Derksen Summer 2011

Well, it has been quite a trek for us this summer.  We left Costa Rica on June 22 only to take 30 hours to get to Kelowna as opposed to the scheduled 13.  We dropped our girls off with family and headed to Calgary to spend time with the Chinese workers from our region.  We spent a wonderful few days at King’s Fold Retreat Center just outside of Cochrane, Alberta.  The following picture lets you see some of our friends there.

From the retreat we went to the Joint Missions Conference at Ambrose University and had a great time networking with many of the CMA Chinese churches in the west.

After a good chunk of visiting and networking we were ready for some down time and took 2 weeks of holidays with our family (our boys and their girls) in Kelowna.  It was a time of lots of family visits and a family wedding.  Here is a pic of that family wedding.

As mentioned we had some fun times with our immediate family too and really enjoyed time with our children.

See other pictures below.

From Kelowna we made our way south into Mexico.  We spent a few days in Mexico City with our team there.  We then traveled to Queretaro for the annual retreat for our Mexico workers.  We had a great time with the team.  We then headed back to Mexico City and off to Guadalajara to speak in a couple churches there and to reintroduce our girls to their birth city.  We had a wonderful time with their God-parents as well as taking a bit of time one day to explore the downtown area of the city.

As you can see this has been an eventful summer with some great family connections.

Murray also went to Brazil as soon as we got home to Costa Rica and had a great time in Sao Paulo with CMA contacts there.

We ask that you would remember us in the following ways:

Michelle travels with an intercessory prayer team through some of our works where the focus is on the Chinese diaspora (El Salvador, Panama, Venezuela).  She will travel from September 1-9.

Murray will visit the CMA national church in Venezuela and our new team in Caracas from Sept 9-15.

Murray will be with the CMA Central America leaders in El Salvador Sept 19-23.

Murray & Michelle will be in Mexico City with the CMA team there Sept 26 – Oct 1.

As you can see, we have a full month ahead of us.  We are looking forward to the time with various people.  Pray for protection as we travel, for our girls as they stay in Costa Rica with very capable people (Curtis & Linda Doell), and for success in the various purposes of these trips.

Murray & Michelle

P.S.  All of our funding comes through CMA Canada.  If you would like to donate towards our support, please go to the Canada Helps website and donate to the Global Advance Fund (adding “Support of Murray & Michelle Derksen” into the Message/Instructions box).