Day 3 at J2N: Missions Fest Halifax 2012

It certainly has been a whirlwind weekend. Unfortunately Sunday morning Liz had a migraine, and Phil was feeling under the weather, so Gracie Welch and I visited Windsor Baptist Church without their company. To spite their absence, is was wonderful to be in Windsor among family again. After a very nice lunch with friends we headed back to the city for the remainder of the missions conference. Liz was feeling much better, but unfortunately Phil was still under the weather and they needed to head home.

The missions conference concluded at about 4:30, we packed up our booth and got ourselves ready to visit at Sheffield Baptist Church. We very much were blessed to be among our friends at Sheffield and share a ministry update with them.

The entire weekend was a huge blessing and encouragement to both of us, as we connected with new friends and old, gave ministry update and talked to people about the ministries of NCEM and Arrowhead.

We headed home Monday, stopping along the way for a couple of errands for this weekend's Men's Retreat.

Yesterday, Andrew Ardern, pastor of Cumberland Bay Baptist Church, was heading to NBBI for a chapel service. He and Kayla asked Liz and I to accompany them, and Andrew gave up a portion of his chapel time for me to share an Arrowhead presentation. It's always great to connect with the Bible school students. Volunteer recruitment is a huge part of what happens at this time of year, and paints a picture of the ministry the Lord is building for the coming summer.

The rest of this week will involve cleaning and preparation for the Men's Retreat - we have in the neighbourhood of fifty men coming. Please pray for the weekend, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ will go forth and that the Lord will make way for men to come and begin to build a relationship with our Lord!

friends & fellowship

It was a wonderful weekend. I had the opportunity to travel to Nova Scotia to share Arrowhead updates with folks in Windsor and Halifax. Unfortunately Liz was feeling quite under the weather and wasn't able to accompany me. She very much missed reconnecting with friends.

I traveled on Saturday morning to Windsor, and enjoyed an afternoon with friends there. Windsor Baptist church planned a pot luck and allowed me a generous opportunity to share and have some question and answers about Arrowhead and the ministry this past year. It was a truly wonderful opportunity to be with friends and fellow believers there. Sunday morning I was given then opportunity to share the children's story and take part in Scripture reading. I was really very blessed to be able to worship at our home church in Windsor.

Sunday afternoon I spent visiting with friends and then made my way in to Halifax for the evening service at Sheffield Baptist Church. While I was there, I was presented with Canadian Tire money and pennies for Arrowhead. Once again it was a real blessing to me to be able to worship and fellowship with friends. I found the weekend to be a wonderful encouragement and time of refreshing for me.

This afternoon we're heading to Woodstock to share about the ministry at Arrowhead with a WMS group at Jacksontown Baptist Church.

ANBC goes Nova Scotia

On Saturday morning Kevin & I (Grant) headed out for Brier Island, Nova Scotia. We arrived in time to catch the 3:30 ferry to Long Island and then on to the 4:00 ferry to Brier Island. It was a beautiful day for traveling and we were pleased to meet our friends Crystal and Andrew Welch in Digby, so we enjoyed sailing with them to the islands. We were greeted at the Westport Baptist Church on the Island by a large crowd and a wonderful pot luck dinner. Lori Bennett, another NCEM missionary here in the East was there as well, she would be giving a ministry update on Sunday morning. Phil and Gracie Welch have their home in Westport, so it was a great NCEM gathering at the Westport Baptist Church. We shared an update about all of the exciting things happening at Arrowhead and were blessed by a generous contribution to "A Plethora of Pennies" by the folks at the church.

NCEM missionaries take Westport Baptist Church by storm. (L to R); Grant Fawcett, Lori Bennett, Gracie Welch, Phil Welch and Kevin Strout

The good folks at Westport Baptist Church donated 12,500 pennies to contribute to our training expenses! Thank You Westport Baptist!

Kevin and I left Westport Saturday evening and travelled as far as Granville Beach. We enjoyed a stay with Lizs' folks, although brief, we were back on the road early Sunday morning. But before we left we were given a big bucket-o-pennies on behalf of Habitation Baptist Church.

Habitation Baptist Church collected over 8,000 'pennies' to contribute to our training costs. Another big thank you to Habitation Baptist Church!

Sunday morning Kevin and I were in Coldbrook, Nova Scotia at Coldbrook Baptist Church. We enjoyed the opportunity to give an Arrowhead update as a part of their Sunday morning service.

The folks at Coldbrook have requested to be a part of our Grocery Grabber Coupon program for another year! It is such a huge encouragement and very practical help for us to have churches share with us in ministry in this way!

After church we continued 0ur trek as far as Halifax. Kevin and I were given the opportunity to give an Arrowhead update at Sheffield Baptist Church in Halifax. It was Gospel Night, and we both very much enjoyed all of the ministry in music. We thought that as a part of the music night we'd teach everyone a camp song. So with the help of a couple of camp savvy 'volunteers' we led the congregation in a few verses of "I just wanna be a Sheep"... not really sure if it was as amazing as we thought it was, but everyone had fun!

We have been so encouraged by the excitement of our friends at Sheffield in the ministry at Arrowhead with NCEM. We were presented with over $60 in Canadian Tire money and a generous financial gift to aid in our Spring projects at ANBC.

On Monday morning we met with the Band Leadership in Millbrook, Nova Scotia. We wanted to introduce ourselves and present them with the upcoming programs at Arrowhead. It was a great meeting, we're looking forward to having a great group come from Millbrook to ANBC this year!

This is a statue of Glooscap at Millbrook in NS. It is a 40 ft tall statue that greets you as you travel through Millbrook on the highway!

After our meeting we headed home, stopping for a whirlwind visit with my mom in Shediac. I wish we'd had time to stay longer, but while we were there Kevin got a call that the work team had arrived from Maine. So we zipped off again and arrived at Arrowhead to greet the work team about 90 minutes later.

Edie Fawcett (mama) presented us with pennies and Canadian Tire money collected by the Shediac Baptist Church WMS. They have been very busy!

back at Arrowhead, Liz showed the fellas into the main lodge and got them settled in with a snack. By the time we finally arrived the guys had a chance to look around and inspect some of the jobs they will be doing while they are here!

A shot from last night, Roger Hill has loaned us some tools for hooking up the new well and was helping with some planning for the big job! It's going to be a busy week!