Monday, May 23, 2011

The countdown is on...

6 weeks, and three days from now we will be on our way to our new home in Davao City!  It's kind of crazy to think that after 16 months of praying and talking this through, we are now down to weeks.

Our house is getting emptier by the day; our piano has been sold along with Daniel's bed (he now sleeps on a mattress on the floor) and Julia's bookshelf.  We are also now taking pictures off the walls and packing things up to take to my parents' house for a garage sale that we are hoping to have this coming Saturday as long as the weather holds up.  We still have some things to do, but it's nice to be able to cross things off our "to do" list and have it get smaller.  I think we may end up shipping one more box as we have found some more things that we would like to take with us that we forgot to put in the other boxes.  When Steve dropped off the last box, they gave us another one at no cost just in case we decided to ship another one and it will cost us very little to ship this next one because there was a special of 'ship four boxes, ship your fifth one for free' (or almost free). We could have fit the rest of the things into our last box, but we forgot to check our office, and our outside storage room when we packed up, and ended up filling the box with things like pillows and sheets, just to fill it up.  Oh, the joys of packing early and shipping things! I'm really hoping it all makes it there safe and sound.

We still don't have a house as of yet, but there's a townhouse for rent in a neighborhood about 5 minutes from the birth center that we may be able to get.  We are hoping to be able to see some pictures of it, but the lady who owns it has gone to the States for a holiday and didn't leave a key with anyone, so we have to wait until she's back. There was an option of renting a furnished townhouse, but we decided against that as the rent was quite a bit more than it would be for an unfurnished place and we are hoping to get a kitten for the kids when we get there, and we wouldn't be able to have pets in a furnished place.  If we aren't able to find a place before we arrive, we will still have a full month before my classes start, so hopefully that will give us plenty of time to find something.

Kerri

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Things we will miss about Calgary - Part 1

Peter's Drive In.

We spent the day together as a family yesterday, playing and walking around at Prince's Island Park, then took the kids to Peter's for burgers and picked up Slurpees.


If you've never been to Peter's, you need to go.  It would be worth a vacation to Calgary just to get a burger there.  I would highly recommend it!  They have the best burger in the city.  In fact, they are the best in the entire universe.

We will miss Peter's burgers, as I don't imagine they will have those in Davao!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A busy week

The past week has been crazy.  It has been very full of emotions of all kinds.  Much of the past week has been hard, as we were faced with the death of the son of some good friends.  There has been a great deal of tears and pain as a result.  Needless to say, this has been the dominant thing in our thoughts and prayers.

In addition to that though, there have been some really good things.  I graduated on Saturday!  It has been a long time coming, and it seems hard to believe, but I am no longer a student!  I can now put some fancy letters behind my name (from now on I will be known as Steve Oishi, B.C.Min).

I have also been given the opportunity to continue on at Rockyview Alliance as a full time (PAID!) intern, at least until we leave for the Philippines.

God has continued to show His faithfulness in so many ways.  Just the other day, we received a letter in the mail from someone we didn't know.  They had stumbled across this blog, and decided to read it.  The person wrote us an encouraging letter in response, and enclosed a donation for our journey! (Thank you Silver!)

Kerri and I are both exhausted right now, mainly from emotional stress, but also from many hours spent driving to be with our friends in their time of need.  But through it all we know that God is faithful and He will help us to get through!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Grief

My heart has been broken into a million little pieces for my best friend Melanie and her husband Todd and their children.  Their five year old son Nathan, died unexpectedly yesterday morning of heart complications and a stroke.  I have been best friends with Mel for almost 27 years now and I never expected to be with her as she said goodbye to her son.  My heart aches so badly for them, and I feel weary down to my core, and I know that this is only a tiny piece of how they are feeling right now.  I am struggling with the unfairness of this, the questions of "why", the disbelief, and how I wish so badly that this was all a bad dream.  I would like to bury myself in my blankets and sleep and sleep and sleep and hope that when I wake up it will all be over, but I know I can't do that.

Nathan was such a wonderful, funny little boy who was the love of Todd and Melanie's life.  He loved his big brother Cowen and his little brother Joseph, and he absolutely adored his baby sister Emilia, but more than that, he loved Jesus with all his heart.

Words cannot describe the pain and grief that I am dealing with right now as I think of Nathan's death, and the loss that Todd and Mel are dealing with.

Goodbye sweet Nathan, you will never be forgotten.

Love,

Auntie Kerri

Monday, May 2, 2011

Paperwork

After making three trips to Edmonton, we finally have all of our necessary immigration paperwork to move to Davao and secure our visas.  It was frustrating to continually run into problems, but we are thankful that this part is over and we have the paperwork in our hands.  Now to see how things go once we are actually there.  We'll keep you posted.

Kerri

Sunday, May 1, 2011

A Requested Post

This blog post was requested by my friend Tamara who pointed out that we have not updated in a while and she requested more frequent blog postings.  So Tamara this one is specifically for you!


We have had a few people ask us how much stuff we are shipping ahead of time and what size the boxes are and so to give you a little glimpse, here are two of the four boxes that we shipped and are now making their way to Davao.  Anything else that we are bringing will have to fit into our four large duffel bags and the rest is getting sold.  

We shipped toys for Julia and Daniel, books for the four of us, school curriculum, some pictures, games, medicine, and some treats to remind us of home (Kraft Dinner, Nutella, and granola bars).  I'm sure there will be more things that we decide to take as the time gets closer, but beside clothes, that's basically what we will have once we get to Davao.  

We are still waiting to hear about a house, but we were able to purchase some dishes, a small grill and a fan from a family who are moving back to the States.  It's kind of funny to think about purchasing even small things sight unseen and also renting a house from pictures, without actually being able to see what it really looks like, but I guess such is the life of moving overseas.  It's kind of exciting!  Hopefully we will like our house and the things we have to put in it.

Kerri