Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we got to celebrate with my dad's side of the family in Sheridan, WY.  The whole crew stayed and my uncle Mike and aunt Libby's.  We had an awesome time hanging out, doing crafts, and eating of course! We also got to see our friends Rollie and Bev for the first time since we went overseas, which was great!

Uncle John & Aunt Karen, Grandpa & grandma, Uncle Mike & Aunt Libby, Dad & Mom, Me, Houghton, Gretchen, Addy, Gwen & Si.

 Good snow for snowmen!

 

 

 

 

 Aunt Karen & Aunt Libby playing a jewelry game with the kids.

At the Christmas stroll.

 

 On the hayride.

 My Aunt Libby (2nd from R) is in a bell choir and played at the bank so we got to go listen.

 

 

 

 We made jewelry together.

 

 

 Turkeys and deer abound in Sheridan and were walking around in people's yards!

Buffalo and FSB

Buffalo, Montana the town isn't much to see, but the people are friendly and down-to-earth. Most Montanan's we told we were going to Buffalo had to ask where it was. Well, here's why - visually. :)The old church, however, is still open and draws around 50 people every Sunday! Not bad for a ghost town! The highlight though (other than meeting some of the other Buffalo families) was getting to stay with my friends Ryan and Jessica and getting to know their 5 kids better. I attended Bible school with Ryan and Jessica and she and I share a birthday; hers just one year after mine. Abe, Hannah, Joel, Faith, and new little Jared are sweet, fun kids that I really enjoyed hanging out with. Jesiah and Gwen had fun playing with everyone. Jessica cooked us amazing from-scratch meals (and even shared her recipes - thanks, Jessica!). I got to attempt to teach Abe a bit about piano. He was a quick study but I'm not sure I was such a great teacher. Hopefully he keeps his interest in it up at least!

After church and lunch, we drove "home" to Miles City, stayed the night, and drove Monday to LaGrange, WY back to Frontier School of the Bible. We got there just in time to put up our display and run to chapel for the introduction of all the missionaries for Missions Conference. What an amazing opportunity to be able to participate in! The week was jam-packed from early morning to late night with formal and informal times to share with students. I was asked to teach the Sr. girls class on the topic of singleness. I had some breakout sessions to share that same topic with other girls and some breakout times and informal times to talk about missions and the work in Vanuatu.

I also got to hang out with a dorm group for their weekly (late!) night devotions and shared about God's leading in my life toward missions. Thanks for the invite, girls! Here's that group to the right - Courtney, Emma, Raquel, Karissa, Janelle, Lelia, Torie, Larissa in back and Chantel and Rachel in front.

Another fun opportunity was with some of the juniors who were required to interview some of the missionaries for a missions class project. Here is one of those groups - Chandra, Sarah, and Cara.

Geneva, Rebeca, and Larissa, invited me to the (one) cafe for milkshakes one afternoon so we wore our coats, shivered, and drank some amazing milkshakes. Larissa and Rebeca are really seriously pursuing missions so it was fun to hang out with them several hours over the course of the week and hear about places they've served and their passion for the lost around the world.

So many other girls I could name - I was so edified by you and blessed by your devotion to Christ, your humble service to Him, and your love for the nations and desire that "every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9) would know Him. Thanks for the honor of having fellowship with you and being able to share with you.

It was also awesome to hear from other missionaries there - all other than us were reps with their organization, not full-time overseas missionaries, but they had much experience and knowledge to share with us. Neil Anderson of Wycliffe, who was a translator for 30 years in Papua New Guinea (and is still consulting on the translation work with the people group there) was the main speaker in daily chapels. What incredible, inspiring stories of God working through him and his team and the tribe as they lived among the people and sought to translate in a culturally appropriate way with scriptural metaphors and such in the heart language of the people. One especially memorable story Neil told was of their translation of John 3:16. After working for weeks to find the correct word for "love," the verse was translated and read to the people. Their response was to stroke their throats and say "we are dying of the deliciousness of these words." Wow, when have I ever responded so passionately to that same Gospel? It was also fun to talk when there was time with Gary and Judy Anderson (no relation to Neil), who are reps with Wycliffe. My parents are long-time friends with the Andersons so I grew up hearing stories of their work in Indonesia. Pictured here are all the missionary reps as well as Will and Shanna, (far left) who are staff at FSB and did a fantastic job of organizing the conference. Houghton isn't pictured here but most of the others are.

I also got to enjoy a full week with my friends John and Andrea and their kids Michael, Trevor, and Ella. They housed me as a stranger back in September when we presented at LaGrange Bible Church and in chapel at FSB. This time I got to come back as a friend! I enjoyed getting to know them better and to have a bit of time with the kids playing Pictionary. Thanks for the fun and the fellowship, guys! :)

Thanks for your prayers as we have been on deputation. It is rather amazing with all the travel we've done that we haven't had any accidents or hit any (living) deer. On the way back from FSB, I did hit an enormous already dead deer but I was able to at least straddle it and so only scraped the bottom of my car. Thankfully, although some things are bent, it seems to be fine otherwise. We had to avoid other dead and living deer on that same road later, but got home safe and sound (I just have a really smelly car now). I won't include any pictures of that... :)

Thanksgiving was a nice time to avoid all work and not turn on the computer! My parents, Houghton, Gretchen and the kids, and Houghton's mom and I all hung out at my parents', ate yummy food, and us girls played some games. Pretty amazing to think of the length of the list of what I have to be thankful for - wow.

Another nice thing is that my grandparents came to visit last night so we enjoyed a bit of time with them. We'll spend Christmas at their place in South Dakota for a few days, Lord-willing .

We spent this last Sunday at Grace Bible, our home sending church and went out to Coalwood again Sunday night. Starting this week, we are spending the next month sharing at small group Bible studies from Grace Bible, Lord-willing. We are excited for the opportunity to have more informal time and to be able to better get to know people from our home church. Having a church of 500 (that I've been away from for the most part for 10 or so years) means there are loads of people I've never met. We are blessed to be in one place for longer than a few days too!

Training, Team, CO, WY, NE

TRAINING:

Colorado Springs hosted Bush Team Vanuatu for the week of September 17-21 for our training with Worldview Resource Group. BMW isn't able to offer us much training on reaching tribal peoples because they aren't in that type of field yet, but they are very supportive of us getting continuing education with good organizations. WRG is made up mostly of missionaries who served with New Tribes Mission in tribal areas, the majority in Papua New Guinea. This training was invaluable to us in learning effective ways to reach Melanesian tribal people (like Ni-Vanuatu) for Christ. We learned first about the stages of ministry presented in Tom Steffen's "Passing the Baton" book, which was required reading for BMW's pre-field training we attended in Georgia in July. The five stages (with some tweaking by WRG) are:

Pre-entry = Preparing for Ministry: (deputation, missiological training, comprehensive methodology, exit strategy) This is the stage we are in now.

Pre-evangelism = Establishing Relationships: (the right to be heard, culture and language acquisition, worldview analysis)

Evangelism = Presenting the Gospel: (strategic narrative, worldview approach, critical contexualization)

Post-evangelism = The Developing Church: (real world issues, curriculum development, leadership development)

Phase-out = The Multiplying Church: (socio-cultural issues, outreach strategies, ministry partnerships)

From here we learned about worldview and how knowing deeply the worldview of the culture is paramount to reaching them effectively with the Gospel. Without going to this depth prior to teaching the Bible, syncretism is the inevitable result (adding Christ in as just another spirit to worship rather than knowing the One true God), as many missionaries and organizations have seen in the long-term. Finally, we spent a few days learning about narrative and teaching in story form, especially for oral learners like in tribes (where history is passed down in story form orally to children). Firm Foundations curriculum from New Tribes Mission (http://www.ntmbooks.com/index.jsp?categoryid=3) teaches from Creation to Christ to give the full story of the Bible. We learned how to develop curriculum like this (or use NTM's) in a way that takes worldview into account. The training provided by Worldview Resource Group (http://www.wrg3.org/) was invaluable. Anyone considering tribal work should be required to take it. Anyone in any type of ministry cross-cultural or in the States would highly benefit from it. Good stuff!

TEAM:

We were able to meet as a team while in Colorado Springs so took advantage of early kid bedtimes and stayed up late nights working out team issues and fellowshipping. We left the conference super tired, but blessed and full of new information to chew on.

CO:
Aside from training, I also got to check in with 2 great friends while in Denver on our way to the Springs. Tiffani, a friend I co-led junior high girls Bible studies with in Boise for several years, moved to Denver 3 years ago or so. She let us stay in her beautiful home and we got to catch up again. We visited her church and got to meet a few of the college age girls she is now involved in ministering to. Tiffani is one of my few remaining single friends but if you know any fun, godly single guys out there, I'd be happy to change my blog. :)

Another friend I got to catch up with is Aimee. Aimee and I have crazy history together, having gone to France the same summer (1996) with Eurocorps, a short-term version of Greater Europe Mission. She was on an evangelism team in Paris while I was on a work team in the southern French Alps (at Camp des Cimes, or Camp of the Peaks). We had training and debriefing all together though. Just the next year, we met again at Montana Wilderness School of the Bible (http://www.mwsb.org/) , where we attended '97-'98 along with 48 other students. Aimee has been involved for a long time now in discipling young adult women. I missed meeting her husband, Clay, but it was awesome to see Aimee again for the first time in person since our MWSB graduation May of '98!

On our way out of Colorado, we stayed with friends of Gretchen and Houghton's - Hennaway and Stacy. Stacy had just had her 2nd baby 8 days before and they still wanted us to stay in their apartment with them! Wow. They are an awesome family sacrificing a lot of material gain in order to reach the lost for Christ.

WY:

I was blessed to stay 2 nights with John & Andrea, and their 3 kids - Michael, Trevor, and Ella in LaGrange, Wyoming. Ella let me crash in her bed and take over her room. They are a really encouraging and fun family. From Colorado we drove to Nebraska for the weekend, but I'll tell that below. We presented Sunday evening at LaGrange Bible Church. That following Monday, we presented in chapel at Frontier School of the Bible (http://www.frontierbible.org/frontier/location.html), where Gretchen and Houghton are alumni. FSB invited us back for their missions conference in November, when I was asked to speak to single girls about missions. I'm really excited about that opportunity and you can pray for me to have wisdom about what to share with the college girls. I got to meet a ton of mostly freshman girls during our day there that I hope to get to know better in November when we return, Lord-willing.

NE:

We spoke in Nebraska at Bridgeport Community Church Sunday AM and stayed with Pastor Dan and his wife Connie. Wow, is that church ever encouraging! Our experience there was true refreshment from the Lord. It is super humbling to have a fellowship of people who've never met us take such ownership as individuals and be so excited to team up with us to minister to Ni-Vanuatu! Thanks for being used by the Lord in a great way, BCC!

We spent a day in Scottsbluff after speaking at Frontier to catch up on laundry and computer stuff. We stayed most of the week with Brad and Elly and their little baby, Rachel, in Cambridge, NE. Brad & Elly are involved in an internship as they prepare to head to Africa in the future as missionaries. We presented the following Sunday in Callaway, NE at Callaway Community Church, another small, but very welcoming church. I got to meet Dean and Shawna and their two kids Kelsey and Brett. Dean pastors the church there and they very graciously hosted us in their home.

RANDOM:Gweny turned 1 while we were on the road to Colorado so we celebrated just before we left Montana. I didn't get very good pics of her at the party, but this one is cute of her on my friend Tiffani's bear. Here's a few more of me getting to hang out with the kids. There's nothing quite like McDonalds' play room to get kids tired out and ready for bed. :)

May you better understand God as your Creator, Redeemer, and sustainer this week.