a good day.

Matt looks confused about how we got here! :)

The long road North yesterday was a happy one...the girls did great, the McDonald's had a play-place, and we were all so happy to see Dodo and Bubba that it was entirely worth it! 

Sofie decided 8 hours in a car seat merited two pacifiers :)

Only moments after arriving, the girls found Dodo and Bubba's jet tub, which in kid world, made Bubba's house something like mermaid Utopia.

We hardly had time to catch up before we were off to St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church this morning.  Somewhere along the line we had agreed to children's church, which is not really my thing.  However, I'm the one always telling everyone to embrace opportunities to be stretched, so this morning I had my chance!

It was fun to share with a great group of kids about the joy we can have in the Lord, no matter where we are from.  Lily, of course, made sure to whisper in my ear any time she thought I should be saying something differently :)  As we say, she's not bossy...she just knows what you should be doing.

Then, with the Sofie off to the nursery to baby all the babies (she LOVES being with babies and mothering them to death) and Lily clinging hands to another four-year old missionary kid named Lily from Hungary (God is good!), Matt preached the main service.

He spoke from Genesis 18, Mark 2 and from some of our personal experiences in Haiti.  

It was GREAT to look out on this crowd of people in a place we've NEVER been and see SO many faces we recognized, all from Haiti!  Glen W. and Barry Y. drove all the way up from Hamilton just to see us, and we were overjoyed to see these friends from life in Haiti!  And for the first time, Glen didn't even try to get me to eat any oysters!  He is MISTER Omega 3.  And Barry got us excited to see the rest of his clan on Thursday.

There, there was another group of people who came up from Hamilton we've met various times in Haiti on short term trips, and a whole slew of other men and women throughout the day who "know" us from our blog.  We got lots of hugs, lots of tears, and lots of prayers, and it's just truly touching and deeply encouraging to be loved like that from a church in Canada you've never even been to by brothers and sisters you've never even met.

We travel and speak for lots of reasons, but one of them is never so that we can be blessed.

And yet, without fail, that's exactly what always happens.  

Thankful, as Matt shared this morning, that He is the unfathomable, incomprehensible, holy and powerful God of the universe, AND the God who complies with Abraham's requests over Gomorrah, hears and responds to Sarah's laughter, and eats Sarah's food with Abraham in the shade.  

He's the God who makes Himself small enough to sit with finite me and listen to my prayers, AND is large enough to DO something about them, and MORE.

THAT makes today a great day to be in Him, eh?