Christmas was very nice.  Seeing all the family, and no short tempers has been great.  We’re heading over to Spruce Grove today (my sister moved there last summer) for some toboganning.  In two days we will take the kids for their first visit to Medicine Hat.  Then, it’s off to the Listers in Lethbridge to continue feeding that great new friendship!  It is a blast to spend time with solid Christians who believe in service to the King, who have 6 kids too and homeschool!

That and we’ll see if they can beat Cheryl at Carcassone.

Something I didn’t mention before about the Hat. Didn’t see any Thai food there, but on the way out of town there was a little village called Bow Island. What’s right there on the main drag? A restaurant called “Bow Thai”! Sweet!

Anyway, back on subject. The waiter, Ryan at the Boston Pizza in High River turned out to be one of the most informative… informants we have encountered so far. He kept coming back with more info for us. Once he came back to tell us about the hospital… and for some reason brought up the fact that it includes a psych ward. Two possibilities there – 1) he thought we needed medication; 2) God told him to tell us because Cheryl’s a psychiatric nurse. I am choosing to believe the latter.

Here’s a video update:

We quite like High River, but not sure about the need there.  The real trick about this trip is separating our own emotions from the will of God.  They could be the same, but they might not be.

Today I decided to start looking at the cities we are going to be visiting in March. Last year, I contacted Medicine Hat and told them how I liked their online brochure and would like a hard copy of it. They sent me a huge packet containing more than just the brochure that I requested. It was an overwhelming packet containing their leisure guide, maps, tourism info, their census, utilities info…. the list goes on.

First on my list today was Lethbridge. They have a site called Choose Lethbridge. So much of the information on the site was spread out and I am one of those people that likes information in a compiled form, such as a brochure where it is all neatly organized. They were good enough to put their email address on their site so I dropped them (The Department of Economic Development) a little note asking if they had the information in a pdf or hard copy. Within an hour I had a reply saying that they were rewriting the information but yes they had it in a pdf which they provided the link for and could give me a hard copy if I would like. So, I wrote back and stated I would love to get a hard copy and there are other families who may consider moving with us and I would appreciate if they could let us know when the revised edition is out. I received a reply that they will send out the material today and will send several copies rather than just one. Very nice!

Now I am on to checking out the other cities on our list to see what information I can dig up and what resources I might be able to have sent my way. It would be nice to be armed with as much information as possible prior to our scouting trip in March.

Over the past year or so I have been gradually getting out on to the internets, and attempting to network with other church planters and such through blogs and twitter.  I have also become more and more involved in facebook.  There are some that might look on these things as time wasters but they have been instrumental in planning this scouting trip.

Through facebook I contacted my cousins in Calgary, who graciously agreed to put us up for a couple of days.  Through facebook I reconnected with an old old friend, Tom, from High School – who just got back from a mission trip to Chile and is part of a church worship team in Lethbridge.  They also agreed to let us crash at their house.  Through blogs I met the Wilks‘ in Medicine Hat, and through twitter I made arrangements to spend the night at their place.  Through my long-time blogging relationship with Greg we have another place to stay in the Lethbridge area.  The only accomodation I didn’t use social networking for was my sister’s place in Edmonton.  I just called her.

I hope that even more opportunities will come of this, as I would like to meet some other local church planters and people like that in come of the other communities we are looking at.

Lethbridge

This city was actually brought to my attention by a blogger friend of mine.  He was lamenting the lack of quality churches and told me a major problem is that while there appear to be a lot of churches in this city, a great number of them are shrinking fast and on the verge of collapse.  Admittedly, this is anecdotal, but it is enough for us to take a hard look at it.

Population right now is running 74 thousand, making it the 4th largest city in the province.  Outreach Canada doesn’t list it as high need, but if churches are close to closing that ratio might be worsening.

Pros:

• Larger center, faster growth (+20k in the last 20 years).
• University of Lethbridge is the 3rd largest university in Alberta, possible employment for Cheryl with her Master’s in Nursing.
• Adjacent to Blood Indian Reserve, so lots of potential service opportunities in the aboriginal community.
• Close to the Mountains – only 2 hours to Waterton Lakes National Park.  Less to Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass.  (Mountains and wilderness are my playground.)
• A built-in supporter?

Cons:

• Anecdotal evidence about need.  According to Outreach Canada, the demand isn’t as high as many other places.
• May be tougher turf to plant in – verges on Mormon territory.   (Maybe that’s a pro?)