The Crawford Chronicles #2
“The Itinerary”
February 1, 2020
Prayer Requests
1)
Austin’s 1st birthday - Austin celebrated his 1st
birthday on November 27th. We
praise the Lord for the progress he has made from his difficult start in the
hospital until now.
2)
Christmas Holidays - We thank the Lord that we were able to celebrate
Christmas with Kathleen’s family at our home here in New Brunswick. This may be something we aren’t able to do
often in the future so we were thankful we were able to do it this year.
3)
Church Presentations - We are thankful to Geary Baptist Church and
French Lake Baptist Church for allowing us to speak at their worship services
over the holiday. We thank you so much
for your support and prayers.
4)
Last Day at Skillsoft - My last day at Skillsoft was January 31st. I’m thankful that I am now able to completely
devote myself to support raising and preparing to depart for Senegal.
5)
Church Visits/Western Canada Trip - Please pray for us as we will be visiting
6 churches during the next 6 weeks in 3 provinces. Pray that we will be able to have meaningful connections
with family, friends and supporters during this time.
6)
French Classes - I (Graham) will be enrolling in French classes in March
to brush up on my skills. Pray for me as
I haven’t spoken much French since I returned from Benin.
7)
Support Update - We need to raise $3425/month in financial support
before we are able to leave. We currently
have $437/month in one-time and monthly donations (13%). Of this value only 5% is from re-occurring
gifts. Pray that we would be able to
raise the necessary funds before our planned departure date of July 2020. Dakar Academy would like us to arrive before
July so if the support comes in this date could be moved up.
8)
House Sale - Pease pray for our house which will be put up for sale on
February 10th. Pray that we
are able to sell it for a fair price and that we would be able to set a closing
date close to our departure time.
Introduction
Greetings from Oromocto, New Brunswick, Canada! I have exciting news for you all again…the
days are getting longer! I’ve noticed
recently that the sun seems to be staying out a little longer. I thought that might bring comfort to some of
you who are experiencing the “winter blues”.
I keep reminding myself that snow and winter will be something our
family will be seeing far less of in the future now that our plans are to be
back in Africa. This may surprise you,
but that is a good and bad thing to me.
I think of all the fun I had during winter as a kid and I think of how
Austin will miss out on some of that. My
hope is that we will be back enough times during the winter that he will be
able to experience the fun you can have in the snow. Maybe in the end he’ll get the best of both
worlds, enjoying whatever season comes his way.
Anyway, I feel I’m starting to wander off course so let me steer us
back. We have some newsy news to share
with you so I hope you’ll take the time to read it. Enjoy!
Austin’s
First Birthday
On November 27th we celebrated Austin’s first
birthday. It was hard to believe a year
had already passed since his surprise early entrance into the world. He has come so far since the Neo-Natal Intensive
Care Unit. He has so much happiness and
energy inside him. He really does light
up a room. I wonder where he gets that
from? In many ways his first year has
mirrored the progression we have made as a family. After coming back from Benin, full of
disappointment, we have come so far during this year. Kathleen and I have done a lot of healing and
we want to give all the glory to God for bringing us to a point where we feel
we can return to the mission field. We
thank each and every one of you for the encouragement you have given us along
the way. It has meant so much to
us. We look forward to seeing what God
has in store for us in the year ahead!
 |
| Austin's 1st Birthday at Montana's |
Christmas
Vacation
We celebrated Christmas at our home here in Oromocto surrounded by
family. Kathleen’s parents and her
brother Dustin were able to stay with us a few nights as we celebrated our saviours’
birth together. During the holiday, we
were able to share a little about our missionary journey with the congregation
at Geary Baptist Church (GBC). GBC has
been very supportive of us as a family and we greatly appreciate the efforts
they have made to support us as missionaries and as brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t know how many Christmas’ we’ll have a
chance to celebrate here in New Brunswick in the future, so it was nice to have
this time together.
 |
| Christmas 2019 - Austin with his new drum set and Leafs jersey |
French
Lake Baptist Church
On January 5th we were invited to speak at French Lake
Baptist Church. We were given the entire
sermon time to share our journey this year and our plans to serve in Senegal at
Dakar Academy. We want to thank the
congregation of French Lake Baptist Church for their support and prayers. Special thanks go to the Mackenzie family for
inviting us to their home for lunch after the church service. We had a great time!
Last Day
at Skillsoft
Yesterday (Jan 31st) was officially my last day as an
employee of Skillsoft. It was a bitter/sweet
end to my time there. I only worked
there for 13 months, but was able to meet some great people along the way. I will miss talking with them on a day to day
basis. However, I’m thankful to the Lord
for the opportunity to work there and hope I will have time to pop in to say
hello in the future.
Church Visits/Western
Canada Trip
Now that I (Graham) am no longer working at Skillsoft, you must
think I’ll have nothing but time on my hands, right? Wrong!
We are going to be very busy during the months leading up to our
departure for Senegal. We will be
visiting 6 churches during the next 6 weeks in 3 provinces. See the list below so you know when we’ll be
in your area:
February 2nd - Praise Christian Fellowship (Oromocto,
New Brunswick)
February 9th - Oromocto Baptist Church (Oromocto, New
Brunswick)
February 16th - Fort Saskatchewan Fellowship Baptist
Church (Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta)
February 23rd - Fort Saskatchewan Alliance Church (Fort
Saskatchewan, Alberta)
March 1st - Northlife Church (Fort McMurray, Alberta)
March 8th - Parksville Fellowship Baptist Church
(Parksville, BC)
Kathleen, Austin and I will be departing for Edmonton on February
12th. Unfortunately, Kathleen
and Austin will be returning to New Brunswick on February 25th. Kathleen is continuing to work at the Oromocto
Allergy Clinic so she can continue to accumulate her nursing hours. Kathleen needs to work a certain amount of
nursing hours each year to keep her nursing license so it’s important that she
keeps working. I will remain behind to travel
to Fort McMurray and Parksville. Please
pray for Austin as this will be his very first time in an airplane. We are hoping he will just sleep through the
whole thing, but one never knows. Pray
for Kathleen and I as it will be our first time on a plane with a toddler. Hopefully people will still like us once we
land.
French
classes
After traveling out west I’ll be returning to New Brunswick to
start French classes. During my time
back in New Brunswick I have spoken very little French and my skills now have a
lot of rust on them. I’m hoping that
once I enroll in a class and start speaking again that it will all come back to
me. Kathleen and I are hoping to attend
a local church in Dakar and have local friends.
In order for this to happen, my French skills need to be good. Please pray that I would progress in my
French so that I will be able to speak well with the local people once we
arrive in Senegal.
Support
Update
Some of you may be wondering how our support raising has been
going so far. With both of us working we
haven’t had a lot of time to connect with people but we’ve been encouraged by
the response so far. Our support goal is
to raise $3425/month. So far, we have
raised $437/month from one-time and monthly gifts which equals about 13% of our
needs. Of that 13% only 5% is from re-occurring
gifts so we are praying that number will increase as we move forward. We would like to thank each and every one of
you who support us both financially and prayerfully. We simply can’t do this without you. If you would like to join our support team it’s
as easy as going to the website https://www.sim.ca/graham-and-kathleen-crawford/
or calling SIM Canada’s head office at 1-800-294-6918.
Our target departure date is July 2020 but
Dakar Academy would love it if we were able to arrive before then so this could
potentially change to an earlier date.
We will keep you all posted as things progress.
House Sale
Kathleen and I will be putting our house up for sale on
February 10th. Some of you
may be wondering why we are putting it up for sale at this time. Well, there are a number of reasons for that. We discussed when we should put it up for
sale with our real estate agent back before Christmas. In his opinion, houses usually don’t sell
during the holidays so felt it wasn’t necessary to put it up right away. Historically, the area where we live in is
usually home to military families. For
those who don’t know, Oromocto is home to the Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. Each year something called “posting season” occurs. This is when military personnel are issued
letters informing them of re-assignment.
This often happens in either January/February. So, the thinking is that now would be the
time when military families would be looking for housing here in Oromocto. Also, since Kathleen, Austin and I are
leaving for Alberta on the 12th, we have the opportunity to clean
the house, stage it, and have it accessible to anyone who would like to look at
it during the 2 weeks we are all in Alberta.
This allows us to not have to be constantly trying to keep the house
clean in case someone wants to see the house.
Our prayer is that someone would buy the house during this time. We are also praying that the person would not
want to move in immediately. Since we
are not planning to leave until July at the latest, we are hoping for a later
closing date. Our real estate agent has
told us that most military families don’t move until the summer anyway, so this
is a likely scenario. Please be in
prayer with us that the house would sell, at a fair price, and that we would
get a closing date close to this summer.
Conclusion
Well, I think that is all the news I
have for you all at the moment. We’ll
try and keep you all as updated as much as we can during the next 4-6
months. Thanks again to all of you who support
us through your prayers and your finances.
We are blessed beyond belief to have you all in our lives. We hope we will have an opportunity to
see/speak with you all before we depart for Senegal. Until next time!
Blessings,
Graham & Kathleen Crawford (and
Austin)
The opinions expressed in this letter
are our own opinions. They are not
necessarily the opinions or views of Serving In Mission (SIM).
