Winter Newsletter!!!

Friends and Family,

Most of you are probably thinking that its a little late for a Winter Newsletter. That would be true in the vast majority of the world, but not up here in Thompson! The snow won't be gone until the end of May. There are signs like the one above on every highway as you leave town, because no matter which direction you are going, if your car breaks down, you have AT LEAST a day's walk to the nearest gas station. Fortunately, though, there is a lot of traffic, so you don't really have to worry about getting stuck in the cold.

We're really sorry that we haven't sent a newsletter since November. It seems like we haven't had a moment to rest since November, and we just haven't found the time to send out emails. But, we're remedying that right now! So here is a little info about what we've been doing:

The Short Version:

• In December, Leah, some of our youth, and I performed the "Behold the Lamb of God" concert by Andrew Peterson.


• We got the chance to spend about three weeks in the Carolinas visiting family and friends.


• In January, we went to a pastor's retreat in southern Manitoba.


• In February, we took a few of our youth to Winnipeg for a mission trip. We also had a youth fundraiser.


• At the end of Fenruary, I had the chance to go to Vancouver and connect with some of the people in our denomination.


• In March, we took our youth to a retreat in Saskatchewan.


• We also were visited by some friends from NGU, who are now living in Minnesota.


• We've had the chance to build some relationships with some other college and career aged people, but unfortunately, they all have plans to leave town in the near future.


• Pray that we'll find some ways to build more bridges with other people in town who are our age.


• April and May will probably be as busy as the past few months, if not more so.


• Make sure you look at the pictures at the bottom!

The Long Version:

In December, Leah, some of our youth, and I performed the "Behold the Lamb of God" concert by Andrew Peterson. It was a lot of fun working with the youth. We introduced some good music to our church and community and used the opportunity to deepen our relationships with some of the youth.

We got the chance to spend about three weeks in the Carolinas visiting family and friends. It was really great to get to see so many of the people we love and care about. The only unfortunate thing is that there are always a few people that we don't get to spend any time with. This is NOT because you aren't important to us, its just because time is short and we only have so much of it and so many to see. We are especially thankful that we got the chance to hang out with Bryan and Elise McClelland and to be there on the day of their little boy Asher's birth. Leah was one of the few people who got the chance to hold him on his birthday. This was really special because they are really special to us. Thanks to all of our friends and family who spent time with us. Thanks to Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters for letting us be a part of their house church while we were there, and thank you for the gift. You have no idea how encouraged we were after spending time with you guys. We really love all of you!

We are going to be in Ohio for our friend Zack's wedding in June, and we are hoping to get to see Leah's parents at that point, they are planning to drive up to meet us for the wedding. And then my (Brandon's) mom is going to visit us up here in August. Other than that, unless any of you want to come visit us (which you are invited to do), we won't see any one else until Christmas. This is why things like email, regular mail, the telephone and Skype are such great things.

As soon as we got back to Thompson from visiting home, we went to a pastor's retreat in southern Manitoba. This was a great chance for us to make some connections with other pastors in the Canadian Baptists of Western Canada, which is the denomination that our church is part of it. I also got to continue some of these connections in February when I went to Vancouver. This denomination is focused on equipping the churches to be missionally focused communities that are extremely intentional with the gospel. We are hundreds of miles away from the next closest Baptist church, so traditionally our church has been very disconnected to the denomination, but we are trying to forge a stronger connection so that our church can make use of some of the resources that they provide.

In February, we took a few of our youth to Winnipeg for a mission trip. Booth College, a small liberal arts college run by the Salvation Army, offered to let us stay in their extra dorm rooms for very cheap. We went down and used their facilities and got the chance to work at some inner-city ministries. We organized food at Winnipeg Harvest, an organization that distributes food to thousands of families in Winnipeg. We toured Siloam Mission, one of the biggest emergency shelters in Winnipeg. We also helped out at Union Gospel Mission, by cleaning up some of their facilities. It was really great to see our youth get excited about serving people less fortunate.This was also a really great relationship building and strengthening weekend. We basically got to run around a college and our little group were the only people there. They loved it, we loved it!

In March, we took our youth to a retreat in Saskatchewan at Nipawin Bible College. And then right after we got back, we were visited by Abel and Jennifer Odom. When they were here, we had one of the coldest nights of the year. It got down to about -60 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of staying inside where it was warm, we drove them out onto a small lake to try to see the northern lights. We didn't see the lights and nearly froze to death, but we had a lot of fun. It was really great and encouraging to spend time with them.

There are a couple of things that we are trying to do in our ministry that we would appreciate it if you would pray about. First, we are trying to foster a deeper faith in all of our youth. Much like many Christian teenagers, they tend to have a somewhat shallow faith that makes little difference in their life. We trying to deepen their understanding and appreciation of God's word and of the Christian faith as a whole. A lot of times this can feel like an uphill battle. Pray that God would move in their hearts and lives so that the things we are teaching them will take hold.

Second, between the four conservative, evangelical congregations in town, there are about ten twenty somethings. But in the town as a whole, there are tons of young adults. God has impressed an idea on Leah's heart that involves a coffee house, open-mic ministry. Pray that God would help us as we implement this and talk to our church about getting it going. Also we are trying to "convince" our church that there is a need for some changes within the church such as, making the stage more conducive for musicians as it is really hard to hear anything while leading worship. Another thing is to make the worship ministry more consistent. This is something that God has really given Leah a passion for, in fact she recently decided to pursue a masters in worship ministry, and the current ministry in our church is in dire need of revival. Lastly our church is lacking in the area of community, we are trying to get a community-building Bible study in the homes of the members (we would go to people's houses every week) just to make it social, and build community but also give the adults in our church another opportunity to dig into God's Word. Currently all we have is an adult sunday school class (which very few come to), a men's Bible study and our Sunday morning service. It is rare to see church people out side of Sunday morning unless there is an intentional invite or we run into them. Please pray with us and for us about these things as we feel God has impressed us with them.

April and May prove to be as busy as the past few months have been, so pray that we are able to keep up with ourselves. We have services with the other evangelical churches in town every night during the week leading to Easter, and we are greatly involved. We are also going to be visited (hopefully) by a dear friend and then at the end of April we are heading up to Banff, Alberta (google it, it's beautiful) for the General Assembly for our denomination. We really miss the Carolinas, but we are loving it up here.

Thanks,
Brandon and Leah

328 Thompson Drive
Thompson, MB R8N 0C4

204-677-2767

themilans@gmail.com

This is us and Leah's family at Dollywood on Leah's birthday.

This is a picture of Pisew Falls that Abel and Jennifer took when they were visiting. It's behind the big mound of snow, I promise.

This is the river a few hundred feet below the waterfall.

This sign is about 25 minutes north of town. I'm sure most of you have never seen a "Caribou Crossing" sign before...



I drove out on a small lake north of town. Yes, that is a crack in the ice running up towards my car. There is probably about 4 feet of ice, though, so it was perfectly safe. Maybe I'll take another picture in a few weeks when there isn't much snow left on top of the ice.

October/November in Northern Canada

We send a bimonthly newsletter to all of our friends and family back in the Carolinas. This is the letter from yesterday. Make sure you check out the pictures of Brandon's new friend, the bear.

Its been a while since our last newsletter, but lots of things have happened since then. We have decided to do bi-monthly newsletters, hopefully ya'll are down with that.

If you're in a hurry:

• Of course we had Canadian Thanksgiving back at the beginning of October, but we wish that we could be in the Carolinas celebrating with you guys. Happy Turkey DAY!
• A HUGE THANK YOU to our family and friends who have sent us the warm items we needed. A special Thank you goes out to our Snowbird family, and Snowbird Missions and Outreach International for supporting us. You guys have really come through, and we are so thankful to have you be apart of our ministry. Your gifts, letters, and prayers are appreciated more than you know! Keep em' comin!
• We're coming home!!! We will be in the Carolinas from December 22 until January 9--we are looking forward to seeing all of our friends and family...try to see us if you can!
• Pray for our teenagers. Between school, extra curricular activities, family, work, youth group, and other obligations, these are the busiest bunch of teenagers we've ever met. Pray that they'll see their need for Christ to be thir biggest priority.
• Continue to pray for us as we deal with their schedules too.
• Leah and I, along with some of our youth, are putting on a concert of Behold the Lamb of God by Andrew Peterson in December, pray that this is an effective way to minister to the churches we work with, our community, and unbelievers as we are doing a lot of advertisement. Also pray that this would be a good time of worship, fellowship and teaching.
• Pray for the family of a one year old boy named Cameron who passed away.
• We had the chance to lead a worship service for workers at a dam construction site this past sunday. Pray that we will have more opportunities to minister to the people at this site.
• I made friends with a bear!

The longer version:

Because of the much colder climate, the harvest season in Canada is a month and a half earlier; therefore, Thanksgiving comes in early October. Thankfully, we got so many invites for lunch and dinner that day that we had to turn some down. We were able to have brunch with a few people from our church and supper with our pastor and his family. It was a good day, but now its our Thanksgiving, and we're missing home. We would love to be there eating turkey and pumpkin pie and doing all of the fun Thanksgiving things with all of you. A couple from our church is taking us out tonight for Thanksgiving dinner, and another friend from church is having an American Thanksgiving/housewarming dinner tomorrow night in her new house, so we're excited about those things, but we're even more excited about our trip home in a few weeks. We're staying for 2 weeks this time, so it will be a great time to see all of you. SERIOUSLY, try to see us if you can.

Speaking of the colder climate, we've had a bit of a warm streak here the past three days--its been about 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Before that, it had been closer to 0 for the past couple of weeks. And we have had snow on the ground since the beginning of November. The days are really short right now (the sun comes up at about 9am and goes down around 4:30pm), but they're only going to get shorter (and colder) between now and Christmas. On the good side, the snow makes everything much prettier, and its fun to spin the car around in the parking lot.

We've mentioned this before, but our teenagers are busier than any we have ever seen. Many of them play school sports, are in band, chorus, or both, iceskate, are honor students, and work. Honestly, this leaves little time for them to be very involved in church at all. But our biggest problem is that they have, in the past, seemed to place church (and along with it, God) as less important than any of those other things. In other words, God is only important when they are at church, and church or youth group is a thing to do when they do not have something more important to do. Though this is something we have known all along, Leah and I have really been convicted lately that these kids need to know God and his Word more than they need somewhere fun to hang out on Saturday nights. And they need to realize that their relationships with God are more important than any grade, job, sport, etc. Pray that they would see this need. Pray that we would do and say what God would have us do and say so that they'll realize their need for Christ, and, in turn, this city's need for Christ. In fact, pray the same thing for the whole church, along with the other churches in town, and for that matter your own lives and home churches.

If you have not ever listened to the Christmas album, Behold the Lamb of God, by Andrew Peterson, you need to. Its basically a journey through the Bible leading up to Christ. More than anything else it reminds us that Christmas is not about presents, claymation television shows, trees, or even spending time with family or peace on earth, but it is about when God the Son, the second in the Trinity became flesh and woke up in a manger and the redemptive purpose He fulfilled. Leah and I along with a few of our youth are putting this concert on in December. We are really looking forward to it, but pray that though it is an entertaining night of music, God will be exalted above all else.

Each church in town is on a rotation to provide an on-call chaplain for the hospital. A few weeks ago, I was on call, and received a page early on Thursday morning. I was told that there was a sick baby in the emergency room. So I went in to see what I could do for the family. I spoke with the parents of the boy who both were very emotional. After a few minutes, they invited the family, along with myself and another local pastor, into the trauma room. We prayed over the boy, and after about two hours of doctors trying to get him stable, they removed the breathing tube and let his parents hold him as he died. This whole time, I had no idea what had happened to him. After we left the parents in the room, I noticed some RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) coming in with a autopsy kit. I asked a nurse what had happened. I turns out that social services had taken the boy from the boys birth parents (who were present at the hospital) for neglect. The boy's foster parents had beat him, literally, to death. They had flown the boy and his family along with a few social workers in from Gillam, a small town about three hours north of Thompson. Pray for the boy's parents, that they will know that they cannot deal with this without Christ. Pray for the social workers, I could tell that they felt at least partially responsible for this, (although in reality, they are not). It was a really tough situation for everyone involved. I have never had to deal with anything like this in ministry, but I know that these things happen. Pray that I will learn from this experience.

Most of the electricity in Mantiba comes from hydroelectric dams that are in northern Manitoba. About an hour north of town, they are in the process of building one. They have a camp of about 500 workers up there right now. Many of these people are from hundreds of miles away and are away from their families for weeks, if not months, at a time. The churches of Thompson have started holding services out there on Sunday afternoons. This week, Leah and I had the chance to lead the service. Its about 60 miles to get there, and most of it is gravel road, which in the winter is covered in snow and is pretty slick. We were reminded of how far north we actually are by the frequent caribou crossing signs. We only had 3 at the service, but we got a chance to talk to one of the workers who is having an especially hard time. He's been working ten hour days since September with very few days off. He's also been away from his wife this whole time. Most of the people there are in a similar situation. This is really great opportunity to show the love of Christ to these men and women. Pray for us and the other ministers in town as we continue to seek God in how to reach these workers with the Gospel.

And finally, these pictures were taken back in October. Notice the beard trim before and after. And as for the other ones, I was driving down the road a few months ago and saw a bear. I stopped to watch him for a minute and he decided to get into the car with me. Well, he didn't quite make it, but, as you can see in the pictures down below, he got pretty close. In one picture he is a few feet away from the car as I am rolling up the window. In the other, he is just underneath my passenger side mirror.

Once again thanks for all of your prayers and support and emails and phone calls.

In Christ,

Brandon and Leah

204-677-2767
btmilan@gmail.com
leahhmilan@gmail.com

328 Thompson Drive
Apartment 7
Thompson, MB R8N 0C4

www.teote.org

Snow... in October...

So one of the coolest things about living in the far north is the fact that we see the Northern Lights all the time... one of the strangest things is that it snows... in October...

It snowed the other night, but it had all melted by noon. Everyone is saying, though, that there will be permanent snow on the ground by the end of October.