HI! Welcome to our blog! We are the newest Alberta homesteaders!
God, true love, and a few plane rides brought Abby, the now American expat, and Josh, the blonde, South African, together in 2014. After we got married, one quick year later (hey, when ya know, ya know), we made British Columbia our home for five sweet years. While our town home was perfect for our start together in life, we both knew we wanted more than town living. Knowing that we were going to move but not knowing to where, or how, was quite the pickle. In the running for a new spot to put down roots, were places like: Salmon Arm, Kamloops, McBride, and many other places in the interior of BC.
We visited Alberta back in 2016 but Abby said “I will NEVER move here”. This is when you should laugh because we know God has a sense of humor.
At the start of 2019, God started working on Abby’s “never” state of mind. Josh was quietly nudging her in the right direction as well. A few months went by and after a lot of prayer and conversation, Abby was on board for a possible Alberta living.
Then August rolled around and we said hey! Lets hop a flight to Alberta and visit Josh’s sister and her family. We figured we should at least revisit the place where we were planning to move, as we had only visited once as a married couple, although, Josh had been a couple more times back when he was single. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Edmonton, we knew there was no going back. The rest of the trip was spent looking for jobs and looking around at houses.
When we got back to BC, there were zero doubts left. Packing boxes came out, the town house went up for sale two weeks after, jobs were notified, and friends were told (rather unexpectedly for the most part) that we were going to be moving in January, the middle of the winter, to what has been one of the coldest places on earth.
And we did it! We drove our mini van from BC to AB in the middle of winter because we knew we were headed in the direction that God was leading. Friends, it was one of the easiest hard things we have ever done. But with God leading us forward there has been no looking back. When you know you are in His perfect will, there is nothing that can hinder you (although believe me, things tried).
So here we are, settling into rural Alberta life. We are getting our lovely, new homestead up and running, however slowly it may be. This is our blog to show our journey from here on out!
May God be with you, Josh and Abby
(It might take awhile for us to get the blog focused on homesteading and not so much on cooking so bear with us:
Birkin Homestead 