this thing called "ling"

This next semester, Nathan and I will be taking an intensive Linguistic training--otherwise known as "Ling".  A lot of our schedule will look the same as before...

• Kaine and Halle will still go to the public school in town (this is their last semester of that)
• Layla and Daisy will still go to their preschool childcare class here on campus
• Nathan and I will still attend classes every morning (from 8:00 to noon)

However, there will be some differences from our other semesters of training...

• We fully expect our minds to be consumed by this thing called Ling.  Our Ling instructor even told us in an email: "I should warn you.  After this class you will never think the same way again...You might even become a little nerdy."  Haha!  Awesome!
• We will have WAY more homework than before.  Actually, today a friend (who took Ling last semester) told Nathan that MOST days he was able to get his Ling homework done in 4 hours.  Other days, it was more than 4 hours, and some less.  Hmmm...

So, Nathan and I have been thinking about the upcoming semester.  It is a bit rare for both the husband and the wife to BOTH take Ling, but after prayer and counsel with respected staff, we feel this is the right decision for our family.

But.  Thinking through the logistics of it is tricky.  Just think, if we EACH have 4 hours of homework every day, how will that work out?

We are trusting God to help us be productive and efficient this semester as we tackle Ling, family life, and preparations for Papua New Guinea.  We are fully expecting the semester to be VERY. BUSY.

But that is okay!  Actually, this will be phenomenal training for our ministry in Papua New Guinea, because we know that our lives there will be very full as well.

All this to say...we appreciate your prayers as we will start Ling tomorrow!  We really want to get as much out of our training as we can, but also balance that with our family life.  Another focus of our semester will be to be more intentional with our kids in helping them to develop good habits of being in the Word.  We have been  talking with them about ideas of how our family can make it work (time for reading and reflection, and then sharing with each other).  We tried it out yesterday, and it went great!  So we want to make time for that.

 (our first day of "family Bible study")

And of course we want time to just have fun together as a family.  We know it will all work out, we just need to be intentional.

(These two are so AWESOME.  Love them!!)

With the semester being so busy, I will probably not be blogging as much.  I will update it occasionally, but it just takes time, you know?  I will try to do more with instagram, which I find takes way less time.  You can follow me:  @rachebethm.

We love each one of you!  We thank God all the time for how loved and supported we feel.  Thank you!