We learn culture

Other than building relationships with our new friends on Ambrym, our main job now is learning learning learning.

(Hint on the Smileboxes below - many have the option of clicking to zoom in on pictures and for the ones with multiples on a page, that's kinda the only way you can see what's going on in them.)

We LEARN CULTURE:

Weddings:

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Wedding food:

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Custom ceremonies and dance:

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I didn't have room to add these last 2 pictures into the Smilebox but this is how the Rom dance ends - with the participants killing multiple pigs and then cooking and eating them.  An uproar was caused at one point when one victim ran away, but dogs and dancers soon chased him down.  Only dancers are allowed to touch the pigs and prepare the food.  The dance seemed harmless enough but Papa, the old woman we were sitting with (white hair in my header picture on my blog) said she was afraid.  When I asked why out of surprise, she said that after these ceremonies, emotions and jealousies run high and black magic is done against some people.  We didn't hear of anyone being hurt, but obviously we aren't really in a position to hear of these sorts of things anyway.  Another point of interest during the dance was that the guys wearing the Rom masks and costumes were often in need of being pulled (by certain straighter leaves on their costumes) by those not in costume into their required place.  When I questioned Papa as to whether these were the new dances that were just learning their places, she replied that they always require assistance because they are unable to see well.  Also, she said that there are no variations in the Rom dance, that whenever they perform it, it is always the same.  The whole dance lasted around an hour.

 

We had several hours to kill on our return to West Ambrym (Craig Cove)

to catch our plane back to Vila, the capital city of Vanuatu.  We just

happened to be flying out on the day that the (Australian) Red Cross was

 opening an office up in Craig Cove.  In honor of the event, there was

singing, speeches, and a custom dance.

 

 

Houghton and Taso (our friend from Ranvetlam village up north who accompanied us to Craig Cove) watching the ceremony.

School and community fundraisers:

Just in the large village north of us, Ranon, which maybe would be considered the capital of the language group, there is both a primary and secondary school from grades 1-10.  One of the chiefs in our village is the chairman of the primary school board and so led a community fundraiser for the school.  As Houghton and I were able to see with first-hand experience, resources are desperately lacking in the schools and so they hold a few fundraisers a year.

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Visited by the parents!

Well, I imagine anytime you are far from home and have a visit from someone from home, it is lovely.  And so much more so when you've been far from home for several years!  My parents came for a nice, long 3 weeks of visiting.  Here's the first batch of pictures from our time together.

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July newsletter

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July newsletter page 2

Newsletter page 2. For the life of me I couldn't get both of them to enlarge when in the same post. :)

July newsletter page 1

July's newsletter (click on image to enlarge). If you don't receive it and would like to, or if you get snail mail but are happy to switch to e-mail, let me know at psalm96three@gmail.com and I'll switch you over. Blessings!

Little Big Day Out

Our church in Melbourne, Grace Baptist Church, had a VBSish day today called Little Big Day Out. Lenna, the pastor's wife, is the mastermind. Here's some pictures and a (long) video from the day (don't bother watching all of it unless you're my mom - just there if you're REALLY bored). :) A (shorter) video of Gretchen teaching the kids our verse, John 14:6 follows. The included video is Gretchen and I doing our story. Gretch, Tania & I led the 1st and 2nd graders for the day. They were great fun. Pray for all the kids who came that the Lord would remind them of what they learned today and that they would have come to know Jesus more or for the 1st time. There's pictures here too of us having lunch at Lee and Janet's. They go to Grace and are a fantastic couple. Their girls are super sweet too. We enjoyed the fabulous food Lee crafted for us too. They are a blessing to us. Enjoy!

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Another one bites the dust

Another term that is (bites the dust). Hooray, we made it through Semester 1 by God's grace and lots of chocolate. Here are some pictures of the fun things anyway. Who wants to see pictures of me sitting on my bed typing away on my computer for hours? :) So I didn't take pictures of that obviously.

Some of the pictures show one of the projects we had for our Phonology class. It is a tribute to Bruce, our instructor for that class, that we left the class with a ginormous packet, were told it would take us an average of 20-35 hours to finish it, and we were all excited to start. He gave us little "stress release" packets every week (with chocolate) and a certificate of completion when we were done. Plus, he was clear in his expectations, made it manageable, and fun. He's a great teacher. Here's those pictures!

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Wish I could show you pictures of my friend who is responsible for the buns in the pictures, many of the monkey games, and the decorated white board! We had to see her off at the airport the end of June. She's off to start work in a country a long long way from here. Pray for her for safety and that she would be a witness where God leads her! The Dodgy D Dorm dames will look a bit different next semester without her. We miss you already, dear friend!

Proud to be an American

The longer I'm away from the States, the more I come to appreciate America. It's a beautiful country with fantastic opportunities, generous and encouraging people, great ideas, taken-for-granted freedoms, quality goods, smart progress, fair laws, great hygiene :), the best prices in the world, and great unity through diversity. I'm proud to be an American and to call that my home country. Other countries may want to tear America down, but God bless the USA!

Outgoing Needs met in July 2009

In my July newsletter, the highlighted outgoing need for the month was a solar system and large appliances for $11,000. It is in the larger category of bush set-up. The Lord already provided$1545 toward that need, praise Him! Here is the current chart with what is left. You may also check the sidebar about outgoing needs from time-to-time as I'll update that each month when I get my statements.

Friends visiting and final church goodbyes

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Grace Bible hosted sending off services for us for our last Sunday in the States. That evening we drove out to Coalwood country church to spend one last service with them as well. Here are pictures from those churches.

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July 4

Grandpa and grandma Thulesen hosted us at their home in Newell, South Dakota. My uncle and aunt John and Karen, who live nearby were able to get away from haying for a few hours on the 4th so we saw them, as well as my uncle and aunt Mike and Libby and cousin Ariel. Mike, Libby, and Ariel drove from Sheridan, Wyoming to visit. The town had a little fireworks show and just enough breeze to blow off the mosquitoes. You have to be grateful for the small stuff! :) We got to see the Plymouth Coupe car my grandpa refurbished but with all my encouraging and prodding, he still wouldn't take us for a spin - awww! :) No rest for the weary though - we headed out the next day so we could go to Plevna, Montana for a presentation on Sunday. It was a super friendly church and should be our last deputation presentation for..ever, I think, how awesome is that! We have a few other churches we'll be at the 3 Sundays to go before we head to Vanuatu but they are just visits, not presentations so we can relax a bit more. God has been faithful in providing for and preparing us!

July 08 newsletter

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Grandma's accordian

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My grandma reluctantly agreed to play her accordian for us when we visited her in July in Minnesota. I didn't know how to post a video until now so here it is, late for you to enjoy. My grandma, the celebrity. :)

Georgia and Team Vanuatu

Georgia was the location for this year's 2 week training with Biblical Ministries Worldwide (located in Atlanta) called Field Preparation Seminar. It was 2 weeks of non-stop learning. We had classes Monday through the next week Wednesday from 8-5 and because we were so blessed to have the entire Team Vanuatu (see all of us plus kids to the left here) all there together, we had team meetings every day at lunch and after supper. That left no free time so we were running, but it was time very well spent! BMW feeds and houses us very well and with very little expense on our part, which is nice! The above picture is all those who came through Field Prep this year. This was their largest class ever but what was really crazy is the number of people here for Candidate Orientation (which is what we went through last summer there). There were 27 adults in attendance and all were accepted by BMW's board so the Lord is growing this organization by a lot. This year's attendance is at least double that of last year's so our prayers are being answered for workers to go out into the harvest fields, praise the Lord!

Here are the classes we took at Field Prep, each of which were 1-2 hours:

A Passion for Missions, Avoiding Spiritual Burnout, BMW Update, Discipleship - Insights and Errors, Evangelism - the Heart of my Work, Family in Ministry, Life Long Learning, Church Planting Models, Church Planting Stepping Stones, Motivation for Church Planting, NEEDIA (a practical application of setting up vision and purpose and goals for an imaginary country), Theology of Hell - A Motivator for Missions, Training National Leaders, Your Exit Strategy, Brain Dominance Inventory, Elements of Cultural Resilience from Ruth, Guess who is Coming to Our House, Cultural Adaptability, Response to Culture, Strategies for Lifelong Language Learning, Language and Culture Evaluation, Building Spiritual Hedges (for men), Conflict Resolution, Maintaining and Growing Relationships with Supporters, Teamwork on the Field, An Introduction to Local Church Finances, Financial Matters on the Field, Emergency Management, Hospitality on the Field (for women), Conducting a Ministry Survey, Working from Home, Writing your Ministry Plan

Many of these classes were immediately applicable for our team meetings, which was an awesome blessing!

It was very beneficial to have all of our team present as we were able to work out our team structure and start hammering out purpose and vision statements, timelines, key performance areas, and job descriptions for the ministry in Vanuatu. We still have a long way to go in getting strategy and goals in written form, but the foundation was laid. As of now, the field of Vanuatu consists of two teams. One team is now just the Gibb family (with other potential team members they are recruiting from their church in Australia). They are planning to have their ministry be one of doing leadership training with existing native pastors in Vanuatu (or with those interested in becoming pastors) to plant churches that way. They would be primarily based out of the town of Luganville on the island of Santo. Here is the Gibb family (minus Matt, who will be attending boarding school in the US to finish out his high school career). Please pray for the Gibbs as they raise the last bit of their support that the Lord would give them wisdom and direction as they prepare to head over to Vanuatu this January, Lord willing. The other team is the bush team, consisting of Brad and Amber Jones, Houghton and Gretchen Richards, myself, and a new family who just joined BMW - the Kenners. Jim and Tania heard about the ministry in Vanuatu from the Richards and within the day were already praying about and pursuing the ministry themselves! Our team will seek to do evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training with an influential tribal people group in Vanuatu and empower the nationals to plant their own reproducing churches. I'll type up our vision and purpose, as well as some estimated timelines in a future post. Please pray for the Kenners as they spend the next year or so wrapping up work and ministry commitments and preparing for deputation. Also, pray for the rest of us who are in the middle of deputation that the Lord would lead us to those who He is preparing to team with us financially and prayerfully to reach Ni-Vanuatu people!

In our travels to and from Georgia, we were so blessed to be housed a huge chunk of the time at my aunt Betty and uncle Fred's home in Minneapolis. We stayed there almost a full week just before flying out to Georgia and for a few days immediately after Field Prep before heading back on our way to Montana. My grandma lives in Minneapolis as well so we enjoyed visiting and eating with her as well. She got together a group of women in her retirement complex that Gretchen and I were able to present our ministry to. They are already fervent prayer warriors for our team so it was awesome to meet them and share about the Ni-Vanuatu that they will be reaching through us!

We also stayed one night with our friends Ralph and Shari Solberg in North Dakota. They have been very encouraging in our ministry sharing (deputation) time. The Lord has given friends and family along the way already who have been so gracious and hospitable to provide us a home away from home and a chance to reconnect. Although we are tired and have been sick most of the traveling time, God's grace is sufficient and the prayers and encouragement of the saints (that's you) sustain us, thank you!

If you're wondering what is happening from here, this is the known (written with a smile and a prayer...) schedule for the next month below. We are working on newsletters this week to send out to all of you! Look for it in the mail hopefully in the next week or two.

August 5 Fallon, MT (about 45 minutes from home base in Miles City here)

August 12 Ronan, MT (around 9-10 hours away in western MT)

- Midweek sometime in Kalispell

August 19 Frenchtown, MT (an hour or 2 from Ronan)

August 26 Coalwood, MT (about an hour from Miles City)

On the road

We are now pretty officially on the road. After a celebration with some friends and family on the 4th, we headed out for Minnesota. Sunday we presented at the Faltynski's church in Deluth, MN and enjoyed spending the weekend with them. They are friends who used to youth pastor at our sending church in Miles City, MT. They have 2 children, Winter (6) and Creedon (3) (and another on the way), who were great entertainment for Jesiah. They of course fought a lot too, but got some great learning opportunities in sharing. Here is Winter reading me a Dr. Seuss book. :) Brian and Laura Faltynski were very gracious and hospitable to us and allowed us a great time of fellowship with them and in their church body. The church was also very gracious with many very encouraging people thanking us for coming and joining with our team in prayer.

Monday we headed to Minneapolis where my parents had spent the weekend with my grandma and several of my aunts and uncles. We got to see everyone that evening before my parents headed back to Montana and we are now staying the week at my Aunt Betty and Uncle Fred's house in Eden Prairie, a suburb of Minneapolis. We are trying to rest and battle colds and sinus stuff so we can be well for Pre-Field training in Georgia next week! Yesterday we went to Round Lake park and enjoyed the outdoors a bit. Today we are presenting to some of my grandma's friends at her apartment building. I'll post some family pictures here later this week.

Saturday we leave for Georgia and get to meet up with the rest of Team Vanuatu! Thanks for your prayers for our safety, health and protection!