We just finished up our final semester at NTM’s Missionary Training Center in Missouri, and have made it back to the great state of Texas (and yes, Hudson knows full well by now that TX is God’s country).

Depending on when our visas can be processed, we expect to leave sometime between April and November of 2014, and we expect this next year to fly by!  We will spend part of this Summer continuing to develop our team of folks here in the States who will join us in making disciples among a people group that is currently cut off from the Gospel of Christ. As we travel to Asia Pacific, it’s crucial that we have a committed team back home who will pray for us and support us. If you would like to hear more about our future ministry and how you can be involved, please contact us!

In the Fall, we will be in Oklahoma doing a Linguistics practicum among the Cherokee (analyzing the phonemics and grammar of their language in preparation for doing the same for an unwritten language in Asia Pacific). Then we will finish up preparations and do some preliminary language study before our departure.

Yay for the light at the end of the tunnel!

This semester – our last here at NTM’s Missionary Training Center in Missouri – we are taking the Linguistics Course. It’s an intense course involving studying the ins and outs of analyzing obscure, unwritten languages, so that in the village we eventually end up in, we will be able to put the unwritten language into writing and translate the Bible into that language, so that the native people will have access to Scripture.

While Linguistics keeps us quite busy, we have managed to carve out some time here and there for personal projects. Jim and Noe have been working with an expert (the father of a friend) to make custom recurve bows for themselves.

I recently finished a quilt for Hudson. The best part about the process was that he was excited that I was making it for him, and he keeps telling me that he’s also making a blanket for me. The thought definitely counts! What a sweetheart.

Happy Birthday to the Sweetest little boy I know! These past three years have been a priceless treasure, and I am overwhelmed and honored that God has entrusted this precious, precious kid to Jim and me.

 

Hudson enjoyed celebrating the day with many dear friends. (That is, in addition to the other two b-day parties he has had with family in the last month! He’s begun to think he has a birthday about once/week).

“You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”  Psalm 56:8

 As excited as we were to meet our new little one this Fall, there’s been a sad change of events. I truly believe we will one day meet this precious child, but we will have to wait until we go home to be with our Lord, as our unborn baby recently has.

As difficult as this has been for us, our heavenly Father has been overwhelming us with His immeasurable love for us.

I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.

Psalm 139:7-12

It’s just a few days before we head back to Missouri, and we’re loving all the time with family!

 

 

 

Next week we’ll head back to MO to continue our training at NTM’s Missionary Training Center. If all goes according to plan, we’ll finish our training in the Fall of this year, and head to Asia Pacific in the Spring of 2014.

We hope 2013 is a wonderful year for you and your family!

 

We’re enjoying a couple of weeks in Texas during our Christmas break. Here are a few pics from our time in Clyde with Rachel’s family. We’ll soon head to Dallas for the rest of our time here.

 

 

 

Wishing you and yours a very happy New Year!

After two weeks of “Simple Living” (a class/experience here at the Missionary Training Center) here are some pics!

I have jokingly accused Jim before of being addicted to the internet, but after two weeks of no internet, for me meaning no email, food network, facebook, cnn, etc,  I can pretty confidently say I was a pot calling a kettle black!  These past two weeks we also had very limited electricity (refrigerator and lights only, but lights out after 8pm), no computer, no vehicle, and limited water. We also went “wilderness camping” for three nights…it was a  fun time.

Here is Hudson helping me roll out dough for pasta (did I mention that all food had to be cooked from scratch?).  This boy loved all the flashlight activity we had going on in the evenings.

 

 

This is one of the oil lamps Jim made for us using a coke bottle, kitchen twine, and vegetable oil (Girls like guys with skills).

 

 

Part of the assignment for married men was that they had to cook at least four of the meals and a loaf of bread. I now refuse to let Jim claim ignorance in the kitchen. He did a marvelous job with each of his meals!

 

In getting ready for these two weeks, for some reason I thought we’d have more spare time. I ordered a new book and got supplies for a couple of new projects. But, we still had all of our normal homework and responsibilities to do, except now with fewer resources and appliances to help, so our time filled up pretty quickly.

The rest of the pictures are from our camping trip. We and our team used coordinates and a GPS to locate and hike out to our assigned camp site. The kids all donned their backpacks (at least for a little while) as we hiked out.

 

Jim made us a shelter using tarps. In this picture it looks pretty small, but it was big enough to sleep the three of us. Again, the guy has serious skills.

Jim helped set up a solar-powered water pump to pump water up the hill to our campsite. Soon after came the clouds and rain, which of course kept the much-needed sunbeams from powering our water pump.

The boys men enjoyed all the opportunities they had to use their axes and machetes, chopping firewood, building benches, etc.

Below, our team was in a competition, racing to melt large ice blocks (in the buckets) to retrieve our next coordinates (that were inside the ice blocks), which we would use a compass and a map to get to, so we could retrieve some rations. We had a fun team!

Hudson loved his first camping experience, and we all enjoyed being out there with good friends.

 

One of the things we’re studying right now is genealogies and kinship systems. It may sound boring, but it’s actually quite fascinating to see how different cultures view their kin so vastly differently than we do. Virtually every culture uses one of six different kinship systems. The way a culture views/organizes their kin greatly affects not only their relationships with one another, but the way individuals interact with the rest of the world.

In the “Hawaiian” system, a person calls each blood relative of their parents’ generation “mother” or “father.” They call each blood relative in their own generation “brother” or “sister.” And these aren’t just arbitrary titles; they view family relationships vastly differently than we Americans do.

In one system (Crow), a person would call their father’s sister’s son, “father,” and would call their mother’s brother’s son, “son.” They would call their mother’s sister’s son, “brother.” Now, we Americans think of all three of those relationships as simply “cousin.” But, people using the Crow system have a very different type of relationship with each of those cousins. (And of course, if we were to explain to them the way most Westerners view kinships, they would think we’re crazy!)

So, why is it important that Jim and I be able to analyze kinship systems? I mentioned above that the kinship system a culture has affects their interactions with one another. It will be very helpful for Jim and I to understand the relationships in the village we enter so that we can understand some of the responsibilities, living patterns, etc. that go along with those relationships. And not so obvious at first glance  is the way that these systems affect the values and priorities of a culture – it’s huge.

Not only is understanding their kinship system helpful for learning how they do and view life, but it will be crucial as we teach Biblical truths. The Bible speaks repeatedly of our relationship with God in familial terms. It calls God our “Father.” It says Jesus is God’s “Son.” It says we are “children of God.” We are “co-heirs with Christ.”  We need to first understand what their concept of these relationships is so that we can correctly relay the rich Scriptural meaning behind these terms and phrases.

Fun stuff!