our trip to the west, part one: Viva Las Vegas!

Okay, so normally a city like Las Vegas would not normally appeal to Nathan and me.  Like, never. There are so many people, and just so much blatant immorality!  And I'm a small town girl :) Big cities aren't my fave.  So...why did we go to Las Vegas?

We went to visit this couple!  My cousin Amy and her hubby Brent moved to Vegas one year ago.  God called them to work at a church that had been planted in Las Vegas, called Verve Church.  And let me tell you, it was so encouraging to visit them and to see how God is using them in this city!  (More on Verve at the end of this post).  Here are Brent and Amy:

 (Amy, I stole this picture from your fb page) :)

Brent and Amy were excellent tour guides.  They showed us around the city--they did a great job of showing us all the touristy areas, while being sure to avoid the super shady/scandalous areas :)  It was so much fun to hang out with them for the evening, and to see their house, their church and their town!

It was so great to be reunited with Amy!  I don't get to see her nearly enough :)

Amy showed us around some seriously beautiful areas while Brent was still at work.  Thanks for giving us a tour in the 110 degree heat, Amy!

That night the four of us went out, after Brent got off work.  We went out to eat, and we saw this sign.  Since Nathan and I have adopted the theme of "Making Jesus Famous in Papua New Guinea", we had to take a picture by this FAME sign :)

We love these guys!  What a great time :)

Okay, so Verve Church is truly an amazing ministry.  Basically, they are doing in Vegas what we will be doing in Papua New Guinea--reaching a different culture for Christ.  Because that is what Las Vegas is:  an entirely different culture that "normal" church might never reach.  So Verve Church is a Bible preaching church that just has a different target audience:  the people of Las Vegas!  And they are doing a great job of reaching the people.  It was so awesome to see the church (even though no one was there!), and to hear from Amy about how she is being used as the director of the kid/student ministry.  So cool.  And encouraging!  It was awesome to see how God is using both Brent and Amy for His glory in such a dark city!

photo credit:  https://cdfonline.org/cdf-guy/viva-la-verve

Brent and Amy, thank you so much for hosting us for a night!  And for everything else you did for us.  We are so glad we could come and visit you guys :)  

Part two will be next:  California!

sharing the vision!

A very major part of our summer is sharing with others about our vision, and about what God is doing among the unreached people in the world!  We absolutely LOVE this season.  There are many reasons we love it:

1. We get to talk about something we are very passionate about:  seeing the Word of God go to all people groups, and seeing the Great Commission being fulfilled!  We live in some very exciting times!
2. We get to hang out with lots of friends!  Many of whom we might not ever hang out with.  And it has been so. much. fun.  For us and for our kids :)
3. Our faith is growing daily!  It has been so amazing to see how God is using our brothers and sisters in Christ to send us to Papua New Guinea.  We have so many thoughtful and generous supporters--we have seriously been blown away.  
4. As our team of supporters grows, so does our excitement to GO and do what we are called to do!  It is SO MUCH better doing this with a team behind us, than it would be to do on our own.  We are all in this together, and that is such a beautiful thing.  And very comforting to us!

Here are some pictures of our vision sharing adventures :)

Mark and Barb.  Ohhh, Mark and Barb.  This couple is so amazing.  They host many of our meetings at their house, and they sit in on each and every meeting!  And they never seem to be bored!  Unless they are just really good at acting! ;)  They were also like my second set of parents when I was growing up, so it has been so much fun to hang out at their house again in this season of life.  Thank you, Mark and Barb.  We love you guys!!

Our rockstar parents are also so amazingly helpful!  When we have a presentation with young kids, either my parents or Nathan's parents always come and watch the kids while we talk to the parents.  It is such a huge help!

Many of our meetings took place in other towns.  We were so privileged to hang out with many families this month, and it has been such a blast.  My only regret is that I didn't get pictures at each place we went :(

We loved hanging out with Caleb and Laura and their adorable kiddos.  And Laura made us some amazing avocado enchiladas.  They were sooo good!

We went up to visit my cousin Amber and Ben and their kids.  Our kids were super excited about that!  They always play so well together:)

We went up to visit our church family in Detroit.  The body of believers there is always such an encouragement to us!  There is no way we could ever express our thanks to them, for all that they have done for our family.

So when we were in Detroit, we stayed the night at Jesse and Bonnie's house.  They were amazing hosts!

And we hung out the next evening at Scott and Jamie's house--that was really fun!  And it involved swimming, which our kids were very happy about :)

We went up to visit Jason and Joy and some other families...it was so good to be back at Gateway!  So many good memories.

And we went to West Lafayette to visit our cousins Corey and Erika.  That was a really fun day!  We spent some of the afternoon there, and the kids got out to play in the sprinkler system :)  And they played with a massive blow up yellow ball!  A kid can crawl inside it and the other kids roll them around the yard.  Lol!  They loved that!

Once again, another picture of Nathan being an amazing daddy :)  He is so fun!

We feel so incredibly blessed by our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Thank you, everyone!  And if you would like to hear about our vision and what we will be doing in Papua New Guinea,  just contact us and let us know.  We seriously LOVE sharing with people.  Blessings!

fun with our favorite four people :)

Our family has a very busy schedule this summer!  It is completely filled with so much fun stuff--great times with family and friends, fun family vacations, and VBS.  And lots of amazing evenings of sharing our vision with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ--sharing with them what we will be doing in Papua New Guinea, and inviting many to be a part of it!  It has been awesome!

Our kids are doing just great with everything that we have going on!  But some days, we just like to take time out to spend with our kids, just our family.  They are such fun people to hang out with :)

We live right across the street from the community pool, so we took them there one day.  That was quite a hit with them :)

(but first we rode our bikes to Bummies...our kids cannot grow up without experiencing Bummies!  However, we found out that they aren't big fans of it...crazy kids, they don't know what's good!)

They LOOOOVE this pool!

We also had a day of swimming at my parents' house.  Our kids always love being with their cousins :)  And we hope we will have more swimming days!  The weather hasn't been the most cooperative :)

waiting for my dad to let them in :)

Daisy loves her aunt Jill!

And we have good times in our backyard--the slip n slide is one of our kids' favorite things.  Especially when Nathan coats it with baby oil :)

Good times, sweet memories :)

summertime reunions!

I feel like our summer has been nonstop so far!  Nonstop action, but it's been so. much. fun.

I am definitely feeling the reality that this is our "last" summer before we go overseas.  We always have so much fun in the summer, connecting with friends and family, swimming, going on family vacations...etc.  I am trying to soak it all up!  I know God has so much in store for our future--we will have new things that will become amazing memories, just like we have here in Indiana.  I know He will be faithful to us in PNG, because He has always been here in the USA!

So I really want to document this summer on my blog.  I haven't had a great start, haha!  So here goes the first summertime blogpost :)

We have loved being reunited with lots of people this summer!  This by far does not exhaust all of them!  More to come later, too :)

Grandparents...

My sis...

Cousins...

And really good friends!!

I know this summer is going to end too fast!  So we will try to enjoy each day :)

"Ling"...Part 3

(Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2).

Our Linguistic course is split into two major sections.  The first section takes place in our classroom. We have been learning Phonemics and Grammar (like I wrote about in the last two posts), and doing a TON of homework to apply what we learn.  We have looked at so many languages--most of them are real languages, some are made up--to learn these concepts.  There have been some very late nights and times of frustration because sometimes the homework was just really hard!  But most of the time it wasn't so bad :)  Okay, so that's what we have been doing since January.  We finish it on Friday, praise the Lord!  And then we will be in IN for the summer!

Okay, so the second part of our Ling training is a Practicum and it will be in the fall.  Basically, we will put everything we have learned into practice!  So we will move down to Oklahoma for 8 weeks (mid August through mid October), and we will practice our Linguistics on the Cherokee language.  We will be staying at a camp, along with our fellow Ling classmates/families.  We will have real language helpers (we will pay them) and we will have to "figure out" the Cherokee language.  It's an amazing opportunity that will really help prepare us for the REAL thing in Papua New Guinea.  And I'm sure I will blog plenty about it later :)

Okay, so there ya have it!  Our Linguistic course in a (very small) nutshell.  I hope it helped somewhat!

Oh, and this is an understatement, but we are so excited to see you all for the summer!  Cannot wait to be back in Indiana!


Some pictures from my mom's recent visit:

This woman blesses my socks off when she comes to visit!  She plays with the kids 24/7 (seems like it anyway!)...she brings ALL the food we need for her entire visit, plus tons of snacks.  She takes us out to eat, out to the coffee shop, out for ice cream.  It is always SUCH a treat to have her come!  And of course, we love having my dad too, but he's not as flexible because of work.  But he blessed us by being without mom for a week, which is a sacrifice!  Thank you, mom and dad!

The only thing Daisy wanted at the coffee shop was a bagel.  I really didn't think she would like it, but she LOVED it.  Her preferred system was to first lick off all the cream cheese, and then eat the bagel :)  Lol, that girl!

See all you Indiana folks verrrrrry soon!!!

"Ling"...Part 2

Grammar.

After we finish the Phonemics for a language and make a good alphabet, we are ready to start Grammar!  Of course, we will have been looking at some Grammar while doing Phonemics, but now grammar becomes the focus!

So, I know you are all picturing English grammar (like from middle school--remember diagramming sentences?)  Well, try to wipe English grammar from your mind because most languages have structures that are completely different than English!  (I will give some examples later).

Oh, and also, lots of people hated middle/high school English grammar (Nathan actually failed it!!). But we have really loved learning Grammar in Ling class!  It is fascinating, especially if we keep in mind the fact that we will be doing this with a REAL language someday, and how well we learn the grammar of our tribal language will determine the accuracy and readability (is that a word??) of the Word of God that our team will translate!  So this is a huge responsibility that we do not take lightly at all.

Okay, so basically, Grammar is the way that people use words and their parts in order to form sentences.  So obviously, understanding the grammar of our tribe's language will be absolutely vital to communicate clearly with them!  And communicating clearly is of the UTMOST importance when considering we will be sharing with them the greatest message of all time--the Gospel.

As we write down the words that we hear people saying, we will be breaking them up into their parts to find out how the language works.  For example, in English, to say who owns an object, we use possessive pronouns ("my dog").  However in another language, they may have possession be a part of the word.  (Like in the Mamusi language of PNG--to say "my dog" is the word "kouneou".  The "ou" on the end is the part that means "my".  The rest of the word means "dog").  And that is just one simple example--there are thousands of different ways that each language varies from the other.  Figuring out our tribal language's grammar someday will be huge--long and difficult.  But with our training, we have seen that it is very do-able!  Many have gone before us and done it--by God's grace it can be done!

Grammar has many levels--even once we know the language well, there is still a level of Grammar called "Discourse".  Discourse is basically a bigger piece of conversation--like a whole story.  Or preaching a sermon, or something like that.  And every culture does this differently.

Here is a good example.  In English, if someone were preaching and saying, "God is great!  God is mighty!  And God is faithful!"...to us, we would know that the preacher was just really emphasizing God!  He really wants us to get how awesome God is!  However, our Ling teacher told us about a tribal language in South America.  On discourse level, if we would keep emphasizing "God is this...God is that...etc",each time the word "God" is said, we would be referring to a different person every time!  So you can imagine the extreme confusion we would cause if we would teach our tribal people the ways that we do in English--it is so necessary to learn the way that they do it, in order to avoid confusion or even unintended heresy!

Well, that's a crash course in Grammar.  And we are very thankful for the ways in which New Tribes is training us, because it's a very. big. deal.

Here are our girls with their missionary kid friends :)  Can't wait to see how God will use each of these sweet girls for His glory!

We have been able to have some really good, quality family time.  This is pretty much the most amazing picnic spot we have ever found!

And...Daisy.  Just because...she's pretty much adorable :)

One more part to this series coming up! Stay tuned :)