We made it back to Roach safe and sound around the middle of August, and haven’t stopped going since. We were greeted by a house full of sticky spider traps full of all sorts of bugs, including a giant brown recluse! Thankfully, it hasn’t broken 100 degrees since we’ve got here, and we have even gotten to enjoy a thunder storm-our favorite. So we must apologize first for how long it has taken us to get our act together and update you lovely people. Secondly, we wanted to let you know a bit of what is going on over here.
After 3 years of training with New Tribes Mission, we are finally in our last semester. That means we will be graduating with our degree in December and officially becoming members of NTM.
From there, our plans are to come back to California, rent an apartment, and prepare for the field. We would like to be overseas within a year, so we are aiming for the end of 2009. In order to make that happen, we will need to spend our time continually refreshing our brains with the material we were trained in, probably beginning to learn the national language of the country we will go to (hopefully Indonesia…) and building partnerships with people who are interested in being involved with our ministry.
Although we are not yet sure where we will live or how we will afford it, we would like to be in southern California and be involved with our home churches and those in the surrounding area. As soon as our support level reaches the recommended amount for our field, we will be allowed to come over and begin working. We are very excited to be taking steps to get us closer to that time!
In the meantime, we will continue studying here and making the most of our time with friends that we may not see for a long time after graduation. Our main course now is called CLA, which stands for Culture and Language Acquisition. We are doing role-playing with “village people” who are actually staff dressed like tribal people, speaking another language. It is challenging and very realistic. A taste of what’s to come.
We appreciate you for taking the time to keep up with us through our websites. We want to encourage you to let us know how you are doing and how we can be praying for you. Be sure to check out our NTM site for ways you can get involved in our ministry and be a part of reaching people with God’s message, as well as a link to our latest prayer requests.
