Addy's birthday party

Addy turned 4 this March and since a lot of the Bible translation teams were still in Vila from recent  conferences and the SIL-VBT 30th anniversary, many of those kids were able to come to the party as well.  Addy celebrated turning 4 with Alex, whose family works on an island way up in the north.  The girls from another of the families spent hours making a pinata for the event.  Nothing like whacking a helpless little lamb until it breaks apart and sprays candy out, ya?!  :)

 Alex having a go at the pinata.

 Jesiah's turn. 

 All the older kids succeeded in knocking out candy and the honor of demolishing the remainder of the pinata went to Ross the boss.  :)

Poor Gweny had a fever so didn't feel well enough to do games and pinata, but did hang out for present-opening.  In the background are Alex's parents, Danielle and Michael.  They've since gone back to their island, Mota Lava, to continue work on their Bible translation project.

March '10 newsletter side a

Here's my March '10 newsletter, side a.  Please click on the image to enlarge it to full size. 

March '10 newsletter

Newsletter side b.  Please click on the image to enlarge it.

March-April newsletter

Click on the image to enlarge.

March pics

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Rain

Thanks for your prayers about rain here. There is a bit of green in Kangaroo Ground once again, praise God! Fire danger has decreased and focus in Victoria here now is on rebuilding and on the victims.

Thank you!!!

Green and brown

Check out the contrasts showing just how dry it's gotten here with the lack of rain. Pray for rain!

Make a Smilebox photobook

Rain!

Praise the Lord - it's raining in Victoria! Keep praying!

Adalaya born March 24, 2008

My new little niece, Adalaya Ann Richards, born March 24, 2008 in Meridian, Idaho! 21 inches, 7lb 10 oz.

Here are my parents with her.

March 08

Make a slideshow - it's easy!

So...when am I leaving and what about Australia??

I've talked to many of you and hinted around since Gretch and I went to a conference with Wycliffe in Portland in January about Bible translation training in Australia. Here is the down-low on all of that now that our team has gotten an answer back about our applications. As of February, our entire Vanuatu Bush Team has been accepted to be trained by Wycliffe/SIL at their school in Australia, called Equip (http://www.equip.edu.au/). We have been awaiting this acceptance to determine our timeline more adequately for heading out for Vanuatu. Our tentative timeline at this point now is the following:

Aug. - Dec. 08 Port Vila, Vanuatu

What we'll be doing: learning language and culture, building relationships and contacts with Ni-Vanuatu people and others living in the capital city. The Richards and I will fly out from LA on August 3, Lord-willing and have tentative housing with SIL for a few weeks. The rest of our team will join us a week or 2 into September. They don't have living visas like us so can only be in-country up to 4 months.

Jan. - Nov. 09 Kangaroo Ground, Australia - near Melbourne on the southeast coast, 4 hour flight from Port Vila

What we'll be doing: being trained as Bible translators, linguists, and literacy specialists

From this point, we may return to Vila for a few months then return to the US or come straight back to the States for a short time. When we return to the States, we'll pack up our containers with all our long-term supplies (transportation, solar panels, generator, office and ministry supplies, as well as all remaining living needs such a furnishings, clothes, etc.). We will also reconnect with supporting churches briefly to update supporters. Then we will ship our container out and move to Vanuatu long-term. We will most likely still go back to the capital city, Port Vila, for another year or so to continue language and culture acquisition and acclimatize ourselves, as well as t0 finish survey work to determine which people group in the bush we will be working with. When we have an invitation in to a bush village, we will seek the Lord's guidance and ask for prayer and input from Homefront Team Vanuatu to make the final decision about which tribal group to begin the ministry of church planting and Bible translation with. Following that decision, we will make the slow and gradual move into the tribe.

Why is the translation training so long? Well, Bible translation isn't something one can just "wing." It is a huge work to translate in a culturally accurate way that is true to the original Greek and Hebrew meanings. Following is the listing of our classes at Equip. We will split off and focus in different areas (as a team, taking different tracks) so I'm not sure if I'll focus on translation or literacy, but I will be taking the graduate diploma program. This list includes electives:

Phonetics (Summer School) ,Language Learning (Summer Sch.), Language Awareness (Summer Sch.), Anthropology (Summer School)
Ethnography, Introduction to Phonology, Introduction to Grammar, Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Field Methods for Linguistic Data Collection, Field Methods for Literacy, Phonological Analysis, Grammatical Analysis, Training Across Cultures, Language Programme Design & Management, Word Processing for Linguistic Papers, Introduction to Literacy, Semantics, Translation of Sacred Texts, Literacy Education, Literacy Materials, Community Based Orthography Design, Field Methods for Research, Research Project, Seminar Topics, Special Topic 1, Special Topic 2

Please pray for the Lord's continued provision, not only for my monthly support, but also for monthly prayer partners. This program costs about $6,400 in tuition, books and fees so as people give one-time gifts, I am asking that anyone led to do so give toward my "lifelong learning" project, which is a tax-free and administrative fee-free account I can use directly to pay my tuition toward this training. Please also pray for wisdom for the moms on the team about how much of this training to take as we are told it is very intensive and will leave us very little free time. If you have any questions, please contact me! I'm very excited about this opportunity and have great interest in literacy and translation work so it will be awesome to be able to not only see a reproducible, sustainable tribal church planted to the praise of His glory, but to also be able to give the tribal people (who don't currently have written language) a Bible in their own heart language along with the new ability to read it. Praise God for the opportunity!

A short one from Santo

Hello everyone! I hope you'll forgive me and check my blog rather than e-mail. I have access at the moment but it is 25 cents a minute and I have very limited time. Things are going very well especially due to your prayers, thank you! There have been plenty of opportunities for very scary things to happen but the Lord has protected us. I'm sorry I can't load pictures here, I have so many amazing ones! Some of the highlights your prayers have helped with:
1. the kids are doing very well (they hate the heat and are often crabby, but are not sick)
2. I have 3 sores on my legs and feet that are infected and yesterday I had a fever from it and my leg was swelling really huge. Today it is much better but this is the sort of thing the nurse said people in the bush die from in just a few days because they don't take care of it. I still need to heal up but I am on the mend.
3. This AM at 5 a cyclone was projected to hit (the first in 7 years I guess). We had lots of trees knocked down and lots of wind and rain, but it passed by us, praise the Lord!
4. On the way back from a bush village a few days ago, 2 of the guys (Brad and Steve) were knocked out of the truck (the roads are pretty much potholes with a very few areas of flat). They got scratched up and bruised, but are ok.
5. The guys are all on Malakula island right now (south of where we are on Santo island). We are praying they were ok with the cyclone but they are to fly back tomorrow so we'll see then.
6. The food is amazing!
7. The people are awesome and very friendly! We have seen a bush village and survived the amazing culture shock of that - wow. Camping seems so immaculately clean compared to that experience.
8. I love Vanuatu! We have a lot we are going to do still but I am soaking this up. You'll all have to come experience it by visiting me in Vanuatu in the future when I can speak Bislama. It is very frustrating not knowing the language. I've had some chances to practice my pathetic French though, so that's been fun.

Ok, I have to run. If I am able, I'll try to post pictures later this week before we head back to Port Vila. God bless and thanks again for your prayers.

The trip begins in LA!

The survey trip has officially begun! My family got to my house Friday night and we hung out and ran errands that day and the next before flying out Sunday for LA. Gretchen's high school friend JJ and her husband, Chris, graciously hosted us at their apartment and a guest apartment on the Fuller Theological Seminary campus (where Chris is going to school). To the left here is my nephew, Jesiah, contemplating life at a fountain on campus. We have mostly just been hanging out here but we did get some hook-ups at the last minute (like finding out this morning that we need sheets in Vanuatu at the camp we are staying at in Luganville up on the island of Sant0). It has been relaxing to be here, but is somewhat frustrating to be all ready to go but just have to wait. We leave for the airport in a few hours though to begin the real journey!

One really awesome thing for me just today was that I got to visit for several hours with my friend Stephanie, who was my roommate at Bible school up in central Montana (the link to this school is off to the right). I haven't seen her since graduation there in 1998 so it has been a long time! Here is a picture of us: She lives south of here about an hour and a half so she made the trek up to see me and showed me her wedding pictures from her wedding just this last year.

Tonight we head out to the airport and then on to Fiji. Please pray for the kids - Jesiah and Gwenyth - as they have NOT been happy campers on this trip so far. They've been troopers but there have been a lot of tears and screams. :) Thanks or praying and staying up-to-date! I'll try to do the same! :)

Itinerary update

Well, it looks like we are switching things up again in our itinerary (the lizard is supposed to stand for change...I know, kind of random). This will make for a bit of a cheaper trip for me, which is awesome, but a bummer to leave out some parts of the trip too. Here is the proposed change:

Thurs-Fri, March 22-23 Stay in Vila with SIL

Sat., March 24 Fly to Espiritu Santo island (to the town of Luganville) NOT going to Malakula island in between. Stay on Santo until Sunday, April 1 when we fly back to Port Vila on Efate island. The reason there isn't a stop now in Malakula is that accommodations weren't firming up and having a 2 year old, a baby, 2 women, and an old guy with a bad leg :) (that would be my dad) was making this very remote area not the greatest place to show up with iffy accommodations, possible transportation lack, and greater cultural differences. The guys are hoping to fly over for a few days at some point when the rest of us stay on Santo so it may still work out for them, but it most likely won't be a whole-team effort. There will be plenty of opportunities for further survey on Malakula if the Lord allows us all back to live in the country next year and begin ministry based out of Luganville.

Sunday, April 1 Fly back to Vila and take care of visa "stuff".

Tuesday, April 3 Fly to Fiji and then on to Los Angeles, to arrive back home that night!

So in a week or two, I'll be eating breadfruit, flying fox, taro, and noni fruit. Here are the pictures of those things. Just kidding, I have no idea what I'll be eating, but these are all eaten there so who knows...

Thanks to all of you who have supported me. I only have a few hundred more I need to cover things and then the trip will be totally paid, praise God! Please pray for God's wisdom and direction about my ministry in Vanuatu, for connections with officials and opportunities to begin relationships with the people (the Ni-Vanuatu) there, for health and safety, and especially for calm and happy kids (the 2 year old and 6 month old nephew and niece of mine who are coming). Thanks so much!! I hope to keep updates coming on here during the trip but I don't know what my access to internet will be once in Vanuatu. If nothing else, I can meet with all of you and show you pictures after the trip, Lord willing!