What Have We Been Up To? Well Let Me Tell YOU (Long Overdue Update)

A dear friend emailed me recently requesting an update, and it made me realize that people who are following our blog are way past due for an update as well. So I will do so now.

I was previously working for two different employers- one of them being a fantastic experience, and the other the polar opposite (the former being mentioned in my last blog update). That second place which I worked at ended up being a horribly stressful and abusive atmosphere. I worked for that company for roughly 7 months, by which time I was bordering on a nervous breakdown. 

Raeleen and I were praying for a different job and Raeleen felt that I was going to get a new job in July, but I didn't feel that I was supposed to be applying for jobs, so we were quite confused.

The second day of my vacation (2 days after my boss went crazy on me as was explained in my last post) Raeleen was at work and her boss was on the floor working with her (which doesn't happen often). He asked Raeleen if I would like to work for him, and in 2 days I had an interview with him and was hired on the spot.

He gave me the exact hours I needed and I'm getting paid more than I was in my previous position AND it's a very low-stress job with a good boss and positive work atmosphere.

God has provided some absolutely amazing relationships here and THAT has been immensely helpful and encouraging.

If God didn't direct us to this church and we didn't meet the people that we did and connect to a church family the way we have, I have no idea where we would be mentally and emotionally right now. 

Raeleen has been co-running the Kid's church and I have been playing in the worship band, rotating instruments as needed, and I am also one of the Worship Leaders.

We started a Community Group at our flat with 5 people in attendance, 3 of which were non-Christians. We decided that for our first series we would do Alpha, so we JUST finished Alpha 1 week ago and 2 of the 3 people became Christians, and one of them also became filled with the Holy Spirit.

The third person is Muslim, but is VERY interested and I think she will come to Christ very soon.

In our group we had 2 Germans (a married couple) 2 Chinese (friends who met at an ESL College- a man and a woman) and a Turkish lady (also friends with the 2 Chinese people from ESL College).

English was the second language for everyone in the group except for us, so we were trying to walk through the salvation message (Alpha) with people who had VERY broken English. We spent much time using Google Translate, and THANK GOD Student Alpha on YouTube has subtitles in various languages. The Chinese subtitles are apparently very professionally done, but the Turkish subtitles were absolute rubbish, so the Muslim lady was even more of a challenge because we had to break down each video every few minutes and explain what was being said AND how that corresponded to the Bible.

Many of the questions asked are extremely difficult to answer even for people who are native English speakers- so dealing with that barrier AND figuring out ways to translate to different languages was incredibly difficult!

But...the Holy Spirit transcends all language barriers, and now 2 people are following Jesus now (with hopefully one more to follow soon).

The timing was incredible because both of the Chinese people had to move out of city to go to different Universities the week after our final Alpha meeting. Now we have the Turkish Lady and the German couple (these two are Christians by the way). We have another lady who will be joining our group starting this week as well which is exciting.

We are planning on doing a series on the book of John next.

Please keep these people in your prayers- Brian (the Chinese man), Joanne (the Chinese lady), and Tugba (the Turkish lady- pronounced Tuba like the instrument).

The flat that we lived at when we first arrived in Edinburgh was where we stayed up until the beginning of this past July. It served us well for the time that we were there- however it posed a couple of huge blockers against us moving forward in the fostering process. 

We didn't have an extra bedroom, and there wasn't any heating whatsoever in the flat. Our previous landlord agreed that he would install the heating system necessary to pass the required Health and Safety Inspection, provided we were willing to sign a longer lease. We agreed on this seeing as though we hadn't felt any release for us to move, AND, if he installed the necessary heating we could at the very least still move forward with the process with the provisions that we only had infants in our home which could stay in our bedroom with us since they wouldn't have their own room. However nothing happened for a few months afterwards, and our landlord seemed to keep stalling us on the installation which was frustrating. 

Then one day we felt the release needed to start looking for another place- a bigger place with an extra bedroom and all of the things needed to be a shoo-in for passing the Health and Safety Inspection.

We didn't have very much extra money to spare and knew that we were going to have to trust God in finding the place that we would need and provide the finances to be able to pay the rent. 

We looked at several places, and none of them felt right to us. We were praying for some very specific and important details, and each of the places we looked at was lacking at least one or two of the ticks on the list that we needed. 

One day Raeleen emailed me an ad for a flat which had 3 bedrooms, Gas Central Heating and double-glazed windows and was a great price. The big problem though was that it was unfurnished (hence the way cheaper price). Since we moved to Edinburgh with only a handful of suitcases, and absolutely no furnishings to speak of, we had, up till that point not even been considering a non-furnished flat. However, it seemed that our options were growing thin and we weren't going to be able to be picky, so we decided to check it out. If we liked it we had to just bite the bullet and buy some extremely basic furnishings to be able to get by and start building again- but we still (as we did before moving here) felt like we weren't meant to buy furnishings. So we had very low expectations regarding this viewing.

Upon entering the flat I saw a deal-breaker immediately: the was no washing machine or fridge/freezer as well.

My first impulse was to leave at that point, but something prompted me to keep looking around the flat and have a quick pow wow with Raeleen.

We liked the size of the flat, and all of the details missing from a our current flat were included in this one (including some I haven't mentioned). But the fact still remained that this flat was COMPLETELY unfurnished.

I suddenly got this crazy idea to ask the landlord if he would be willing to fully furnish the flat if we were willing to pay more then what he was requesting per month (this never happens). I asked him with extremely low expectations, but much to our surprise he agreed immediately. Not only did he agree, but he offered to fully furnish the flat for only £50 more per month. Also, he was more than willing to work with the Fostering Agency in doing anything that they could possibly request to pass their Health and Safety Inspection.  AND the icing on the cake: he ended up offering to throw in a small list of extra add-ons to our flat that we had been praying for for months. Some of these add-ons are rarely offered even in the more expensive rentals.

We have been in this flat now for 2 months, and have found our landlord to be very kind, attentive and facilitating. He lives right in the city as well and works in the trades, so has connections with every trade we could possibly need. Our previous landlord, although kind and well meaning, lived at the far south of England and was very difficult to contact- so working out any issues with our flat was a nightmare and very time consuming and frustrating. 

We had ourselves a predicament though: our current landlord already had the expectation that we were going to be staying and signing a longer lease, and so I was very nervous about letting him know about our decision to move. We were really wanting to move on good terms and have a strong reference but I was extremely reluctant to make that phone call and give him the notice, and half-expected a confrontation (which as I explained in my previous post I couldn't stand the thought of.

BUT GOD HAD IT SORTED.

It turned out that the reason why our landlord had been stalling for 3 months was because he had been deliberating whether to sell the flat or not. He made the decision to sell and then called us and gave us 2 months notice and the promise of a great reference. 

All details were packaged up with a neat little bow.

We are only a 7 minute walk from our previous address now, so we still reside in one of the most undesirable areas of the city- but we feel that God has us in this area for a specific purpose for this point in time, so we're very thankful for His provision, and choosing to have a positive and cheerful attitude.

We sent off our application and are now awaiting a response from the fostering agency. They will assign a caseworker to us and then we will proceed through the months-long process.

Please also keep this process in your prayers as we've felt to do it for many months now, yet have only in the past 2 months been fully eligible to move forward.

Last year Halo and Ryder were both in school, but this year we are trying Homeschooling. 

We had never foreseen ourselves putting our children in Homeschool, but God has been surprising us every step of the way, and here we are.

We don't know if it will be long term or just for a year or 2, but we feel that we are to try it for one year and trust God to see what to do from there.

So far so good. We have so much more freedom with our kids home, and their learning is much more hands on which is great.

Being that we live in one of the least desirable areas of the city, that itself has presented many challenges. We've vacillated various times between wanting to stay in the area to help and wanting to get as far from the area as possible.

But it seems that, for the time being, God wants us in this part of the city, and has been using us to connect with families in this community. There are severely broken people in this area- kids who are really messed up from poor parenting and their parents who are really messed up from alcohol, drugs, and them having bad parents as well. It's a self-perpetuating atmosphere, so we've been praying for it and specific people whom we've been building relationships with.

We have our moments where we feel like Jonah in Nineveh.

This section of the city is our own personal Nineveh. 

However, God has been faithful to us JUST as he was completely faithful to Jonah so we're extremely thankful.

Even in the 14 months that we've lived here God has been teaching us and working on our hearts SO MUCH! 

We still don't know the big picture as to why God brought us here, which of course has been an immense sense of confusion to us- but He has been revealing Himself and His plan little by little as we've been taking baby-steps by faith. He has taken care of us every step of the way and our relationship with Him has been growing by leaps and bounds.

We've been reading through the Bible-in-a-year and God's word has been becoming more and more real and personal for us! 

God has been speaking to us so much through our experiences here, and seeing how the Bible has been speaking directly to each of our challenges.

Now that we'll have children (2 more hopefully) in our home in the not-too-distant future, we find ourselves in need of a car. We had 2 vehicles in Canada. Since we've moved here we've had only the bus system, which, although robust, still presents definite limitations. However we can't afford one just now and don't feel like we're supposed to be working more hours to be able to do so. The extra time we have available we are investing in people's lives in the community, and our church.

Please keep that in your prayers as well. 

The children that we foster are going to have all sorts of emotional/psychological AND physical issues and so it would be very dangerous and intense to have them in buses with groups of people.

We have had our moments where we have really missed Canada and wanted to go back- but God always reassures us that we are exactly where He wants us to be, and so we know that God is in control and that His grace is engulfing us.

Through all of the challenges we are very thankful that God has chosen to use us and we ARE very excited to be on this adventure and be stretched in so many ways.