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!

Christmas and Portland

We spent Christmas in South Dakota at my grandparent's home, leaving the day after Jesiah's 3rd birthday party. Two sets of aunts and uncles came so we got to see quite a few relatives. We enjoyed playing some games and being entertained by the kids. Here's my dad's family with him, my great aunt Ann, my grandparents, aunt Libby, and aunt Karen. Here's my uncle Mike and their dog Homer, my new foster cousin, Ariel, and aunt Libby. Here's uncle John and aunt Karen (my cousin Chris couldn't come so that was a bummer!).

If my daddy were a cowboy...here's how he'd look. :) John and my dad switched hats for a funny picture.

The drive back wasn't very fun on the ice, but the sunset was gorgeous!

A few days later we opened Christmas presents which is fun with 2 kids who love to rip wrapping paper! We celebrated our friend Lindsey's birthday after arriving back to Miles City. She was feeling sad about turning 25, crazy girl!

Tomorrow, Gretchen and I leave for Portland, OR for a week long conference with Wycliffe Bible Translators called Total It Up. Our team is currently seeking out options for translation training for our ministry in Vanuatu so we are checking into some things with Wycliffe/SIL. Lord-willing, we can get some training at the Australia SIL center called Equip. This workshop presents an opportunity to meet some translators, have some questions answered, learn more about training, and to network with some translators from Papua New Guinea (who will be facilitating some of the workshop). Please pray for health for us (Jesiah, Houghton, and I are sick) and for Houghton as he braves the kids alone for a full week! Also pray for safety on the roads and over the mountain passes on the long drive to Portland from here. Happy new year!

December small groups

December is here and churches were difficult to schedule with for the month so we went to plan "B," small groups. Indeed it should have been plan "A!" We have a few more home groups to schedule from our home church but we are already going to several a week and they are so much more fun than full church presentations. Not only do we get to stay in one spot for longer than a few days (here in Miles City, MT), we get to know people at our sending church better and build deeper relationships here. Also, the time is more informal and relational and we get to answer more basic questions about missions and give better understanding about the kind of "home team" we are hoping to have backing us and how people can be involved that way. Keep checking back as I'll continue to add pictures as we go along of the different home groups we share at in the coming weeks. Nothing beats a cup of tea, a Vanuatu video, time to chat, and dessert with other Christians!

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!

Oct./Nov. Newsletter

Please click on the image to magnify and read my Oct/Nov. newsletter.