Posts

This is My Story!

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Jesus has been in my life for as long as I can remember. My parents made sure that us as children were soaked in Jesus and His Word. I accepted him as Lord of my life during evening prayer time shortly after I turned 5. I am so grateful that I did it at young age and was able to grow up in it.  I was homeschooled straight through school and as a homeschool mom now I can see what a super hard, time consuming commitment it is! I am so grateful that my parents made that sacrifice. In my teenage years I was very involved in our church's youth group, at that time God brought a group of young people who were so hungry for Jesus and were not satisfied with the status quo and kept going deeper and pulling those around them deeper and deeper into Jesus and his word. Looking back I can see how extremely blessed I was to have experienced that been surrounded with people like that at a critical time in my life. In last months blog post my sister Sherry talked about her commitment to...

This is My Story

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   When I was told of the theme of the blog posts this year, I was thrown for a bit of a loop. My story? Like what part? The whole thing? You want me to write an autobiography of my whole life? I’m too young for that. It didn’t get any easier as the year went on. My mind has gone back to it over and over and I’m still not sure how this is going to go. My story is so different and I feel often that my life is so un-relatable to many. But it is my story nonetheless, and I’m praying that God can use some part of it to encourage even one other person.    I was born the oldest of eight kids. Looking back, growing up at my house was pretty great. I was homeschooled from JK right through grade 12 and I always liked it. I know my mom made a lot of sacrifices to homeschool all of us but to this day, I appreciate it so much. There are so many lessons I learned from her that I can’t imagine ever having learned anywhere else. She taught us to ask why God allowed things to ha...

This is My Story!

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"There is a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is the way of death." Proverbs 14:2 I walked in the way of that verse for many years, only I didn’t realize “death” was waiting for me at the end had I kept walking. I don’t mean literal death but spiritual death. I had a lot of things embedded in my mind of what I thought was the right way to live and I truly believed that my dedication to all the rules I followed was God honouring. My parents did a great job of being parents and theres so much I thank them for; I could never imagine a life that they lived and everything they went through. I know they tried their best most times but the sad reality often times is that hurt people, hurt people and that cycle can go round and round until freedom is found and then free people can free people. I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much time following and serving a god that was not real. The god I served was stern, mean, and scared me to death; he had many ma...

His Love Gently Fathering Me

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Hello, hello! Why don’t you grab a cup of hot coffee and settle into a comfy recliner as I share my story with you today? Hi, I’m Nancy Guenther. I was born into an Old Colony Russian Mennonite family, as many (maybe most??) of you were. It was a large family. Isn’t that surprising? ;) By the time I was born, there were 7 of us: two girls, boy, girl, two boys, and me. I was followed by 4 more boys. I love having grown up with a ton of sibs. Looking back, I see that my life has been nothing short of amazing, although not easy. It’s not been absolutely awful either, but rather an incredible mixture of awesome and awful. Good and bad. Ups and downs. Highs and lows. I see the marks of God all over it, from the day I was born (quite literally) until today, the day I sit here and attempt to tell you about it. I really wish I could share the details of many of the events and circumstances, simply cuz God’s been so good and gracious in all...

The Unlikely Homemaker!

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Do it yourself freezer meals? Canning? Being hospitality ready? These were all foreign ideas to me. I did know how to cook a few things which maaay or may not have been as a result of an unfortunate incident when, at the age of nine, I was instructed to “cook some beans”. Several hours and four hangry brothers later... I learned a valuable lesson. Add water to the pot in order for the beans to actually cook. Who knew? People often felt sorry for me as a child, growing up without a mom. She passed away two weeks after my fifth birthday, just ten days after giving birth to my baby sister. At the time, I didn't really grasp it. Of course I was sad to have lost her, but I didn’t see that my life was much different from those around me. It wasn’t until after I got married that I really began to understand what had been lost. I didn’t know much about anything when it came to being a good wife. Despite all my dreams of the super-amazing woman I thought I would be when I got mar...

My Walk to Faith

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"This is amazing grace This is unfailing love That You would take my place That You would bear my cross You lay down Your life That I would be set free Oh, Jesus, I sing for All that You've done for me" In the last few months this song has been in my heart as a reminder of what God has done for me. As God works in my life, It seems that what I have to share with you is constantly changing. Once again I have left the task of writing this to the last minute. This is what I have to share as of today, March 3rd, 2019. I have studied Paul's letters quite a bit lately. Paul encouraged Christians even in times when he was suffering for his faith. I have been amazed at what all God did in his life! I believe much of what I have gone through is in preparation to serve God more faithfully. Today I can say that is what I want. A few verses that sometime leave me baffled are these: James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trial...

Two Lives; One Identity

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Looking back at my growing up years, I can see why I may have been confused about many things. We were the type of family that went to Mexico for the winter, and came here, to Ontario, for the summer. In Mexico we went to school where we learned to read and write High German and learned to say the Katachism from memory. The general behaviour and way of living was vastly different from Ontario. In Ontario we worked on the fields wearing the type of clothing everyone else wore for work, which was pants with a cap. Our hair was also styled and cut to fit in with those around us. We normally had a TV int he house, which was so different from Mexico where it would have been viewed as a sin. (I think it was here too, but maybe too available to resist) I remember there were Sunday's when we came home from church and my dad would throw the TV out because of the conviction; only to come home with another one a few weeks later. When the summer would drag into fall we had to attend publ...