Last week, May 15-20, we held a candidate orientation school, at Faith Mission Retreat Centre in Falkland BC. For the past many years, all of our Canadian candidates would make the trip to Kansas City MO. or Dallas OR, to join together with the the US candidates for the orientation meetings. But this year, due to the need for, and cost of securing passports, and the cost of travel, we decided to hold a Canadian version of that candidate school right here in BC. We have not had a Canadian candidate school in Canada since the early nineties! We have all of the same material used in the US candidate school, so the project was very workable.
Murray and Debbie Graham, and Henry and Marilyn Vandermeer, joined Lennie and I to make up the candidate school staff. We work very well together, and it was a great week! Murray Graham is the new Village Missions Executive Director, starting his duties on July 1 2016. This was a bit of a warm up for him and his wife Debbie. We had a great time of fellowship as we worked together.
The school consisted of four candidate couples and one single fellow. Three of our candidate couples, Brenden & Helena Peters, Alex & Melanie Pompu, Joe & Laura Letourneau as well as our single candidate Darren Goetz, have been serving internships and training under veteran pastors. Our fourth couple, Steve and Joyce Dennis, made application to Village Missions, along with their church’s application to become a VM Church.
The candidate school was successful in every way. We have agreed to accept all the candidates and when they have completed their internships, and raised their support, they will be assigned to a field.
We praise God for giving us these new workers. God is blessing our Forward Again Campaign by providing both candidates and funding. PTL.