Last Week

It's been a little over a week since the last time I posted. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is my last week here in Port Colborne! My parents are coming up this Friday and we'll spend a day in Niagara and then head back home with all my stuff. It doesn't seem real to me that I'm leaving; it still seems like next Monday I'll get up and go back to work as usual.

That being said, I'm excited that instead of going to work next Monday I'll get to see Paul =P

Paul is doing well, he's trying to lay low as much as his sanity will let him but he's been able to get back to work so that he can continue paying off his car. Praise the Lord for remote jobs! Health Insurance is still a little iffy last I heard, so please be praying that it will get sorted out so he can get another doctor's appointment.

I've been very encouraged the past week. Two of my courses in school last year focused on usability and how to determine if what you're building is actually worth using. So I've been putting some of that knowledge to work and developed a usability test for people to try out before we make the site go live. If you want something productive to do, need a break from doing other productive things, or just love me enough to spend 10-20 minutes of your time poking around a website, feel free to fill out this survey monkey :)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BHYRLXJ

Anyway, the encouraging thing about this whole usability testing business is that it looks like the website we've built is usable! Granted, we can't please everybody, but it looks like the majority of people are able to navigate and get the information they need while it looking pretty at the same time :) (Which is my main goal in life, make functional things that happen to be pretty).

Today is Tuesday which means we had a devotional this morning. Raymond, our associate director, encouraged us today to pray for something big. Furthermore, he decided that instead of praying in our own little worlds, we should lay hands on EVERYONE in the room present and pray for something big. What an experience. It'll be a challenge to continue praying like I do here, but I want to embrace it. So, go pray for something big!

The Weekend

Time is so weird. This morning I just realized that this coming weekend is my last free weekend in Port Colborne. Next weekend my parents come up and bring me home. What???

But what I want to talk about is last weekend. On Friday, Raymond our Associate Director asked the team if anyone would be available to hand out literature during a conference that was happening in Hamilton, about an hour away. Most of the team was already tied up with other commitments, but CJ, Stephanie and I were free, so we volunteered.

This conference is hard to explain, but I'll try. It was a conference specifically for Pentecostal, North American, Malialam speaking Christians. This is a language spoken in India. George Verwer, the founder of OM, was set to be one of their speakers. George sent a ton of books (I think  I was told 1 million) to be sold/given out to these people. In all of the even planning somehow it got missed who would actually be manning the book selling tables.

It was really very interesting, I got to interact with a lot of Indian people and learn a little bit more about the world. It was almost like being a vendor in an Indian market! I also learned more about OM and George Verwer's story when he spoke during one of the sessions. CJ told me that this was a "true OM experience". "No one really knows what's going on, we're just kind of winging it, and somehow, God will pull this all together". It's true, He did. We got lots of books handed out and sold. I'm learning how important it is when you're a missionary to be flexible and willing to do whatever is necessary to further God's kingdom. We sold books from Saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. - 9:30 pm and from 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 a.m. on Sunday. It was a very busy weekend! I'm pretty sure I gained a few pounds of muscle from all the boxes I carried aht were full of boks ;)

I also got to eat at Swiss Chalet, a Canadian family restaurant and have one of Canada's favourite foods: poutin. This is fries smothered in gravy and cheese. If it sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen, that's because it is.

Paul is doing quite well; at this point it's just making sure that he doesn't catch any secondary infections. He's been trying to be good and to be patient until we have an all clear from a blood test saying his immune system is back to normal. His dad just switched jobs and right now their healthcare is up in the air, so if you all could be praying that it would get resolved quickly so he can have another doctor appointment that would be awesome.


As far as I'm concerned, I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed with how much work is left when I leave so soon! I know it will all get finished, but just pray for me that I will work diligently and not waste time worrying about it. I can't believe this summer is coming to a close soon! Thanks :)

Oh, and if you want an email newsletter or printed newsletter just let me know!

Miracles & Another Week

Paul has been feeling so much better. Last Saturday I prayed hard that his jaw would be released so that he could eat again. Sunday morning we talked and it was about the same -- I felt so discouraged. However, by dinnertime he could almost open his mouth completely, swelling had gone down, and the pain in his ears had subsided substantially. All I can is Praise the Lord!!!! I know healing that fast could have only come from the Lord. Please continue praying for him -- everything is not totally gone. He has energy and is getting some cabin-fever but needs to continue staying home as he is still contagious and can catch secondary infections easily. It is so hard to stay home when that's all you've been doing for almost 3 weeks and you're "feeling healthy"! Please pray that he will have the wisdom to discern what he should and should not do. 



I've gotten back into soccer which has been a lot of fun. We played a very intense game this Wednesday--it was so hot and humid! Normally we play for 2 hours with  > 20 people, but with only 8 people and double the running we barely lasted an hour. It's been good for me to start playing again; I've watched way too much Netflix recently ;)  I was also blessed to hang out with my friends CJ, Stephanie and their friend Jolene last weekend. We went to Canada's Wonderland which is similar to Six Flags. I was very impressed by this theme park! We had a lot of fun riding roller coasters and I was glad to have some company. I also celebrated Canada Day Sunday night by watching them shoot off fireworks over the canal.

Aside from this weekend, it's been a pretty quiet week, both at home and in the office. My roommate left to counsel at a camp, butI have a family staying with me now so that has added a little bit of excitement to my life. Funny enough, their oldest daughter just graduated from Taylor, their second oldest daughter is currently there now as a Junior, and their youngest is considering going there! It's always so fun to find these connections.

I'm not terribly good at working alone and staying motivated. With the office being so quiet, I find myself being very distracted. It's hard at this point because I can confidently say at this point that everything functionality related is done. All that's left is sorting out what to do with applications, online giving, and content. All of those things I can't do on my own, so it's hard to know what to work on. Pray that I will stay focused and productive. Pray that the Lord will give me tasks to do until I'm officially finished working at the office July 20th.

We have also had more sickness and illness descend upon our office. Our office manager - Harold, is out with an inner ear problem that causes him to become dizzy and nauseous, his wife said this is the worst episode he has ever had and there is no set time for when he will get better. He does quite a bit for us and it's hard having him out.


Maybe one day I'll learn to be concise. Thanks for sticking with me anyway :)

Real Life

Since Paul left, I feel like I've been avoiding blogging. (Well, I don't feel like I have, I have been avoiding it)

Why? I know why. Because I like being transparent and putting what I'm really thinking out there. But being real and honest seems kind of wrong as a missionary sometimes. We think, "Aren't we supposed to be praising God all the time and talking about how good He has made our lives? What would my supporters think if I made a post or comment about how crummy things were? That their money was being wasted? " And then I just feel worse and very alone. 


Then I remember, "Ah, but they are my supporters! Thus, they should especially support me when I feel crummy! This is part of the adventure!"


And indeed it is. One of our friends here, CJ, said to me, "Well. you're a real missionary now. All missionaries struggle with finances, visas, or illness. Because you're covered financially and don't need visas, clearly one of you had to get ill." He was mostly joking, but it's also very true. While we've been here we've prayed for many people who are struggling with finances, visas, or being ill. Unfortunately, both of us have been sick here while we were here but that's beside the point. The point is, being a missionary is not easy and real life happens to us too (sometimes I think it's on a grander scale, but I'm probably just being dramatic). So, while I'm going to try hard not to complain too much and focus on the good, I'm just not in a terribly chipper mood all the time now.


Strangely enough, I have found one more "good" thing about this whole mono business and this "good' thing is also going to sound strange. Paul and I don't usually find much to disagree on and we had never had a full on argument, but the other night we had a huge argument over something. In the end the right decision was made and, we resolved it, but there was a lot of frustration and stress getting there. In a weird way, I think that was good for us. It sucked, but I think we'd be fools to think that arguments like this will never happen again when we get married. I tend to default to ignoring the person when I'm in a long distance argument and I love that he doesn't let me do that. I know arguments will happen, but this has made me more confident that we can get through them and more importantly want to because we want to make this work. 


Not only that but God is really trying to stretch my trust in Him. Before Paul left I could check in on him personally every few hours, make sure he takes his meds and try to make him eat healthy. But now I'm in Canada and he's far away and I have to trust God that He's got this. But I'm having a hard time trusting God that Paul being in the States and away from me is what's best. Don't get me wrong, I'm used to being long distance and the "I miss him" pain. That feels more normal than getting to see him every day. But this separation seems magnified with him being so ill. All day I think, "I wish I were home" or "I wish Paul were here with me." But, I'm trying to truck along, do my best to do what I can and pray hard. It's hard when I feel so helpless.


Paul update: He's not doing any better and seems to be getting worse by the day. Nothing has really improved other than the ibuprofen is much better at dealing with the pain than Tylenol. However, yesterday he started having jaw pain and as of today can't open his mouth more than the width of his finger. Again, this makes eating and keeping hydrated difficult. If he doesn't get proper nutrients in, then his body can't fight this virus and whatever else is going on with him, then he takes longer to recover. He goes to the doctor on Monday. My prayer is that he will be fully healed by the time I get home, in roughly 23 days. If that's the case then he most likely will be able to attend school this semester. If he ends up staying ill long enough that he can't go to school this semester then we will probably be postponing our marriage as well. (Not ideal).



Work update: I've managed to finish the Pray page, and am rethinking the Give page. Added some nice usability touches to it and will be doing a little bit of user testing. Documentation and training will start next week as I will be heading home two weeks earlier than planned. (Don't worry, I'll keep working from home).



Well, for not wanting to blog, that was an awfully long blog post =P Thanks for sticking with us.

Alone in Canada

I feel like I should write a blog post. But for once, I don't really have much to say.

Paul is about the same. He went to the doctor at home and they told him to get off the Tylenol and get on ibuprofen. Tylenol is hard on the liver and not as effective. We had been told the opposite by the doctor in Welland. So the good news is that he's having less trouble with his ears and can eat more. Praise the Lord!

There's some good stuff happening on the site too. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get some simple javascript working so that users will have a better experience. I've also nearly completed work on the Give page -- all that's left is putting in content. The Pray page is taking some form, although I'm not happy with it at present. I think more brainstorming is necessary and God will give me what it should look like. Then the last thing is to throw in some Facebook integration. Once that's done, it's on to documentation and training! Yay!

Before all the mono mess happened Paul and I were planning to go to the Toronto Challenge. This is an outreach put on by OM Canada and a local church to reach out to those in the Toronto area, especially Muslims. Unfortunately, I've decided to not go to the challenge for a couple of reasons. One, I'm leaving two weeks earlier than planned, so I need to have more time to do the documentation and training and the outreach is a whole week that I couldn't work. Two, I'm trying to keep my immune system as boosted as possible, and I don't think being around lots of new people, foods, and late nights are helpful.

That's all I've got for you. Oh, and Canada Day is this Sunday! Yay!

God is in Control

"This summer isn't turning out to be how you planned it, is it?"

This phrase and other variations of it I've heard many times over the past few days. They're right; this is not how I envisioned this summer going at all.

In some ways though, this is what I asked for. I prayed that God would work through us, help us to build a website and strengthen our relationship both with Him and with each other. To tell you the truth, he's done all those things, just in ways I wouldn't have imagined.

Obviously, there is a website and we've done a lot of work on it. He's worked with us. It's coming along well, even with everything going on. There's one major section to finish and then it's on to documentation and training. This has been much smoother than either of us had anticipated. We had been working really well together which was another thing we were testing out since I'll be starting an internship with EV Technologies this August. (That's the company Paul works for).

As for our relationship with God, I can't speak for Paul, but I know I've had to do a lot of trusting of God in everything that we've been doing. I've had much more time spent with God this summer than I have in a long time. All this illness has just made me lean on him more. I've learned more about prayer, about giving, and about what it really takes to be a missionary through this experience. It's more than spending a week or two "roughing it".

As for our relationship, yes we're apart now, but we know we can handle that. That's normal for us. What we wanted to see was if we really had what it takes to make it for more than 2 weeks. We made it to 4 before he had to leave and we were going strong. I had a friend who once said to me way before I got engaged, "I'm not going to ask you if you love Paul, but do you want to care for him? Do you want to  do what's hard, to clean the dishes, pick up after him and actually live a life with him?" I didn't really know what to tell her then because we've never had an opportunity to do "normal" like that before.Well, I got a heavy dose of that this week and I can tell you that I feel more secure in my love for him than I did before he got sick. 

 I will miss Paul, but I'm glad he will be at home where he can be close to medical care without worrying if we're going to be able to get back across the border. I wish I knew why this happened, but I'm trusting God on this one. He is good and is in control.


Please keep praying for his recovery. I'm coming back home in 3 and a half weeks and I think it would be awesome for him to be mostly recovered by the time I get back. Pray that I will be able to get done what is needed over the next 3 weeks and to make the right decision regarding whether I should go to the Toronto Challenge. I can't thank you all enough for the many prayers that have already been lifted up for us.

Illness Update

We've been on a bit of a rollercoaster since Paul started feeling sick on Tuesday. As I said earlier, the doctor at the clinic in Welland suspected Mono but their facilities don't have blood testing. We decided to see how he felt the next day to determine whether we should go to Buffalo for more testing.

I got to his apartment Wednesday morning to make him some breakfast and the first thing he said was, "We are going to Buffalo." So, we got a little bit of eggs into him and headed off. Many thanks and praises to God for Buffalo only being half an hour away from the border. The first hospital we got to, Buffalo General Hospital, were tight lipped about expenses, but I went ahead and saw a doctor about the possibility of me getting tested for Mono. She said that it would be pointless for me because it would probably turn up negative regardless if I had it since it's so soon after Paul having acute symptoms. If I was sick in a few weeks then I would know, if not, then I wasn't infected. So far I'm still feeling fine.

Since that hospital would tell us nothing about expenses (yes, we checked with the billing department), we decided to head to another urgent care facility in West Seneca. They were very gracious and took care of us immediately. About half an hour later we had confirmed Mono. Paul spent the rest of the day sleeping and being an obedient patient for me, dutifully taking his coconut oil, echinacea, and eating healthy. I don't know if it's the lack of energy, but his patience and obedience is making things a lot easier on me.

Today I went to see him for breakfast and he seemed to be doing a little better. I went back at lunchtime and he was well enough to be oogling a car in the parking lot when we walked outside for a few minutes ;) Then, just before I got off work he texts me asking me if he could drive to the store to get pizza. Of course I told him no, but that made me feel very encouraged. He had an appetite, was feeling energetic enough to go somewhere, etc. I told him if he forewent the pizza then he could go to the team picnic for 15-20 minutes and see people. We went to the team picnic for about 15 minutes and he seemed ok there which was good. I brought him back home and had him rest until I came back later with some groceries.

By the time I got back around 9:15 he was not looking so good...his ear has been bothering him all day and I think the pain is increasing. This is common with Mono, because of all the pressure of the lymph nodes. If it continues to stay bad we may have to go back to the doctor to get him some steroids.

It was hard being in the office without him today; I had no one to tell me that what I was doing looked awful =P I'm praying hard that he won't have to go home, but if that's what God wants him to do and if that's what he needs to do then I will have to try and be ok with that. I must admit how frustrated I am that this has happened now, in the middle of what I thought would be an awesome summer together. Paul summed it up very well this evening, "This sucks."


I do praise God that this didn't happen during school year which probably cause him to take longer to finish. We're also in a place where he can get medical help if needed. We're surrounded by people who even after knowing us for just a few weeks and doing everything they can to help us. Truly, we serve a good God. 


So to sum up: please pray for Paul that he will be able to get the rest he needs and for the pressure in his lymph nodes to reduce so that his ear doesn't hurt. Ultimately, pray that he be completely healed. Help him to find the good in this experience and to not be discouraged and scared. Pray that I will make the right decisions, be ok with the right decisions, and take the best care I can of him. Thank you so much for following along and reading.

More Illness

The devil really doesn't like our progress and has decided to hit us much harder this time.

Paul woke up this morning not feeling well with swollen lymph nodes and an ache when he breathed deeply. We took him to a walk-in clinic this afternoon and the doctor suspects he has mono. He is currently resting and I will be doing the same shortly as it's possible that I have it too. It's also possible that my strep throat awhile back was actually a very mild mono and he's coming down with it now (he's at the end of the  incubation period for mono from when I had strep). They didn't take a blood test for him, but if it gets any worse than we'll have to go back.

So, we're asking for more prayer. Thanks everyone!

Small Things

We've had this fly stuck in our house for at least a week now. Just one fly. Flies normally aren't that big of a deal to me, but this one seems hell bent on irritating me. For some reason, it enjoys hanging out in my room and bathroom. I've thrown out my trash and picked things up but to no avail; still it buzzes around in here.

This fly first started irritating me at night when it would land on me while I sleep. I would wake up and then have to fight it off before going back to sleep. So this fly and I have begun a nightly ritual of me waiting up for it until it goes into the bathroom. I then jump up and run to the bathroom and shut the door imprisoning it there and hoping that it doesn't figure out that it fits under the door.

This worked until last night. I awoke and felt the fly on me and just felt this wave of discouragement and frustration come over me. "God, why is it that something as small as a stupid fly is bothering me so much! This is just ridiculous. I shouldn't be afraid to go to sleep because a fly might land on me."

Then it hit me. Here I am talking to the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE ABOUT A FLY.

Then something else hit me. He cares about how I feel about this fly. He wants me to bring everything to him. He wants me to surrender all to him, even this silly fly. So often we give God the big things, but not the little things because "I can handle it." And while maybe we can handle it once, all those little things add up until we can't handle it anymore.

I don't know where that fly is now, but I thank God for putting him in my room so that I can keep learning to bring the little things to him.

On a more work related note:
Paul and I are close to finishing the website! Most of the pages are fully built out with just some tweaking needed. We have one major section to finish and then we will be working on getting the application for all OM Canada trips online. This is a pretty big undertaking so be praying for us as we try to find the best system. Thanks!

Flexibility

Today we bring you our first joint blog post! Well, rather Ashley is typing and Paul is watching. All the other blog posts have been done independently. The past two days we've really felt some major spiritual warfare in the tech world.

The whole time we have been here we have been having issues with accessing files that live on the server and not in joomla. We've been having permission errors and this has prevented us from saving things in vertain files. Mostly, we wanted to do some cool CSS stuff. But, since cool CSS isn't necessary at the moment we've been working around this issue and not worrying about it.

Yesterday we were trucking along, making good progress when suddenly...dun dun dun! The live OM Canada site was down! This was a huge issue for us because that is where we are drawing most of our content from. That and it's not good to have your live site down.

We eventually figured out that it was down because the hosting company (the people who own the server that our site lives on) decided to upgrade their php (the language that our site runs on) in the middle of the day without telling us and the new php didn't want to play nice with the live site. Fortunately, they have super awesome customer service and it was fixed quickly.

This morning we walked in and saw that the live site was up and running  and felt pretty good. Until we realized that the site we are working on was down. We just can't win. Some investigation revealed that we had exceeded our memory limit. We found the file that sets the memory limit and found out that whoever built the file had set a variable as "memory_limi = 32MB". Well, that missing "t" in limit was causing all of our issues. We could have easily fixed this in 5 minutes except that the permission issue I described at the beginning of the post prevented us from doing so. So, we submitted a  request to the hosting company (less than 24 hours after submitting one for the live site) to fix the permissions issue. We weren't sure how long this would take so this is where the "flexibility" title is coming in.

We literally couldn't do anything, so we started pitching in with other office work putting Paul's envelope stuffing skills back in use. <sarcasm>Which he was incredibly thrilled about. </sarcasm> We did get to have some fun though, we used a machine that automatically stamped and sealed envelopes.

Dear offices of the world: obtain one - Yours truly, Paul.

Thankfully, an hour and  half later the awesome customer service had fixed the permissions error and another guy who helps out occasionally got the memory issue fixed. We have more of a functioning site put together, so if you want to check it out just navigate your browser to http://omcanada.org/joomla25. (And to prove to you that we are working). Feel free to give us any feedback on it, especially concerning menu navigation and usability. Note that if you see any forms, they don't work currently :) Thanks for the reading and have a blessed day!

Long Short Week

Looking back, this week seems to have gone by fast. Of course that's usually how I see things looking back. Even the years since high school seem to have flown by. But this week felt a little slow while I was in it still.

It was very difficult not to get frustrated this week while at work. First we looked for a template for the site. I can't remember if Ashley explained what these are in a previous post, so I'll do my best to explain it here. The way Joomla (the software we're using to create the site) work is by placing articles in a page, and whatever other things you want to have in the page, called modules, in to things called positions. The positions are a huge deal to us, because they determine where we can place things on the page. The templates we looked for were all free, and there's a very good reason they are all free. The positions in the templates are not in the best places, and there are very few of them; there's maybe 6 or 7 of them. So we tried all week to get a free template to do what we wanted, when finally friday we were able to access the ones that OM already had, and VOILA! there was one we liked the look of, and it wasn't originally free so it had something like 60 positions. Perfect. But that was friday, so for 4 days we struggled with that free one.

The second thing that was frustrating about this week was finding the 'modules' that we needed to do the things we wanted. But we could only use free ones... Now, free modules tend to be better than free templates, so it wasn't too bad. But they do still have their problems. We were using one module all week because it did what we wanted and looked pretty good. But we got to friday and had to place it in the main page with the new template and it seemed like it was eating the other positions around it. The modules that we placed around it appeared behind or inside of it. So we ended up having to scrap it and find a different one. Fortunately we found one that works well and it only took around 10 minutes. 

So the better part of the week was a little slow, and annoying. But friday was really refreshing, and gave me new confidence for the beginning of next week. God is helping us with this. It may seem weird that God would need to help build a web site, but satan wants to do everything he can to keep us from making a good site that brings people to OM. So, when I say God is helping us I mean it, we couldn't do it without him. We couldn't have even gotten here, let alone raise enough money for the trip. 

One a lighter note, I managed to cook my own breakfast today. 3 fried eggs, that could have been better, and two pieces of toast that I toasted in my brand new toaster oven. An oven that I got at a yard sale for $30 new still in all of the packaging. Looked online and it goes for $70 usually, so I think I got a pretty good deal. After this summer I should be able to survive on my own cooking, with a little help from the internet and Ashley =)

A Real Week

Even though today is the two week mark officially, this Friday marks the end of our first week of work. It's gone by incredibly quick. It's nice to get into some semblance of a routine though. Last week we were all over the place, in different buildings, meeting new people, trying to figure things out, etc. But now I can see a face and pick a name to go with it and I've finally stopped turning the wrong way out of my office!

So, a typical week at OM Canada looks like this: Monday mornings we begin with a general meeting where we talk about what we're going to do for the week then we head to work for the rest of the day. Tuesday and Thursday mornings we have a team devotional and then get back to work. This week we've been learning about Muslims.  Friday mornings we write encouragement cards to the members of OM Canada and then you guessed it, it's back to work!

Today was the first day that we really made any headway. In Joomla, the Content Management System we're using, the best place to start is with a pre-made template. So, the past two or three days we've spent trying to clear out the sample information that was built into the site, get our navigation in, and play around with free templates. There's a reason most of those templates were free...and we spent many hours being frustrated by them. Luckily for us, OM has a membership with one of the best template vendors out there, but we didn't get that information until today. So now we have a template! This is a huge step in the right direction (provided we get the director's approval on this template next week). We've got a homepage worked out(!!!) and we're beginning work on the other pages. I'm excited to go back to work next week :D

Evenings have been wonderful. This is the first week where I haven't "had" to do anything in the evenings like homework or be somewhere. I can do what I want and I've really been enjoying that. I'm so thankful that I'm getting to have chill time like this. God has been so good. He's provided us with so many new friends who have been incredibly welcoming to us. CJ and Stephanie, who live across the hall from Paul, have invited us out to the movies, play soccer, dinner, etc. I haven't done this many "fun" things in a long time.

I think my roommate is slightly perplexed by me, but I think it's because I'm still trying to figure things out in Canada. We went grocery shopping Monday night and she asked me what kind of yogurt I wanted. Grocery stores look pretty much the same here, except none of the brands are the same! So I probably stood in front of the yogurt aisle for three minutes or so trying to decipher the brand. She asked me what was wrong and I told her that I had no idea what to do since I didn't recognize any of the brands. I finally just picked one at random and  it tasted pretty good at lunch.

 Have you ever walked in a house, condo, or duplex that has a floor plan that is the same of another house, condo, or duplex that you've been in before? The rooms are all in the same place but the furniture is completely different. You're comfortable because you know you're going to walk into the living room, but the couch shocks you because it's a different color than the one in the other place you've visited, or it's in a different place. That's how I feel about Canada. I'm comfortable here, yet it's all still unfamiliar to me. And Google keeps trying to tell me that I've spelled favorite and color wrong. By the end of the summer though it's going to be a place that I don't want to leave; I can tell already, just like when I was in England last January. No matter what though; God is good!

Real Work

I'd love to say that today went swimmingly well; but alas, it has not.

I got my "promotion" today and got to move into my own office. Paul and I have been sharing one small office since Thursday last week. OM Canada graciously gave us each a  huge 24" monitor to work with. We brought two of our own monitors as well so that we would have double monitors. (Once you have two, it's impossible to go back). Because of the way the desktop I was given was set up, I was planning on attaching the new monitor to my laptop and my own monitor to the desktop provided thus giving me....3 screens! I was pretty excited until my laptop failed to boot. Several times.

*menacing music*

This wasn't all bad, as they did give me a desktop to use and it's pretty quick for running Windows XP, but obviously they're not going to let me take it home. So, with a few hours of troubleshooting and some prayer we found out that the Boot folder on my laptop was corrupted and that my hard drive is possibly failing. That's bad news for sure, but Paul knows where to go from here to get my laptop back in working order. (Win for having a tech fiancée!)  I'm confident that by Wednesday or Thursday it'll be back in working order.

Someone joked to me during lunch that, "I hear you're running into some spiritual warfare on your computer!" I laughed; but as I've been thinking about it, I'm not so sure that it's far from the truth. My laptop has been running without any problems for awhile now and then out of the blue, several major files are corrupted. That kind of thing doesn't happen all at once. Spiritual warfare or not, God's got it under control.

So what have we actually done for OM Canada thus far? I know from experience that it's far better to start a project from an organized standpoint than to just launch into working, so we've been trying to get a schedule together of 1 week "sprints" and a way to track our sprints. We spent most of last Friday researching different free collaborative programs and have found an awesome project manager web application called EPM Live that has been working well for us. We have also been doing some analysis on the old site to see where we can make improvements. While a definite overhaul of the homepage and footer is needed, the rest of the old site isn't actually that bad. Tomorrow we meet with Greg, the graphic designer, and Raymond, our "boss", to go over look and feels. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have several wireframes drawn up, a navigational structure, and have a better idea of how to start building the new site!

Culture

Update: We're currently on an OM Canada retreat at Redeemer University College. Yes, that is the school name. We've finished with Planning days and representative meetings, all of which went pretty well. We're going to be doing our office setup on Monday. However, I wanted to talk a little bit about other things that I've been thinking about.

I remember preparing for my trip to OM ICT in January 2011 and putting very little effort into learning about British culture. I figured, "Same language, bland food, my family is English, what is there possibly to learn?" While the culture divide between America and the UK is not as great as between America and Africa, there were definitely differences that I had to learn.

Unfortunately, I fell into the same trap coming into Canada. I was sent preparatory materials about living in a different culture and I brushed them off as I figured. "It's just Canada. Heck, we're only an hour away from the States, no big deal." And I sincerely thought this was true (and to some degree, still do. We're all human). When Paul and I first crossed the border, the first thing I noticed about Canada was....how much like America it seemed. Other than seeing "100 km/h" on the signs, I could have sworn we were still on an American interstate. I'll be honest; I was slightly disappointed. I'm tired of the Midwest scenery and wanted something new. Thankfully, three hours later, Port Colborne is definitely different scenery. There's a canal, lake, beach, etc. ( AND SEAGULLS! I love hearing the seagulls!)

We've been here a week now and I've probably had 3-4 conversations on culture differences between America and Canada, and they have all been incredibly interesting. I don't think I have ever put any thought into what Canadians are like. I had just assumed that they were pretty much like us. While I'm not entirely wrong, they are more different than I had imagined. As a side note: I think my favorite part about these conversations is when a Canadian has tried to tell me what an American is like and I have to keep quiet and not be the arrogant American they're telling me we all are. =P

From my conversations, this is what I have gathered:

English Canadians (excluding the French Canadians and immigrant Canadians) compared to Americans are:

• More tolerant
• More laid back 
• Less patriotic
• More apologetic
• Less arrogant
• More secular

Now you know what a Canadian is like! (At least, according to what Canadians say about themselves).  

That last one I listed is most important to the OM Canada team. Canadian legislation is cracking down on Protestant churches and Islamic activity is increasing in Canada. The percentage of Christians has decreased dramatically over the years, especially in my generation. Someone told me, "America is almost as secular as Canada. The difference is that we're proud of it and don't care anymore." But I believe that America is heading that direction. What I've gathered from this is that if we're not careful, America will become what Canada is now. 

Prayer requests: 

• For us to develop relationships with our office team
• Developing a plan of action for the OM Canada website for the summer
• Our relationship
• Sleep as we continue adjusting to our new living arrangements

Praises!

• Paul didn't get Strep!
• I am feeling much better
• Learning so much about culture & the book of Revelations during our retreat

Thanks for reading this slightly longer post ;)

The People We Meet

So, I would just like to state up front, I won't write as much as Ashley does. I tend to have less to say than her, and, for the most part, many other people. That out of the way, these first few days have been okay. I only say okay because adjustment has been a bit difficult. Mostly in the area of sleep. I guess a little elaboration would be useful. When I'm home, where I usually live, my room is in a basement where there are no windows and very good insulation to keep out most external sounds. But here on the other hand, I'm in a second story apartment without AC, so I have to keep the windows open at night in order to stay as cool as I'm used to. And here lies the problem, my apartment faces one of the main streets in this town so there are several reoccurring noises throughout the night, and also a street light immediately adjacent to my window in my bedroom. So, long story short, sleep has been a bit elusive over the past few days. I'm fairly certain that I will be able to adapt in time, I just wish I could do that sooner.


Aside from that, the days have been fairly good, Most of what we have done so far is attend meetings that the members and representatives of OM from all over Canada have come to attend. These meetings are called Planning Days. They are a time to gather everyone into one place and, well, plan. Plan for the coming 6 months to a year. They are also a time to refresh relationships and  contact between the representatives of OM across Canada. For Ashley and I, this is a good opportunity to get to know the people we will be working with, and around before we actually have to work with them. I have met a lot of people, it is definitely stretching my socially. I think if it weren't for Ashley I would have hit my social limit by now.


I have to say, out of all of the people I've met, I can relate and enjoy speaking to CJ the most. He makes me think of how I'll be when I'm around his age. A guy who still loves the things that he did when he was 20, like video games and cars. But at the same time has a passion for his work for God and for the people he is around. I have a feeling we will become good friends through my time here, and I fear leaving because of the friendships I'll have made. Especially with CJ, since he is a console gamer and I play on PC =P But seriously, long distance friendships are hard, and can be just as hard as trying to maintain a long distance dating relationship. It takes an effort that I'm going to have to try to put into it, because I don't think I'll want to lose these people once I leave. Who knows, maybe God will send us back here in the future, and we'll get to work along side them, not as interns for the summer, but as co-workers that will be around for several years.


Well, looks like I lied to you in the beginning. I may end up writing more than I thought. Hope you don't mind. Sorry for the solemn post, but that's just what I've been thinking on tonight. Anyways, time for bed. G'night all!

Strep Update: Jesus is Awesome.

Let me tell you, Jesus is awesome.

As I was typing out my last blog post I was juggling insurance companies trying to figure out how in the world insurance works, never mind being an American in a foreign country trying to receive aid, and I was thinking, "For crying out loud! It's strep, I know I need some sort of penicillin, just give me some antibiotics..." Things don't work that way of course, so we finally headed out to the Port Colborne hospital. (CJ, one of the OM guys on my team, and his wife came with us)

After seeing the triage nurse (the nurse who checks vitals) I went to register as a patient. The registrar told me that there was a $620 fee up front. I knew that it would be high, but I was hoping it wouldn't be that high. So, considering that I only had strep throat and just wanted a prescription, I decided $620 wasn't worth it and we opted to start heading to the walk-in clinic where they would see me for $50. Luckily, I had to sign out first. I went back to the triage nurse who had seen me before and explained that I was just going to go to the walk-in clinic. There was a doctor present who overheard my predicament exclaimed, "This is @#&$*! Get over here, I'll check you out." She looked at my throat for 3 seconds, declared I had strep and quickly wrote out a prescription. For free. An hour later I had antibiotics that are hopefully coursing through my system
now getting rid of the stuff.

Today's been one of those days where there's no way I can doubt that God provides for me. It's only day 2 and we've been so incredibly blessed here in Canada.

O Canada!

Well folks, it has already been quite the adventure. Our 16 hour travel day went well and we crossed the border pretty painlessly. They had us go to immigration, but that didn't turn out to be a big deal. We finally made it to Port Colborne around 12:30 am. 


Yesterday we got up and finished unpacking in our respective homes. Paul is living in a single apartment above a fashion shop and I'm sharing a home with Joanna, another missionary here in a retirement community  Port Colborne definitely has the small town feel to it, but it's bigger than Troy and definitely bigger than Upland. It's right off of a canal and the website promises us that there is a beach close by! We also got a tour of the office and guess what, we each have our own office! 


Next week is OM Canada's "Planning days" where we won't be doing much tech work, but will be doing what we can to help assist the team to make planning days go smoothly. Our email said: " I would like to ask you two if you would be willing to help out with some of the running around that will need to be done next week during our meetings.  Joanna will certainly need your help with set-up and moving supplies.  You may also be called upon to pick up lunches or that sort of thing." 


We're real interns! :)


Yesterday my throat started feeling kind of sore but I decided to give it another day before trying to seek medical assistance (Honestly, I was just trying to avoid it). I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to take a look at the back of my throat and unfortunately it looks like I have strep. We're currently in the process of figuring out insurance and how to get medical assistance. So if you could be praying for us that this goes smoothly, that Paul doesn't come down with it, and for Planning Days ahead that would be wonderful!

(I'll put up a post up sometime later detailing more about why we're in Canada, what we're doing, trying to accomplish etc.)