I write this as I wait at the Kelowna Airport to fly to Vancouver and then onto Minneapolis for Gather ’18.  This is a trip of saying goodbye to friends and family – it’s only two years, but seems huge since I’ll be on a different continent, in a different hemisphere, what seems to some as a different world.  This is a trip of getting to boast about Argentina, along with introducing my friend, Ivan Carrasco, from Argentina.  It will be a trip of memories – just a year ago; being commissioned together as New Missionaries.

As I embark on this exciting next stage of this journey of life, I’d like to ask something of my friends and family.  July 19th would have been our wedding anniversary.  Max and I would have been married for 21 years and together for 28 years.  I’d like this to be a day of celebration.  Would you celebrate with me?  Would you be willing to do that one thing that as a couple, or as a single, you always say your going to do or would like to do …. but never do.  It might be something as simple as being a tourist in your own town and seeing the museum, going to a play, something big like going ziplining or for a hike up Idaho Peak or having a picnic at Monica Meadows.  Whatever that one thing is that you just drove past and said ‘We should go there one day’ or ‘I should do that once’ – DO IT. For Max and I it was stopping at the big green truck in Sparwood.  For years; maybe 15 years, we drove past that saying ‘one of these trips we should stop there just for the fun of it’.  We finally did, and that was the last ‘zany, silly, fun’ thing we did.  Max is still a huge part of my life, a part of who I am; but these days, the hole that he left behind is slowly being filled with Christ, with a call on my life to serve Him, with a compelling to continue to walk in Faith, to Trust and be fully Surrendered and Obedient.

This poem was sent to me from Natasha in Chestemere, AB.  How fitting it is.  I go to Argentina, together with Max, together with Christ, together with all of you.

TOGETHER
I come to you, my fears I give
I come to you, my hopes I give
I come to you, my arms stretched wide

Fill my heart with you O Lord
Embrace me Lord, wrapped in your love
Guide me down this winding road
Carry me over the mountains high

I walk with you, my fears now gone
I walk with you, my hopes embraced
I walk with you arm in arm

Your love so large I cannot contain
But with you in my life, now I live.

Natasha Backs
Lake Ridge Community Church
Calgary, Alberta