Lots of Stuff

Oh man, a lot has been going on in the Kremer household!
Where to start....ah yes, our flat...

So I mentioned previously that a wonderful man from our church (Carlo) had found us a flat for a very reasonable price, and that's it's location is ideal for us, being that we have to walk or bus everywhere we go.
There was quite a significant detail however that we didn't know about till recently that impresses on us even more that this flat is a Godsend.
We are interested in moving into a bigger flat in the not too distant future (reason explained further down), so we began looking around at the options. We made an appointment, and spoke with a lady who specializes in helping new arrivals find flat rentals. Being the nature of her job, she was well versed in all of the legalities and technicalities that are involved with letting and sub-letting. We very quickly discovered that in the United Kingdom there are many.

We have been here (Edinburgh) for nearly 4 months now and it was only last month that Raeleen was officially hired with an employer. I have some companies that I am currently waiting to hear back from.
When we spoke to this lady and let her know that neither of us had obtained employment yet, she was very quick to explain a few of the main technicalities regarding letting here.
In Edinburgh you legally have to sign a minimum 6 month lease, then after that you can roll over into month to month, or sign another lease.
In order to be eligible for a 6 month lease you either have to be able to present 2 months worth of pay stubs from your employer (as well as the deposit), or pay all 6 months up front.
There are many other details involved, but those 2 alone brought our plans to a grinding halt.
We weren't even gainfully employed yet, let alone having 2 months worth of history to present.
Also, there was no way that we were going to have 6 months worth of rent money available all in one shot.
When we discussed this with the lady she then began to inquire about our current leasing arrangement, and how we even had one to begin with.
We explained to her how we weren't directly letting from the landlord, but that we were actually sub-letting from the tenant of the landlord. The tenant had to break his lease early to move out of town, and rather then paying the lease penalty, he was inclined to sublet to us (which is completely legal in the UK).
Since the tenant was in such a hurry to move, there was no inquiry into our state of employment, or how we were going to manage paying the remainder of the lease we would be undertaking. We just merely paid a deposit, took over the lease and moved in. We communicated directly with the landlord (who, as we discovered is a Christian), and he was completely fine with the arrangement.
We were very candid with him about not having jobs, and what our situation was, yet he was more than willing to sign another 6 month lease with us once our subletting agreement had expired.
When we mentioned all of this information to the lady who was helping us, she was dumbfounded.
To her it was painfully obvious that we should just re-sign a lease with our current flat, as the rent is extremely low, and we weren't going to find anyone else that would be willing to take that chance.
Knowing this information made our decision suddenly very simple.

The flat that we are in is a 2 bedroom. Halo and Ryder share a room, which has actually turned out very nicely. I mentioned earlier how we are wanting to move into a bigger flat- it has nothing to do with Halo and Ryder having their own rooms. It has everything to do with having more children...
whoa whoa, not so fast...
I know what you're thinking, and we aren't planning on having any more biological children, and no, Raeleen's not pregnant.
We have discovered one of the reasons God has had us move here though.

Let me back up a little bit for some context.
After we had Ryder we knew that we weren't ever going to be able to have any more biological children.
Both of Raeleen's pregnancies were very eventful, and when she was in labor with Ryder she almost died.
We do have a desire for more children though, so we have discussed ever since then the option of adopting.

In that same vein, we explored our options, and prayed continually, seeking God's timing.
When we were in Lethbridge we sensed that it was definitely going to happen, but that it simply wasn't the right timing.
We took a week to fast and pray shortly after we arrived in Edinburgh, to seek guidance regarding what we were to do now that we were physically here.
We sense that there is more than one specific reason, however one of the main reasons has become glaringly obvious.
As we were looking into ways to get our feet in the door with regards to adoption, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the possibility of fostering-to-adopt.
We had decided that we wanted to go that route, but again, didn't feel that the timing was right before we moved here.
We finished our fast, and that was the one green light that we definitely felt.
And, my goodness, it's so apparent why.
Edinburgh is literally desperate for foster parents! There are advertisements everywhere you go.
On buildings, billboards, buses, in schools, in commercials...everywhere!

We spoke to two of the main fostering agencies here and they provided us with some very useful information.
Unfortunately for us, fostering is quite the extensive process.
First of all, you need to have a home that has an extra bedroom/bedrooms for the foster children, as they aren't allowed to share a room with your biological children.
Also, you are required to have lived in a home for a minimum of 6 months before they will even consider starting the process. The reason for this is to show stability. A lot of these children are in and out of homes, or have had a very unstable existence with their biological parents, and are really just needing stability in their lives. Also, the fostering agencies figure that 6 months is long enough to have a reasonable understanding of your neighborhood and the amenities that are offered there. The more comfortable you are with your surroundings, the more comfortable you will be able to make the new child/children that will be staying with you.
This all makes complete sense, and we appreciate the steps that the agencies are taking to protect the children. However, this means we are looking at a year to a year and a half (roughly) before we could expect to have a child/children in our home.
Once you have passed the 6 month eligibility, then you can contact the agencies and notify them. From there you begin the very exhaustive application and preparation process. There are multiple background checks, peer checks, police checks, interviews, classes etc... that are involved in the months following.

Foster parents are such a desperate need here that the government pays them well for the care of the children. There are various people here that have made careers out of it.
And that, my friends, is one of the major details.

Our immediate plans, once we are eligible to foster, are to take in siblings.
We are really interested in adopting a couple of siblings (brother and sister, brother and brother, sister and sister, doesn't matter).
It turns out that siblings are one of the hardest cases for agencies here to foster out.
Usually if people have any interest in fostering to begin with, they go exclusively for the singles.

When we told the agencies that we wanted siblings, you could almost hear them breathing heavily into paper bags. They told us (based off of the information that we gave them) that we are exactly what they are looking for, and that they wished they could start the process with us immediately. But alas, there's the itsy bitsy detail of protocol, yada yada, so here we are....waiting.

The more we have been praying though, the more we have come to realize that the fostering isn't just going to be a means to an end for adopting children of our own, but also an ongoing ministry.

We've been reading about George Müller, a truly remarkable man of faith and character.
He started an orphanage in the 1800's which saw thousands of orphans over the years.
He grew the orphanage to the point where it was housing 2000 children at one time.
He never told anyone what his, or the orphanage's day to day needs were. He just brought all of the matters to prayer. He was never let down even once. His books outline in great detail the many ways God provided all of their needs, and it has spoken volumes to us.

We are at a place in our lives where we have no credit cards, no debt whatsoever, no savings, and no backup plan. We felt God told us to go, so we went. 
If God doesn't come through for us we will literally be on the streets.

I can tell you unequivocally that the thought of that from a strictly logical perspective is absolutely terrifying and debilitating. However, we have God, and through Him we have that peace that truly does pass all understanding!

So, jumping back a bit...
We would feel completely fine staying in our current living arrangement, save for the aforementioned details.
We found ourselves in quite the conundrum looking at the fact that we have to be in a place with more rooms for at least 6 months before we could even begin the fostering process. Yet we were in a situation that required us to stay at our current residence for another 6 months.

It's one of those situations where you kind of have to laugh at the ridiculousness and frustration of it.

Not only is that our one clear direction that we have at this present time, but also, it could have been an immediate source of income rather then being in the situation we've been in for the past while having to search and apply for jobs.

If you could imagine applying for a job that you are extremely excited about and getting an immediate and resounding "HECK YES, YOU'RE HIRED!", followed by a "in 1 or maybe 1 1/2 years", you might have a slight inkling as to how we feel. 

We have something to work towards and wait for so we are very thankful for that!
But in the meantime what do we do? Well isn't that a fun question?

God has provided us with some truly amazing friendships here! 
First of all, Adrian (the pastor of our church) and Christine (his lovely wife) are absolutely wonderful people.
They used to live in Dover (south eastern England) and moved to Edinburgh to pastor the Life Church.
They had to go through many of the same changes and adjustments that we have, so they have been immensely understanding and supportive. Also our friendship with them and their 2 daughters (Evie and Freya) has been growing at a rapid rate. 

Also there is Ken and Angela and their son Isaiah.
Now here is an interesting story...
Months ago we emailed Adrian, letting him know that we felt that God was sending us to Edinburgh, and that our church was to be the Life Church.

We found out way after the fact that he has received emails like this many times in the past, however we were the first people that have ever actually showed up.
Either the people's plans would have fallen through for one reason or another, or they would have just fallen off the face of the earth and were never heard from again.
So naturally when he received the email from us he had a mixed bag of feeling happy that we were coming, but half expecting that it wasn't going to happen.

Well you can imagine his and Christine's surprise when we ended up showing up to church that first Sunday.

Now, round about the same time we emailed Adrian to begin with, another Canadian couple emailed him as well with a similar (but not identical) message.
There are roughly 38 different nationalities in Life Church, but it has never had North Americans as regular attendees. In fact, in the 7 years Adrian has been pastoring this church, he has never met 1.

So when he received this second email from a Canadian couple, he was so baffled that he received an email from 2 different Canadian couples that he just presumed he must have mixed up the facts in his head, and that the 2 couples were actually the same couple.

Upon rechecking his email he did, in fact, realize that there were 2 different couples.

Fast forward once again, and within a month of each other 2 Canadian couples arrive.

Now let me tell you about this other Canadian couple, cause this just screams God.

Ken is actually British (from London), but moved to Vancouver for Angela. 
Angela is Canadian through and through and grew up in Vancouver.

O.k, quick tangent- Ken grew up in London and then lived in Vancouver with Angela for 8 years. 
The resulting accent is Australian. Seriously! The first little while I was chatting with him I thought I was speaking to an Auzzie (he gets that all the time), when in fact he is a Londoner, but his accent has mixed with a Canadian one.

Back to the story.
So here's where it gets crazy...
I was born in San Diego, Angela went to University in San Diego.
Angela grew up in Vancouver, we lived in Vancouver.
Their son Isaiah (6 years old) was born at the same hospital as Halo.
Ken and I, as it turns out, worked in the exact same building on the exact same floor (for different companies) in Vancouver, only 1 year apart.
They are daft about travelling, so are we.
They are spicy food fanatics, ditto.
They felt specifically that God was sending them to Life Church, and emailed the pastor, same as us.

We talked to them for about half an hour before we felt like we'd known them our whole lives.

Also, we JUST met another lady named Stacey a couple of weeks ago that started attending the church. Crazy enough, she is also from San Diego and may have even been born in the same hospital as me! 
Raeleen and I, while living in Lethbridge, decided to take a Sign Language course at the College there, just for fun, and because it intrigued us.
It turns out that Stacey is here for 3 years finishing her PhD in Sign Language and Interpreting.
She also is daft about travelling and spicy food!

It has been so great to have a few people here that understand the culture that we came from and who speak the same language as us.
When we chat with them is the one time that we can turn off our mental auto-translators and just think and talk how we are used to.
Also, it's mind-boggling how much we have in common! It's just so easy to talk, about anything!

We knew that there was going to be a period that we would have to go through of feeling somewhat on the outside until we started to make some definite connections with people here. But we have gotten over that initial hump now and are really starting to connect with various people in the congregation.

Also, we have started becoming involved in the church as well.
A few weeks ago I started playing and singing in the worship band.
It sounds like I'll be on a rotation where I'll play acoustic guitar, bass guitar, or lead guitar and sing when needed, as well as occasionally play drums.
Raeleen is now helping with children's church (which she is brilliant at).
Eventually we have plans to run an Alpha group as well.

Halo and Ryder started school in the middle of August and they are really enjoying their teachers and classes! We are extremely impressed with them (the teachers) as well, they are really blowing us away! 
The curriculum is based and catered more to the needs of the individual child. Halo is one grade ahead already as she is starting here in Primary 2 (Grade 1 in North America). However, she is proving to be advanced even in this grade, so her teacher has been giving her more advanced reading books to keep her challenged.
Ryder's teacher intertwines the Nursery's (Preschool's in North America) curriculum with his individual interests. For example, he's all about volcanoes, instruments, Yoda and the band Coldplay right now, so she found Volcano books, pictures of Yoda and instruments to use in teaching him. Also she found Coldplay music and started playing that for him, mixed with the musical interests of the other kids.

We just had our first Parent/Teacher interviews a couple of days ago (which felt very bizarre) and both teachers raved about our children. Both of the kids are excelling in every aspect of their classes, and get along swimmingly with the other children. They are always eager to help when they can, and are both taking leadership roles in their respective classes.

Now, Raeleen's new job...

First of all, for the first couple of months that we were here we weren't even looking for jobs.
We really felt like we were supposed to focus our time on adjusting to the new culture, getting settled, and spending as much time as a family as possible. 

The transition, although enormous in scope, was much easier since we were able to spend that extra time with the kids and focusing on getting them comfortable with  their new surroundings/life.

We are very thankful for the time that we took, and in hindsight know that that was exactly what God was wanting us to do.

Anyways, after a couple of months, we started applying for jobs.
After another month or so we started to realize how tough the job market is here. There is extremely intense competition for all lines of work!
This isn't because Scotland has a high unemployment rate. Actually, many people from other European countries that are currently in a very desperate financial state, and that have high levels of unemployment are flocking to the UK for work.

Also, companies just take much longer to reply to applications here then anywhere we've lived in North America.
For example, Raeleen  applied to run a bakery in a grocery store chain here. She didn't hear any response from the company for 1 1/2 months. So naturally she figured that she wasn't successful.
That was unfortunate however, as that was THE one job that she was actually really excited to get out of all the jobs she applied for.
Well, it turns out that she received emails from other companies saying that she wasn't successful. 
Then one day, she received a call from Tesco (her now employer) asking her in for an interview.
She was very shocked, considering how long it had been since she had applied, but was excited to have the interview none-the-less.
At the interview, the person asking her questions (who turned out to be her current manager) started the talk with "just so you know, there have been 894 other applicants for this position).
Well, as you can guess, Raeleen's immediate thought was "great, I have no chance!"
Raeleen enjoys baking, but has no formal training in it. She applied simply because it sounded like fun and like something she would enjoy for now.
Raeleen's manager spent a majority of the interview talking about the company, and only ended up asking a few questions.
When the interview concluded, Raeleen asked him if he would like a copy of her Cover Letter and Resume (or CV as they call them here), and he said "no thank you, that won't be necessary, we'll call you next week if you have been successful."
Raeleen left the interview thinking there was no chance at all that she was going to get that job.
A week passed with no reply, which really felt like the nail in the coffin.
Then at the end of the second week, she received a call that she was successful!
We were floored!
She has now been officially employed with the company for a few weeks now, and I had an opportunity to meet her boss last week (Garry is his name).
He loves her! He spent a couple of minutes telling me how amazing of a worker that she is, that she's a superstar and that she is an absolute joy to work with!
God is definitely giving her favor!
When we were praying about jobs, Raeleen was really wanting something that would allow her ample time with the children, and that wasn't too mentally exhausting.
This job is so perfect for her! She works 19 hours a week, Monday to Thursday from 5:30am-10:30am.
This means she's off in the mornings and has the full day to dedicate to family and whatever God would have us do! We both go to bed earlier now (we just love being together) and rise earlier.
While I've been waiting on a job, I have been helping out more with the church, designing a video for the latest sermon series, and making contacts with various companies, getting everything in place so that the church can start renting out it's building on weekdays as an additional source of income.

God will provide me with the job that I need, and it will be His perfect timing.
As terrifying as it is to completely rely on God each month to pay our bills right now with only one part time job, He is faithful!
We asked God to grow our faith and trust in Him, and He's doing just that, in spades.

It is a truly amazing feeling to be in a position where you are 100% reliant on God. In our weakness, He is strong. And we are definitely experiencing God's strength, provision and faithfulness.

Today, Raeleen and I are attending our first F.A.S.T. (Families And Schools Together) group.
It consists of 20 sets of parents (couples or single parents) that are split into 4 smaller groups. The parents have to have at least one child between the ages of 3-8.
It is a weekly group ran by the school to help parents in the community to meet other parents, and do fun activities with the children. Also, there will be times where teachers take the children into a different room to play and the parents can have adult time.

We're excited, as this will be a great opportunity to connect with parents in our community and build relationships. We want to minister any way that we can, so we're trusting God that some opportunities are going to open up through this group.

God is in control, we are in complete peace, and are absolutely loving this city and it's people! God is good!

Getting It Sorted

This is a story about a wee family who lived in a quiet flat in Midlothian Edinburgh.
Summer was coming to a close, children were gearing up to start a new school year,  and it was about time for the youngest boy to start his first year of Nursery.

"Mummy", the boy said, "why do I need to go to school today? Classes haven't started yet."
"Well we need to meet the Deputy love" the mother replied, "she is going to show us your classroom and answer some of Mummy's questions. You'll get to meet your new teacher too!
Now get dressed quickly so we can go out to do some errands. Remember, put your trousers over your pants, then your socks and wellies. I'll help you get your shirt and jumper on, then you can try buttoning up your waterproof by yourself like a big boy."

"I can't find my trousers mum", the boy said "can you help me?"
"It doesn't look like you can find any of your pants either" the mother replied,  "you're wearing your sisters' knickers.
Where did you find those anyways?"

"They were in the conservatory in the basket by the tumble dryer" the boy replied.

"Oh no" exclaimed Mummy, "those are all dirty, you don't touch those till they've had a proper washing!
Now run to the kitchen sink, scrub your hands with some washing-up-liquid and wash them really well."

By the time they actually left the flat it was half eleven and Mummy was already feeling knackered.
Poor Mummy stepped out into the car park and realized Daddy had taken the estate car for work.

"Oh no", mummy thought to herself, "that car had the double nipper in the boot! I won't be able to fit all of the groceries in the little buggy. I'll have to put Junior in a trolley at the store. He hates trollies!

She grabbed Junior, ran back into the flat and snatched her other set of keys off of the bunker for the saloon.
After she had Junior strapped in, she went to start the car and nothing happened.

"Just my luck" she grumbled, "what now?"
She opened the bonnet, got out of the car and checked the engine and battery.
"Nothing wrong here" she thought.
Then she remembered: "Junior" she said, "didn't I ask Daddy to put some petrol in the car yesterday on his way home from work?"
"Aye" the boy replied.
"Great! Just Great!" Mummy chuffed. "That explains why he took the estate car this morning. Oh well, he'll just have to make a stop on the way home. Guess I'll have to text him the shopping list. He isn't gonna know where a lot of this stuff is, but he can just call me on the mobile to suss it out if he needs to.
Back inside we go Junior.
Now for the list." She thought to herself.  "Let's see here: bangers, swede, aubergine, courgette, chips, crisps, a bap, nappies, dummies, a another bin for the toilet, some biscuits, beef mince, and some petrol in a jerry can...oh, and we'll need some mayonnaise for the chips.
He'll have to make a stop by the bank as well to bring home some quid for the Junior's bus tickets.
He's not going to be home with the food in time to prepare it for tea, so he'll just have to bring home some take-away.
I had an appointment at the surgery today for my last ultrasound. Guess I'll have to reschedule that as well.
Baby will be here within a fortnight, where has the time gone?

Junior" she hollered,  "would you mind running out to the pavement at the end of the yard and dropping this post in the pillar box for me?"
"Yes mum." Junior hollered back.
I really hope father uses the satnav on the way home" she thought to herself, "he never ventures to that part of the city.
Oh well, I suppose if I can't get the errands done, I can do some tidying around the flat. I gotta take out the rubbish, hoover the floors, finish the washing and see if I can get the cloak room sorted.
Not much in the fridge, so tea will have to be something simple. Maybe some toasties, some rocket with salad cream and tuna, and ice-lollies for pudding. I think we should have just enough lemon squash and milk to last for today, but I should add that to the list.....oh, and some jif lemon as well."

Just then her mobile rang. "Honey" her husband exclaimed, "I'm going to be quite late getting home. A lorry swerved too quickly over a hump to dodge an oncoming MPV, bowled over a telephone box and smashed into St. David's Secondary School." What?!" shouted mother. "Aye" said her husband, "Traffic is stopped both directions, and the cue is backed up for a couple of miles!
The amazing thing is that the lorry narrowly missed a bunch of kids on the zebra crossing! A small child tripped on the curb trying to get out of the way, and had to have a couple of plasters put on his knees, but otherwise everyone's fine! Flip on the tele at 5, the story will probably be on the news.

Since I won't be able to take the road home anytime soon, is there anything you would like me to grab from the store? I can just put the address into the satnav, since it's the other direction, traffic should be fine.
By the way, I'm really sorry I forgot to put petrol in the car yesterday, I know that would have put you out!"

"I'm glad everyone's ok, and yes, I've spent the morning whinging cause everything has been thrown off, but I'm fine now." Mother replied. "I'm getting lots sorted at home, and it turns out my appointment with the surgery was actually booked for next week not this week, I swear it's the preggo brain!
Anyways, it's funny you called just now, I was just about to call you to ask you to go do the shopping. Did you get the text I sent you with the shopping list?"

"No, I...yes, yes,  just got it!" The husband replied. "I'll go do that straight away!
By the way, I think it's high time we get our windscreen and indicator fixed. I feel like we could be pulled over at any moment.
 Oh, oh, oh! And just remembered, the child-minder's coming over at 7 so we can have our night out! We haven't been to a cinema in ages!
And no kids! We don't have to worry about someone paging us over the tannoy cause our wee son has wandered into the ladies loo or into the lift!
Never a dull moment with parenting. Love you and see you in....maybe a couple of years (rubbish traffic)."

I wrote this story to give my North American friends and family a rough idea of what's it's like to learn the new language here.
Some of these words are different in various parts of the United Kingdom, as different areas have their own lingo, but still many are universally used and known.
Every day we are learning new words and phrases, and only after 2 months of being here are things starting to make sense to us (on the whole).
Try and get your head around speaking a completely different language....that is still English.
Then, on top of that, throw in a vast array of thick accents.
Welcome to Edinburgh!

Eat Your Tea

In North America, Tea is simply an aromatic beverage commonly prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured leaves of the tea plant, or tea bags.

In the United Kingdom however, Tea has a few different meanings depending on who you talk to, and the context:
1) the beverage by itself, just like North America
2) a late afternoon light meal at four o'clock, irrespective of the beverage consumed
3) essentially an informal meal after lunch, but before a proper supper. Supper being more formal and Tea being more informal.

We were at our pastor's house hanging out, when the pastor's wife said- "would you all like tea?"
Raeleen is a tea drinker, but I don't prefer the stuff, and since we don't usually think of giving tea to our kids, we just told her that Raeleen would like tea and the rest of us were good.

She then asked what Raeleen would like to drink for Tea. She said that they had orange juice, lemonade, Coke, water, coffee or tea....
Needless to say we were quite confused. Once the rest of us realized that there were more options, we all chimed in our requests.
We then sat down for a full meal, which was as we discovered, the Tea.

Once we expressed our confusion, the pastor's wife began to explain to us what "Having Tea" means here and things finally started to make sense.

We finished Tea and adjourned to the living room to continue our conversation.
We had maybe been talking for 15 minutes or so before she then asked us if we would like some "pudding".
We all thought that that sounded good, so we unanimously replied "yes".

She then came out with bowls of meringue, sitting in cream, with strawberries on top.
Raeleen and I again looked at each other confused.
This time we were sure that we must have missed the translation again, so we inquired.

She (the pastor's wife) began to explain that "Pudding" here in the United Kingdom is simply their word for "Dessert".
Pudding isn't merely a dessert with a creamy consistency, like Jello Pudding Snacks, but could mean anything, sweet or savory, that you would have following your meal.

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

Toilet: A Near Miss

Moving across the world has been even way more of a change/shock for us then we had initially anticipated.
We knew that there were going to be new words for us to learn and that many cultural idioms weren't going to translate-
But we hadn't at all anticipated having to learn a completely new language. To a large degree that is the case here.
We constantly find ourselves saying words that people here don't understand, and conversely, we are hearing a whole language that we've never heard before...yet it's still English...just a different form of English...I guess...

Case in point: We took Halo and Ryder to experience a day in, what will be their classes, to help prepare them for school at the end of the summer.
They were both left in their classrooms while Raeleen and I sat in the lobby, just in case they became uncomfortable and wanted to leave.

Both of the kids did very well in their respective classes, however we found out afterwards that Ryder had a very near miss.

He suddenly found himself having to go pee while he was in play time, so he ran to his teacher and said "I have to go potty!!".
A potty in the UK is a learning toilet- the little ones that you bring on trips or leave in the kid's rooms while they are being potty/toilet trained. So naturally, his teacher says "I'm sorry Ryder, we don't have potties here".
Perplexed, and becoming desperate, he then started to repeat it frantically "I have to go potty, I have to go potty, I have to go potty!"
His teacher, nervous that he didn't know how to use a proper toilet, decided to race him to the toilet anyways, so he didn't have an accident.
Afterwards she told us what happened and let us know that she put him on a normal toilet and he went fine.
That didn't surprise us as he goes on a normal toilet all the time...then it dawned on us what had happened.
We explained to her that "going potty" in North America merely means going to "The Toilet", and then we all had a good laugh (and Raeleen and I a sigh of relief).

Videos That Inspire Us HAS MOVED!!

The large list of videos on this blog dramatically slowed down the loading speed of the webpage.
Click on the See ON Pinterest widget on the Videos That Inspire Us box on the top-right of the blog to access all of those videos.

There are two other new widgets on the top-right of the screen as well:

God's Creation And Imagination and Books Worth Reading.
1) God's Creation And Imagination is going to be filled with beautiful pictures of God's creation, and
 the works of man's hands, being given their amazing abilities and creativity by God.
We need to be awed everyday by the awesome beauty of His universe.
2) Books Worth Reading is going to be filled with books that inspire and move us.
As I know some books that we post may be controversial to some people, should you have
any questions, feel free to ask.

Also, should you have any troubles finding and/or navigating the widgets on the right of this blog, you can just come here and reach them via these links:

http://pinterest.com/markandraeleen/books-worth-reading/

http://pinterest.com/markandraeleen/videos-that-inspire-us/

http://pinterest.com/markandraeleen/gods-creation-and-imagination/

Life Church Edinburgh (Quick Tour)

Bikes and Buggies

The way that God consistently provides never ceases to amaze us. Also the way in which He provides makes it infinitely clear that to us that He has an astounding imagination!
We find ourselves time and time again encountering situations that are insurmountable except for an act of God. At those times we try and picture, or sort out in our minds exactly how God will be able to pull it off. Somehow in every single circumstance He ends up surprising us by accomplishing the feat in a way we never could have pictured. Not only that, but He goes way over and above what we needed.
I explained how months ago we sent an email to a church in Edinburgh just to ask some general questions. From there Carlo came into the picture and blew our expectations into another dimension.

Well God has this way of providing gifts that can just keep on giving.
It just so happens that Carlo works in the Social Work sector, and knows a guy that runs a bike repair shop with a two-fold purpose:
1) To provide free bikes to those in need, and/or simply as an incentive to get people/families out and
    active.
2) To provide work for people who have been sentenced to community service.
This shop doesn't play around, they are really good at what they do.
We were given, free of charge, 2 really nice bikes. Not only that, but Brian (the person that runs the shop) encouraged us to head back anytime, should the bikes need any repairs. Everything is free.

We then found a bike trailer on Gumtree (think Craigslist but in the UK) for a really great price with a rain cover and a bug screen.
The lady that owned it lived 40 minutes drive away though, and we don't have a vehicle.
I called her and she said that we was more than willing to make the 80 minute round-trip drive, and that very same day. When she arrived we found out that it was a bike trailer/double-buggy (stroller) combo.
It also has a storage compartment in the back with a rain cover.

It came with a wheel that you could attach to the front so that you can push it on foot.
The lady's husband just happened to have been a welder by trade,and he had fashioned a second bike connection for the trailer so that you wouldn't have to switch the connecting piece from bike to bike.
We found 2 helmets at The Salvation Army for £4 total, and we're off to the races.

The way God orchestrates things can be so brilliant that you just have to laugh...