Life in Canada so far

Two weeks and change in Canada so far at our new church and new home and new church home. Life during a move is crazy and leaves little room for time to blog! But for my own sake and the sake of posterity I am making myself sit down and share some random thoughts on moving our of the US and into another nation.

• Still getting used to milk in a bag, two dollar coins, gas by the liter and front page hockey news


• hundreds of words that are a bit different here, not just pop and soda


• life on the farm has been great - so peaceful
  
• Forward is such a friendly church, so very welcoming


• I sense a greater peace in my life and less stress than I have in probably a decade


• Back to Chicago style driving


• My role is shifting (and needed to shift) from being Marty the pastor to the kids to Marty the pastor to the parents and volunteers. This means some letting go for and some embracing some change I have longed for. I think this would have been too much a move for me, the kids, the volunteers and parents in Roanoke.


• Patsy gets to be involved in worship and children's ministry here! She has such a beautiful voice if you have ever heard her sing (sorry Parkway folks but you missed out!). She chose kids over the glory of sanctuary praise for the last six years and I will always admire her for that - her example of choosing the humble things to confound the wise.


• So far not having TV has been amazing! Not sure if we will do it forever. Patsy and I have tons of black and white movies and we have watched some of them and the boys have some DVDs they have watched. We take more walks, play more family games and now have a garden! But there will come a time when the Bears start playing. Honestly I have not missed seeing the Cubs. I do listen to an ESPN station out of Buffalo in the car though.


• I think I may have a queen now?


• There are some great passionate, committed people at Foward involved in Chidlren's Ministries.


• The farm we rent has like eight horses and a llama named Bob.


• Blake and Tanner are slowly meeting friends. There are some neighbor boys who invited them over to swim! Tanner won suckers for his age group in church so he was a big hit.


• I got a really nice portable computer for work and a Blackberry for my new phone.


• David and Chase are doig wonderful and love the big yard and big house to run around in.


• Still trying to sell our house. The sale fell through the second time. Still have peace.

Well that's good for now! We miss all our friends and the kids at PWC! God bless.