Hope - in the News???

I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday after I was so discouraged by the "News" I read online and in my local paper:


Good News Wins

     "Too much of what passes for U.S. news coverage these days is actually news about news, full of angles instead of straight storytelling on what’s actually happening in the world. 

 But the upside-down rejoicing the apostles discovered is the deeper resilient joy that comes from cultivating first a realistic awareness of the world, then an appreciation for God at work in it."

I have spent a lot of time since reading that great article thinking about the Hope I have because God is at work in the world around me no matter what I may read, or what is really happening.  

I can look at the world around me with realistic eyes and Hope because God is in control. I am brought back to one of my favorite verses where God is speaking: Isaiah 46:10 (NIV)

"I make known the end from the beginning,

from ancient times, what is still to come.

I say, ‘My purpose will stand,

 and I will do all that I please.’"

Hope that God knows what is going on - Big, Big picture - and He has a purpose and I am good with that because I am resting on His Firm Foundation!

How Firm A Foundation - Fernando Ortega

So if you want some good news - start with reading your Bible, then check out World Magazine online or Ann Voskamp for some encouraging news.

Information Overload? Reflections on a Weekend Conference

  Last week Howard and I had the opportunity to head back to Chattanooga for a long weekend, a little family visit, but the main reason was to attend the CCEF conference. (We also escaped the surprise October snow.)

 
  We purchased our tickets way back in March hoping that our daughter Julie and her then fiance Ian would be able to line up their wedding during the same time period, but that didn't happen, so we made two trips to the states in the last three months.

The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation has a mission to restore Christ to Counseling and Counseling to the Church. We have attended a couple of their other conferences and hope to attend more in the future. It was a time to refresh our spirits, get some tools for working with people who are in need, and to sing with over 2000 people. We were challenged and educated.



  As I was sitting on the plane on the way to the conference I began looking through the sessions that we would have an opportunity to attend during the week. It was only then that I realized that the whole conference was going to be about EMOTIONS. Great, I thought to myself, just what I needed, I am not an emotional person so now I would have to listen to people talk "touchy, feely" for three days. (Howard is the Counselor/listener in our family.)

  I looked through the catalog and chose some sessions that seemed less emotional.

  I was pleasantly surprised during the opening session when the speaker identified himself as being just like me - he often doesn't get the emotions of others and wasn't overly emotional himself, and yet he was a counselor...how does he do that?

  We were then reminded and taught that Jesus had emotions, God has emotions.

 He gave us the challenges of

             Engaging our Emotions in order to leave behind painful ones - repent and confess,

             Speak and Connect - train yourself to use your pain to connect with God and others,

             Listen to God's replies to us through Christ - "I am with you" - God Cares

    I won't write down all of my notes, although I have read through them twice myself - good stuff - but I will leave you some nuggets I gleaned from two of the sessions I attended.


  Joni Earickson Tada was one of the main guest speakers. If you don't know her story, check it out here - Joni's story. She was one of my childhood heroes - paralyzed from the age of 17 to present - a paraplegic. She shared her story of pain and happiness - the highs and lows.


Here is where she took us:

Splash-overs of Hell- pain, suffering, defeat, separation, temptation
                                                       vs.
Splash-overs of Heaven- finding Jesus in your Splash-overs of Hell

  "How dare I cling to the sins that caused my Jesus such pain?" I need to incinerate my self-focus, own my weakness and become full by emptying myself through helping others - like Jesus did. I need to pray scripture to God as Jesus did.

  I wrote these down on a 3 x 5 card to keep above my desk to remind myself to look to Jesus and to serve others.



  The other session was on Tasting and Seeing. Our speaker was a Pastor and Worship Leader at a church  - he challenged us to take our head knowledge about Jesus our Savior on an 18 inch trip to our hearts.

  We need to take and use all of our senses, our concrete experiences and acknowledge that God is moving in our lives through these experiences to help in our justification and sanctification.
 (3 minute Justification explanation)
(3 minute Sanctification explanation)

  We need to practice using our senses to worship God now - by ourselves and in community with our fellow believers - because someday in heaven we will be using all of our senses to Praise our Savior all day long.
  We will know if we have tasted and seen the Lord if we have gratitude in our hearts for the gifts God has given us.

I leave you with these words of wisdom that really stayed with me -

Every emotion that we experience here on earth in our earthly bodies 

will someday resolve into JOY in Heaven -

our past emotions will all lead to our eternal JOY! 

Updated Giving Page at MTW and Special Request

Dear Friends and Family,

Mission the the World - our supporting agency - has updated and simplified its giving site. If you support us, you should have received a letter or an email giving information in regards to the updates to the MTW site. (although some folks say they have not seen one?)

 This is what comes up when you go to the mtw.org site for donations now: 

So - you click on the MISSIONARIES Give Now box and then this will appear:

You type in our last name and this will appear:

It's so much easier than the previous site - I was so glad to see this 

updated, user-friendly site.

Note something new and exciting below our photo above - there is a button called START A FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN - so if you or a group you are a member of would like to start a short (or long) giving event to our work here in Canada, clicking on the orange button starts you on the way and you can upload photos and invite others to join you. 

If you have questions about how to use that, please contact us.

Here are a few instructions that you will need as you log on to the improved site:

This is the link directly to our page for a support gift:
https://www.mtw.org/missionaries/details/howard-and-sandy-vander-griend 

If you keep track of your giving on the MTW website, your username will change to your email address and your password will need to be reset (for security reasons - see link below). 

Your automatic recurring donations by EFT credit card or bank withdrawal will continue whether you log-in or not.  The log-in is for the purpose of giving a onetime gift or tracking your regular giving. 

If you have ANY questions call 866 373 6133 or email pfs@mtw.org  

We also received an email from MTW regarding donations as we support a good friend who is heading to Japan. Here is the information we received and used to change our Log In Password - it was really easy:

MTW has launched a new, more intuitive way to give online and we hope you will be pleased! This is to inform you of a couple of changes to your MTW account:

• Your username will change to your email address
• Your password will need to be reset (for security reasons)

You can change your password and experience the new way to give by going to www.mtw.org/create-password. If you can’t do it now, no worries. We hope it’ll be easy when you do find it necessary to login.

As Howard and I head into the second year of our time here in Alberta - we arrived in June of 2015 and will depart some time in the spring of 2018 - we want to thank you all for your support of God's work here. 

Those of you who have consistently and faithfully prayed for us and continue to give to our support are remembered often in our prayers, especially as you share your needs and praises with us.

For those of you who follow us regularly, we are asking if you would consider becoming a financial partner with us.  We were fully funded when we left for Canada, but life does happen and for various reasons, our support level has dipped enough that we are looking for a few more partners to join our work here in Canada.

If you would like to join the team - please let us know! We will give you a call all the way from Canada and will set up a SKYPE or ZOOM appointment to chat with you about how supporting us works. 

And in case you haven't seen them yet - here is a blog post of photos of how the work on the demolition of the new home of Amazing Grace Community Church is progressing:

New home of Amazing Grace Community Church

The New Home of Amazing Grace Community Church

    Amazing Grace Community Church will celebrate its 6th Birthday in September. For the past 3 years the church has been looking for a building in the North Lethbridge area to purchase and turn into its new home.  They almost had a place in the spring of 2015, but due to the Canadian building codes - the purchase fell through. That ended up being a blessing in disguise. This Spring, 2016, we found an old furniture store on the main street right in the heart of the neighborhoods we serve that was for sale at a price that would allow us to remodel.  
    A group of investors who believe in the mission of Amazing Grace Community Church and the Amazing Kids program agreed to finance the purchase and remodel of the building until such time as Amazing Grace CC is incorporated and can secure their own bank loan.  
    Howard has been spending his summer supervising the many volunteers who have been helping with some very messy jobs, and we have been rewarded by uncovering beautiful brick pillars and hardwood floors. We are hoping that they will be used in the final decor of the building!
    What follows is a time-line of photos showing where we are in the process. Our regular Tuesday, Thursday evening demo times of 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm and Saturday mornings from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm. 
    We do not know when the remodel will be completed - but we will for sure keep you updated. We ask for your prayers that the building remodel will be smooth and finished before Christmas.

Furniture Store to Church! 

In some of our demo we found out that the building
used to be a hardware store. 

This space will become our worship area.

That wall will be opened up to become the stage and storage area.

The storefront areas will become stairs to the basement
and then bathroom areas.

  

Upstairs will become classrooms and downstairs will be
the kitchen and serving area.

  

The side building will become the pastors office,
welcome area, stage and nursery rooms. 

The side building was a storage unit facility in its most recent life. 

The kitchen, with our furniture elevator that will not
be able to stay but we are using it now.

The only bathroom for now - it will disappear later on in demo.

Upstairs rooms. 

View down on the worship area from the classroom area.

View of street windows from kitchen area.

Always wearing masks during demo of walls and carpet.

After removal of all 4 layers of flooring we found the maple hardwood!

A load going to the dumptruck!

  

Mystery legs removing drywall from ceiling.

Ceiling on the floor.

Carpet coming up, two layers of tile under that.

After removal of drywall, we had to remove all of the
remaining nails....at least 9000.

Putting our all into nail removal.

The old heating coming out - new mechanicals will be coming!  

On the way to the dumptruck.

Piles of stuff ready for the dump truck. 

Insulation or cotton candy?  (there was both that day!)

Guests from the states helping with drywall removal
- drywall and plaster layers.

We were given the gift of free use of dump trucks
- I think at least 12 loads have been removed.

Panaroamic view of building waiting for new electricals, plumbing, and walls!

It has been a whole year!

A whole year has gone by since we left for and arrived in Canada!

Let's celebrate with a photo from each month, and then let you know what we are doing now:

Our Commissioning in June 2015 at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga.

We spent all of July in Belgium last summer as the final phase of
our training with Mission to the World before beginning our work in Canada.

We arrived back in Canada to one of the hottest August's they had - here we are enjoying
some cooler weather near a lake outside the city of Lethbridge.

We also participated in our First Parade ever - letting the city of Lethbridge
know about the Amazing Kids program.

In September we began attending a church on the Blackfoot Reserve - we were
privileged to worship with these great folks for 7 months during the winter.

We had a fall festival complete with face-painting for the kids who
attend the Lighthouse church.

The first snow in Lethbridge - November! Breaking in the new coat and boots.

We had so much fun acting out the Christmas story with the Amazing Kids!

A blustery drive out to Standoff and the Lighthouse reserve in January.

In February we celebrated a marriage with our Amazing Grace Community Church - a fun "outdoorman" wedding shower before and family wedding afterwards.

In March we held the first ever Amazing Kids Spring Break adventures - Hiking with Howard,
and Crafting with Sandy with many of the kids.

In April we joined the first of many BBQ's in the park that
Amazing Grace Community Church holds during the longer summer months.

In May our Amazing Grace Church family celebrated our 35th Wedding Anniversary with us!
It has been quite a journey that Howard and I have been through
this past year and these past 35 years.

June has brought us full circle - we look forward to seeing what God has planned for the next year here in Canada - especially as Amazing Grace Community Church has a building we will use to share Jesus in the Lethbridge Community.