Hello Friends and Family! Our Penner clan is in the midst of one of the hardest times of our lives. It's been full of ups and downs, twists and turns, and any other way you want to describe unpredictable! This blog post will give you a run down of what's been going on with us these last few months.
In March, we got laid off from Brightwood Ranch and asked to be off the property by end of May. At that time, Alberta was forecasting the peak of Covid cases for the end of May. So we were jobless (like so many people across the world) but we were also 'homeless' in a sense as we had to move out of our home with no where to go. With a young family of three kids, this certainly immediately spiked our stress levels. In one sense, it was a matter of holding on; holding on and enduring. And in another sense it was about totally letting go of our perceived control, our desires, and our hurt.
It was amazing to see offers of help materialize. Covid lay-offs brought about a strange commradery, even among mere aquaintances. People offered us to move in with them, some offered to help us find work, and others offered help moving or storage. We even chatted with a contact from Kijiji who had never met us but was searching for a job for us! Care for one another in Rural Alberta runs pretty deep, these people know what economic crisis is. It is an understatement to say that it is an incredible blessing to have a church family; I do not know how we would have navigated these days without one. A couple from our church offered to let us live in their house over summer while they stayed in there summer cottage. Another couple from church offered me a job on their construction crew for summer. The Lord was working things out for us! We now had a place to land from our sudden displacement.
A home! A job! These things suddenly felt more precious than before. Yet, its been quite hard on our family to adjust to all the changes so fast, including a new place to live. Imagine trying to take good care of someone elses things with a pup, and 3 little kids! Every broken or stained thing seems to take a year off our lives!
With three summer months covered, we began looking to the future to see what the Lord had next for us. Before all of this, a small prayer I had prayed was that the Lord would make it clear when he wanted to move us on from Brightwood because it was such a great fit, I knew leaving anytime would be hard. We loved it there, and were hoping to work many, many more years (It would have been easy to be lifers). We did have dreams of starting our own ministry one day, but that was way 'out yonder' in the future!! The Lord sure made it clear our time was up! We could not have stayed there even if we had tried our hardest.
The Lord was up to something, this was very clear! Deep down in my heart i did not feel done with camp ministry. I loved the work that happened at camp, the potential, the possibilities, the discipleship! So i searched for other camp ministry maintenance jobs. Nothing seemed right, but one posting at Gimli Bible Camp caught my eye. It was for an assistant director at a small camp north of Winnipeg, MB. I was very intrigued by it, and as other options seemed to close, I pursued it farther. There was so many things that lined up with my heart, passions, and desires for camp. The few things we were hesitant about, the Board and director addressed and came up with such great solutions!! So many emails, a couple zoom interviews and seemingly endless discussions later, we were offered the job. We are very excited to start, but also overwhelmed with everything that needs to happen before then. And we are very, very sad to say good bye to our beautiful Entwistle community neighbors. We love Alberta. We always will. We will never be the same for this time. What a roller coaster ride.
I would love to go into much more detail, but no one wants to read the novel I would write. I would be more than happy to have conversations, go for coffee, etc and share more, answer questions and dream together about what the Penner's future looks like. We are in need of prayer supporters. Please consider committing to praying with us and for us in this next chapter of our lives. Who knows, God may have a plan to incorporate you into all of this too!
We have bought a property 10 minutes from the camp, and have so many ideas of what it could become. I'm a pretty big dreamer, and this could be dangerous!! (In a good way!) We are planning to move at the end of August, and will be starting the new job January 2021.
Future posts will hopefully be shorter, but thanks for taking the time to walk this journey with us. God is so faithful and good. Even when things seem very wrong, we know that we still serve a good God, and he holds us firmly. We love to hear back from people who are reading along and supporting us. So please tell us how you are doing, how's your family, what are you excited for about the future? Email, text, or call us! Be blessed!
-TJ
Looking forward to having coffee with you guys. God keep blessing you.