Digging the First Sleeping Hole: How God Carried Us From Vermont to PEI
Digging the First Sleeping Hole: How God Carried Us From Vermont to PEI”
Sorry for the delay in posting. If you’re reading this, go ahead and grab a cup of coffee (or tea, if you’re into that sort of thing). This is a long one, because apparently when you uproot your life, move 600 miles, across an international border, and discover that immigration law is secretly a labyrinth designed by exhausted philosophers… you end up with a story to tell.
The Send-Off
On November 2nd, we gathered at Enough Ministries. I preached my final sermon as a Vermont pastor, the church laid hands on us, and we stood in that bittersweet tension between what we were leaving and what God was calling us toward.
We thought we were leaving November 10th.
We were… adorable.
Because then came the words every missionary dreads:
“You might want to talk to an immigration lawyer.”
Turns out Canada doesn’t just let you show up with a dream, a smile, and a moving truck full of mattresses (which we later learned we couldn’t bring anyway). We needed medical exams, passports, work and study records, verification numbers, documents proving we wouldn’t wreck the Canadian economy—and my mother needed her own separate immigration track entirely.
It felt, in those early days, like the world had stacked itself against us.
The Sprint-Marathon
The week after my final sermon felt like one long Sonic the Hedgehog secret level—rings everywhere, walls closing in, everything moving too fast. Add in the anxiety-inducing water-level music as Sonic runs out of air, and you get the general vibe.
We needed S.I.N. numbers, but to get an S.I.N. we first needed an “A number,” and to get that we needed the border packet, and that required paperwork none of us had ever heard of. My new deacon and I spent days tied up in metaphorical yarn trying to figure out which string belonged to which document.
It was chaos.
God-sustained chaos.
And then came the miracles—slow, surprising, and exactly when we needed them.
THE MIRACLES-
Miracle #1: The Medical Exams
If you had told me before all this that finding a doctor would feel like trying to buy concert tickets to a sold-out show, I would’ve laughed. But there we were, calling every panel physician within a three-state radius and hearing the same response:
“No appointments.”
“Seven-hour drive.”
“Two-week delay.”
“Oh, and it’ll be about a thousand dollars.”
I remember sitting at the table with my head in my hands thinking,
Lord, we’re trying to follow You. Why does it feel like the hoops keep multiplying?
And this is the part where my wife quietly emerges as the MVP.
While I was spiraling into the bureaucratic abyss, she pulled out her phone and said, “What about Montreal?”
One search.
One phone call.
And suddenly the clouds parted.
Two hours away.
Open appointment the next morning.
$260 CAD.
Results uploaded instantly to IRCC.
We walked out of that office with the paper in hand, and I’m telling you, relief washed over me so strongly I almost cried in the parking lot.
Not a gentle cry — the ugly, grateful, forehead-on-the-steering-wheel kind.
God didn’t remove the hoop; He just widened it enough for us to fit through.
Miracle #2: Passports and Panic in the Grocery Store
If you’ve ever tried to get passports for a whole family under a deadline, you know it’s not for the faint of heart. We drove to St. Albans, relieved they could print them same-day — which already felt like grace.
But then the phone rang.
The kind of phone call where your stomach falls through the floor before you even say “hello.”
There was an issue with our eldest’s Social Security number. The paperwork didn’t match the system. Everything stalled.
My wife, who had triple-checked every document, looked at me with that silent, wide-eyed “I know I filled it out right… didn’t I?” kind of fear.
We started calculating how fast we could drive home and back before the passport office closed.
And then — I can only describe it as a Holy Spirit flash — it hit me:
“Check the dash.”
We pulled over. She rummaged through the glove compartment (if you can call it organized). And there they were: the cards we’d taken on vacation months ago “just in case.”
God cares about glove compartments, apparently.
One phone call later everything was fixed, and by afternoon we were walking out with passports in hand — breathing easier, laughing nervously, and thanking God for showing up in grocery store aisles.
Miracle #3: The Border
You can prepare for a lot of things in life, but sitting in a border office for five straight hours with your entire life packed into a truck that may or may not collapse at any moment… that’s its own spiritual formation course.
We sat.
We watched officers read our file.
We saw smiles, then furrowed brows, then more smiles.
At one point I heard someone describe our case as “wholesome,” which I think was a good sign.
And then the officer called me over, looked me in the eye, and said:
“What’s going on with your mom’s entry request?”
You know that moment where your heart doesn’t drop — it sprints?
I explained everything. Our desire to be honest. Her hope to move. The citizenship claim. He listened — actually listened — and then stepped away.
He asked colleagues. He researched. He asked more questions. He stepped away again.
We held our breath long enough to lose a year off our lives.
And then — the smile.
Not the polite “I must be professional” smile.
The “you’re going to be okay” smile.
He stamped her passport.
Said her claim was one of the most legitimate he’d seen.
And waved her through.
Just like that.
We could’ve collapsed in relief.
And then came one more surprise:
No fees.
None.
After being told to expect nearly $1,000.
We walked out of that office stunned, teary, and overwhelmingly grateful.
Miracle #4: The Truck That Should Have Exploded
By the time we reached the house on PEI, I had mentally prepared myself to open the back of the truck and witness the aftermath of a “contained apocalypse.” Instead, when the door rolled up…
One notebook had fallen.
One.
Everything else — heirlooms, china cabinet, instruments, fragile items — all stood exactly where they started.
You couldn’t convince me Jesus Himself didn’t ride in that truck making sure nothing shifted.
One Breath at a Time:
We arrived on American Thanksgiving — fittingly.
Thankful.
Exhausted.
Held.
We bought emergency mattresses.
We learned the recycling/compost/waste system (a sanctifying experience).
We got temporary S.I.N. numbers.
We began slowly shaping a house into a home.
And in the middle of it all, a lesson from an old army colonel resurfaced:
“Dig your sleeping hole today. Make it a little better tomorrow. That’s how you build a base.”
Back then I didn’t fully understand it.
Now it feels like a spiritual rhythm.
We’re not fully settled.
We’re not fully established.
We’re not fully rested.
But we’re moving forward:
One step.
One breath.
One quiet miracle at a time.
The Devotional Takeaway:
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” — Psalm 37:23
Not the leaps.
Not the sprints.
Not the border crossings.
Not even the miracles.
The steps.
And as we look back, we see them:
God-ordered steps hidden inside paperwork, panic, unexpected kindness, open appointments, open borders, and open hands.
We’re grateful for every one of them.
And we trust Him for the steps still ahead.
Sorry for the delay in posting. If you’re reading this, go ahead and grab a cup of coffee (or tea, if you’re into that sort of thing). This is a long one, because apparently when you uproot your life, move 600 miles, across an international border, and discover that immigration law is secretly a labyrinth designed by exhausted philosophers… you end up with a story to tell.
The Send-Off
On November 2nd, we gathered at Enough Ministries. I preached my final sermon as a Vermont pastor, the church laid hands on us, and we stood in that bittersweet tension between what we were leaving and what God was calling us toward.
We thought we were leaving November 10th.
We were… adorable.
Because then came the words every missionary dreads:
“You might want to talk to an immigration lawyer.”
Turns out Canada doesn’t just let you show up with a dream, a smile, and a moving truck full of mattresses (which we later learned we couldn’t bring anyway). We needed medical exams, passports, work and study records, verification numbers, documents proving we wouldn’t wreck the Canadian economy—and my mother needed her own separate immigration track entirely.
It felt, in those early days, like the world had stacked itself against us.
The Sprint-Marathon
The week after my final sermon felt like one long Sonic the Hedgehog secret level—rings everywhere, walls closing in, everything moving too fast. Add in the anxiety-inducing water-level music as Sonic runs out of air, and you get the general vibe.
We needed S.I.N. numbers, but to get an S.I.N. we first needed an “A number,” and to get that we needed the border packet, and that required paperwork none of us had ever heard of. My new deacon and I spent days tied up in metaphorical yarn trying to figure out which string belonged to which document.
It was chaos.
God-sustained chaos.
And then came the miracles—slow, surprising, and exactly when we needed them.
THE MIRACLES-
Miracle #1: The Medical Exams
If you had told me before all this that finding a doctor would feel like trying to buy concert tickets to a sold-out show, I would’ve laughed. But there we were, calling every panel physician within a three-state radius and hearing the same response:
“No appointments.”
“Seven-hour drive.”
“Two-week delay.”
“Oh, and it’ll be about a thousand dollars.”
I remember sitting at the table with my head in my hands thinking,
Lord, we’re trying to follow You. Why does it feel like the hoops keep multiplying?
And this is the part where my wife quietly emerges as the MVP.
While I was spiraling into the bureaucratic abyss, she pulled out her phone and said, “What about Montreal?”
One search.
One phone call.
And suddenly the clouds parted.
Two hours away.
Open appointment the next morning.
$260 CAD.
Results uploaded instantly to IRCC.
We walked out of that office with the paper in hand, and I’m telling you, relief washed over me so strongly I almost cried in the parking lot.
Not a gentle cry — the ugly, grateful, forehead-on-the-steering-wheel kind.
God didn’t remove the hoop; He just widened it enough for us to fit through.
Miracle #2: Passports and Panic in the Grocery Store
If you’ve ever tried to get passports for a whole family under a deadline, you know it’s not for the faint of heart. We drove to St. Albans, relieved they could print them same-day — which already felt like grace.
But then the phone rang.
The kind of phone call where your stomach falls through the floor before you even say “hello.”
There was an issue with our eldest’s Social Security number. The paperwork didn’t match the system. Everything stalled.
My wife, who had triple-checked every document, looked at me with that silent, wide-eyed “I know I filled it out right… didn’t I?” kind of fear.
We started calculating how fast we could drive home and back before the passport office closed.
And then — I can only describe it as a Holy Spirit flash — it hit me:
“Check the dash.”
We pulled over. She rummaged through the glove compartment (if you can call it organized). And there they were: the cards we’d taken on vacation months ago “just in case.”
God cares about glove compartments, apparently.
One phone call later everything was fixed, and by afternoon we were walking out with passports in hand — breathing easier, laughing nervously, and thanking God for showing up in grocery store aisles.
Miracle #3: The Border
You can prepare for a lot of things in life, but sitting in a border office for five straight hours with your entire life packed into a truck that may or may not collapse at any moment… that’s its own spiritual formation course.
We sat.
We watched officers read our file.
We saw smiles, then furrowed brows, then more smiles.
At one point I heard someone describe our case as “wholesome,” which I think was a good sign.
And then the officer called me over, looked me in the eye, and said:
“What’s going on with your mom’s entry request?”
You know that moment where your heart doesn’t drop — it sprints?
I explained everything. Our desire to be honest. Her hope to move. The citizenship claim. He listened — actually listened — and then stepped away.
He asked colleagues. He researched. He asked more questions. He stepped away again.
We held our breath long enough to lose a year off our lives.
And then — the smile.
Not the polite “I must be professional” smile.
The “you’re going to be okay” smile.
He stamped her passport.
Said her claim was one of the most legitimate he’d seen.
And waved her through.
Just like that.
We could’ve collapsed in relief.
And then came one more surprise:
No fees.
None.
After being told to expect nearly $1,000.
We walked out of that office stunned, teary, and overwhelmingly grateful.
Miracle #4: The Truck That Should Have Exploded
By the time we reached the house on PEI, I had mentally prepared myself to open the back of the truck and witness the aftermath of a “contained apocalypse.” Instead, when the door rolled up…
One notebook had fallen.
One.
Everything else — heirlooms, china cabinet, instruments, fragile items — all stood exactly where they started.
You couldn’t convince me Jesus Himself didn’t ride in that truck making sure nothing shifted.
One Breath at a Time:
We arrived on American Thanksgiving — fittingly.
Thankful.
Exhausted.
Held.
We bought emergency mattresses.
We learned the recycling/compost/waste system (a sanctifying experience).
We got temporary S.I.N. numbers.
We began slowly shaping a house into a home.
And in the middle of it all, a lesson from an old army colonel resurfaced:
“Dig your sleeping hole today. Make it a little better tomorrow. That’s how you build a base.”
Back then I didn’t fully understand it.
Now it feels like a spiritual rhythm.
We’re not fully settled.
We’re not fully established.
We’re not fully rested.
But we’re moving forward:
One step.
One breath.
One quiet miracle at a time.
The Devotional Takeaway:
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” — Psalm 37:23
Not the leaps.
Not the sprints.
Not the border crossings.
Not even the miracles.
The steps.
And as we look back, we see them:
God-ordered steps hidden inside paperwork, panic, unexpected kindness, open appointments, open borders, and open hands.
We’re grateful for every one of them.
And we trust Him for the steps still ahead.
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5 Comments
What a beautiful story of a starting journey. You guys will do great up there. Follow wherever he may lead.
Josh,
n
nReading your update just reminded me again how faithful God’s been through every hurdle. What a testimony of His timing and care in the details! Proud of how you and your family leaned in, trusted, and kept stepping forward. Your PEI Church is blessed to have you and your entire family.
n
nStanding with you,
n
nJim
Love you guys so much! This is such a harrowing and beautiful beginning. As it should be.
Wow, wow & wow!!! What an amazing story of faith & resilience…let’s not forget miracles. I’m so glad everything worked out for you all. I can’t wait to read about your first sermon & the new life you’ll bring to the church in PEI. I know you’ll be greatly appreciated by everyone you encounter. God bless ??
Just an amazing testimony of Gods Grace. One piece is Syndi planning on becoming a citizen of Canada? Just amazed at the whole family following God and taking such a big step. Jeff and I will be continuing to pray for all of you, as you follow God and his will for your life. God is smiling down on all of you.
nPrayers
nJeff and Barb