Home Sweet Roach

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.

We can gather our thoughts, but the Lord gives the right answer.
We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.
We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.

{From Proverbs 16:1, 9 and 33}

It's crazy how God shows himself to us. Sometimes it's in the most obvious ways, through what is right in front of our eyes...nature, family, friendships...sometimes it's subtle and personal, like the way I found an eight dollar bible at TJMaxx which is totally random. Now I can upgrade from my duct tape hardcover. And sometimes it's all in his timing. When we came home from Alaska, we really didn't know what to expect for the rest of the summer. We were just trying to transition from one place to the next, wondering how it would all work out. Well, a month and a half later, we can humbly say that God has been blowing our minds with provisions through working opportunities and time with family and friends. Although we swore we would never spend another summer in our parents' houses, we were disproved yet again because God had something else in mind. This is definitely one of those things where the more time unfolds, the more sense is made from the whole thing. We are grateful to be here and yet still so homesick for our little place and all our friends. Down to a little more than 2 weeks left, we cannot stop anticipating with excitement and longing the rest of our training. We almost wish it was longer! Just goes to show that we are where we need to be. So whatever you are going through, if it seems like chaos and you couldn't have imagined up a crazier situation, God's still in control. That is why "Chaos" by Mutemath is one of my favorite songs right now. If you don't know it, you should.

"I know you stay true when my world is false
Everything around breaking down to chaos
I know you stay
I know you stay True"

Summer So Far

It's pretty crazy how plans can change when you least expect it. When we came to California this summer, we had our Alaska plans and tickets in place and expected to spend 2 monthes of the summer working for a salmon fishing company on the Kenai penninsula. Well, we arrived and began work, and on the second day, I (Kat) fractured my hand while cleaning a metal door in the plant. Thanks to the brush I was using, the door didn't go through my fingers! But it did do some damage and it's taking a while to type this out! After consulting our employer and discussing the season, we were advised to return to California based on the labor that we would be doing and taking into account some other medical issues that arose. So...here we are, a lot of money and traveling days later, back in California. Since we didn't expect to be here, we are busy arranging for work and trying to spend a good amount of our energy preparing for our field destination...which we have changed from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia. Lots of fun and exciting changes! To all you who said about Alaska "What an Adventure!!" Let us tell you, it was! Two eight hour lay-overs, 5 solid days of traveling and experiencing solstice in a state where the sun doesn't set AND eating "solstice" pizza at a place called Moose's Tooth. Wow. What will God do next? We even got to spend a day with Tim's friend from YWAM who lives in Anchorage, which was a blast. Alaska is beautiful and we're glad for the brief experience we had.

May 2008

We are rounding up our semester with Phonemics and Family on the Field. Phonemics takes all of the phonetic sounds and symbols and combines them with the grammar tools we learned for the purpose of creating an alphabet for an unwritten language. There are so many steps involved you can literally get a headache just trying to figure it all out, but we are enjoying it and are excited to think that we could actually take part in teaching a people group to read and write their own language. It's amazing to think about. Family on the Field covers a lot of different aspects to how the missionary's lifestyle affects a family, and mainly focuses on the development and events in the missionary's children's lives. The last two days will be what they call a "wrap-up" where we will tie it all together and take time to refocus and get ready for this summer.

It's pretty crazy that we have made it this far. God continues to remind us of all the memories of how it all started. Our relationship with him, meeting each other, dating and all the adventures he has taken us on. Sometimes we just sit and reminisce on everything and stand in awe of how perfect his plans and timing are.

As this week ends, we will have to say goodbye to a lot of friends who are finished for good. They are working on the support track overseas and so they only needed two semesters instead of 3, like we are taking. They are going all over the world and God only knows when we will see them again. It will be hard to say goodbye to good friends, and even harder next December when the rest of us finish.

As for us, we will be flying in to California on the 18th to see our family and friends, see our sister graduate, see a new baby (yeah mama Tiff!), and of course, eat sushi and vinaka coffee. We are looking forward to seeing you all and to jumping in the ocean. Then we will leave in mid-June for our job in Alaska and be back in mid-August for our friends' wedding (Congrats Clay and Laura!)

Just a little of what's been going on with us to keep you posted. Hope you are all well and we will see you soon!

love,

Tim and Kat