Hanging with the Richards

I had some really nice times with the Richards in the months between school and coming back to Vanuatu.  The kids and I had some quality time when Houghton & Gretchen spent a weekend in Sydney.  I've been trying to practice my Bible story-telling skills at random times.  So, we practiced one of the stories I knew from a workshop about Philip and the Ethiopian from Acts 8.  Jesiah loves hearing stories and is pretty good at remembering them and then asking lots of really hard questions about them.  :)  He's a good kid and really interested in God. 

So to go along with our storying, we also made sock puppets and acted out the story.  The goal was to practice the story and be able to share it with Hought and Gretch when they returned.  The kids did great.  Addy held the chariot's horse for us, Jesiah was Philip, Gweny was the angel and held the water for us, and I was the Ethiopian.  They remembered quite a bit to be able to tell the story to their parents.

Several days after H & G returned, we packed up a bunch of camping gear we'd borrowed from friends, and went camping at a place that had come highly recommended to us.  It was at the southern-most tip of Australia way out on a peninsula - a beautiful place called Wilson's Promontory.  Here are some pictures from our 2 days spent there.

Make a Smilebox digital photo book

Housing

I was so fortunate in my months following school to have housing provided by friends from church.  I house-sat for my Lebanese friend, Amira for about a month while she and her daughter family in Lebanon.  She has 3 cats I fed while I was there, 2 of which were around a lot and very friendly.  It was fun to have cats around again.  They were very sweet.  Once she returned, I stayed with a Filipino friend, Joy (also from church).  Houghton & Gretchen were staying there as well and the last few weeks another family of Joy's stayed with us too.  Praise God for His provision of housing for the full time we were in Australia.  I thank God also for the opportunity to learn about several different cultures as a result of the multicultural mix of our church in Melbourne!  What an opportunity to have fellowship with Christians of all different backgrounds.  And they were so generous to us in opening their homes and hearts to us.  Thanks, friends! 

Jan/Feb '10 Newsletter

Please click on the newsletter for it to expand to full size.

The importance of being a team

I definitely miss having my entire team around to serve and fellowship together since the Kenners headed over to Vanuatu in December. Gretchen and I were recently asked to assist some fellow missionaries who minister to Turkish Muslims here in Melbourne. They are an older couple retiring later this year and have always served just as a couple. They mentioned the value of working as a team, seeing that as a team they could have done so much more, especially to reach out more to children when they have family outreaches. Gretchen and I were enlisted to share the Christmas story with the children and we did other activities while their parents heard a message. I am thankful for you, my team of givers, pray-ers, and encouragers and I am thankful for the Richards and Kenners and the opportunity to glorify God together as a team, sharing His message and hope.

Here is a Turkish single woman I've been able to get to know a bit through the ministry of our missionary friends here.

January Newsletter

January newsletter - click to enlarge.

We made it!

We made it to Boise, fairly uneventfully, praise God! Thursday night Lindsey let us stay at her place in Bozeman, which was a nice break in the long drive. Friday we drove the final 8 or 9 hours to Boise. Gweny was sick and the kids didn't enjoy the long day in the car strapped to their carseats, but they were troopers. The passes and roads before and after them were snowy, but not very packed or icy so we were able to cruise through!

God has blessed us in amazing ways here in Boise. My friends Kara and Travis hooked us up with some great housing for the entire time we are in Boise. We are in a 3 bedroom duplex that is fully furnished and is plenty roomy for all of us. We'll even be able to host some of our home groups here, which will be so nice! Also, my past co-worker, Debi, provided us with a 2nd vehicle to use while we are here. Her husband, Adam, was kind enough to check it all over and get it running smoothly for us. It's a stick shift, so I'm having fun driving stick again! Having another vehicle to use is great. This way I can do things like visit kids and teachers at my old school where I used to work while Houghton and Gretchen can still get around to run errands and head somewhere with internet access to keep up with correspondence. Another awesome provision was a screaming deal on a short-term gym membership. Houghton is able to swim to his heart's delight while we are in town and all of us are able to get our bodies back in shape for heading over to Vanuatu.

Sunday we shared at Columbia Heights Baptist in east Boise. It is a church plant so for them to have such a huge heart and focus on missions was a big blessing. We met some fun new friends. God continues to fill out our schedule for our time here so we are excited about the opportunities. Here's a fun home group we got to attend already this week. We got all kinds of great Asian food.

Just before leaving Miles City, we shared with one last small group. They shared chili and corn bread with us afterward so that was a great treat! :) Here's that group to the left.

Portland, Wycliffe, and Australia

Gretchen (my sister) and I spent New Year's week in Portland at a Wycliffe conference called TOTAL it Up, TOTAL standing for "Taste Of Translation And Linguistics." We ended up driving because flights were ridiculously priced, but it was a wicked long drive! Despite some crazy times (5 hours to go 200 miles on Hwy 12 and spinning some interesting cookies in the snow, we came back a different way to avoid this insane highway), it was a fun trip and we were able to have some great talks and read quite a bit of a book called "Cavorting with Cannibals" about Vanuatu. If you'd like some serious culture shock into Vanuatu, I'd highly recommend the book, by the way. We attended the conference because back in November through a number of things, the Lord graciously made it evident to us that not only is it a 90-some% chance that we'll need to do Bible translation as part of our church planting ministry, no one on our team has any kind of training, knowledge, or experience in that kind of work. Thankful that He made us aware of this now rather than later floundering in Vanuatu wishing we knew what we were doing, we started researching our options. Wycliffe Bible Translators/SIL definitely has the corner on the market for translation training, and they aren't exclusive about who can take their training so we are seriously pursuing getting 11 months of training in Australia as a team Jan. 09-Nov. 09, Lord-willing. To get a jump start on what that training might look like, Gretch and I went off to get a little "taste" while Houghton bravely volunteered to stay with the kids for a week. :)

There were lots of wonderful things that resulted from our time spent with Wycliffe. Many of our teachers are translators in Papua New Guinea, which is a Melanesian people group like in Vanuatu. We learned a ton from them and have some great lifelong consultants now! One huge impact to us during the time is the certainty we saw that this kind of work is not something to be done on the fly or learned from a book, but necessitates intensive training. It was nice to solidify that our time really will be best spent getting this training on the front-end of our ministry so the overall ministry isn't impeded or slowed down or ineffective. Instead, being well equipped should make language learning easier and the church plant more effective. Another benefit was the building of new friendships with other attendees. We met some great new friends and hope to have continued fellowship with them as God leads in their lives. Finally, we really did get a taste of what we need to become proficient in in order to effectively translate. We had daily classes in grammar (I'm going to need to do some serious study to be ready for Australia classes in this area - whew!), language acquisition, phonetics (the anatomy of making human speech sounds and the international symbols associated with the sounds), phonology (the study of and system for sounds and breaking them down), translation and semantics (meaning of words). For language acquisition, I got to learn from a Japanese native speaker, Hiroko, who taught us all kinds of great ways to remember Japanese words. We had lots of fun in her group. (We sang "head, shoulders, knees and toes..." in Japanese for the rest of the group and did some fun actions for numbers 1-10 too.) My sister learned a bit of Indonesian from an Indonesian man, and there was a group learning Russian and another learning an African tribal language. Very fun, but very practical stuff. Our days were packed with classes and our nights with homework and field reports given by the missionaries who were teaching our classes. It was amazing to hear of how God is using the translation of His word into the heart languages of people who have never had it to change lives and let every "tongue and tribe and nation" glorify Him. There is much work to be done, some 2,000 more languages without translations, and we hope to have at least one more done in whatever tribal group the Lord leads us to in Vanuatu. Here I am with Yohana, a Papua New Guinea translator/literacy specialist. What a blessing she was to fellowship with!

We are so thankful for the time and provision to be able to check out this awesome resource available to us. Also, it was an awesome blessing to be able to stay at a friend's house on the way to and from Portland. Thanks Josh!! Please pray with us as we begin the application process for the SIL/Wycliffe program in Australia (called Equip). I'll write more later about our timeline and this program. (On the left are Gretchen, me, and Michaela working on our translation "Zack and Jesus: a story for toddlers" about Zaccheus; our choice for a homework assignment to make a new English translation for a specific people group.)

The Richards and I leave tomorrow for Lindsey's house in Bozeman, then Friday AM for Boise. God has faithfully provided a place to stay, a toddler mattress to borrow, a 2nd car to get around in, and a start on help with babysitting for the kids when we are making presentations. He is also slowly filling in our schedule with groups and churches to share with about His work in Vanuatu. Praise Him!

January Newsletter

Hi friends! Here's my January newsletter. Click on it to have it enlarge so you can actually read it. If you don't receive it via e-mail now, let me know and I'll add you to my list!

Soon to survey

The next part of this journey in following as God leads toward missions in Vanuatu is a survey trip. I heard one missionary call such a trip a "Joshua trip" because the purpose is to go "spy out the land" and the people. The trip is scheduled for March 18-April 3, 2007, which is really soon. Lord willing, my family will be driving to my place and we'll all fly out from here to LAX airport. Air Pacific will be getting some great business then from all of us (including my dad, who is very excited to join us for this trip) and also Brad Jones as we fly out at 11:30PM Sunday night from LAX to Fiji, Fiji to Port Vila, Vanuatu (the capital). We arrive in Port Vila Tuesday morning at 9:10. The flight from LA to Nadi, Fiji is 10 hours, 40 minutes and from Nadi to Vila is 1 hour 40 minutes. We lose 18 hours going so that's part of the leaving Sunday arriving Tuesday thing. Of course, it is a long trip too. Gretchen (my sister) is planning to bring both 2 year old Jesiah and 6 month (then) Gwenyth so be praying for them in advance that they'll be able to handle all the travel and changes. I'll type more about our specific itinerary when it's more set later, but the overall purpose is to pray over the country, the people, get some great pictures, and come back with a vision for what the Lord would have us do and how. Also, I'm hoping to check out more specifics on how much it will cost to live in Vanuatu for sure and get a good feel for what it really entails to live there.

We'll also be putting in our visa applications with the local authorities (which is $500 for visa and $300 for work permit...per year). All of this trip is obviously quite costly so should the Lord move you to help out financially and in prayer, please let me know. My overall estimate for the trip is $3,500. If you are interested in the breakdown of that, let me know and I can send it to you. I'm looking for people to partner with me in this trek toward Vanuatu so if that's you, send me an e-mail. Please pray with me too that the Lord would give great wisdom and confirmation about serving in missions in Vanuatu.

Things to do...

I've told you a bit about God's leading for me and the team to minister with, but I'm sure you're wondering what exactly I'd be doing. Well, of course working with God as your boss requires quite a bit of flexibility, but there is an idea of what He seems to be calling me to do there. The overall goal for our team in Vanuatu is church-planting, meaning evangelism (telling people the gospel, or good news about Jesus Christ dying for our sins Romans 5:8, raising from the dead 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, and allowing spiritual birth John 3:3-6 and escape from hell and gift of eternal life Romans 6:23 for all who believe in Him Romans 1:16), discipleship (coming alongside believers to show and teach them about growth to be more like Christ Matthew 28:19-20), and leadership training (teaching about leadership in the church and planting, or starting a church with these native leaders 1 Timothy 3). You can check out all these verse references at http://www.biblegateway.com/ if you are interested or e-mail me and we can chat more about them. Anyway, I would be doing these church-planting activities with women and children, Lord willing in the town of Luganville of about 9,000 people on the island of Santo http://www.vanuatu.net.vu/tourism/intro/island/Luganville-Espiritu-Santo-Island-Vanuatu.shtml

My role for our team (see last post for pictures and names) is as the logistics lady. I am in charge of paperwork, research, communications with my team members out in the bush villages (the Richards and Jones), collecting supplies, and any organizing or planning I can do. Who knows what that will all look like in the field, but that is the idea so far! I'm starting to fill that role to some degree now. Right now in my job as a school counselor I often comment to friends that I should have been a secretary rather than a counselor because paperwork is my favorite part of my job (when I have the time to do it)! It is awesome how God allowed something that gives me joy and "floats my boat" to be a role I can fill for our team!

Places to go, People to see

PLACES: So now that you know I am heading toward Vanuatu, Lord-willing, maybe you want to know who with and where on earth it is! Here's a pretty good picture of where Vanuatu is in the world. It's about 83 islands off the coast of Australia. An organization called Biblical Ministries Worldwide (BMW, but no, we don't get a free BMW by signing up...) accepted me this summer after a growing, but grueling time of testing and interviews. They can be checked out at http://www.biblicalministries.org/ for doctrinal position, mission fields reached, vision in ministry, etc.

PEOPLE

So, places to go is here, now just people to see...it with (and minister with, of course)! Our team is made up of 3 families and myself. My sister, Gretchen, and her family is going (Houghton and kids Jesiah (2) and Gwenyth (3 months)), as well as the Jones' (Brad and Amber with Zoe and baby on the way) and the Gibbs (Steve and Jane with 6 kids - Matt, Tiffany, Jennifer, Emily, Ethan, and Rose). No, you can't tell that Gretchen and I are sisters by this or any picture. She's the really pregnant one here holding Jesiah, my super-cute nephew. Here's a picture of all of us (minus 4 of the Gibb's kids and Gwenyth, who was born a few months later) at our candidate orientation this last summer in Georgia.You can check more out about some of them at their sites: the Richards (my family) have a blog at http://richardsroad.blogspot.com/ and the Gibbs have a website at http://web.mac.com/gibbsx8/iWeb/gibbs2vanuatu

The trek toward Vanuatu

So the adventure continues as a believer in Christ. May it be true of me that "our God may count you worthy of His calling, and that by His power He may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians 1:11b-12

The Lord is leading me toward missions and seemingly toward Vanuatu (check out http://www.vanuatutourism.com/ for great pictures and info on Vanuatu). Please pray with me for provision (it's a bit pricey to fly across the world and live there) and for God's continual direction in my life - that His name would be glorified in me!

By the way, Psalm 96:3, the name of this site, seems an appropriate life missions verse: "Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples." I pray that is my task now and wherever in the world the Lord takes me.