Whirlwind Weekend!

This has been an amazing weekend. The Lord has done a lot of things and impacted our lives and the lives of our friends. We spent Saturday with family, Liz's brother, Jonathan is our mechanic (pressed into service against his will) and always takes great care of us - for which we are very grateful. He spent his Saturday afternoon preparing our 'new' vehicle for the road. Several weeks ago I went looking for a parts car for our Mazda. What found us was a real blessing - the car that I bought as a parts car turned out to be 10 times the vehicle we were trying to repair. The body in beautiful condition, which is a result of the faithful application of undercoated every year since it hit the road in 1996, it has 200,000 LESS kms on it than the one we have been driving. The new car is equipped with a car starter and came with a full tank of gas - the huge part of the blessing of this new vehicle is that it was just $200 - it's amazing to see God providing for us already as we prepare to go. Jonathan has been switching parts from the 'old' Mazda to the 'new' Mazda.

Saturday night we had the pleasure of meeting the new pastor and his wife of Habitation Baptist Church, we've been invited to share with Habitation on Sunday morning, September 14. We look forward to sharing our excitement and ministry with Elizabeth's home church - they have been so encouraging to us.

We returned home Saturday night and got to Windsor about 12:30am - it was a long and productive day. We were met with a phone message from our colleagues Kevin & Marcia. A new friend of ours, a new believer, needed support and encouragement - Kevin intended to travel to Prince Edward Island early Sunday morning to offer his support. I wanted very much to support both Kevin and our friend and so left at about 3:20am and headed to New Brunswick. I met Kevin at the New Brunswick border and we went to the Island together. I returned home just prior to noon. It was a whirlwind trip, but absolutely worth every second. I received an encouraging eMail this evening from a missionary friend of mine, at the bottom of his message were the following two lines - "A river touches places of which its source knows nothing. Our Father rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is." It's so important for us to strive to love one another always.

Our home church here in Windsor has shown great interest in our upcoming ministry and has been very supportive of us in our desire to follow the Lord's will. In today's bulletin was a very nice 'Call to Missions' update, sharing details of our ministry assignment and support needs. It is so encouraging for us to have the support and prayers of friends and family.

It's exciting to think what this upcoming week might hold!

Cheerio,
Grant

The 'new' wheels

A Cumberland Bay kinda weekend.

Hey y'all,

Well - it was going to be Family Camp at Arrowhead this weekend, but it was postponed. Since Liz and I had been planning to go up to New Brunswick to help Kevin and Marcia with hosting the camp, we decided to go anyway and help with winterizing some of the equipment. It was a great weekend - I picked Liz up at the Pharmasave after her shift and we hit the highway - we arrived at the Strouts place before 9:30pm.

Saturday morning, Kevin, James and I pulled in the docks and a couple of the canoes - Marcia and Liz prepared a picnic for all of us and we enjoyed a sunny lunch by Grand Lake. In the afternoon we took one last spin in the boat before it came out of the water. Saturday evening we got to meet another summer camp staffer from this year, our new friend Ben came up from NS to visit for the weekend.

It was a great weekend of work, fun and planning. It was good to have a chance to chat with Kevin and Marcia about our impending training, and planning for our arrival at the camp. They are eager for us to join them and get busy! Liz and Marcia did some planning for the upcoming ladies retreat as well - it sounds like it's going to be a great weekend if any ladies are interested in receiving information on attending, just let us know.

We used the old boat trailer to move the sections of dock out of the water.


They're heavier than they look (the docks...)


Little boat... Big lake.


Arrowhead directors Marcia and Kevin Strout.

The New Job.

For those of you who may not know, I left my position as graphic designer at Holiday media in Halifax and have taken a labour job here in Windsor. Although the pay is less, I'll be saving in excess of $300 a month in travel expenses. I've been to my new job for two days now, and I have to say, it is such a pleasure to work with my hands again. It has been a long time since I've had the pleasure of being paid to work outdoors.

I'm working for a gentleman just outside of town who is preparing to build a home. There is a great deal of landscaping to do as well as carpentry and maintenance on his current building. I'm assisting him on various projects, everything from assembling scaffolding and installing rain gutter screens to weeding the gardens. I doubt very much that any two days will be the same. It is a real pleasure to work alongside my new boss, he is friendly and very easy to work with - and he seems to be a natural teacher. He takes the time to explain anything that we're doing, allowing me to learn new skills as we go.

I truly feel that this job is a blessing from the Lord, not only will it allow me the time I will need for deputation and to put the finishing touches on the house - but it will serve as some very practical training before I go to the camp and begin to assist with maintenance and upkeep. I've already been able to snag a couple of great ideas for shop organization, that I think might be very helpful at the camp. As much as I feel my final year or so at Holiday Media was training in perseverance, patience and respect, it really feels like this job is another module of training.

working away...
Grant

Extra! Extra!

Liz and I have diligently been preparing a lot of our collateral material this week for mailing out with our premiere edition of the Just Mind The Gap prayer letter. I had a little trouble getting a printer in the house that worked, but with a little perseverance and several visits to Staples we're press ready! Prayer cards and letters are all ready to go in Mondays mail, so if you haven't sent us your mailing address and would like to be on our mailing list, just pop us an eMail (fawcetts@eastlink.ca) and we'll happily add you.

Camp Photo Album.

Fun on Grand Lake.

A grove of Cabins.

The Beach.

The main building.

The tuck shop at the corner of 'Waban-Aki Street'

Off our tracks?

Hey Friends! welcome to justmindthegap.com

As many of you may already be aware, we have recently applied and been accepted to work with the Northern Canada Evangelical Mission at Arrowhead Native Bible Center in Cumberland Bay, New Brunswick. It is a huge change for us, and some of you may think we're off our tracks, but after some very serious consideration, counsel and prayer we deeply feel that this is where the Lord wants us.

NCEM was founded in 1946 by Christian homesteaders with a deep burden for the Native peoples of Northern Canada. Missionaries are now working with First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples from coast to coast and into the far North. Arrowhead Native Bible Center is a Bible Camp and Conference Center in Central New Brunswick that ministers to people in the Atlantic Provinces. It may sound like a cliché, but the ministry needs are great and the workers are indeed few. We have felt strongly that we need to help keep people from slipping through the cracks. We have made it our personal mandate to help Mind the Gap and serve in whatever ways we can to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the First Nations people in our region.

As most of you know Liz is working as a Pharmacy Tech at the Pharmasave here in Windsor and Grant has been working as a graphic designer for a publishing company in Halifax. As of the spring of this year we never thought our lives would take this direction. Our first mistake was visiting Kevin and Marcia in the spring for what we thought was going to be just a great time visiting friends! They showed us around the camp and told us of ALL the finances, public relations, general maintenance, follow-up with kids on the reserves, etc. etc. Unbeknownst to one another we were each independently thinking, "Hey! I could do that, or... that might be something I could do". Marcia and Kevin have needed and prayed for another couple to join them and help with the work that has to be done. Then when Grant told Liz what he'd been thinking she quickly denied that she had been thinking the exact same thing. After coming home from our trip neither of us could get camp Arrowhead out of our heads. We started praying and talking and talking and praying. Finally we both came to the realization that perhaps this is what God has in mind for us and so we decided to pursue it. We went through the whole application process in the spring and then finally had our interview and were accepted last week.

Now we have the monumental task of getting our house ready to sell and raising support before we move. Since NCEM is a faith based mission we are required to raise our own financial support by finding sponsors, people that support the work that we will be doing. We are very excited about this new opportunity and would appreciate your prayers as we prepare to move.

This blog is intended to be our way of communicating with you on a more regular basis just what it is we're doing in our ministry. We hope to update this space as often as possible with pictures, updates and prayer requests - so stay tuned.

We will be sending out a prayer letter at the end of this week along with a prayer card. If you'd be interested in receiving one just pop us an eMail with your complete mailing address and we will happily send one along!

Thanks for allowing us to share and stay tuned!