A wedding

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Disgusted - Discontented – Neutral – Contented – Delighted

We are “delighted”.  God has blessed our son, (and us), with a special girl and they will give Him much glory together.  The wedding was “real nice” and I’m sure God appreciated the ways in which many of those in attendance acknowledged Him.

Jesse and Daniella will finish up their honeymoon in January and return to Bible College where Jesse will continue his studies and Daniella will start hers.

We are back in Ukraine… in our perfectly cool house.  Tomorrow it will snow… and it will seem even cooler, but for now we are surrounded by drab brown colours everywhere due to the plus temperatures. 

Our trip back was comparatively uneventful.  We flew through China again and I wrote the following as we waited for our flight….

We arrived here in Guangzhou earlier this evening. There have already been a number of unique moments to notice:

Australia the beautiful

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We are back in Australia – beautiful, unique, dramatic, friendly Australia.

This trip has a three-fold purpose.  See precious family again.  Celebrate the most excellent and beautiful marriage of Jesse and Daniella.  And visit with people who have supported the ministry in Ukraine to thank them and, in a small way, bless them.

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We have definitely come back at an interesting time climate-wise.  The fires here have been termed catastrophic for a reason.  I read that since the beginning of October, 530 homes have been burnt in NSW, 16 in Queensland.  And the fire season is just starting.  Is God punishing Australia for recent laws concerning abortion and homosexual marriage?

There are a few things it may pay for us to remember when a subject like that is broached.

Here it is

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I didn’t preach on Sunday and took the opportunity to sneak away and grab a side-shot.  I think we’ll end up keeping the set-up this way rather than deep and long.  I reckon we’ll be able to take at least one of the pillars out as well and hold the ceiling beams up with a few heavy-duty beams.  Today, we ordered a chimney for the fireplace we have.  Our ladies will really appreciate it when we can get that going! 

The electricity is back on in the ladies rehab centre and we are so thankful to the Lord that this little adventure is over.  Pasha drove into our regional electricity offices this morning and very politely informed them that they were wrong about us reconnecting the wires without permission.  He also informed them that the law states that they may not disconnect anyone’s electricity on a week-end.  After some umm-ing and ahh-ing, they said that they wouldn’t fine us, but to get the wires connected we would need to pay a US$30 connection fee.  It really went against the grain to agree to it, but it went more against the grain to go through the rigmarole of going back and forth to court over the matter over several months with no electricity in the ladies centre!  We thanked the Lord for a quick resolution!

Do Problems Come in Threes

pashafunApparently, scientists have found the reason why problems "come in threes"!  They don’t.  Finding patterns in life makes us feel more secure though.  So we see often see things where we want to see them.

Sometimes “bad things” come in twos, sometimes in ones.  Today though for us, it was FIVE in a row, one after another.

At 9:00, Shane and Jemi let me know that they had just discovered that their temporary residency permits were due to run out and they didn’t have enough time to renew them…  a money and time consuming process requiring a trip to Poland!

At 9:07, Shane said that they had had bad news about  the building of the youth centre and discovered that they “basically can’t do anything much”, (legally/morally), in order to solve the problem and he doesn’t see their way forward on

At 9:12, we heard that mum broke her shoulder while gardening and was in the hospital.