On the Move in the Soo

Since my first posting was a success, I decided to get everyone up to speed on what is happening with the Bethel Move of 2006. Some of you may have heard that our church family is moving buildings from the popular Pine and McNabb Street Site (Commonly known as "the church across from Tim Hortons'") to a larger facility at the corner of Black Road and Second Line E. This decision came after much prayer about what direction our church family should take. It is on a much larger piece of property that will provide a huge increase in parking. As well, the building will be much more conducive to the expanded ministries we are doing.



The top picture is showing the front/side of the building. For those familiar with the Soo... It may look VERY similar to the old Green Belt Bingo building. NO relation at ALL! ;) Just kidding... that's the building. Next is a picture of the fellowship hall (formerly a restaurant). It will be changed around to be larger, but this is its present condition. You'll notice Meredith and my mom in the picture as well.



The final picture is of the new sign out by the Highway 17E bypass in front of the property. Ray is in the bottom right hand corner of the picture as well. That's all for now folks. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the news!

Devon

Young @ Heart!

Hello All! (This is Devon)

I just thought that I would show this picture of Grandpa and Uncle Don "eating" "Pixie Stix"! Just goes to show that you remain a kid on the inside for your whole life.

Devon

Smiling!

Here are two pictures of my girl... One, just smiling up at Mommy and the other just looking cute in a summer outfit, soon to be put away for the winter!

Katja's cast is off for now and we're still waiting to hear about her surgery date!

Reflections

I am sorry that I do not have pictures of any gorgeous and adorable children to put up here but Tom took some amazing photos on the weekend and so I thought I would put them up instead... :) maybe after the Thanksgiving weekend I will put up some pictures of a dog, at least.




BTW - the children are all adorable and cute - this is a comment for all them (so as not to be repetitive)

xo Jil

Gotta love that smile!

Quite the pose, Mr. Jared!

Being mauled at Marineland.

Hello family!

These are a few pic's from the last couple months to go along with the newsletter: Marineland, the Toledo Zoo, and a visit from Marianne and Jared.

Love to you all,

Tim & Steph, Marika & Shaelyn

This is Alexandra on her first day of pre-school. She loves it - and of course so do we. She goes every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I have also included Mackenzie's 1 year picture. She turned one on the 18th - I'm still not sure where the year went. She has taken up walking and to date has 5 teeth and 3 on the way!

Love,
Shawn, Rhonda, Alexandra & Mackenzie

Katja at home!

I hope this works, because it looks a little funny so far, but if there ARE pictures, they are of Katja in her swing - but is she singing? "Swing low, sweet chariot..."

The other picture is of her on the floor looking cute and smiling away at me. Mom told me that I had to put this one on, so...here it is!

Love Liz

picnic at Wawa on the way to Thunder Bay

Hi everyone! I unfortunately do not have the internet at home anymore, and therefore will have to find some way of getting any new photos scanned into my computer at home to this one at work. At any rate, for those of you who have not seen me in a while (which I don't think is any of you...but I digress), here are some relatively new images of me and my BEAUTIFUL mother on Mother's Day. Sorry or the fuzziness! Love ya mom!

In Him,
Rosalyn

This is taken in the Banff Springs Hotel, where the new product launch was being hosted by Pfizer for vets and spouses. In a spiral staircase in the castle-like hotel. We'd had our picture (Trev and I) over 4 years ago before we were engaged, as we'd snuck in and explored with Trevor's brother and his soon-to-be bride as well!























The pictures got mixed up in order, but here is Trevor and Katja when we got back to his brother's place on Friday night. Katja needed to have her cast taken off but she was SO tired. She didn't even wake up for most of this part, but did when Trev started to unpeel the cast off. She just looks so "out" here.








Here we are on our 4th anniversary - on top of the world!!
Our trip to Banff was so nice and came just at the right time!
This was taken on top of Sulfur Mountain...

Dear Family:

The news at our home this week is Back to School 2006. So here are few pictures:

This is Ben on his first day of grade 2. He was very, very excited about going back to school and he likes his new teacher.

This is Joshua on this first day of Junior Kindergarten. He was excited and nervous all at the same time but he did well and enjoyed his first 2 days. His favourite part of school so far is riding the school bus home. He has about a 5-10 minute bus ride around town on his way home - it would take about 3 minutes to walk home.

And Sarah is enjoying her time at home with all the toys and mom all to herself.

We are working at removing the wall between our hallway and dining room and she was "hiding" in the wall.

Love to each of you:

Steve, Karen, Ben, Joshua & Sarah

Praise God!!!

We got Bella's test results back this afternoon and they're

NEGATIVE!

I can hardly describe how relieved and thankful we feel. My first reaction was to burst into tears, followed by jumping up and down and singing, with a bit of running and around in circles! I just feel like there's a giant weight lifted off our shoulders.
(The reality of course is that it was never really on our shoulders, or at least, it didn't have to be. In our family devotions we've been talking about releasing our problems and worries to God. Very relevant right now. It's been a daily struggle, and I'm not sure we've mastered it, but we're working on it!)
Thanks so much for praying with us over the past month as we've waited. It's been agonizing, but knowing that so many people were praying daily for Bella made all the difference!
She is in good Hands.

Rachel, Austin, Joanne and Bella

ps - here's a picture of Bella in her halloween costume... a wee bit early. But she's a purple dragon and we couldn't resist!
pps - The final test will come at 18 months, so we'll do another at 12 and then 18. Keep praying!

Greetings from the Rodgers. I am trying this blog thing again, as I did not post properly last time. Here are our girls at 21 months old. Laura is on the left in the purple. They have very different personalities. Laura is quieter and easier to please. She is particular about her clothes and loves her blankey and her thumb. Jessie is bossy and likes to be in control. She is quick to hug and loves her soothies. They are a true joy to us. They love playing with each other and look for each other when they are apart. They love their older siblings, always calling for Noah and BreeBree (Brea).

hello all - I had a request to put the photos of our new camping spot on the Blog so here it is... Twin Lake (south west corner of Highway 7 & Highway 38) - 21 acres - 600 feet of waterfront (basically the little bay that you see out in front in the pictures)



It is a 1500 square foot cement pad with a building on it, of which the back 600 sq feet is a triple car garage and the front part is a 900 sq. foot cottage. There is a slight hill down to the lake front on a clear path. The lake is not large but is a spring fed lake that has some spots about 50 feet deep - there are bass and pike in the lake.





The "kitchen" is really just some shelving as there is not any running water, hydro or drains etc but there is a lovely woodstove and lots of windows with views.



They are leaving the couches behind for us as they were only going to take them to the dump and a couple of beds also so we don't have to visit Ikea again immediately. There is still lots of work to do - although the exterior looks finished it still needs either board and batten or siding or brick or logs to finish it and also inside it is completely insulated and drywalled but needs to be mudded and painted, flooring etc.



We are looking forward to just enjoying it and the outdoors for the next 6 months to a year and then starting to work on it after that.

We are always open to visitors so let us know if you'll be driving by or would like to stop in for the weekend. We hope to be there every second weekend as doing the drive every weekend will be a bit much. It is about 350 km and therefore a 3.5 hour drive with good traffic.

I just downloaded this from mapsgoogle and tried to show the layout of the property - for those of you able to see the actual survey that was online you will know it isn't completely correct but will give you the idea.

Although there is no hydro or phone line, it does have better cell phone service than the house here in Burlington and so we will always be accessible and I can log on to my email by connecting through my cell phone. It will be slow but possible. (My cell phone number is 647-227-7559 in case anyone needs it...)

We are looking forward to trying out some solar options, maybe some wind options etc for power. Of course, we do have an outhouse but maybe looking at an Envirolet etc. Back to the basics! The current owners were telling us that the maple trees on the property are very sap prolific in the spring - they can fill a very large bucket in a couple of hours so we are looking forward to making some Twin Lake Maple Syrup. Liz, I loved reading about your canning etc I will have to get in touch and get some tips from you. We are also going to pick up a Dutch Oven as they are great for outdoor cooking and also cooking on the woodstove. You can even get a coffee machine that works on a Coleman stove. :)

Okay, I will stop yakking now. It is so much fun to see all the pictures and here about the activities. Thank you again for much everyone for taking the time to contribute and Liz and Trevor for taking the time to coalate.

Happy Birthday and Anniversay to all those with events in September!! :) hee hee, that gets us off the hook xo Jil n Tom

No word yet on Bella's test results. We thought we'd have them by the end of this week, but Bella's doctor is away until Tuesday; so even though the results might come back, we won't likely hear until Wednesday. Ugh. The wait has been awful, but knowing that so many people have been praying is really getting us through this time.
We had a great experience the other day. Some of Bella's family came to our house, including her biologicial grandmother ('Kookum') and aunt, and we all prayed for her. It was the first time that her Kookum met her, which was pretty special to see. Bella also received her Indian name, which is extremely significant in Anishinabe culture. She was given the name "Ohgemaanangok" which means "Morningstar". Isn't that beautiful?! To give her the name we passed her from one person to the next, each one saying her name (either in english or Ojibwe) and kissing her. It was awesome! We're actually considering using her Indian name as her given name! Not sure about that one yet... but we'd better decide quick.
In other news...
We've decided to homeschool Joanne this year. The grade seven class at the school just wasn't an option due to a bunch of factors; class size, level of instruction, behavioural issues, and overall negative learning environment. We started on Tuesday, and this week has been great! It's definitely not for everyone, but it seems to be a pretty good fit for Joanne.
That's all for now. Thanks so much for your ongoing prayers and concern for Bella. Please keep praying! We'll let you know as soon as we find out.
Love to everyone,
Austin and Rach and the girls.