We made it

With no big delays, no lost suitcases and absolutely no questions at immigration we arrived!The boys were great travelling, all three of them slept on the 9 hour flight and only Sam was awake for the second flight.

Today started with sleeping in, I woke all the boys up at 11am this morning.  Most people tell me that jet lag makes their kids wake up in the middle of the night but in our experience it just makes the boys more tired which works out pretty well actually!

The rest of the day has been unpacking and seeing family.  By far wee Jack is the most excited to have us home.  He was crying seeing Sam and Joel at the airport and had us all crying!

The boys are off to bed at a more normal time tonight and Bill & I won't be too far behind them! We are looking forward to going to our own church tomorrow and between the dentist, doctor and optician this week is full of appointments and catching up with more friends.

Thank you for your prayers, God answered and brought us here safely and smoothly.

Home

The word home has taken on a new meaning in our lives over the past few years and more so in this past year.  We call three places home now, Canada, Northern Ireland and Haiti. But not all those places really feel like home.

For me, my home is in Bangor Northern Ireland where I grew up and have spent most of my life except for the times I've lived in Haiti.  Since Bill was 18 he hasn't lived anywhere longer than 5 years so Youngstown, where he grew up still feels like home to him.  And for Sam & Joel Haiti really feels like home to them. You can imagine when people here have been asking us where we are from its been a little tricky to answer. 

On Thursday we leave Bills home to go to my home which I am pretty excited about.  Its been a year and the longest I have been away from home and I am ready to go!  We are so thankful we have been able to visit NI both last summer and this summer.  Because most of the ministries in Haiti are teaching, things shut down for the summer so instead of taking a one year furlough every 4 years most of the missionaries go 'home' every summer.  Although most of this time is spent raising support and sharing in churches we feel so thankful to be able to spend time with family and friends.

So home for us is all over the place and sometimes we get frustrated and just want to be in one place and never leave which is never going to happen given that we are from two different countries! But when we feel like that we look back at the experiences we have had, the places we have been, the people we have met and the ways we have seen God work and are thankful for the travelling around knowing God is using this time to grow His Kingdom. 

From the hot mountains of Haiti 

To the cold prairies of Alberta!

We have often sat down to have a meal with each person at the table being a different nationality yet we are part of the same family of Christ.  One of my favourites was in Haiti with two of the visiting professors eating at our house (their wives were at home).  The first man was from Nigeria, he was married to a girl from Kenya but they lived in the states, the second man was from Haiti, married to a Russian girl again living in the states, Bill from Canada and me from Northern Ireland.  As we shared visa and immigration stories, whats its like to be married to someone from a different culture and how we all managed to be in Haiti at the same time It got me thinking about the family of God.  Isn't it amazing how we, as Christians can go almost anywhere in the world and meet people that we will spend eternity with in Heaven!

Anyway one of our supporters sent me these verses and it so true...

Philippians 3v20 ' But our citizenship is in heaven.  And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.'

Hebrews 13 v14 ' For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.'

Our earthly 'home' may change but our heavenly home always remains the same and how much better will it be than this earth! Something to focus on when times are difficult, when we don't want to get on another flight or when we want to have a more 'permanent' home.

But for now we keep getting on the flights and living somewhere that might not feel like home until God calls us somewhere else.

Some things to pray for as we leave Canada and head for NI.

Pray for a safe flight and that the boys would travel well and adjust well.
Pray that we could have no problems at immigration in London.  We are all travelling on a British passport except Jacob who will travel on his Canadian passport, which our sister in law picked up today. (Praise the Lord it was ready in time!)
Pray for all our speaking engagements that more people would get involved in the work in Haiti.
Pray too for the provision of a car, currently we will be sharing with my mum and sister.  If anyone had one that we (or my mum so we can take hers!) can drive please get in touch.

For those of you in Norn Iron were looking forward to seeing you!

Summer Schedule

If you would like to hear us share in August then come along to one of the following places, if you can't make it and would like to catch up then email me (julieedler@hotmail.co.uk) and we will arrange a time to see you. 

Sunday 12th - Glenarm Baptist Church 11am and 6.30pm

Wed 15th -   Upper Clonaneese Presbyterian 7.30pm

Sunday 19th  - Ballychrochan Baptist Church 11am

                          Straid Congregational Church 6.30pm   

Wed 22nd  - Millisle Baptist church 8pm

Sunday 26th - St Andrews Presbyterian 11am 

                         Bethany Baptist Church 6.30pm

                         Bangor worldwide 8pm  You can read more about Bangor worldwide here

Thursday 30th - Bangorworldwide Satellite in Magherafelt Union Road Presbyterian Church 7,45pm

Saturday 1st September - leave NI for Haiti!

I was sharing at a MFM golf tournament last week as they were raising money to buy medicine for Bethesda and while I was thanking them for their support it really struck me (yet again) how many people it takes in order for us to live in Haiti.  

We cannot do it without your financial and prayer support and we do like coming back and telling you the stories of what God is doing in Haiti because you are part of those stories too.  I love that God uses so many different people, so many links in the chain to bring people to himself.  So when your £20 comes out of your bank each month and when you pray for us when you see our picture on your fridge (which is still weird to me!) remember you are part of what God is doing in Haiti. 

This past year....hellos & goodbyes, coming & going

Everytime we leave somewhere its so bittersweet,  we say goodbye to family to go and see more family in a different place then move on to the place where we believe God has called us to serve.  Now in the next month we have more goodbyes coming up, we leave Youngstown on 19th July to head back to Northern Ireland arriving on 20th.  This is the longest time Bill has been home since 2011 and its going to be hard for him to leave.  The boys have loved seeing their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents yet they are moving onto a place with more cousins, aunts & uncles and grandparents which they are excited about too.

 

No matter where we live we feel guilty about not being in a different place.  We felt guilty leaving Haiti when we did with such short notice, now we feel guilty about leaving Bill's family, then those same feelings will rear their ugly head again when we say goodbye in Northern Ireland. 

This past year we have been in Northern Ireland, Canada, Haiti, Florida and the Dominican Republic, on paper the excitement of being able to visit so many places looks great but the reality of doing it with two, now three small children is just not quite as much fun.  I don't even want to count up how many different beds the Sam & Joel have slept in in the past 12 months.  We are so thankful they travel well and will sleep anywhere as long as teddy & big doggy (for Sam) and blanky and dummy (for Joel) are along for the ride!

This past year we also had lots of visitors come and see us in Haiti.  My dad, Bill's sister, my sister and Bill's friend Brian. Even though these visitors make us say more hellos and goodbyes we love having them.  So count this as an open invitation, if you want to come and visit us in Haiti please do! We will show you where we work, where Sam goes to school, the local community, church and of course a Caribbean beach!

 Please pray for us as we prepare to leave Canada and move onto the next place we call home.  We will be in Northern Ireland until 1st September and arrive back to yet another home on 2nd.  We will go to Calgary this week to apply for Jacob's passport.  In order to get an express passport you have to show proof of travel so we went ahead and booked our flights, pray that the passport application goes smoothly. Today is Canada day so I had to be culturally appropriate and dress the kids in maple leaf clothing! Happy Canada Day! 

Joel is very patriotic!

We were speaking in Bethel missionary church in Hanna and then went to their town celebrations with BBQ, bouncy castles, face paints and ice cream!The boys had so much fun Sam wanted to know when the next Canada Day was!