Benin Bulletin #1
“The First Of The Firsts”
March 1, 2016
Prayer Requests
- Trip to Western Canada - Praise that we were able to visit family and friends in Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan. Praise the Lord for granting us safety as we travelled. A big thank you to all who hosted us.
- Engagement - Praise the Lord, I’m now engaged! Kathleen and I were engaged on January 9th surrounded by family and friends. A big thank you to all who were involved in planning the event.
- Wedding planning - continue to pray for us as we continue planning the wedding.
- SIM Ambassador - Pray for me as I’ll be contacting churches here in Atlantic Canada to see how SIM Canada can serve the local church.
- Relationship - Pray for Kathleen and I as we continue to get to know each other better and begin the process of understanding how to function as a couple on a day-to-day basis.
- Benin official - Kathleen and I are officially heading to Benin next year! Please pray for us as we continue to prepare for our new ministries in Benin.
Introduction
Greetings all from beautiful Geary, New Brunswick, Canada! If you read my previous letter carefully you’ll know that me being back in Geary means that so far everything has gone as we thought it would. We had a great time in Western Canada visiting with family and friends and have now come back to New Brunswick to plan the wedding. I know some of you have been anxious to hear the whole story so let me dive right in to it.
Trip To Western Canada/Engagement
As I mentioned in my previous letter I arrived here in Geary on December 20th and spent Christmas and New Years with Kathleen’s family. It has been great getting to know Kathleen’s parents better and I’ve enjoyed spending time with her extended family and her friends. On January 8th, we left New Brunswick and flew to Edmonton, Alberta to be reunited with my own family. I was excited to see my own family but I was also excited about something else that was planned for the very next day.
As most of you know my intention when I returned to Canada was to get married to Kathleen. The first step in this process in my mind was to talk to her Dad and ask permission from him to marry his daughter. This may sound very traditional to some, and I guess it is, but its what I believe to be the best way to go about it. I know if I had a daughter I would want her boyfriend to be man enough to come and talk to me about his intentions. Not doing that somehow seems disrespectful to me. So on Christmas eve I went out for lunch with Kathleen’s father and we had our little chat. It wasn’t a surprise to him and contrary to what some people might think it was actually a really enjoyable chat. The result? He said to go ahead and marry his daughter! That was all I needed to hear. Now the next problem, how am I gonna afford a wedding ring?
Well, when I was still back in Botswana and Kathleen and I had decided to get married, I contacted my Dad. As most of you know my Mother passed away in December 2013. I asked my Dad what he did with Mom’s wedding ring. He told me he kept it. I then asked him what he thought of me giving Mom’s ring to Kathleen to keep it in the family. He thought that would be great but wanted to talk to my brother and sister first to ensure they were ok with it. They both were so Dad said the ring would be ready for me when we arrived in Alberta. Awesome!
So, as promised, when we arrived in Edmonton Dad stealth fully passed me Mom’s wedding ring to use for the engagement. So, what was the plan? How did you propose? Well, I’ll tell you but first let me paint a picture of how the plan came about. To understand why I did what I did I need to tell you another story about Kathleen and I’s first kiss. If kissing offends you for some reason feel free to skip this next part.
Some of you will remember that in August last year Kathleen and I met in South Africa to spend two weeks together. As you can imagine we were very excited to see each other and to yes, kiss each other. However, I didn’t want to kiss Kathleen just because I wanted to, or because she wanted me to, or because someone else wanted me to. I wanted it to happen naturally and I wanted it to be special. So when Kathleen first arrived in South Africa we decided not to kiss right away, but to wait for the moment when it felt right. So the first day passed, the second day passed…nothing. In, dare I say, biblical fashion, “On the third day” things changed.
We were in Durban, South Africa and the plan for the day was to go to Ushaka Marine World which is kind of like a South African version of Sea World. We saw penguins and seals and such and it was a really great time. As the day went on we realized that a dolphin show was about to start so we decided to take a look. When we walked in to the seating area there were a number of people already seated, most of them being children. They were all dressed in their school uniforms so I’m guessing it was some sort of school field trip. There was a video camera there filming the kids and projecting the result on a massive screen behind the dolphin tank. As you can imagine the kids were going crazy. It was actually really fun to watch. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Kathleen and I appeared on the screen with a large heart around us and the words “Smooch Cam” at the bottom. At first I was shocked. Then I just started laughing. I looked at Kathleen and she was smiling as well. In the background the African children in the crowd started to chant, “Kiss, kiss, kiss!” I asked Kathleen for permission to kiss her and she agreed so we did. As we kissed the children in the background starting cheering like their favourite sports team had just won the championship. Now, I know I was waiting for something special, but this totally blew me away. And I have no choice but to give glory to God for that awesome moment with my future wife because I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Hopefully the Lord isn’t done surprising us like that!
So, speaking of surprises, I had a proposal to plan! I’ll admit, at first, I had no idea what I was going to do. Then I had a thought. Since we had our first kiss at a dolphin show, wouldn’t it be cool to propose at a dolphin show. This got me thinking and I realized that West Edmonton Mall had a dolphin show. Perhaps I could propose there. I went online to West Edmonton Mall’s website and was saddened to discover that they no longer had a dolphins and now have seals. Well, that didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. So then I began thinking of what kind of romantic activities we could do during the winter. Hmm…how about a sleigh ride? I started looking online at places in the Edmonton area that provides horse and sleighs and decided to ask my sister about it. She reminded me that a family from Fort Saskatchewan Alliance Church had horses and sleigh and may be willing to give Kathleen and I a sleigh ride. So I contacted Rob & Lenora Glasman and they were more than happy to help and they even offered the use of their house for the actual proposal. Awesome! Plans were coming together.
So, January 9th arrives and I’m starting to get anxious. As far as Kathleen knew we were just planning to go out to the Glasman’s farm for dinner and a bonfire. The plan was to head over to the Glasman’s around 4:30pm. That seemed fine at the time but my sister thought it might look suspicious if Kathleen and I (who were staying with my sisters family) stayed at home while the whole family left at around 3pm to go setup decorations for the proposal. Hmm, yah that would look a bit weird. So, now I had to find a way to kill about 1.5 hrs so they have a chance to get the house ready for us. I tried calling a few friends but they were all busy enjoying their Saturday afternoons. What to do? Well, I decided that I would just tell Kathleen that I need to grab something at Walmart so I could at least get her out of the house. Well, that wasted all of 10 minutes. I needed to waste way more time than that. So we went to Safeway as well. Then I started driving her around the small town of Fort Saskatchewan basically just wasting time. I ended up driving to another town just to waste more time and I still had like 40 mins to waste. Finally, Kathleen saved the day by requesting that we stop for something small to eat. So we did that. Then the time came to head out the the farm so off we went.
Meanwhile everything was going exactly as planned at the farm (add sarcasm here). During the decorating of the house a number of candles had been lit and my friend Sarah got a little to close to one of them and started here hair on fire. My brother-in-law David decided it would be a good idea to hang out with some of the horses out there at the farm. Well, he forgot he was allergic to horses! So he started having trouble breathing and had to return home to get his inhaler so he wouldn’t, well, die. Our camera man was running late and barely arrived at the farm before us. So yah, everything was going swimmingly (add more sarcasm here).
Eventually, Kathleen and I arrived at the farm. Rob greeted us as we arrived and he had the horse and sleigh ready to go. Unfortunately, the temperature wasn’t quite as I had hoped it would be. It was -25C! However, Rob had blankets for us so we got nice and close to each other and had a really great time on the sleigh. After about 30 minutes we arrived back at the Glasman’s house. As we walked in the first thing you saw was…the band! Yep, I had asked 4 of my friends to play Kathleen and I’s song (Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran). So as we walked in the 4 piece band began playing the song and I turned around and proposed to Kathleen. She said yes! Everything seemed great…at first. After the successful proposal my family and friends who had been hiding in the hallway came out to congratulate us. However, they were a bit surprised by how things went. My sister and some friends had gone to a lot of trouble decorating a bench where we could sit down and do the proposal. The lights were off to create “mood lighting” which made it difficult for any pictures to be taken of the actual moment. Luckily, my friend Sarah was able to capture the moment on her cell phone so we have a video recording of the actual proposal. Our proposal pictures though are actually staged in the well lit area where I was apparently suppose to ask Kathleen to marry me. So, as you can see, everything went perfectly to plan! However, despite the issues, I wouldn’t change a thing. It was a great night that I will never forget. A big thank you to all who helped out on our engagement night!
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| Where we were supposed to do the proposal. |
Return to New Brunswick/SIM Ambassador Position
The rest of the trip was great and Kathleen and I had an awesome time visiting friends and family. On February 21st we arrived back in New Brunswick and are currently staying with Kathleen’s parents until the wedding on May 21st. Kathleen is continuing to work casually at the Fredericton Hospital as a nurse and I have started my new position with SIM Canada as a “SIM Ambassador”. What this means is that I will be contacting churches here in Atlantic Canada to see how SIM can partner with churches to increase the effectiveness of evangelism here in Canada and abroad. I’ve already started contacting churches here in New Brunswick and look forward to see how the relationship between SIM and the local church can be strengthened.
Benin Official
Lastly, I should not close off this letter without mentioning the fact that the name of it has changed! In January, SIM officially assigned us to Benin, Africa! Kathleen will be working as a nurse and helping out with the guesthouse while I’ll be working as a Project Coordinator and doing my usual IT stuff. Since this change it seemed necessary to change the name of my letter and blog site from Botswana Bulletin to Benin Bulletin. It actually is a fairly basic change but one to take note of. As usual my blog site is listed at the bottom of this letter. Feel free to check it out! For those of you wondering when we might leave we are thinking it probably won’t be until about May 2017. The reason for this is because Benin is a French speaking nation and Kathleen and I will be attending a French school in Quebec for one year to master the French language. Kathleen’s French is much more developed than mine (I haven’t spoken French since grade 9) so she may also do some bible college courses while we are at school. I’ll explain more as things get worked out.
Conclusion
So that is basically the update for now. Some of you may be wondering about our plans after the wedding but I think I’ll leave that for my next prayer letter. There are still a number of things that haven’t been completely worked out yet so I’ll be able to better update you once those issues are resolved. Thanks again to all of you who continue to support Kathleen and I as we go through this transitionary period in our life. Until next time!
Peace and prayers,
Graham Crawford <><
SIM Contact Info:
SIM Canada
10 Huntingdale Blvd.
Scarborough, Ontario
M1W 2S5
Canada
Tel: 1-800-294-6918
E-mail: info@sim.ca
Online donations can be made at: www.sim.ca
(My missionary number is 24460)
Please visit my blog site at: beninbulletin@blogspot.com
The opinions expressed in this letter are my own opinions. They are not necessarily the opinions or views of Serving In Mission (SIM).
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