How did we end up here?
Well, its a bit of a long story. In April 2005, Melissa really felt God was asking us to sell our house in Brampton at a youth training session in Buffallo. This was very sad for us since Bobby's family lives in Brampton. Bramalea Alliance Church, where Bobby had been Youth Pastor for five years, has become our 'home church' in the Alliance where we have many very good friends, a youth group we adore and a congregation that we love. Bobby resigned not having any idea where we were headed.
Three days after telling the church we were leaving, we applied for a youth position in Bangkok, Thailand (no, not Bancroft!). In a whirlwind, we were flown over for ten days in August. We met some amazing people, especially Peter & Tracy, and fell in love with the place and the teens. When people asked us how we liked Bangkok, we frequently replied it was like Toronto. Bangkok is an incredible city. The Thai's are warm and wonderfully people.
One really great thing came out of Bangkok for us. We decided we could and would give up 'everything'. We were willing to live in an big city, in an apartment, to downsize (it's crazy how much 'stuff' we had accumulated), to eat strange spicy foods, work 6 day weeks, live on campus, breathe mass amounts of pollution, sweat ALL the time, not see family and friends for 2 year periods. When it came down to it we were willing to give up everything we could think of. (Everything except for the cat...who we don't REALLY "own". We are more like her keeper! She was ecstatic she didn't have to take a 19 hour plane ride.)
But Bangkok was not meant to be for us and we were not asked to go. Disappointed, shocked and confused; we finished our time at Bramalea Alliance, put our house up for sale and sold it in 8 days. We had no idea where or what we were supposed to do.
Some surprising and beautiful things started to happen. Bobby's friend Deitmar, who's business was located out of Toronto, gave him some gigs driving trucks to New York, Chicago and other cool places. At the U2 concert, Bono spoke and sang incredible songs over Toronto. Also John Latta from the Canadian Youth Network called and talked to both of us on separate occassions about available churches. He was pushing AGC gigs but we both really wanted to stay in the Alliance Church. Then he mentioned Toronto Alliance Church was looking for a youth person.
Now we should mention that Toronto Alliance Church is a bit of a Snuffalafugus, Pokaroo type church. No one knew where it was or if it did in fact exist. So Bobby got investigating and ended up calling the Pastor Bill Dyck. The church was already looking at a youth guy which was totally cool with us...we could help! We weren't convinced we would work in a church again. The following Sunday Bill was running a marathon and Donna, his wife, was speaking at Bramalea Alliance's women's retreat where Bobby's sisters, cousin and friends advertised for us. Hillarious! So we went to Toronto Alliance Church, 602 Queen Street West.
The first person who talked to us was Fiona, who is originally from Hong Kong, greeted us which was comforting and a gift from God. Then Jason Hildebrand walked in..."Dude? Dude!" The service was just what we needed. Challenging and very down-to-earth. The people were quirky, fun and real. This was the place we wanted to be in.
But did God want us there? We met with Bill & Donna and family soon after. Bill spoke directly to the pain we were still nursing from Bangkok. He was gentle but firm as he spoke about holding on to hurt and bitterness. As we drove back to Brampton, we gave our hurts and disappointments over Bangkok to God and he took them. Just like that. Beautiful.
Donna told us that we should ask God for what we want in an apartment. So we did. Sheepishly. We looked at 3 places...all bad. The worst one had no windows in it and bird poop everywhere. Ick. We were looking for a place very close to the church, above a store, windows, big enough that our furniture would fit in it, 2 bedrooms. 484 Queen Street was the last place we were going to check out or we would wait for a month or two. Like all Toronto hallways it was pretty scary and as we opened the door a giant Freddy Krugger poster greeted us. But it was perfect...or at least it had po (potential). It had a 'sunken' living room (very Chippawa), 11 ft ceilings, huge tall windows, laundry just outside our door, and a lovely terrace (equipped with barbed wire). Anyways, we got it! It has everything we wanted and more (especially since Kevin fixed the icky floors and painted the place)! We are so loving it!
Anyways, to finish this rediculously long thing. We started helping out with youth stuff in December and talking about maybe coming aboard. As we met with the TAC board, they said we were a gift from God and we're feeling that the church and this journey is also a gift from God. Here's the hard thing about the position: it is a raise your own support thing and we're battling our pride. How much do we trust God? We'll find out soon enough.
posted by Melissa @ 5:41 p.m.
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