Tuesday July 27, 2004
Greetings Friends!A lot has happened since Steve’s last letter. He hair has grown. He cut his toenails. And there was something else … Oh ya – we got married. What an exciting day it was. We really appreciated having so many of our friends in attendance to witness our vows and celebrate with us. Leading up to the wedding was a fun while sometimes stressful time, but it was exciting to see the things God did that day.
Aris, Grace’s 14 month old daughter, was to be in the wedding as the flower girl. We were becoming concerned about how this would work as every time she had seen Grace in her dress, she had become quite upset. Obviously not something we wanted to have at the wedding. We were also hoping she would learn to walk in time for the wedding. As it turned out, she was happy all through the ceremony. She was adorable walking down the aisle. Praise God for this, and thanks to all of you who were praying for Aris.
There were many of other blessings too. The weather was perfect, the people were wonderful, and although we were rather tired out by the end of the day (especially Grace as Aris woke up quite early that morning), we managed to get through the day stress-free.Another time of real blessing for us was when we opened the gifts. We were blown away by the generosity of so many friends and family. People purchased all sorts of wonderful gifts for us, gave us over $2000 in money and gift certificates that will be very helpful in getting our new home up and running. We were especially blessed by another gift towards our ministry of $1000. God has certainly blessed us abundantly.
Since getting married, life has been very different for both of us as we adjust to married life, and as Steve adjusts to being a dad. In most respects, this has been quite an enjoyable experience. Steve is still having some trouble with lack of sleep as Aris is up a lot during the night, and he’s just now learning to adjust to this.
So, what are we doing now? Steve is continuing to work with International Teams. He’s working out of the National office much of the time, with responsibilities in developing tools that will assist our mobilizers in getting more people to the field, producing videos, etc. He’s also spending part of his time working with “Welcome Home”, a new ministry to refugees in Kitchener, as volunteer coordinator. Grace has a growing interest in refugee ministry as well, so in addition to being a stay at home mom, and babysitting several children part-time, she’s exploring how she can be involved in this ministry.
An ongoing role every missionary has is in raising support necessary to sustain their ministry. For any missionary to be successful, they need people praying for them, as well as money to pay the bills, and enable the ministry. And we’re no exception. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be working on raising our level of monthly support to a point where our ministry is sustainable. We’ll be doing things like putting together a brochure describing more of what we do, sending letters & notes to people, and visiting with people. If you’d like to visit with us to learn more about our ministry, please feel free to contact us.Thanks so much for your prayer and interest in our lives. May God richly bless you.
Steve & Grace Van Bruwaene
