recent developments

Two things:

#1.  We have begun an great class called "CLA Methodology".  "CLA" is a very very very important acronym in the Tribal church planting world.  It stands for Culture and Language Acquisition...which is what we will be doing for the first few years upon arriving overseas.  Learning a new culture and language is so much work (not that I would know from experience!) and honestly?  It kind of seems impossible that I, Rachel Mueller, will be doing that some day.  However, I serve a big God and I am confident that He is able--so I will rest in that!

So...that being said, our class that I mentioned is really great.  We are being equipped so well here at the MTC!  Right now in our CLA class, we are broken up into small groups and working with a "language helper" (ours is named Claudio--a guy on staff here at the MTC.  He is from Brazil, so we are going to put our CLA skills into practice with him in learning some Portuguese language and culture).

We went to a "culture event" at Claudio and his wife Edna's house--they served us a Portuguese meal.  It was some delicious food, and a good culture experience :)  Our small group took some pictures of Claudio and other things that night, and we will be using the pictures in our mock language sessions with Claudio starting this week as we start learning Portuguese.

Some of our classmates--I love that our kids are involved in this, right along with us.

Claudio and Edna--great hosts and some mighty good cooks :)

It wouldn't be a true Portuguese culture event without a soccer game!  Kaine was thrilled that Claudio turned the tv on to watch Brazil play soccer!

Our classmates are so amazing with our kids!

And, our second recent development:

#2.  Throughout our training, we have not known for sure what country we will be going to someday.  However, now...we are very excited to announce that we have chosen to serve in Papua New Guinea!  We have always felt drawn to Papua New Guinea (PNG), and we also still want to talk it over with our pastors from our home church, but...we are feeling confident that God is indeed leading us there.  Praise Him--we are very excited about this!

How did we decide on this?  Last week the MTC hosted this thing called the "Field Fair" (my sis Jill did a longer blogpost on the Field Fair...so feel free to check that out!)  But basically, NTM representatives from all over the world came to share about their field, what their needs are, etc.  This picture is of the rep from PNG.  We had lots of opportunities last week to talk with this guy, see videos, hear stories, hear about the vast amount of work still to be done in PNG... and talk with Aaron and Jill about it.  We are all on the same page, so PNG, here we come!