Major Update, Part 1: Personal

We're posting our update in two parts, personal and ministry. Since it's been a while since we've updated you will see the * symbol throughout. If you want all the info we're updating, you can read the starred information below each section. For a shorter version, skip the stars and italics and continue reading the section below it.

Emerging After Winter: Health
After a long, deep winter, we finally have reliably mild weather here in Edmonton. At our last post, we were in the middle of what turned out to be a six-week stretch of illness for most of our family*. So our late winter was alot of plain perseverance. Our weekly schedule kept going, and so did we. Thankfully it seems to be behind us now.

*more info on health--(One child went first and was just starting to recover when the other two both had a brief period of illness, but the wear of taking care of all three sent Julie into more than a month of hard illness. First strep throat, then not long after recovering from that she developed an acute kidney infection. Because of her health history she is not able to take antibiotics so it was a lengthy process of healing both times. Thankfully, Julie's mom was with us for 2 1/2 weeks of that period, so God provided help in a wonderful way!) 

Housebound
Like much of the North America and Europe, we had an unusual winter here*.  So it was pretty tough to get out to be with people and the streets and events were sparsely populated. For all the snow, we hardly got to get outside to be in it. Over the last few weeks, however, things have warmed up and people have started to venture back outside. We have reconnected with neighbors we haven't seen much of since Christmas and hope to get more connected to our neighborhood community.

*more info on winter--Our expectation of Canadian winter was always that it would be long and cold. However, last winter we were able to quite a bit outside, including several visits to outdoor events where we sought to do outreach singly or as a family. This winter, however, we had several weeks of straight -20C temperatures and a few days of drizzling, spitting rain in between!

Learning Curve
We have been here in Edmonton for 18 months exactly today, and we are amazed at how much the Lord has done in and through us in this short time! Overall, I think we both see how much bigger this whole mission is than we are; we have a lot to learn. Thankfully, the Lord has called Himself our Teacher, so we are in good hands. We have made mistakes and miscalculations, but God is able to direct us and we are thankful for His correction and guidance in our decision-making*.

*more about decisions--We took on a pretty full schedule this year and that brought to light for us our true priorities. The things we were doing have all been good things, but because we are limited, we have come to see what is the best use of our time and energy. As a result we are each going to be moving away from a weekly teaching responsibility over the next few weeks so we can focus more on some of the foundational matters in the church plant.

Needs
Some of our greatest needs right now as a family are below. If one or more of them particularly strikes a chord with you, we'd be grateful for your prayers in any of the following areas:

-more restful sleep for the two of us (our girls are sleeping pretty well)
-relief from back pain
-for Julie in homeschooling
-our relationships with our neighbors to flourish and grow
-increasing oneness in our marriage (things are growing and we want to keep them that way!)
-our parenting and for growing love between our three girls

Thanks
Thank you for taking the time to check in with us! We are so blessed to be able to live in Edmonton and to serve the Lord here! May He bless and lead you where you're at right now. Keep in touch as He leads.

Dejan & Julie <><

To read more about how things are going with the church plant, click here.

First Time

Four years ago, February 17, 2010, was our first-ever day in Edmonton. That year we had hoped to go to the Calvary Chapel Missions Conference in California, but the Lord directed us instead to take a trip up to Edmonton to scope things out. So we redeemed some frequent flyer miles, booked a place to stay, and headed up here for five days.

We were thinking that we would get some good cold exposure, for which Canada is so well-known, but little did we know that Edmonton has a typical February warm spell. So it was a comfortable temperature, just below freezing, for most of our trip, which was a blessing since we ended up doing quite a bit of walking with our 22 month-old first baby.

The Lord blessed our visit and we got to explore about 20% of this huge city and meet with a couple interested in seeing Calvary Chapel here in Edmonton. We were also able to get to Calgary for a Sunday morning service at Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel, with the added blessing of meeting with one of the pastors and his family. We are now solidly connected with the church there, and that initial visit was such an encouragement in our journey to move here.

As we look back to that first time in Edmonton four years ago, we see the hand of God guiding us and sustaining us, granting us vision and blessing us abundantly. We are so glad to be living here!

PRAYER REQUESTS

We are happy to report that things are going well here. The church is blessed and growing every so slowly (but steadily!), we are enjoying our journey through the book of Romans together, and we have been able to put in for actual advertising beginning this month.

Amid the weekly rhythm of our lives, we would like to share the following current personal prayer requests. There are so many people who pray for us, and we are dependent largely upon that prayer!

Health: For the last few weeks we have been passing around sore throats, fevers and coughs. This is nothing "big", since most people get sick during winter some time, but... given our full schedule and the inability to cancel church or delegate certain other ministry activities, taking the extra energy and time to tend to sick little ones or just being down or not at full speed ourselves dramatically hampers things.

Efficiency: We desire to be good stewards of our time in study, prayer and outreach. There are daily tasks to take care of and logistics like government paperwork that crop up and can take a fair amount of time.

Evangelism: Winter is a challenging season for outreach just since it is so cold outside and people inside are often moving from one place to another. We need creativity and wisdom as we pray about opportunities.

May the Lord bless you and grant you all that you need to walk in the good works He has prepared for you in the coming weeks!