Retreeeat! Retreeeeaaat!!

Some days I feel like I'm in Narnia. Patuanak is beautiful, but small--and when I'm here I feel like I never want to leave. I know there are things happening back home, but when I'm here it's like time stands still and I can get back to the beautiful basics. It's amazing how much time we actually have when we aren't commuting or running around doing errands. Sweet time--time to breathe, go for walks with the neighbour girls, enjoy dinner with new friends, stop and shoot the breeze... Life was supposed to be more like this, I'm sure of it!

This weekend Mars and I traveled into Beauval for a weekend Ladies' Retreat at Pine Ridge Bible Camp and I feel like a whole new world was opened up to us! This was my first trip out of the Patch in three weeks. Culture Week was cancelled because of a death in the community--which meant a normal work week researching conferences/festivals, creating programs, getting to know the kids better. By the time the bell rang Friday afternoon I wanted to run down the hallway and high-five everyone! The drive outta here was beeautiful--golden yellow birch leaves against a clear blue sky, nothing like it! BUT the thing that really got me was when we crested the ridge (that's right--Saskatchewan has a hill!) where the camp is situated--we had a panoramic view stretched beneath us of the lake and even more of the incredible fall colours. 

We stepped back in time when we walked into the cabins--naturally rustic, and complete with woodstoves and outhouses! It was sweet to be away from everything and in the company of beautiful women who love Jesus. It was overwhelming, really.. We were telling them that it was such an answer to prayer to meet people who serve the same God as we do--and they were telling us that they had been praying for someone to share Jesus in the village of Patuanak. They said the man who founded Northern Canada Evangelical Mission had done so after being heartbroken by the people in our new hometown. I was floored by that--God was speaking straight into my heart saying that although we don't feel like our job here is a big deal (and in the grand scheme, it really isn't), we are here to be part of a bigger purpose that was started a long time ago. God's heart for Patuanak is very clear--He wants people to be transformed from the inside out as they put their faith in Jesus Christ. And our heart for the Patch should be the exact same as that--living to love God and love people by sharing the Truth of Jesus with them.

Yesterday we went canoeing, soaked up the sun, and recharged our batteries.. Today after we left retreat (with a lot of contact info for a lot of sweet ladies!) we went grocery shopping together for the first time, picked cranberries, came home and cooked/cleaned/did laundry, ate dinner on the front steps (which made us feel like the biggest hicks), even went for a run together.. Life is good, God is SO good to us, and He keeps showing us that He's got this whole thing worked out so that He gets all the praise and glory He deserves! We couldn't have imagined life being so sweet in such a strange, storybook kind of way--but we just keep trusting that He knows what tomorrow holds and he'll prepare us for it one page at a time!