Why Canada?

Hey everyone,

here is a little update and what we are thinking about lately. We are constantly getting positive feedback about our plans, which is very encouraging. Just last week I told my current boss about our plans and although he is not happy to loose a good employee, he is glad to see that we are finding our way towards our dream. Financially we are on a good track and are waiting for a couple of people who are considering support to come back to us with an amount. Overall we are getting more and more excited about this adventure.

There probably is no question that we get asked as much as “Why Canada?”. So I thought I should address it in a post. There is as with most questions a short and a long answer. The short answer is that about 10 years ago I felt God call me to that beautiful country and who is going to argue with that.
But that answer is quite spiritual, but not very practical or specific. There are a lot of little and big things that have turned my calling into our dream and mission. While I was in Canada for the first time there was a particular incident that I could call the starting point. The defining moment was a conversation with the director for evangelism and outreach of the MCM (Mennonite Church Manitoba) and the director for Camps with Meaning in Winnipeg. I approached them with a couple of different evangelistic ideas which were and still are a passion of mine. The summery answer was basically “If you want to do that sort of thing, you might want to talk to the baptists”. Which I started doing, but my one year term ran out before it got anywhere.
This told me that Canada wasn’t to far behind european countries in terms of secularization. When the church, no matter what denomination, stops being interested in proclaiming the gospel of grace to a hurting world, there is something seriously wrong. Although there are churches around Canada is far from being a christian nation. This fact became even clearer after living in Vancouver for a year, where christians are very much the minority.
So you could say our hearts are opened for the need of a gospel witness in Canada. But very practically as well we just loved the culture and lifestyle in Canada. Starting with the friendliness of the people and ending with the much more relaxed outlook on life. We felt very much at home in the culture and where surprised to basically have a positive culture-shock. This meant coming back to Germany was harder that we would have thought and we still sometimes feel homesick for this new home.

So why Canada? Because all our experiences and thoughts have brought us a calling to a place that we have come to love.