Welcome, family and friends, to a reinstatement of our blog. Previous entries detailed our experiences in international development work which has been suspended for now as we lean into a new adventure!

PINCUSHION PROVIDENCE

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him." (I Corinthians 2:9)

One might wonder why Rick and Cheryl, Prairie born and bred, staunch Saskatchewan supporters, find themselves defecting to British Columbia at this stage in their retirement years. Well, sitting here in a borrowed trailer at the foot of a mountain, sometimes sweating, sometimes buffeted by spasmodic wind gusts, sometimes gazing out at a star-filled sky, we ourselves have plenty of time to ponder what we are doing here. Literally and figuratively. 

It didn't happen overnight, but once the game was put in play a year ago, the dominoes have fallen rather quickly! It's one of those things that began with the sharing of a dream (our son-in-law's dream) that seemed beyond reach, but gained purchase with each real-life step that was taken. And while it is true that we have thrown our lot in with our daughter, Beth, her husband, Tim, and our two grandchildren, William and Alba, we believe 100% that it is God's plan for us to undertake this venture with our family. Tim and Beth's vision was to move to a place in BC where they could buy a plot of land, build a home, and eventually get involved in grape-growing and wine-making. Such a venture requires more than one family's resources, and they pitched their plan to us at a time when we were ready and waiting for a new adventure. The pandemic had brought our international volunteer work to a standstill, and we had a little too much free time on our hands. After some serious discussion, prayer, contemplation and listening, we declared ourselves "in!" 

To our surprise, the pieces began to fall into place more neatly than expected. We flew out to view a piece of sub-divided land in the Similkameen Valley near Keremeos, BC in September 2021, put in an offer in October, and took possession on December first. Next, we put our Saskatoon condo up for sale in March 2022, travelled out to the Similkameen to walk the land and stake out house locations during Easter break, and had the condo sold by the end of April. Around this time, we started working with some young architects out of Vancouver who were excited about designing a multi-generational home on a rural landscape. Then we received notice from the tenants in our Regina condo, which prompted us to list that piece of real estate again. Little interest, however, had us resigned to the fact that we’d be stuck with it indefinitely. We had to be out of our Saskatoon home by the end of May, so we culled, sold, donated and packed up our material possessions to be loaded into a Big Steel Box for storage. Bins of clothes, toiletries, cleaners, food and other things we would need over the next 12-18 months were hauled with us to my dad’s basement in Langham, which would be our temporary home base in Saskatchewan. 

During this time, we were also planning a celebration of life for Rick’s dad, who had passed away in April. That took place in early July, and then we relocated to our Jan lake cabin for the remainder of the summer. While there, surprise! We received a ridiculously low offer on the Regina condo and accepted it in order to tie up that loose end. Then surprise #2! We also negotiated the sale of our beloved cabin. So by the end of August, all of our Saskatchewan properties were gone.

This was much speedier than we have been able to sell things in the past and served as confirmation that God's hand was pushing us eastward. On August 27^th, with a fully loaded new utility trailer hitched to our faithful old truck, we said our goodbyes and headed for BC to begin developing a hillside tract of land “from scratch” while camping in a trailer. We are grateful to our generous friends from Vancouver who have lent us their trailer, but being “cabin people,” we are not very knowledgeable about trailers. The first hurdle to overcome was finding a level spot to park it. We quickly learned that there is no spot on our land level enough for a trailer, that there are tricks to getting the fridge and hot water to work, and that we have to use the generator to charge phones, boil water, use a blow dryer, or fire up my computer. We found that there isn’t a potable public water source or a sani-dump in Keremeos. We discovered that the sun beats down on us mercilessly most days and high wind gusts prevent us from keeping the awning extended. Needless to say, the first few days didn’t inspire much confidence in our plan. The catch phrase for the Similkameen is "Rugged. Rustic. Real." Yup - that's an amazingly accurate description of our life right now.                  

On the other hand, we are surrounded by an inspiring landscape and friendly people, and things started to look up quickly. I think of it as “. . . but God . . .” Rick had already made arrangements to meet with the power guy, electrician, excavator and water pump expert. Initial consultations were very informative and mostly encouraging with the biggest win being that the excavator had a small window of time for us in two days. Neighbours also started stopping by to introduce themselves and share valuable information about local contractors and their own experiences. The first order of business is to build a small cottage (which will become a vacation rental) for Rick and me to live in while supervising development of the house site. We were elated to have the cottage site levelled and access road built by the end of the first week!

However, we realized that it would be dangerous if not impossible for our light truck to get the heavy camping trailer hauled up and maneuvered into place on that site halfway up the hill. A blessing came in the form of the wonderful folks from whom we bought the land. They said we were welcome to camp on an unsold lot they had used for their motorhome, which was serviced with power and water. Conversation with this couple revealed that they are people of faith who attend a local church and are active in caring for the needs of the community. Conversation with another young mom on our road (Pincushion Trail) revealed that she is from Weyburn and they are a Christian family who homeschool their 3 children. Potential friends for William and Alba. Indeed, we already feel God’s plan is unfolding and it will be easy to find our place in this community.

At this point, we are camped in a lovely spot hooked up to power and water, we can shop every couple of days at our choice of at least a dozen fruit and vegetable stands, we have found the red bridge at the west end of town where we can swim in the river, the access road to our cottage site is firmed up with loads of stone, Rick has the forms for the footing built and levelled, rebar is laid and we are ready to pour cement next week. The local Home Hardware will be able to supply most of the materials for the cottage in a timely manner, and we have succeeded in finding windows. We have been told we should have power approved by the end of the month and design of the septic field is in process. So despite ups and downs, we feel the hand of Providence directing our path on Pincushion Trail. Speaking of paths, I'm climbing our mountain 5 days a week to pray. More about that in the next entry . . .