We graduated! So...what's next?

Last Friday, Nathan and I had our official graduation from New Tribes Mission's training!  Nathan has earned a Bachelor's degree in Intercultural Ministries...good job, babe!  

Our graduation was very Christ-honoring, as we sung worship songs together and heard from a couple of our fellow classmates and a staff speaker...it was a really neat and moving night.  

 (here we are with Larry and Carol, our small group leaders/disciplers/friends...they have been invaluable to us while we have been here at the MTC!)

(and here we are with David and  Emily, our very good friends/fellow classmates/future partners.  We love this couple so much!) 

Okay, so even though we have officially graduated, we are not quite done with our training yet!  I know our training schedule can seem very confusing to a lot of you...so let me try to simplify this as to what is coming next for our family.

Our Next Thirteen Months

• Right now:  We are in Indiana, on our Christmas break.  Spending as much time as possible with our dear family, friends and supporters!

• January through May 2015:  an intensive Linguistics Program--down in MO at the MTC where we just graduated.  Some of our classmates are staying for this Ling program, and some have opted not to.  It is optional.

• Summer 2015:  We will be home in Indiana.  Summertime activities/goals will include:
• Finishing up Partnership Development (check out this link for more on that)
• Family vacations (with both my family and Nathan's family)
• More traveling (to various places, including to visit our wonderful church families in both Leo and Detroit)

• August-October 2015:  We will do a practicum in Oklahoma, to put our Ling training into practice!  This includes: living among the Cherokee, having a Cherokee language helper, and basically doing what we have been trained to do!  Figure out the language, develop an alphabet, etc.  We have heard from many people that this part of the training is hugely beneficial, but also hugely challenging :)

• October--December 2015:  Back in Indiana.  We will be:
• spending lots of time with family and friends, soaking it all in.
• finishing up paperwork for Papua New Guinea
• packing stuff up
• celebrating "one last" Christmas, etc etc etc...

• January 2016:  Our departure date!  Saying goodbyes, flying to Papua New Guinea...man, I get teary-eyed just typing this.

I hope this helps!   These next thirteen months are going to fly by, we just know it.  We are praying that we will just keep gaining momentum, fixing our eyes on what God has for us in Papua New Guinea.  We appreciate you all so very much!

We are "engaged"!!

That's how it feels right now anyway :)

We are thrilled to tell you guys about a huge prayer that God has answered for our family.  This past semester, our prayer has been that God would provide us with partners/coworkers in our tribe in Papua New Guinea (PNG).  And my personal prayer has been that God will give us coworkers who would be like family...and honestly, I never expected Him to answer this prayer on this side of the ocean. 

Well, God has blown us away in answering this prayer!  This past week, we have had some really good conversations with our very good friends, David and Emily, about partnering together!  Neither of us couples had really planned to partner with anyone until getting to PNG, but the way God has orchestrated everything has been amazing.  

So we are overjoyed to announce that God has provided us with this awesome family to be our partners in the tribe!

 (meet the Rimestads:  David, Emily, Calvin and Louise)

God is just so gracious.  Emily and I have grown super close this semester, and now He is allowing me to go to the tribe with her.  Amazing.

And David is pretty awesome, too.  They really are such a great couple. I so wish all of you back home could meet them!

Calvin is very good buddies with my girls, too...an extra blessing.  (Actually, Layla and Calvin got "married" the other day in their preschool class...haha!  This could be interesting!)

So anyway, it really does kind of feel like we are "engaged" to the Rimestads!  This week is our last week together here in MO.  (Nathan and I are staying next semester for a specialized linguistic training, but they are not...they will be moving back home to CA tomorrow morning...sniff sniff)  :(   

So we have been maximizing our time with them this week--having hours and hours of really good and open conversation.  It is a big deal to partner with someone doing tribal missions--most likely we will be in the jungle with them for around 20 years!

We are praising the Lord right now, for His goodness to us.  His love is astounding, isn't it?  Will you please join us in praying for this sweet family?

wrapping up our training...

This is our last week of missionary training...can't believe we are here already!  Even though it feels like we have been in training for a looooong time, it has also flown by.  Just 2 more days now (except Nathan and I are doing another intensive training next semester--more on that later).

We had our last ELINC group.  ELINC stands for:  Equipping through Listening, Interacting, Nurturing and Challenging.  It has been our small discipleship group for the past 3 semesters, and we met every week with them.  We have shared some very good times with this group (there are 3 people missing from the picture, so this isn't quite everyone).  We LOVE these people!

A good friend of ours got married last weekend!  It was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been to.  And my rockstar mom came all the way down to Missouri to watch our kiddos that night!!

Lol...I didn't like the first picture (above) because I thought my arm looked too big :)  So on the second one, Nathan kindly covered it up for me.  Ha!

Some of my very dear classmates--what a great group of ladies!

And our sweet friend, Deborah.  It was so much fun to be there to celebrate with her--we have been in training with Deborah since the beginning, in MI.  Congrats Deborah!  (and Matt, of course!)

And in the midst of everything, we have been working hard in some great classes.  This class is called Semantics and Translation, and it is so fascinating!  It is giving us a glimpse of what it might look like to translate the Bible into our tribal language someday.  God help us!  We will need His help on this for sure--it is such a huge and weighty task.  What a responsibility, huh?  We are so thankful that we will have consultants to help us check our translation along the way, and we are super thankful that we will have partners helping us.  And of course, we are so thankful for God's grace, which we know will be sufficient!

If you want to pray for us, we would appreciate it--we have some tough goodbyes coming up soon :(  More on that later, too!

learning about suffering.

A class that has impacted me greatly this semester was "Suffering" class.  To be honest, I haven't experienced a whole lot of suffering in my life so far.  So I do realize that there are others who have experienced far more than I have, and could really weigh in on this subject!  But even though I haven't had many trials in my life so far, I know that I will--not just because I'm going overseas to live in a jungle, but because of what God's Word tells us:

1 Peter 4:12-13:  Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you.  Instead, be very glad--for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering.

Like our teacher in class said:  CENTRAL to a biblical worldview is suffering.  We live in a fallen world!  And maturity in Christ comes through suffering--not by circumventing it.

We really should never be surprised when we suffer, or when we see suffering in the world.  This world is not heaven!  Although we do have that amazing hope, we must wait, because this world is not a playground--it is a war zone!

Phil. 1:29:  "For you have been given not only the privilege of trusting in Christ, but also the privilege of suffering for Him."  

It is so easy to read this stuff and agree with it in my head, but how will I handle it when I truly do experience suffering?  How will I handle it when we have to:

•  hug our family and friends goodbye in just a little over a year?
•  experience culture shock?  
• get bit by poisonous centipedes, or get malaria?  
• Or when I have to say goodbye to my husband for weeks as he treks through the jungle checking out tribal locations for us to live in, or builds our jungle house?
• Or when we have to say goodbye to our 18-year old Kaine, leaving him in America--and we fly back to Papua New Guinea?

Who knows what our future will bring.  All I know for sure is, it won't be easy, because we live on Planet Earth!  Suffering and trials happen.  

So, when I think of all of this, I can do one of 2 things:

#1:  get very anxious

#2:  RENEW MY MIND in God's Word.

I will share just a couple of truths that are so helpful to renew my mind with.  

 

• God loves me--individually!  This will never never never change, no matter what my circumstances are!  His love for me will always be constant.  This past semester I can see in countless ways the ways that God has shown love to me--individually.  He has been so good.  Which should never be surprising, right??  Psalm 139 is a great passage to study--prepare to be amazed :)

• And Jesus tells me in His Word:  "I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.  in the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world!" (John 16:33).  Not that he will fix my circumstances, or make things all comfortable for me, but that he will give me peace in the midst of suffering.  

Wow, I am so thankful for God's Word.  I pray that my mind will continue to be renewed in these truths as we move forward in our journey to Papua New Guinea.

thankful for thanksgiving :)

It was so good to be back home for Thanksgiving!  Three months away from home is just too long. (don't worry, I do realize that it will be far worse when we move to Papua New Guinea!  God's grace will be sufficient, that's what I keep going back to!)

We had about 4.5 days in Indiana, and we made every moment count :)  It was a very busy weekend...filled with family and friends!

We started out by visiting my dear grandma, who had moved into a nursing home since I last saw her.  It was so good to visit with her!  I love my grandma :)

The first night, we had a double birthday party for Layla and Ivy.  They both have November birthdays, and Jill and I thought it just made sense to do a double party.  The girls were very excited, as you might imagine!  Here they are, decorating for their party...

I just love this picture of my dad with the birthday girls :)

Matching "Frozen" gifts...if you couldn't tell by these pictures, these girls like that movie!!

My mom had some crafts planned for the girl cousins (same craft I made as a child!  Love those star ornaments, mom!!)

It was so much fun to just be with our parents and Aaron and Jill's family!  By the way, epic fail on my part--I didn't get any pictures of us at Nathan's parents' house!  So sorry Dad and Mom M!  I'll make up for it at Christmas :)

This was a very cooooold day!  But I don't think these girls even noticed!

Nathan and I had a fun date together--in the middle of the night!!  Last year we did the same thing...we went shopping on Thursday night after our kids were in bed.  It is so much fun and just so strange to be shopping at Kohls and Target with tons of people at midnight!  We also met up with our dear friends for a Starbucks date at 2 am...so much fun!  We dropped into bed around 4 am...and I felt it the next day, that's for sure!  Totally worth it, though :)

Another of the evenings, we were so glad to get together with friends!  It was great to get these two cuties together again...

Our friends who hosted us also planned a fun game.  It was a dads/boys vs. moms/girls game, so right away that made it super fun.  By the way, the girls' team won :)

Here are the boys, ready to dominate us girls!

Each team had to complete five "missions"...such as this one, where us girls had to make brownies without reading any instructions.  Let's just say they turned out...interesting :)

The boys' team had to make a pyramid...good job, guys!

I just love stick on mustaches...so adorable :)

I was also so glad to be in town for my friend Christy's baby shower.  It was so fun to sit with these ladies and reminisce about high school days...haha!  We've all grown up a lot since then :)

It was such a fun weekend, but also good to get back to training.  We only have 3 weeks of training left until we graduate...and I cannot believe how fast it has all gone.  Wow.  More to come soon!

A day to celebrate Layla :)

Today was Layla's birthday!  She turned five years old...she is growing up so much.  This girl brings our family an unspeakable amount of joy!  She is very fun and spunky and so sweet and affectionate.  I thank the Lord for blessing our family with Layla Raine!

Just for fun, here are some baby pictures of Layla.  I cannot believe these were five years ago!  What a sweet baby she was (with quite a head of hair!)

And here she is today.  What a beautiful little five year old!  We started out her day with pink oatmeal...a "daddy special" :)

Some very dear friends took us out for lunch today, and the waitress brought out a huge bowl of ice cream for Layla!

Our other kids were happy to share it with her :)  I love Daisy in this picture!

And we finished the day with a cute Hello Kitty cake tonight--provided from the Lord in the "food pantry" here at MTC!  (basically a place where food donations go...so this $20 cake was free!  Thank you Lord!)

We love you so much, Layla!  We couldn't be more proud of you and we are so excited to see what the Lord does in your life.  Happy Birthday!!

"catch up post" #3: some halloween cuties :)

Wow, Halloween seems like so long ago now!  Now it is almost Thanksgiving...how time flies.  

On Halloween, Kaine and Halle had a little "parade" at their school.  Parents could come and watch, and then join the kids in their classrooms for a Halloween party.  I love school events that I can attend for my kids!

I love this pic of my sweet Halle, so proud of her Elsa dress.  And I love that the two other girls in this picture also have Elsa dresses!  Oh my goodness, in that parade it really seeme like 50% of the girls were dresses like Elsa.  That crazy movie!  (But just fyi...I secretly love it!  And check down below to see what ALL of my daughters dressed up like for Halloween!!) :)

I went back and forth between two classrooms...at Kaine's party...

...and Halle's party.  I brought Layla with me that day, and Halle so sweetly shared all of her treats with her little sis.  I just love love love moments like that!

That evening, our family walked around the MTC campus for trick or treating.  Such fun.  And yes, my three girls ALL have Elsa dresses.  Some of you may see these resurfacing as Christmas presents next month, too :)

My youngest Elsa :)

My girls were thrilled to knock on our friends' door and see their sweet baby Louise dressed up like a little strawberry!  She was so adorable...right when we all saw her we couldn't stop gushing over her cuteness:)  (I think in this picture she is getting tired of all the gushing though...)

The girls sang "Let It Go" when people gave them candy :)

We met up with a bunch of other cuties...we just love living on this campus!

Thanks for putting up with all of these "catch up posts"!!  This might be the last one...we shall see :)

"catch up post" #2: snake adventures.

A few weeks ago, Nathan was across campus when he and a friend spotted a copperhead snake!  To kill it, our friend ran over it with a car...repeatedly :)  Nathan brought it home to show our kids, and Kaine really wanted to skin it!   Nathan thought it sounded like a good idea, so he and Kaine skinned their first snake!

There was quite an audience of little people :)

I was really impressed with Kaine--he is so much braver than his mama!  I am so proud of both of my men :)

Then, a week or so after that, we were driving along and saw another snake slithering across the road!  (Shudder!!)  If it were just me, I would flee that thing as fast as I could.  But Nathan...nope.  He stopped our van and got out, to try and capture it.  Ha!  It was a pretty busy road, so we had some cars to wait for.  The poor snake got ran over THREE times while we were watching it!  And then it was still alive!  

Nathan went into the road and hooked it with a bungee cord from our van...

And then he tried to coax it into a sack...and he hooked it to the top of our van.  Sigh.  Life is interesting with that man!

So now, we have 2 snake skins in our house.  Pretty gross, if you ask me.  But actually, this is very good training for our future life in the jungle!  And I am VERY thankful that Kaine seems to be decently brave around snakes...I hope he will be willing to be my "snake killer" in the tribe :)