Our time in Medicine Hat is drawing to a close. We leave on Thursday. After church yesterday Lilian and I went for a quiet walk along the river.

Good service in "The Link" (Dave and Stacey's church). It was nice not to have to preach, just sit and listen. I see the guys have me down to preach in a church in Albania while I'm there, hopefully with a translator as my Albanian isn't too hot!

Speaking of too hot I notice that after we left California it caught fire!We had spent a nice day in Malibu and Santa Monica but I see they have both been badly affected. Up here in Canada there is a chill in the air in the mornings, winter's on its way.

In the meantime here's a couple of pictures of "The Link" (They haven't gone charismatic, I got them all to wave at you!)

And here are some family photos.

Caleb finishing his supper, and Grace having finished hers!

Got as invite to BATUS yesterday. BATUS is the British Army Training Unit Suffield, which is the British Army's biggest training ground in the world, 9 or 10 times the area of Salisbury plain. The Military Police invited the Medicine Hat police along for a tour of the camp and I tagged along with Dave.
In and out Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured personnel carriers, and a helicopter ride over the area, plus our lunch in the Sergeants' Mess.
Not much room in a tank which weighs 75 tons and does approximately 1 mile to the gallon! I wouldn't like to spend a couple of days in one which I'm told is not uncommon!

The day finished with a rough cross country ride in a "Warrior" APC. Dave came out of that looking pretty stunned and shell shocked!

Well here we are in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in "The Fall" as they say here, and I have to admit, it's pretty spectacular! Lilian of course is in her element! Autumn is her favourite season and so we've been doing a lot of walking through the woods.

Also been preaching on Both Sundays that I've been here. The first was arranged before I arrived, (I usually preach one Sunday in Dave and Stacey's church when I'm over) However in the middle of the second week their pastor, ("Pastor Mike" as he's called here) was involved in a pretty serious car accident. He was travelling to a conference in Calgary doing about 75 mph on the highway wen a driver coming behind him "blacked out" and rear ended him doing over 100! The impact knocked Mike's car across the road and into another car. All the scars were demolished but everyone walked away! The emergency crews at the scene were amazed that they survived it! However, Mike was badly bruised by the seatbelts and airbags etc and I called round to see if there was anything I could do to help him. (I meant could I drive him around or carry stuff for him as he was suffering from whiplash) but he said the best thing I could do for him was preach again as he couldn't think straight with the headaches! So I ended up preaching yesterday too! In fact I was meant to be speaking yesterday in a local prison, ("local" being 3 hours down the road!) but they couldn't get my clearance through in time, so it all worked out for the best, leaving me free to preach in church. Grace Erin Allen was dedicated the first Sunday we were here. This is a picture of them with Pastor Mike, (before the accident!)

Lilian and I have been taking Caleb out to give Stacey some space. He's at the talking and running about stage now and great fun!

This is Grace. Amazing isn't she!

I saved this post as a draft a few weeks ago and forgot to publish it. So here it is now. Here we are in Santa Barbara in California. These guys have some climate and September/October is a good time to be here! Clear blue skies and a steady 75 degrees. Doing a lot of walking about and eating! Everybody is outdoors here, jogging, cycling, skateboarding, (there is a skateboarding park beside the beach), playing volleyball and walking about. Large Hispanic community here who are into soccer.

And of course water sports are big, a lot of activity is centered around the harbour. Hundreds of restaurants of every kind and any hope of losing weight has gone out the window. Despite the number of pictures we have of us sitting eating and drinking I have however managed to cut back dramatically on my coffee intake which is good! The little place where we are staying is about 3 minutes from the beach and you can walk along the boulevard into the harbour in the centre of Downtown Santa Barbara about a mile away. The plan is to head up to Monterey for a few days. I'm a big John Steinbeck fan and I want to see Cannery Row and that area.

On the way back from Laguna Beach we got "rear ended" at an intersection by a young woman who didn't have a driving licence! Somebody called the police and we ended up in the whole accident investigation thing! This is me holding the rear bumper. The car is drivable but we're going to change it.
In the meantime we are enjoying the California sunshine, doing a bit of walking and lazing around. Bill and Libby are spoiling us.
They have had no rain here for 18 months and so they are looking forward to the possibility of a storm coming. Went for a walk in the hills and encountered two signs, one warning us about mountain lions and the other showing that the fire danger was off the clock!
Went to Saddleback Church yesterday. Good service and got showing Lilian around the place, which is huge and growing! (Incidentally for those who think the Saddleback deal is all music and no preaching, John McArthur preached for 55 minutes last week in Grace Community church, Rick Warren preached yesterday for 1 hour and 15 minutes!) This is us on the Saddleback campus with Bill.
We are leaving Bill and Libby today to head up to Santa Barbara and beyond for a week and I'm not sure how much Internet access we will have so be patient if your emails don't get answered for a while!

Bill and Libby live in a super house not too far from this little town called Laguna Beach.

It's a beautiful spot. Lots of restaurants and quaint little shops and art galleries and, of course, a superb beach. It's one of my favourite spots on this stretch of coast. We've been there a
couple of times this week. Had a meal in a restaurant overlooking the sea and watched the dolphins playing in the surf.
This is Southern California at it's best!

On the Saturday night Larry and Lauren were hosting a meal for the coordinators of the "Master's Conference" which is coming up in March 2008 in Grace Community Church. About 30 people turned up and had a meal on the patio and so we got a chance to meet them. It was a good night and a great opportunity to get to know people.

The following morning we went to Grace Church, 8.30 service. We had arranged to meet Johnny McClaughlin at the fountain and so we all got seats together. The main service ran from 8.30 until about 10.00 and then there was a half hour break for coffee. At the coffee break who did we meet but Anna Cuellar!

After coffee the church splits into various groups for teaching. Johnny took us to the "College Group" which was very different to the main service. More relaxed and more contemporary music and teaching style. We also wanted to sample the "High School" group and so we slipped across to that. We had missed the singing there when we arrived but there was some great teaching going on from the book of Micah. That finished about 12.00 and we all went off for a meal.

Afterwards we went on a tour of the Master's College Seminary and brought us to the area he lived in. We had a look around and a cup of coffee and headed back to church in the evening. As part of the evening service there were 3 baptisms and 47 brought into membership.

Got back home about 9.00 that evening. Tomorrow morning we leave here and go down to Bill and Libby Jason at Coto de Caza.