Pictures – James & Carolanne

2021 Report

Fri, 07 Jan 22 12:33:35 +0000

Steelhead Falls

Mon, 20 Jul 20 16:11:27 +0000

This weekend we couldn't bear sitting around at home any more so we visited Steelhead Falls up behind Mission. What a beautiful area to hike! Here are some of our favorite pics.

The trail crosses several pretty streams.

Taking a scenic break.

We met an Ent along the way.

The kids made sure Hershey stayed out of trouble.

The falls.

Steelhead Falls

Had some fun with shutter-speed.

Proof we were there. :)

Our Very First Family Bike Ride

Fri, 05 Apr 19 12:08:46 +0000

Yesterday, we went on our very first official whole-family bike ride. The kids and I have had bikes for a while, but we haven't had one for Carolanne until very recently. As a result, we've never gone biking all together as a family. It was fun to be able to get out and bike all together! Carolanne found a very good deal on a used lady's bike being sold by one of her friends. Also got an upgrade for Julia. It was kinda a cool provision from God. Carolanne was able to sell Julia’s smaller purple bike for exactly the same price as hers and Julia’s new ones together. To the penny.

Big Journeys & Small Stones

Mon, 30 Jul 18 16:31:11 +0000

Dear Friends, I thought it was high-time to write an update regarding what has been happening in our lives over the past few months. Our family has had some adventures and also some harder times and we are very grateful for your continued prayer for us. Our first adventure was a trip to Edmonton. I (James) have a cousin who got married this summer, and we drove up as a family to attend the wedding. That in itself was an adventure as it was themed entirely in 14'th century style. Everyone was asked to come to both wedding and reception wearing authentic 14'th century costumes. Carolanne ended up doing quite a bit of sewing to make or customize costumes for each of us, and I think the end results were pretty fun! Since we were in the area, we also took the opportunity to visit the West Edmonton Mall with the kids and see the various activities they had there. Even I learned something new, never knowing before that there is a roller-coaster park inside the mall as well as the ice-rink, water-park, seal show and apparently a petting-zoo which we never found. The kids of course were almost immediately attracted to the Disney store and Build-a-Bear. We even ended up visiting the Edmonton zoo for free since our Fraser Valley zoo pass also works out there. The main zoo attraction for us was Lucy the elephant who apparently roams the zoo outside her enclosure for large portions of the day. For the last portion of our trip, we went to Drumheller to see the dinosaur museum and attractions they had in that area. For a small town, they sure had some big dinosaurs... See the kids just between it's toes? :) After returning from Alberta, my next destination was to be Hamilton, ON for our Power to Change Staff Conference. Normally this is something I am required to go to and is usually a great time of reconnecting as a team and being refreshed as an organization. We hear about progress and events from other ministries and are refocused in vision as an organization. This year however, was different. I had already purchased my tickets for WestJet and had even checked in online so I would be ready to board, but the night before I was to leave I started having some severe pain in my side and back with what felt like a kidney stone. I had already had another batch of pain and trips to the emergency room a few days before, and they had sent me home with a prescription for pain killers, but I was hoping the pain had passed. However, the night (or actually early morning) that I was supposed to leave, I had to make the decision to cancel the flight, and instead go back into the emergency room. This time they kept me for several hours, took various tests, blood-work and a CT scan. Long-story short, I have several kidney stones, one of which is causing the pain, and several more tests and scans to complete over the coming weeks. ? ?

A Ministry Story:

A couple weeks ago, we received a message that was sent in from our issuesiface.com website in which a lady (I'll call her Sarah) shared that her relationship with her boyfriend was headed in entirely the wrong direction. She didn't ask for any specific prayer or information... just shared her concern with us, an anonymous online website. Our system estimated that Sarah was from Kenya, and as such matched her up with another female mentor on our team who is ALSO from Kenya. After some discussion about the relationship with this boyfriend, the mentor asked Sarah about her relationship with God. The mentor shared that our relationship with God is broken as well and that He wants us to be committed to Him, just as we want commitment in relationships with others. She asked if Sarah had ever made a commitment to God.

Yes. I would like to make a commitment. I really need God in my life.

Sarah's response was exactly as you see above. This gave the mentor an open invitation to share with her what it meant to be committed to God. Using her training and a template we provided as a starting point, the mentor was able to share a very clear message with Sarah about what it means and how to commit her life to Christ. Sarah has written back to her mentor and shared that she is "ready to begin a life with Christ". They continue the conversation to this day.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for us in the following areas.

That the ministry would continue to grow in effectiveness as we form new partnerships and seek out new and more creative ways to reach people with God's love using the internet.
That more people would be inspired to join our staff in reaching the world with the gospel.
For staff and family health. We have several staff members (including myself) who are undergoing at times severe health issues and concerns.
Wisdom, patience, unity and grace for our family as we will soon enter another year of homeschooling our kids.

Thank you so much for continuing to hold our family up in prayer. We really appreciate having such an amazing team of friends and supporters standing with us in this ministry. Sincerely, James & Carolanne

Hatching Chicks

Fri, 18 May 18 11:08:10 +0000

As you may know, we have been homeschooling our kids. This year, as part of their learning experience, we are hatching chicks! Carolanne had found a good deal on a 2'nd hand incubator a few years ago, and this year we have some fuzzy little additions to our family. (at least for a little while... we have no plans to actually keep chickens) [caption id="attachment_2745" align="alignnone" width="400"] This is the first chick that hatched. Cute little guy. Quite inquisitive. I suggested we call him "Nugget" but the kids wouldn't let me. :)[/caption] This first chick hatched 24 hours before the others started to show up. And he was fast! We noticed that he had started "pipping" (pecking a hole in the egg) in the evening, and then within about an hour, he was out and moving around. [caption id="attachment_2746" align="alignnone" width="400"] Chick number two[/caption] This second chick felt a bit overwhelmed by the first and decided to move (fall) downstairs to the bottom level of the incubator shortly after we took his picture. Seems to be ok though. And you can see his sibling just peeking out of the third shell. [caption id="attachment_2747" align="alignnone" width="400"] Three chicks in a bucket[/caption] Last night, once the first three had somewhat dried off, and we didn't see any further immediate activity with the other eggs, we scooped them out of the incubator and moved them to their new home in a large bucket with water and a heat lamp. So far, they seem to like their new residence. There has been no further activity yet with the other 4 eggs we incubated. These guys were just early! I will likely update this page with further developments as time goes on.

Merry Christmas 2016

Fri, 23 Dec 16 14:16:53 +0000

Dear Friends and Supporters, Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We trust you will have a wonderful Christmas and New Year celebration. We also want to say thank you VERY much for your prayer and support of us this past year. We are so blessed to have such a great team of people surrounding us in this ministry. Our family has been doing well. Ben is in grade four now and Julia grade two. They are both continuing to enjoy being homeschooled and regularly attend field trips and excursions together with Carolanne and other Chilliwack and Abbotsford homeschooling families. We told them both they had to pick a "public" class to attend as well this school year, so Ben picked parkour and Julia has chosen to learn piano. (her classes haven't started yet) The Life Project has really made some great advances in ministry this year. I am not exaggerating when I say that thousands of people have been led to know Jesus, tens of thousands have been encouraged in their faith and hundreds of thousands have had the gospel shared with them in some form or another through our websites and online churches. Thank you for your part in allowing that ministry to happen! The Life Project has also been through a time of refocusing our vision and mission. Our mission has been clarified and simplified so that team members, mentors and donors can easily know exactly what it is that we do.

The world is online, we help them know Jesus.

It really is THAT simple. Large segments of the world population now have very easy access to the Internet through cafe's, mobile phones, personal computers and many other devices. Our mission is to help them know Jesus. We accomplish that mission right now in a variety of ways including websites, chat rooms, forum discussions, email mentoring and online churches. Online mentoring especially is one of our key resources for reaching people. It allows for a very personal one-to-one relationship where both mentor and mentee can grown in their faith, taking the next steps of their spiritual journey.

Our vision is to see 5000 mentors leading one million people closer to Jesus by the end of 2020.

Again, Thank You for your part in allowing this to take place. There are very few ministries or churches in the world that can legitimately say they are making such an impact in the world of evangelism and outreach. To read more about our ministry visit The Life Project (https://thelifeproject.com/) Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, James & Carolanne, Ben & Julia

Safely Home

Mon, 25 Jul 16 16:47:40 +0000

[gallery link="file" ids="2516,2513,2514,2515,2512,2511"] I'm glad to say that I am back safely from my trip to Hamilton Ontario and the 2016 Power to Change National Staff Conference. It was a great time of renewed vision and team building with The Life Project. Around half of our team works remotely, some in the eastern Canadian and US regions so it was really great to be able to reconnect with the team face-to-face instead of simply by phone/email. The conference presented us with a good mix of combined (all-staff) events and sessions, as well as time to get together as individual ministries. Our main conference speaker, Gary Thomas, was excellent. We had a number of sessions with him, as well as a few break-out sessions we could choose on specific topics that interested us. I also included above a couple shots of our activities on the travel day. While waiting for our plane to come in, I and a couple other staff members visited the HMCS Haida. It was fascinating to hear the stories from one of our group who previously served in the Canadian Air Force and was for a time stationed on board a similar ship. Thanks Wes!

Ben LOVES Star Wars

Mon, 16 Mar 15 08:55:46 +0000

Our son Ben LOVES anything related to Star Wars, and at his last birthday they had a great "light-saber" fight out front of our place. I thought it would be fun to post the (slightly modified) picture.

Happy New Year 2015

Mon, 26 Jan 15 13:37:54 +0000

Click to view/download large picture

Dear Friends, I trust you've had a blessed Christmas and New Year as we welcome 2015. Carolanne and I spent the holidays celebrating with both of our families. Following that we took the weekend of the 27'th to celebrate our anniversary while my parents watched the kids. Our kids thoroughly enjoyed roasting marshmallows over the in-door "campfire" we got for grammy. Here are a few other pictures from our recent activities. [gallery ids="2342,2341,2340,2339,2338,2337"] The ministry this coming year will likely see a renewed focus on developing our mentoring program in which our mentors work to lead people on the next steps of their spiritual journey. Each day lost and hurting people write in from the various websites and we connect each one with a mentor who can help to walk with them and introduce them to Christ. This is an example of some of the many stories our mentors share about the ministry:

S________ told me that she opened up with her husband about her negative feelings and felt that they had a very open and loving conversation. She also prayed a similar prayer that I suggested for her to pray that is about following Jesus and now she is taking baby steps to get closer to Him. - Jan. 14, 2015

And another mentor wrote:

B________ grew up knowing the Lord but her life had taken her away from Him but she had come to realise that she needed the Lord and has now redicated her life to the Lord and is desirous of having Him in control of her life. - Jan. 11, 2015

And from the chat ministry

Another young man from Asia just accepted Christ in our chat rooms!

This really is why I love being a part of this ministry. I love hearing how God is using people on our team to reach the lost around the world every day with God's great news of salvation. My small part in this is to build the software that allows this ministry to take place. I work on building the tools to allow the mentors and visitors to connect and communicate effectively. Thank YOU so much for your part in helping this ministry to take place. Your continued support and prayer over the past year have been a big encouragement to us. We truly feel blessed having such a faithful team of people standing behind us in this ministry. Please let us know if there are any ways in which we can pray for or encourage you. Wishing you all the best this new year, James & Carolanne Benjamin & Julia

February Snow

Thu, 13 Feb 14 19:48:42 +0000

I'm told (mostly by Carolanne) that I don't post enough pics of us and the kids, so here's some pics from our recent snowfall here in the 'Wack. [caption id="attachment_2170" align="alignnone" width="600"] Ben and Julia made snow angels[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2174" align="alignnone" width="450"] Julia working hard[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2169" align="alignnone" width="600"] Looks like they almost scraped the ground dry to make this guy.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2176" align="alignnone" width="450"] The snowman[/caption]

Recent Pics

Tue, 11 Feb 14 08:47:19 +0000

A few recent pictures from around our house.[gallery type="slideshow" ids="1946,1945,1949,1948,1950,1951,1954,1955,1956"] Interested to find out more about who we are? Read about our ministry.

A post I forgot to post! It is long past, but I thought I would post it anyway.

Tue, 11 Feb 14 08:48:29 +0000

Well another year has now come and went. Can hardly believe that it is already 2012. Happy New Year all! We had a fun and enjoyable Christmas time. We decided that we would let the kids both open a gift each day a couple days before hand so that there was not as much all at one time. This went well. James had built a doll house and I had decorated it and Ben tested it out and gave his input. It was a great success. Julia loves it and both Ben and Julia get lots of use out of it. We had it in our dinning room under a sheet for a long time till Christmas time. Julia never was curious as to what was behind that sheet. It was a good thing to, because I don't know where else we would have put it till Christmas time that I could have still continued to work on it. I am glad that it has been well liked. I know that I had fun putting it together for her. My parents had made me a doll house when I was young and wanted to do the same thing for Julia. When she is older and so longer wants a doll house it can be converted into a book shelf, but hopefully that will not be for many more years. We got Ben a scooter with 3 wheels. So now Ben can scoot around our complex with the other children in our complex that ride their scooters around our place. The kids both got other presents as well. Some are more of a hit then others, but it is so cool watching their expressions. We have a little nativity set for the kids and Julia has been carrying baby Jesus with her all over the place. We will hear her call out "Where baby Jesus". Last year we introduced singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and having a birthday cake. This has been great to see the kids reaction to. Everywhere we went for Christmas Julia would ask "We sing Happy Birthday Jesus" and she would start singing Happy Birthday Jesus at any time like in the car or in the store or during nap it did not matter to her. We celebrated Christmas with James' side on Christmas Eve. We talked to Auntie Bitsy on Skype ate good food and Grammy read the Christmas story and of course we opened up gifts. Ben was thrilled to get an excavator and a bowling set as well as his first Harmonica. We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family on Christmas day and it went well. It was a full house, but my mom had this great idea of putting up tables in the garage for the food and that worked so well. Now to see what the 2012 year will bring. Current update: The doll house was a huge hit, but not the scooter.

Our puppy

Tue, 11 Feb 14 08:50:32 +0000

Well, I have been meaning to post something on here about our new puppy we got in April of this year. She's around 4 months old now and her name is Cookie. She is a cross between a Cocker Spaniel and a King Charles Cavalier. She will be a medium size dog when full grown. She kind of looks like a mini Rusty. (That was our Golden Retriever dog we used to have that we had to get rid of when I was pregnant with Julia, but he went to a really nice couple that love him dearly) The kids love her although to begin with she knocked Julia over quite a bit which Julia was not pleased with. Cookie also really liked Julia's ears...yum ear wax. Cookie would much prefer to run after the kids and pick up any food that they drop instead of eating her own food and she is always trying to get behind Julia's high chair and find something tasty. If all that fails she goes and eats her own food. The joys of owning a puppy and having small children all at the same time. For the most part they all get along great. We hesitate to say she is completely house broken, because just as we say it she tends to have an accident. She is doing really well though and for the most part is house broken. It seems like our kids and our puppy all really like the outdoors and will try to get out whenever they can. I have taken Cookie with us when we have went on a walk and when she gets tired she paws at the back of the stroller and hops a ride. This only works in the double stroller, because the back basket we can pop down for her to jump in. Although she has no problems with jumping. The other day she jumped up into the back of our truck all on her own and today James caught her jumping onto the kitchen chair...she can climb on there before Julia. We are working on the not jumping on people and only petting her when she is not jumping up. This is not the easiest to teach a puppy when Ben does not mind at all if Cookie jumps up on him and sometimes is trying to get her to jump up. I would have to say it is definitely easier to train a puppy without kids. Really hard to all be consistent. She is slowly learning though and some days are so much easier then others. There are days that James and I have thought "Why did we get a puppy?", but for the most part we like her and think she is really smart and we also think she is really cute. We also know she will grow up and the bond that Ben and Julia are developing with her is so cute to watch. Ben tries to teach her to do things like "sit" and Julia tries to copy to and tell Cookie to sit...although Cookie listens more to Ben then Julia. It is really cute to watch though. When we are at my parents house she will take the plastic dog they have and you can hear her telling it to sit.

Julia can now walk

Tue, 11 Feb 14 08:49:34 +0000

Julia has known how to walk for a while now, but has chosen to scoot around instead on her knee till now. She is growing up. She is now walking around looking so proud of herself. She is doing quite well and has had no little falls.

Random Pics

Fri, 23 Aug 13 11:46:41 +0000

Well, now I will be finished updating our blog with current things that have been going on in our lives. Here are just some random pics of/with the kids that I thought I would post.I love this photo. [gallery link="file"] A funny memory we have of Ben; Ben uses the letter "Y" instead of the letter "L" in words. When my brother Reg found this out he was asking Ben to say all these words with the letter "L" in them and then he asked Ben to say "I feel lucky" Well, Ben responded with "Why you feey yucky, Unco Reg?" We all got a good laugh out of that one.