Mark316.com

Susana and I are proud to announce that as of January 1st we will be the proud renters of a 2 bedroom basement suite. We are stoked. It is located on the Eastside close to the parents place, church and other handy things to be close to. This is a big step for us as this will be the first time that we have lived apart from family since our honeymoon. Some kind of house warming will happen for sure at some point but will run that by the landlords first.

three sun morning

Originally uploaded by Feuillu.

It´s cold. Really cold. I´m starting to like it again. It took me a while to aclimatize but I´m feeling there. I´ve been out sledding and skating and all of that great stuff. It has been a little rude to have one of the coldest early winters in a while but I hope that mean that things will get more mild for January because I was warning Susana about January.

Susana is still not loving the cold but she does enjoy the beauty of it all. She saw her first sundog today and that was pretty cool. It is one of the most incredible things that I have every seen as well. I wasn´t sure if Su had seen it so I pulled Su out of the service this morning to see it. It was amazing.

There is lots to report and I´ll have to make a point of getting back into the habit of blogging. It is more tricky when your job and fun activities are not computer based but we´ll see what we can do for now.

change

Originally uploaded by groc.

This week in learning is Mark’s 3 day experience with Social Service’s youth care training workshops (Social Service’s has changed names here in town but let’s leave that for the moment).

It has been really helpful so far. I have found lots of practical advice on being a youth worker. I hope that I don’t have to use it any time soon but I’ll feel a little better knowing that I have stronger guidelines to help me improve in my line of work.

Tomorrow we do our final and the restraints training so it should be a pretty fun day (not the final part but the other part).

Autumn At Padley

Originally uploaded by Jon Stead.

I have noticed that I continue to be a little sleepy and tired on a constant basis since I have returned. I’m working full time so that will help. Working until later in the evening every time I work will also be a factor. I think another main reason is that it is just a lot of stress to start a new life.

Before I left El Salvador I found that I was nervous about coming back home. Canada is home for me so it didn’t make sense. There were many things that I knew would be easier here but I couldn’t shake being nervous about it. I realized that much of my nervousness had to do with leaving the things that I knew were safe and secure to entering a new phase in life. Although one of the reasons that we cite for coming to Canada is the safety we enjoy here, there is something about the familiar that is sometimes much easier than change. In coming here I wasn’t restarting my life but starting a new life with my lovely wife Susana. I knew that friends would have filled in the spots they reserved in their schedule for me and that some people would have moved away. I knew that so much would be different.

Now, I get to experience that continued stress. Change, good or bad, is tiring. We are far from a rythm of life and I hope that we will continue to move towards a good rythm.

The one thing that has kept us sane is seeing all of the things that God has prepared for us here in Canada and knowing that He is a part of it all. God is so good to us and we are so blessed to be in a warm loving home with a great income to tide us over until we are able to do something more permanent. God is so good.