Had someone been walking along the Saint John waterfront, they may have heard nothing at all, they might have heard a faint, far-off, yet indistinguishable sound, or then again they might have heard a 12 year-old boy, as his car crested the Harbour Bridge, yell from his open window…. “Goodbyyyyyyyyee Saint John!”
Those very words were shouted on Friday morning at roughly 8:40am as we drove out of the city where I was born, where our kids were all born and where Liz had made her home for the previous 19 years… the trip had begun. Weeks of saying goodbye had come to an end and we began the long road to Montreal.
Saying Goodbye
Below are some VIPs (very important people); some are from church, some are business connections or service providers and others have been friends for a long time. It’s impossible to post pictures of each of you and in some cases, when we got together to say goodbye, we forgot to get a photo, but each of you are important to us. You are a gift from God to us. You have contributed to who we are.
Final notes:
- Departure: Friday we drove Saint John – Montreal, but today we leave Montreal for France. It’s a big day and we are so excited.
- Finances: Two days before our departure, we received a call from someone who made a $200/month PIM commitment for the first year of our stay. What an encouragement that is… bringing our total commitment to date up to 83% or just over $99,000 of the $120,000 required for a full 2-year stay.
- Car: the car is now sold and a pastor friend of ours now has an awesome second car!
- House: Incredible news… the night before our departure from Saint John we had an initial offer on our house. The negotiating process ran it’s course and as of yesterday morning, we have accepted an offer on it. THAT is IN-CREDIBLE timing. We thank the Lord for another open door!
- Luggage: We ended up not being able to stuff everything into suitcases as we hoped to so we shipped 3 totes and 2 suitcases via Air Canada Cargo. There was a 110kg limit before you moved to another fee-structure and, without even trying, our total came to 109kg! PHEW! …again, the hand of the Lord. As you can see… the car was FILLED with the remaining suitcases (and the picture was taken BEFORE the guitar went in!).
Prayer Request
The next time I write to you, I will be writing from France… how exciting is that!?
Please pray that things go smoothly at customs upon our arrival in France. It will not be a problem to bring in any of the suitcases that traveled with us, but pray that there are no hiccups at cargo (no extra import fees, duty, etc.).
Thank you for your support, God bless you as you gather to worship Him today!!
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. 
Mark Robertson
On Monday we got to spend the afternoon with our friend and missionary to Guatemala, Lynne Jewett. What an inspiration!
After hosting the Atlantic District Kids Convention last night and today, we are excited to be heading to Fredericton tonight to hear from Bro. Lee Stoneking. He had a significant influence on my early time in Pentecost and so whenever I get a chance to sit under his ministry, I don’t pass it up.
I’m so grateful for that conversation at the altar. It was both direct and balanced enough that I went home, looked up the 80+ verses that have a derivative of the word “baptize” in them and saw that with the exception of Matthew 28:19, every time we see people being baptized in the Book of Acts – it was either “In the name of Jesus” or “into Christ” etc. …Either the apostles were accomplishing Mt. 28.19 when they baptized in Jesus’ name or they were completely disobedient to it; and if they were disobedient, then the foundation of our faith is severely eroded. There was no doubt in my mind that I needed to be baptized in Jesus’ name. …and I was, on Dec. 14th, 1997.
For readers who don’t know us personally, Liz and I married in 1997 and have spent our entire married life in the same neighbourhood. Our house has been paid off for a couple of years and we have only limited debt, however there are still other financial preparations that need to be done, over and above simply raising financial support. One of the big questions has been, “What about your house? Will you rent it or sell?” So, yesterday we went to the bank to examine our options in that area as well as when it comes to managing things like life insurance payments, pre-existing RRSPs 
Over and above our banker’s very valuable counsel and advice, everything we possess is from the Lord and our dependence is ultimately on him. I was glad that I could call on Him for help to wade through the options and trust that he is guiding both our banker and ourselves.
We are THRILLED to tell you that with only 4 months left, we have topped the 50% commitment level.
Earlier this week I spoke at 
In discussion with Bro. Poitras this past weekend at our missions conference, he mentioned the book “The God Ask: A fresh biblical approach to fund raising” by Steve Shadrach. It discusses the process of raising funds for either a missions trip of some kind or a church or para-church ministry or organization. I’m currently only about 30% through it… but it’s a wonderful read and if you’re considering any kind of short-term missions involvement for which you need to raise your own support… I highly recommend this book!!
Whereas March’s mail-out contained a letter, bookmarks, a Partner Support form and a handwritten note, this one contained only a postcard, the front of which was customized with photos of our trip and the back of which gave a brief overview of our time there. While it will be a shorter read for the recipients, it still took me a couple of weeks to prepare because I included a short handwritten note on the back of each card as well.
WordPress is pretty cool that way… it’ll compile the blog stats in a way that’s very visually accessible
AIM Long 