Hello everyone, it is yet again time for an over-due update!

We have really been enjoying married life in the beautiful city of Vancouver! (Except when it rains). We officially moved into our basement suite on September 4th, and it took a good 3 weeks or so to sort through our stuff, wedding gifts and mountain high piles of cardboard boxes, but we finally got the place in order and looking great! God has blessed us with absolutely everything a newly wed couple could need. We are sooooo grateful for what He has provided!

Steve started working with YWAM again shortly after we moved in, participating in many many meetings in regards to the fall DTS. It was decided that he would be in charge of meals for the DTS students and staff, leading a small group and meeting with a student on a weekly basis for one-on-one discussion.

In the previous post we asked you guys to pray that the Lord would provide a job for me; well, He has provided two! First, I got hired by a talent agency as a background performer (or "extra") in the film industry, but it is not a reliable job as it is on-call...and they don't call very often. So I continued looking for temporary work and finally (as of about a week and a half ago) got hired at a grocery store located 5 minutes from where we live, which is great because I could just walk there! I will start working there this Saturday. Praise God for that!
In regards to school, I got the "the nursing program is full for January 2011" letter, which is a bummer; however, I will for sure start the nursing program in September of 2011. I guess God's plans for us are different than our own sometimes. Other than that, I am doing really well this semester and am very much enjoying school :)

We are not sure what to do this coming year since I won't be in school as we originally planned. This extra almost year of waiting has allowed us to consider going on a short-term, 1-3 month mission trip somewhere. As of right now we are not sure whether we should go or not, or even where to go (we are thinking Mongolia or Thailand, but that is not set in stone). Please pray with us as we wait on God for the answer. We will let you guys know what will happen when we find out.

Theeeeeee Wedding!

Here are some of the wedding photos...hope you guys enjoy them! :)

Friends and family :)

My mom and Steve walking down the aisle

Steve's parents

Michael & Oana, best man and maid of honor

Felix & Edith

Aaand we're back

Alright, it is definitely time for some new updates to be posted here. We are finally back and will continue to give you guys updates (a lot more often than we have been!). As many of you know, we have been SUPER busy over these past 2 months due to wedding and after wedding preparations...thank goodness that's all over! Let's pick up where we left off:

MAY 2010
The month of May this year was a month that Steve and I will remember for a very long time because of the way the Lord directed us and the way He provided for us. Several months prior we had been praying and asking the Lord where we should live (whether to live in Canada or Washington) and we both believed the Lord was guiding us to move to Canada. We had also asked the Lord to provide for us $2300 each month (that is what we thought we would need once we got married). Steve moved up here midway through April, and prior to that the Lord had been providing all that we asked for (via support and work). Everything was going smoothly...until we started talking about finances in pre-marriage counseling. Our mentors had us make a list of what our expenses would be on half of a piece of paper, and our income on the other half. Looking at the numbers I became quite worried because our income was much much lower than our expenses (and there was no more cutting we could do!). Steve was also worried (because I was) but didn't really let me know that. I began to doubt that we heard God correctly and was very uncertain about our future and what that would look like. I kept thinking that we should move to the states, where the cost of living is much lower, but each time I thought that I felt something like the Holy Spirit's nudge, telling me that what I was thinking was wrong. So I got confused. I said "God, how do I know you want us here? I need a clearly obvious sign that will let me know we are doing your will and that you will take care of us financially." I prayed this for several weeks, and the end of the month was nearing very quickly but still we did not have the income we had prayed for that month.
On Sunday, May 30th Steve and I went to my house after church and my mom said that Steve's mom had left a message for us saying that she wanted us to call her as soon as we got home. We got a little worried so we called her right away. She told Steve that a lady who she had never met before came up to her in church that day and asked her if Steve was still planning on going to Mongolia. Rita (Steve's mom) told him "No, but he is still planning on going to Asia." Then the lady handed her an envelope and told her to give it to him. When she got home she counted the money that was inside and it all added up to $1000...that was the remainder of what we needed for the month of May! We were both quite shocked and amazed at how the Lord provided for us. I asked for an obvious sign from God and came to the conclusion that, a large sum of money from someone none of us knew, was pretty obvious. So now we know and are confident that we are in the right place, doing the right thing for the Lord.
We are so grateful for His provision and patience with us.

JUNE 2010
I had been frantically looking for a job in May and still could not find one halfway through June, so Steve and I both decided that I should help him with MA for the summer. We cooked many (large) meals that month and had a lot of fun!

JULY 2010
We took a break from MA midway through July in order to settle the last minute details of the wedding, got married and left for our honeymoon! I will put up pictures in the next blog.

AUGUST 2010
We had a great time on our 3 week honeymoon in the Dominican Republic! We got to meet one of our sponsored children and had lots of fun hanging out with him!

and now...
We got home on August 21st, stayed there for about a day and a half, and are now continuing the rest of our honeymoon by visiting Steve's parents and other family members in Washington.
We have settled into our new home (for the most part anyway) and are very excited to start living life together! :)
Steve is getting ready to get back to YWAM and help out with the DTS (Discipleship Training School) this fall. We aren't 100% sure of what he will be doing for the DTS yet, but we will know in about 1 week and will let you know once we find out!
I am getting ready to go back to school to finish up with my final prerequisite class (Biology) and we are praying very hard that I will be able to start the nursing program in January 2011 (please pray with us!!). I am also looking and praying for a good job, so please be praying that the Lord will provide one (if it is His will, of course). We will post another update in the next 2-3 weeks to keep you guys posted!

New blog comming soon...

We will have a new blog post coming up soon (sometime this week). We'd like to apologize for the lack of updates. Our wedding is coming up very soon and we have been super busy the past few weeks, but please bear with us! We have many exciting things to share with you and will do so ASAP! We just wanted to give you guys a heads up :)

Annita & Steve

It's always great when people get to know their Creator

Hello everyone, this is Annita again. As some of you know, I am trying to get into the nursing program so I decided to start volunteering at a hospital in order to increase my chance of getting in. I have been volunteering in the emergency room at Eagle Ridge hospital in Port Moody ever since last November and it has been a very good experience for me. Well, about 2 or 3 months ago I was in the emergency room walking past the beds, making sure that everyone had what they need, when I came across an elderly lady who didn't seem to be doing well at all. So I went over to her and asked her how she was doing. She said she had never been so sick in all her life and was very scared. So I stayed with her and listened to her talk about how she was feeling. She clearly was not doing well so I asked her questions about her life in order to try to distract her from her pain for a little while. We exchanged names (hers is Margaret) and talked about life for about an hour or so, but still she was very uneasy and kept saying how frightened she was. So I asked her if she would like me to pray for her and she said yes, so I prayed that the Lord would give her peace and ease her pain. She thanked me afterward and seemed a little bit relieved and tired at the same time. She looked like she wanted to sleep, so I told her I was going to let her rest and asked her to give me a call once she got home to let me know how she's doing.

We kept in touch for the past couple of months and I call her every once in a while to see how she is doing. It had been about 3 or 4 weeks since I had last called her, when she gave me a call last night and left a wonderful message. She thanked me again for being there for her and said that she had prayed (the day she got sick) that the Lord would send someone to her because she knew she couldn't pull through on her own - and He sent me. She went on to say that she has committed her life to the Lord because by sending me to her, He showed her that He is real and that He does care for her. Margaret lives on her own and said that her health issues have been preventing her from going out very much so she often feels alone; however, ever since she accepted Jesus as her savior she said she does not feel nearly as bad and has a lot of peace. She has a friend who goes to the same church as me (Willingdon), and this friend of hers has been giving her bible study materials and guiding her to a deeper relationship with Jesus. Margaret is very excited about her new life in Christ and said she would very much like to start coming to church with my family. How exciting!!! I was so happy when I got her message last night and am really excited to see her again! Please continue to pray that the Lord would work in the lives of the patients and staff at Eagle Ridge and that He would continue to give me opportunities and wisdom to share the love and truth of Christ.

As for Steve and I, we started marriage counseling about 3 weeks ago and it has been great so far. We have been paired with a great mentor couple and have gotten to talk about a lot of things we hadn't thought of talking through. Wedding planning is going great! For those of you who don't know, we found an all inclusive wedding package...which includes wedding coordinators! It's great not having to go crazy!
As of right now we are still looking for a place to stay once we get married. I finished school about 1 month ago and will be finishing an online course this Tuesday. Afterward I plan on going job hunting (yay) and we are praying really hard that I will get a decent job very soon.
There will be another MA (mission adventures) team coming next week, so please be praying for Steve, the YWAM staff and the students they are going to have. Also, I just realized that some of you might not know what YWAM is, so if you want to see what the organization is about you can go to www.ywam.org and to check out YWAM Vancouver's programs click here.

Thanks again for your continued prayers and support - we are very grateful!

-- Annita

God always comes through!

Hello all, Annita here. For those of you who don't already know, Steve moved to Vancouver on April 15th! It is amazing how God prepared the way for us to find the place where he is now living; He is an incredible designer of plans and it's so exciting to see them come to pass as we trust in Him!

Since December 2009, my mom had been asking people she knew if any of them had a room available for rent or if they knew anyone who did, but no one had anything within our price range ($600/month or less...the metro Vancouver area is quite expensive). We checked Craigslist and a bunch of other websites nearly every day to see if anything we could potentially rent came up, but there was nothing. All rooms/apartments were either within our price range and very far away from the YWAM Vancouver base/Annita's school or started at $700/month and went up from there. We were getting a little anxious but decided to put our trust in the Lord and asked Him to provide the right place for us at just the right time.

On Sunday, March 28th, Steve felt like the Lord said that he would be moving to Vancouver soon so he started to pack his things as soon as he got home from church. At the same time, I felt like the Lord was saying the same thing as well. The following Sunday a man at his church told Steve that he believed the Lord was saying He will provide a place in a way that we would not expect. We thought that was interesting because we also had been hearing the same thing from the Lord...so we continued to put our hope and trust in Him as we waited on Him to come through for us.

In the meantime, my mom had asked one of her friends if she knew of anyone who might have a place. Her friend said that she would mention it to her Bible study group and get back to my mom. About two weeks had gone by and her friend had mentioned it to her Bible study group but had forgotten to tell my mom the news...so we were still waiting. On Sunday, April 11th my mom ran into her friend at church and they talked for a while about life and other such things, but her friend felt like she was forgetting to tell my mom something important. She eventually remembered about Steve and I and told my mom, "I forgot to tell you that I talked to my Bible study group about Steve and Annita and told them that they are looking for a place to stay. Our Bible study leader said that his mom does bed and breakfast and currently has some rooms available." I got his mom's contact information and gave her a call two days later. Steve came over that same day and we both went to meet with her the following day.

Her name is Doreen and she is the sweetest old lady I have ever met. She loves to talk and can go on for hours, so we talked with her for a while. At 89 years of age she is standing tall and has still not retired! She is incredibly strong, does some of her own yardwork, cleans her own house and even makes breakfast every morning for all who live with her! We sat down with her over coffee and delicious home-made banana muffins. We found out she has a strong relationship with Jesus so we explained our situation to her and she decided to only charge Steve $400/month!!! This is an amazing deal...especially considering the fact that she lives in North Vancouver! She also told us that he was an answer to her prayers as well, as she would be traveling very soon and wanted someone to look after the house while she was away (no one else will be there during the time that she is gone). Breakfast is also included in the price and my family always has Steve over for dinner, so that saves us a lot of money every month. The Lord is so good and so faithful as long as we continue trusting Him no matter how bleak the situation looks. He came through for us just in the nick of time and we know and believe that He will continue to do so.

Steve moved up to Vancouver on April 15th and has had a good week so far. He started working with YWAM Vancouver on April 19 and really enjoys it! The first group of MA (Mission Adventures) students will be coming tomorrow and this week will be quite crazy for him! Please be praying for strength physically and spiritually for Steve as well as all the other YWAM staff as they reach out to high school students to spark their interest in missions.

We certainly did not expect to get that good of a deal...especially in North Vancouver!! God is so good and is absolutely BRILLIANT! Steve now lives a 15 minute drive from the YWAM base and can also bike to work a few times a week. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support - we really appreciate them and you guys as well!

As for me, I just finished with my exams last week and am now working on completing an online course in mental health. Once I finish with this course (hopefully in the next two weeks) I will receive a citation (which is like a certificate) and will *hopefully* be able to get a job in the mental health field afterward. Please pray that I do well and will be able to get a job soon.

Keep checking in every week or two, as we will be posting updates as frequently as possible :) Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support - I don't believe we could do this without the body of Christ lifting us up in prayer and strengthening us with encouragement!

-- Annita

PS: I know some of you have been trying to contact us via email and haven't been able to. I now just realized why...the email is actually steveandannita@yahoo.ca not @yahoo.com. Sorry about that! Do send us mail, we'd love to get in contact with you :)

Trusting God to provide

Trusting God is an amazing place to be. Right now I am sitting in my bedroom contemplating what God has done and how I have got to see His incredible faithfulness. As I look forward to what He has spoken to us, and how He is going to take care of us I can only get excited. Four months ago I had just finished leading a Discipleship Training School (DTS with Youth With A Mission, Idaho) to China and Mongolia. We got to see the Lord do amazing things there; it seemed like nearly every day God was putting us in the path of someone who needed to hear more about who He is. Some we got to lead to Christ while others left thanking us for taking the time and effort to come all the way out to Mongolia to share the Gospel with them. I have never been in a country so open to hear the Gospel. The people were very friendly and always invited us in for milk tea (hot milk with copious amounts of salt in it…not for the faint of heart). As I reflect on that trip one thing always stands out to me about it: the Lord told us not to make a schedule but to seek Him and go where and when He told us to go, and that’s exactly what we did. We rented a van and a driver, who we had helped lead to the Lord a few weeks earlier, and went into the least populated country per square kilometer in the world. We drove from yurt to yurt for 3 weeks and shared the Gospel, ate, and slept with the people. There would be times that we would drive for 3-4 hours and not see a yurt and other times they would be all over the grasslands. It was a crazy time of snow storms, sheep and camels that I will never forget. But the most amazing thing about the whole two month trip was seeing God’s faithfulness and getting to share the Gospel with the Mongols, who for some heard it for the first time. All through that whole trip God was teaching me to trust him. Trust is such an intimate place to go in your relationship with the Lord. It requires us to wholly give up our rights and say “ok God, You said to do this and now I am stepping back and letting You take control”. That again is where I am, and it is a good place to be. Annita and I are trusting God to provide a place to live in Vancouver B.C. and the money to live there. When I got back from Mongolia Annita and I decided to get married, so we began to pray about what our future would look like, and where we would live. Over the next few months we felt strongly that the Lord was leading me to leave YWAM Idaho and join YWAM Vancouver in British Columbia. It will cost much much more to live up in B.C but we heard the Lord, so I am moving up there this month. We are trusting God to provide $1200 more per month, but as I said before, trusting God is an amazing place to be! No matter what is going on in our lives, God has a way of always making us dependent on Him, and for that I am thankful…

Steve and the Mongolia DTS team (Zach, Andy and Lucas) with some Mongolian families.