Sunday, April 01, 2007

I know it has been a little while since I have blogged. I guess that's the downfall of blogging often, people begin to expect it from you! Just Kidding. I am glad that I have readers, and that you all have a way of being connected to me, even though we are so very far away from each other.

It's been an interesting bit of time this past week or two. Just on Friday I was told that my TESOL certificate wasn't worth the paper it was written on, and that all I needed was my self-declaration that I lived in Canada more than 10 yrs. So silly, but whatever. I mean, I will have this paperwork approved, but the only reason I took TESOL is because I thought I needed certification to get a trade license to teach english. I guess that is not the case at all! So it makes me feel a bit foolish, and that all that work was for naught. But then, the side of me that knows better knows that any education and training is worth it! Which is very true.

Speaking of education and training, this is an area I need to grow more in. Especially when it comes to areas such as accounting, business, leadership and the art of coffee making! This cafe idea is really taking hold in our leadership team, and is something that we are definitely pursuing. Right now we have office space that we are renting, which has two rooms. One, the church office, the second, a multi-purpose room, which is right now housing the empty IKEA boxes from the office furniture! We want to transform that room into a mock cafe, type thing. We will not be able to be an official cafe or actually sell anything, but we can ask for donations! The idea behind this is building up to the big cafe. Starting small, work towards the big picture and learn everything we can along the way! The reality of the big cafe is that even if we started working towards it today (which we can't because this project hasn't been approved yet!), it would probably be close to two years before opening day. Just due to the legal reality as well as the fact that the place I have been eyeing is not actually for sale, nor has it been lived in for quite some time. The ultimate fixer upper! So, if we can obtain that place,a) I would be as happy as a pig in the mud and b) It will take a lot of elbow grease to bring it up to code. Everytime I walk by it I pray over it, and I can't help but imagine what we could turn it into. It would be perfect. The perfect location, just off the centre, right on a highly trafficked road by students. It honestly couldn't get better. But, the Lord knows. Anyway, all that to say that we don't want to miss out on 2 yrs or so of ministry potential! So this first phase will be like our mini-cafe, hang out, program running multi functional room! We want to run an Alpha-like course called H2O, conversational English,.... and so on! It's quite exciting. And all the stuff we buy for our mini-cafe can be used when we go to the BIG cafe! So, the expenses are spread out a bit and might not be so impossible. Please pray for us, if we step forward into this, we're looking at about half a million dollars in one time expenses (the purchase of the building is 90% of that sum!) But the cafe would be self supporting in one month if all the one time expenses are supplied for supernaturally. So this is a whole new area of faith for me,.. and to be honest, scares me out of my wits! But I am so confident that this is from God.

I have been talking to my colleagues and other friends here that I have made, and every single person (not saved) are SO excited to have a coffee house that has a heart. That offers more than coffee, but love. Oh, what opportunities we would have to share Jesus in a real and natural way. And to also have more structured activities for Christians, and not-yet Christians, for businesses, for students, for everyone.... I could totally write for an hour on this, so I will stop now! But you'll be hearing more about it in the near future. So, if you, or anyone you know has a heart for students and would be willing to invest into this... Come on down! :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Honey,
I'm glad to hear that you survived your snowboarding and from the pictures it looks like you had fun! The cafe sounds like it's coming together - keep praying and keep planning!

Love Mom

Anonymous said...

sometimes i get that excited feeling in my heart, when i KNOW that things are right, and good. i get that feeling when you talk about your cafe, christina. i love you! chrystal