About

The Facts:

Stephen was born, raised, and educated in West Michigan (all within 30 miles of where he was born). Meanwhile, Olga has been a permanent resident in three countries on two different continents. This means we sometimes root for Team USA and sometimes for Team Canada. Stephen is an extroverted perfectionist; Olga an introverted peacemaker. We served as co-pastors at a rural church in small-town, Iowa for 5 years, and recently moved to Brantford, ON, where Stephen is the solo-pastor of a church.

We read (theology as well as fiction). We watch TV and play games. We try to exercise and usually quit. We kiss. We argue. We take lots of pictures of our beautiful children and our cat, Julian (who may make an occasional appearance on the blog).

The Truth:

We love God. We love the church. More specifically, we love our church. It’s people, it’s location, it’s history. It’s good soil to grow up in Christ.

We believe in the Triune God of grace who loved and adopted us well before we even knew what hit us. We are thankful for Jesus Christ and the reconciliation he accomplished for us and we strive to worship him everyday with all that we do.

We believe that all of life is theological – all of life is charged with significance, caught up in the story of God reconciling the world in Christ. Not just Sunday preaching, but Monday coffee, Tuesday dinner, Wednesday work, and Thursday doctors appointments (Even Friday nights). God is involved in the ordinariness of life just as much as in the extraordinary. So we will post reflections on Scripture as well as crochet patterns, recipes as well as theological discussions, because we believe that all of it is part of walking with Christ.

We want all of our life to be planted deep by streams of living water – Scripture, Christ, our baptism into Him – so that we would be trees that bear the good, rich fruit of the Kingdom of God. So that we would be Etz Pri – fruit-bearing trees.