You can count on God!

The week-end of June 21 and 22, 2008 has been an awesome, inspiring time for us as a family.

Lori and I have had the great privilege and blessing of being able to be in Winnipeg for my dad's last official Sunday not only of Waverley Baptist Church, but also the closing of full time ministry after 43 years as a pastor.

Attending the Saturday night banquet and Sunday morning service at Waverley were a host of people who represented each one of the churches dad has served in. For me it was an awesome experience because home is in each one.

But it was more than that: God was honoured and shown to be the Lord of our lives, churches and ministry.

My dad's last sermon on June 22 was titled "You can count on God!"

The main points were:
God is Great
God is Good
You can Trust God's Word

These powerful statements were acted out time and time again in our life as a family and in the churches where dad served. Obviously, God will continue to act this way in the future for my parents and for each one of us.

What a great time it was to celebrate God this week-end. What a great time to celebrate with family and friends. There were tears and a lot of laughter. The memories came flooding back to us and it was so special.

Thank you for your prayers and we look forward to seeing how God will continue to show His power, love and goodness to us and others.

Brad, Lori, Kayla, Brandon and Elizabeth Quiring

Great View: not of the city, though

I just returned from a couple of days in Lima, the capital of Peru. My teammate, Craig, and I had a couple of tickets for a conference we were to attend. Well, the conference was cancelled and Craig and I were looking at losing the tickets, so we decided to use them and take advantage of the time to get away from Arequipa to get certain things done.

Note: we have nothing against Arequipa, but if you are close to a phone, someone will find you and you'll never get anything done!

Contrary to many people's thinking, South American coastal cities are not all beautiful, colonial style, palm-trees-by-the-white-beach paradises. Lima is a massive city with a high degree of poverty. As you fly into Lima-Callao airport the sight that greets you are dirty factories, warehouses and partially finished brick buildings. To add to the "charm", at this time of year (June through September) the clouds close in and hang close to the ground. There is no sun until October and there is a constant, cold damp feeling in the air. Really, the view isn't great at all. Our view wasn't that great.

The view that was fantastic was the view we got of church. Craig and I were able to sit down and truly evaluate how El Camino is doing. We sat most of Monday at a street café in Miraflores drinking great coffee and working through an evaluation of each ministry. In between we walked around the historic district and enjoyed some sights worth seeing in Lima.

There is much to praise God about in El Camino. People's lives are changing. More are coming to church and to the different programs. Leaders are stepping up. On the other side, there is still much immaturity. Immaturity in that people are very slow to move to service on their own, slow to trust God in everything. They continue to make huge issues out of small problems and communication is a tremendous challenge for many.

Then, on Tuesday we were able to sit in the pastors' meeting at the Christian Bible Church of La Molina and hear how God has been working there. We encouraged the pastors and prayed with them in their many challenges.

The view was great: the view of God's work in people's lives. We were hoping God would have given us a better view of the city :-)

Brad