop on Saturday, and I had a go at learning how to make a wreath.



First, I had to break up the fur branches in smaller sections, and then place them on a circular piece of wire and I wound wire around the branches to hold them in place on the circular wire. I did this from both sides all along the circular wire, and ta da, I had my very first wreath. It took me 25 minutes to do and I was impressed with myself, as the people there, told me it would take an hour to do my first one! I really loved making it. I was so excited, I asked if they could show me how to decorate it and they did.



So I got to decorate my own wreath and this is what it looked like. I'm sorry that the photo quality isn't great, but never mind! The lady then put a price tag on it for $14 dollars and was going to sell it in the shop, but I cheekily asked if I could take it home instead. She very kindly allowed me to.







So in return, I decorated another one for her, which is now up for sale in the Christmas shop :)

Dumping Day!

Today is Monday and the kids are off school all over Nova Scotia!

For those of you that are not aware - Nova Scotian life seems to revolve around fishing and hunting seasons.
At the moment we're coming towards the end of 'deer' hunting season and there are so many deer around. We actually saw one run out across the road infront of us when we were driving the other day. Fortunately Rachel was able to put her foot down on the break and avoid hitting the deer. We also know this guy called Frank who shot a deer last week and has promised to give us some deer meat which will be cool.

That's one of the perks of living here.
Today, is the first day of lobster fishing season. People make loads of money here from lobster fishing, but it's one of those jobs where you have to start work at 3 or 4 am and you get home at 9pm and you go straight to bed! So glad that I don't have to do that. Well, apparantly, most lobster fishermen take their kids with them on the first day of lobster fishing season every year, which is why every year on this day, the kids get the day off school!

That's so cool! It's nice for kids to spend that day with their dads (those whose dads are lobster fishermen of course).

They call today 'dumping day' because it's the first day where they dump their lobster traps in the water. They would've been working on preparing those traps all of last week.

Below is a picture of a lobster fisherman at work...
Did you know that..

A lobster trap has what is called the kitchen where the bait is put. The bait is usually either fresh or salted herring or mackerel. The lobsters enter the traps to get the bait and go into the parlor or bedroom where they can’t escape. There is however an escape mechanism fitted to the trap which consists of a spruce lath with three 1 3/4 inch holes attached to the parlor. This is for the undersized lobsters or tinkers to escape from. Tests show that about 60% of them actually escape.

The traps are dropped from a boat and the spot is marked with a buoy so that it may be found again when it is time to haul the traps. If the weather is good the traps are hauled the next day and reset. The season usually starts the last Monday of November and runs until the end of May.

So if you want to, feel free to pray for all the lobster fishermen today to catch some lobster! We have one lobster fisherman in our church. Our friend Frank who hunts deer is also a lobster fisherman and while writing this blog, he called us to say that he has injured his back from all the bending over he did last night and this morning. So please pray for Frank, he has to go out again on the boat at 11pm tonight to haul the traps in and prepare to put them out again in the early hours of the morning. He doesn't know Jesus, but we pray that Jesus heals him today.

Outage!

The otherday we experienced a Nova Scotian 'Outage'. Before anyone gets really excited, an outage, isn't a wonderful family outing, or a nice day out with your friends. It isn't some great outdoor experience.

Oh no!

An 'Outage' is actually the Nova Scotian or maybe even Canadian term for 'Power Cut'.

From about 4pm all the lights went out!

Now, when I used to live in Libya, this did happen a few times, and even in England, there was the very rare and odd occassion that this happened. And you might be thinking, 'so you had a power cut - what's the big deal?'

Well, living here, you not only have no electricity when there is a power cut. Our water comes from a well on our property which gets to the house through a water pump powered by electricity. So, when the lights went out, the water stopped. Yes, there was no water in the sink and even worse, the toilets were out of use. Hang on, a correction is needed here, you can use the toilets but you certainly can't flush them! That was not good.


Seeing as it was 4pm when this happened, it made cooking dinner an interesting experience and washing food even more of an interesting experience. Still, somehow by the grace of God, and with a little help from candle light and a little bowl of water, we somehow managed.

We were concerned that if this 'outage' decided to remain a long while, that we would actually lose all the food in our fridge and freezer (that we had only just bought that afternoon). What can I say though, God was gracious! The power came back on for 1/2 an hour in the evening. However, just when we took sigh of relief that it was back, it went out again. Then the same thing happened at about 1am before finally coming back about 4am. Still at least the two 1/2 hour intervals (that it was back) did mean that we didn't lose any food.

So the lesson to be learned is this:

If you ever come to live in Nova Scotia, always make sure you have the following items somewhere at all times:

-candles
-lighters
-flashlights or 'torches' as we say in England
-water
-canned food

So beware the 'Outage'. Apparantly last year, there was a 24 hour long outage and people did lose all their food. I think the word for 'outage' is quite apt here, as one literally can suddenly find themself out of power, out of water, out of food, and out of light too! - Totally surrounded by the dark cold Canadian country night!

I survived!

Ok, I'm such a wimp. But I really don't like needles. Yesterday we went and had our flu shots. Gary and the girls had theirs first to get it over with quick. While they were having theirs done, I was trying hard not to look at or think about the needles. So I was trying to be calm waiting for my turn, and all along my stomach was doing summersaults and panic and fear were starting to set in me. By the time it was my turn, I felt so emotional, it took all my strength to keep the tears back. I sat down and the nurse lady told me to let my arm be looose, and then she proceeded to tell me that I might have a sore arm for a few days and might get fever and chills and backache and feel sick as a side effect of the flu vaccination within 6-12 hours. I'm listened to her and all the while felt more nervous with every word she said, that no matter how hard I tried to loose that arm, it was tense. WELL, I didn't cry or faint or lie down, but it was painful and my arm was sore afterwards. I can feel the pain again now, just writing about it! So glad that's over! When I used to be in England, the nurse would always MAKE me lie down as all colour would drain out of my face. There was no such luxury here. Never mind. It's over now, and I'm glad that I was able to have it done! :)

The Back of Beyond!

Seriously, what is up with this place?!

I am living in Yarmouth, in Nova Scotia, in CANADA, one of the world's leading countries supposedly... not the back of beyond, or deep dark jungles of Africa, or some poor third world country! But it is really mind baffling, how at times, one can feel like they would be better off living in any of the above mentioned category of corner of the world. Here are a few tasters of what living here is like:

1- The road we live on has pot holes, and hasn't been repaired in years. It is actually dangerous to drive the normal speed limit on our road!

2- The Healthcare service is so bad. There is such a shortage of doctors. The doctor we are registered with is over an hour's drive away. Rachel had to go to 'emergency' and see him yesterday, she left the house at 8am, spent all day waiting to see the doctor and was finally seen in a very rushed manner and by the time she came home it was 10pm and the girls were already asleep in bed! He made her an appointment to have a scan and some tests, but the quickest appointment is end of January!!! What if she has a serious illness? (Thank God, Gary managed to speak to a doctor he knows who is pulling some strings for us to get her seen earlier). No wonder this place has the highest mortality rate. It is because people probably die before they can actually see the doctor. The doctor to population ratio here is one doctor to 5000 people! A lot of people don't even have a doctor! There is no private healthcare option available either.

Considering this is CANADA, it is appaulling to know that if you are in a life and death emergency, you might still have to wait for 12 hours to be seen by the doctor! And then Rachel got given a prescription that will cost $115. We are working here for the church, for the local community, on ZERO income. It is a struggle getting money for food, we still need money to replace the broken water pump in our house, we have no money to get the kids Christmas presents or buy ourselves a cup of coffee when we go out, yet the health care service here, expects people who have no income to somehow fork out $115 dollars for medicine! Again, no wonder they have the highest mortality rate, probably half the people are too poor to buy medication.

3- Yarmouth has the second biggest population of Nova Scotia, and it has one tiny mall (shopping centre) that has about 5 shops! We don't even have a 'Wallmart' here. (A 'Wallmart is in the process of being built at the moment but apparantly for years local businesses had objected to the idea of it, for fear of competition!!)

4- There is one tiny cinema here, so most of the films don't even get here. There are no trailers before a film, just some employee stands up and welcomes people to the theatre! What a joke! (A new cinema is in the process of being built at the moment and it is massive compared with the old one - the new one will only have 5 screens!)

5- My sister tried to send me a little parcel from England about 9 weeks ago! A couple of days ago it got returned to her, with a note saying, it had been refused entry into Canada because it did not have her (the sender) name on it, even though she had written her address and declared what the contents are. (Let me assure you, it is harmless.) What I want to know, is why did it take them 7 weeks to decide they were going to refuse it entry before sending it back??? She has now written her name and re-sent it - lets hope it arrives before Christmas!

I used to live once upon a time in North Africa in Libya. Now that was a country that truly was the back of beyond...they did not have street names or phones or any postal service, let alone a cinema! At times there were water shortages, meat shortages, bread shortages, we lived on rations at times. BUT even they had good roads and a good health service. OK the hospitals were not exactly clean, there were coakroaches I won't lie scuttling around on the floors, but they had excellent doctors, they saw you immediately and they had medicine and it was free.

Don't get me wrong guys, I know that God will look after us and provide what we need. I just think the public services here are a bit of a joke!

Nadia my hero!

This is a little post dedicated to Nadia!

I share a room with the beautiful Nadia. She is 13 years old and a wonderful girl. I love her very much. I usually sleep on a mattress on the floor in Nadia's room. But tonight, she insisted that she sleeps on the mattress on the floor, so that for a change, I could sleep on a real bed (on her bed). I did not ask her to do this. I have been sharing a room with her for a month now and so have got used to the whole sleeping on a mattress on the floor thing. But it was extremly KIND and THOUGHTFUL of young Nadia to give up her bed for me tonight!

I have to also say that she has been so good at trying to be very quiet when she gets up in the mornings to get ready for school. She doesn't turn the light on and tries to remember to close the bedroom door when she leaves the room.

Nadia, I really appreciate your kindness and I LOVE YOU very much! xxx

Daddy's Blessings!

All I can say today is that God is just sooooooooooo good!

This morning at church, a 16 yr old guy decided to come into the kids service and offer to be my helper and he was a great helper. Then as I was leaving church I got given $10 that someone had left in the offerring for me. So that was really cool, and I was really blessed.

As a family, we received two invites from two different families from church to go to their house for a meal next week. We are a family of seven, so it is a real blessing when we get invited for a meal at someone's house.

Then later on this evening, Gary told me that our church back home in England (Riverside Church) are sending the Trews and myself some money, which is such a MEGA blessing! So THANK YOU Riverside Church! You guys are so awesome and you have no idea, how you have blessed us today. We LOVE you guys SO much. xxx

So I want to say THANK YOU Daddy God, You have SO blessed me today! You really are the best! And if anyone read yesterday's post and prayed for me - then thank you! Your prayers have been answered super quickly!

Love you all,
Ash xxx

Monday!

Today is my day off from church work. Today was a house cleaning day. Rachel and I cleaned the entire house this morning. In the afternoon, Gary and I took the twins out window shopping for Christmas presents, so that if God blesses us with some money, then we would have an idea of what to get them for Christmas.

So all in all, it's been a good day. I also got a letter in the post today from this gorgeous couple in Tewin in England, which was really really nice and very encouraging.

Love to all reading this...

Speedy Update!

Hello all,

I have just been reading my friends' blog entries and catching up with their news, so I guess I should update mine too, although I actually have no idea whether anyone even reads this. Nevermind though.

This week has gone by SO quick. Seriously since coming to live here, it has been the fastest week. So what have I been up to?

Monday - that was a horrible day. I was issued out with life! I was so miserable and felt like crying the whole entire day. Sounds bad, but looking back, I can see that God wants to bring up some pain to the surface. I have been so good for so many years at stuffing pain down and not allowing myself to feel it, so it was good that God was allowing that pain to surface and that I was able to feel it. However, I wasn't quite able to have a good cry and let it all out. I'm not at that stage yet. I hope I get to that stage quick, because walking around, carrying the pain and actually starting to feel it isn't that nice.

Tuesday - no pain that day, all stuffed back down. Went into town and had a nice walk around on the mall (on my own for a change), bumped into 3 people from church (how small is Yarmouth?), met an Arabic Muslim guy who recently started working in one of the shops in the mall. Got talking to him in Arabic and told him a bit of my testimony.

Wednesday - read chapter 2 of 'Abba's child' by 'Brennan Manning' and the chapter is about 'the imposter' in our lives. That chapter spoke to me sooooo much. I'm still in the process of processing that chapter. I had a quiet time and started to expose the imposter in my life by writing about her in my journal. So that was cool.

Thursday - this was my phone day, I spoke to about 6 people on the phone that day. 4 of whom were in England, 3 from Riverside Church in England, that was really cool to catch up with friends and hear their lovely voices. The other England phonecall was my mum. She had an accident on Wednesday, fell of the step ladder in the kitchen and completely broke her wrist, one of the bones came out of place, the hospital had to operate on it, and now her arm is in a cast. She's in a lot of pain. Please pray for her. Thursday evening, I led a cell group meeting on 'Hearing God's voice' which went ok.

Friday - I led the second session of the 'new believer's course' with a lady from church who recently gave her life to Jesus. I talked about baptism and the meeting was very encouraging, as she is really keen to get baptised now. Then after lunch I went with Gary to visit another lady in our church and watch the second video of Jack Frost's series 'Experiencing the Father's Embrace'. It was called 'I am Father God's Happy Thought'. It was really good, and we prayed for her after. Then straight after that meeting, I was dropped off at another person's house from church where I babysat for her baby, while she gave piano lessons. I don't get paid for the babysitting, but she does feed me afterwards and takes me out driving in her car. I drove the way home. When I got back, I was so tired, I went straight to bed.

Saturday - that is today. Rachel and I took all the girls out to someone's house for a visit, so that Gary could have some peace and quiet from us, as he prepares his sermon for tomorrow. This evening, I have been preparing the Children's church service for tomorrow. We're going to look at the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I hope the kids have fun and that Holy Spirit shows up in our meeting.

Now it's late and I need my bed! Love you all xxx

Driving In Canada!

Some kind person from church took me out driving today in her car. It was my first time driving in Canada. At first I was a bit apprehensive at the idea, but as soon as I got into that driving seat, thank God, I remembered how to drive, and driving over here in rural Canada in an automatic car is soooooooooooo much EASIER than driving in London, England in a manual car. I actually really enjoyed myself and drove around for ages, and drove myself home tonight.

So that was fun. I also had a long game of table tennis with my friend's husband which was so cool. I love that game.

Today has been a good day.

I'm still waiting for my sister's parcel to arrive. She sent it 2 weeks ago from England and it still hasn't showed up. It seems like rural Canada post is a bit slow.

Well love you all, and hope you had a good day.

Links

Yes! I have just managed to figure out how to add my friends as links on my blog! Very pleased with the result!

Love you all xxx

Movies & New Food & Random Story

It's been a while since I last updated you on life here, but I had actually been waiting for an opportunity to post some photos. However, I haven't yet had the time to work out how to do that exactly.

Well over the last couple of weeks, I have watched 3 movies:

"Crash" - the new one, that is, is an excellent film, makes you think, may contain strong language for some;
"Kicking & Screaming" - really funny film for the family. Put me in a hyper mood;
"Batman Begins" - good film if you are into Batman, too scary for kids to watch though.


I have also tried the following new food lately:

"Moose steak" - someone from church actually caught the moose, killed it & gave us some meat;
"Moose sausages" - I preferred those to the steak;
"Pumpkin Pie" - much better cold than hot and in small portions;
"Squash" - a vegetable that I found nice when cooked as part of a roast dinner;
"Oreo Cookie Blizzard" - kind of like a McDonald McFlurry type of icecream with Oreo cookies and marshmallows - definitely very yum;
"Peach Tea" - I tried that today with milk and it was nice.

Random story of the week:
God gave Gary a vision a while back that he would have a divine encounter with this alcoholic and drug addict homeless guy named Tony. Sure enough what he saw in the vision, happened in real life and he met this guy one day and witnessed to him and prayed with him.
Well a few days ago, we bumped into this guy and he immediatly recognized Gary. He started calling out to us in a loud way in the middle of a coffee shop, attracting much attention to himself and us. He kept saying "It's been nine months since I saw you" - how amazing that he could remember that and know how long it was? Then he asked us if we could buy him some food as he was hungry.
Gary only had $5 dollars and I only had $2 and that was all the money we had, but we decided we couldn't say no, so we took him to Subway (a sandwich shop) and bought him a meal and prayed with him. We left the shop with no money. That evening, someone came round to our house and gave us some food shopping money. God is so cool like that!

Breakfast

This morning Rachel's mum and I were taken out to breakfast at this lovely restaurant in town, by a man named Randy and his wife. While having breakfast, they asked me to share my testimony, which I did. They were so thrilled to hear it, that they have invited me to share it again on Sunday night to a group of people. They also want to take me to the prison to share it there as they regularly do outreach in the prison. I've never done that before, I'll let you know how that goes! Watch this space!

After breakfast, Randy showed us round his dairy. Along with other family members, Randy owns the local dairy and they supply all the milk we buy in the shops. Well, we had a lovely tour of the dairy, and they showed us how the milk is produced at all its various stages. It was fun. I will never quite drink milk again in the same way I did before. I know exactly now, what it's gone through to get to us! Cool!

Hearing God's Voice!

A couple of days ago, when I had my quiet time with God in the morning, I felt that God told me to check my bank account. But I had had no money at all for a number of weeks, and part of me didn't want to look incase there was none there, and I did not want to get my hopes up. Then I forgot about it.

Yesterday morning in my quiet time, I felt God tell me the same thing again. So after my quiet time, yesterday, I did look and guess what!!!! Someone in England had anonymously deposited £60 into my account! I was sooooo excited. Not just because of the money blessing, but also more importantly because God told me about it and I heard Him.

I love it when God speaks.

Bright Autumn Colours

Today, is the first day this 'fall' (as the Canadians say) that I noticed the leaves on the trees start to look bright and cheerful instead of a dull colour that they were yesterday. I had my quiet time this morning in the boathouse, looking out at the beautiful lake. I have to say that several times, in the middle of my chat with God, I had to stop and just gaze at the lovely trees and the bright colours of the leaves. Canada is beautiful this time of year!

Today, I went on a pastoral visit with Gary. We visited this lady and prayed for her. She had been struggling with depression. As we prayed for her, she received joy. Then as we left her house, both Gary and I were yawning constantly and I had a pounding headache! Oops, ofcourse, we had forgotten to pray for protection. So we put the cross of Jesus between ourselves and whatever was trying to attatch itself to us, and phew it went away.

Tonight as I was giving Anja and Gina my two 8 year old spiritual sisters a cuddle in bed, they asked me:

"Ashy, why are you happy today?" and went on to tell me that I have been 'smiling' all day today and everyday the last 6 weeks I've been in Canada.

Well, I had no idea, that I had been smiling today, but I'm really blessed that they told me that, because I must've been smiling for them to say that. I love Jesus. He is soooo cool.

Confession time: Yesterday, after I wrote about being good and only having one bite of my Galaxy Ripple chocolate bar, a couple of hours later, I ate the rest of it. Now, I really can't wait for my sister's parcel to arrive in the post.

Chocolate!

Hmmm ....

I just had a bite of my Galaxy Ripple chocolate bar that Gary gave me last week. (Some angel had given him a couple of bars of Galaxy chocolate and he very kindly gave me one). I had resisted biting into it, until just now, but I was very good and only had one bite!

I just had an e-mail from my sister (yes, another angel) saying she has sent me some Galaxy chocolate in the post as well as her old mini ipod (which she is now giving me as an early Christmas present). I am equally excited at the prospect of receiving my very first ipod and of course the oh so gorgeous Galaxy chocolate.

To quote my sister, when I informed her, that over here in Canada, one was not able to enjoy the same taste of chocolate as they would in England, she said:

"Imagine a whole nation of people going about their business blithely unaware of the chocolate perfection that is Galaxy bars."

Too right! Father God, I wonder how they manage to exist without the knowledge of Galaxy and its tender loving taste?

I can't wait! hmmm..........

Race Against Time...

Well here I am! My very first blog entry. I have contemplated the idea of starting this blog for the last couple of weeks and have finally decided to give it a go! Will it be funny? Will it be witty? Will it even be interesting? Who knows? Who cares? It's a window into my life and what I get up to.

Well here I am in Nova Scotia, in Canada. I've been here about 6 weeks now. I've come from England to live here for a while with my spiritual parents Gary & Rachel, and their 4 beautiful gorgeous girls.

So what have I been up to today?

This morning I had a quiet time and then started working...

Well, where I live, we have to cut lots of wood, and stack it up for the winter. Last weekend it rained non-stop for 3 days, so we couldn't do much wood stacking. We had to wait for the wood to dry, and today the clouds look like they want to rain again. Last night and this morning, the race started, how much wood can we stack (in the basement) before it rains again?

I managed to spend a couple of hours last night stacking wood and a number of hours this morning! YES! I love it! Stacking wood is such a rewarding job! Today I felt like Jesus gave me super strength to get the job done.

I received a letter from my lovely friend Elaine (in England) today which made my day.

I've also been making salad and cooking mince meat for this evening's meal for 9 people. Nice! Time to have a break now.