We've made it here

Now what? That was the question we [Jared and Chantel] asked ourselves as we sat in our new house after we finally had some time to stop and consider everything that had happened in the past few weeks.

It all felt like a whirlwind. After weeks of downsizing and packing, we taped up the final box, loaded it in the moving truck and drove away from the people and places we have known and loved for so long.

As we drove away, the emotions didn’t really hit as I expected them to. Maybe it was because we had spent the night attempting to sleep on the floor of our empty house, and had woken up at 4am in order to make it to our house possession appointment in Edmonton. Maybe it was because we had been so busy, we hadn’t had time to process everything.

The week leading up to the move was filled with unknowns. Despite doing everything we could to make the inter-provincial move as smooth as possible we had run into roadblocks along the way. Just days before we were set to move, we weren’t even sure if we’d be able to get into our new place when we arrived.

But God continued to show His faithfulness and steadfast love and we arrived in Edmonton on May 21st, just in time to hand off the required paperwork to our lawyer there and then rush over to our new house where we were handed the keys.

Then began the process of unpacking and setting things up. A process that I, in my naivety, thought would take a couple of days. It did not. The next two weeks were spent unpacking boxes, and setting up and arranging furniture. During this time I became much more familiar with the layout of IKEA than I would have preferred. 

We had hoped to hit the ground running, getting to know our neighbourhood and neighbours, but between spending time trying to get our house livable and some pretty miserable weather which kept everyone inside, progress was slower than we had hoped. 

By the end of the second week though, we were no longer tripping over boxes and finally had the time to stop and process the fact that we had actually moved. This is our home now, and we are incredibly grateful to God for providing a beautiful place for us to live. We are enjoying the area of the city that we live in and have begun to make some connections. 

At the same time, the reality of moving away from friends and family and from the church we love so much has really started to sink in. Sunday’s have been particularly difficult for our family as we miss gathering with Grace Warman. 

And yet as difficult as that has been, it’s also been a good reminder of the mission. We believe that God has brought us here for a purpose. We believe that He wants to see more Jesus loving, gospel centred churches planted across the world so that more people can hear about and experience the good news.

So now what? We press on towards the goal through the strength that Christ provides. He has been so gracious to us and He continues to show His provision and love towards us. We would appreciate your prayers that God would lead more people whom He wants to be part of the core team of Grace Edmonton. Join us in praying for this city, that He would do an incredible work here, just as we continue to pray He will continue to do so in Grace Warman and around the world.

If you would like to contribute at all to the ongoing cost of serving in these roles of missionary-church-planters, you can do so at https://graceyeg.com and click the “Connect” link on the top left.

If you'd like to read previous editions of the newsletter, you can do so here: https://graceyeg.beehiiv.com/

On behalf of our families,

Jared Klassen and Clay Bitner