A Glimpse of Our Snowy Adventures

Aidan getting airborne!

Paul takes the boys for a hike every morning!

The boys had such a fun time in the snow!

Aidan's miniature snowman

The results of freezing fog

MTI -The Lost Post

***This post is out of order, but I thought it was lost and just found it.  Those closest to me will understand!

MTI, or Mission Training International, will be our home for a month.  It is located in Palmer Lake, CO, and to say that the area is beautiful would be an understatement.  We are in a kind-of compound nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with 27 other missionary families.  It has been such a blessing for our family!  Friendships were quickly formed between kids and adults alike.

The weekdays are filled with classes that guide language acquisition and phonetics right now.  We are busy working out our lips and tongues all day (while watching our mouths contort in a mirror)!  It feels great to be a little silly, as it relieves the pressure that we all feel about learning new languages for the sake of the gospel.  I will NOT be posting pictures of these exercises!  We also have counseling sessions and sessions about expectations and the paradoxes of going/leaving.  The days are mentally tiring, but we always feel just a bit more prepared, a bit more confident, a bit more 'normal' at the end of them.  Our friendships go a little deeper each night as we sit around and process everything we've learned that day.  We grow a little closer as we share our stories and our struggles with one another.  It is hard to describe how sweet this time is!

The boys are having a blast and they are learning the same things that we are.  They go on field trips, talk about their Yay moments and their Yuck moments, and they spend time with other kids who are getting ready to say goodbye to all of their friends.  Elijah has learned how to sing "God is so good" in French and Swahili.  Aidan is learning Hindi, as well as "God is so good" in four languages!  The best part about this is is that their confidence is being built.  They are discovering that they can learn a new language and it can be fun.  We love seeing their faces when they share their new accomplishments each day!

The program here is intense, but they are mindful of this and our class days end at four during the week and we have the weekends off.  That means time for processing the info we shoved in our brains and time to relax and have fun so we are ready for the challenges of the next day.  Today we are headed to Pike's Peak!

The Days Are Just Packed!

This has been a very intense first week at MTI (Mission Training Institute).  In the words of Bill Watterson, The Days Are Just Packed!  It was a great week and, despite being a bit overwhelmed, I am so thankful to be here right now, just focusing on strengthening our family and preparing for our move. 

 We get up and eat breakfast with new friends and then worship all together.  Then the boys go to their classes and Paul and head to ours.  We are all learning the same things, just on different levels.  These first two weeks focus on language acquisition.  We are practicing speaking correctly and clearly and learning phonetics of symbols that I've never even seen, but will soon be using in my everyday conversation.  We watch our mouths in a mirror to make sure our tongues and lips are in the correct position and then commence with the noise making!  There is some laughter, but, for the most part, we are each intent on figuring this language thing out.  I  never realized how exhausting it could be to spend the day learning how to make sounds!  Aidan, Paul and I are each training in a different language.  The idea is to learn HOW to learn a language, so that you gain confidence and can guide language learning with a language helper on the field.  It is an amazing system and we are having fun.    Aidan is learning Hindi and, according to the adults in his group, he is doing very well.  No surprise there!  Paul is learning Bulgarian and I am learning Russian.  We are having a great time!

Besides the language acquisition, we are also having counseling and personal growth sessions.  We are also talking a lot about expectations and the paradox of excitement and sadness that surrounds the going process.  

All in all, it is an emotionally draining process, but the founders of this program are so smart.  Each day ends at 4:oo and we are free to process and decompress in the evenings and on the weekends.  We love hanging out in the evenings, talking with new friends and getting to know one another's stories.  Not to mention, we are living in a truly beautiful place for the next several weeks!  The boys go hiking every morning and we all play outside in the evenings.  

Yesterday, we went to Pike's Peak and that was an adventure!  We got two miles up the ascent and our radiator gave out!  We trekked back down, found a repair shop, rented a car and went back up while the minivan was being fixed.  It was more complicated than we had planned, but it was so amazing!  The summit of the peak is at just over 14,000 ft.  We made it to just over 13,000 (above the tree line) before they turned us  back.  The winds were sustained around 35 mph with gusts up to 80 mph.  Our car was being swayed a bit.  There were almost no guardrails, but the view was awesome!  We got out of the car at 13,000 ft and had to hold on to little Elijah to keep on the top side!  They loved it, but were a little trepidatious at being so high with such strong winds.  We took some pics and then headed back down 10,000 ft where we had seen a picnic area.  There was so much snow and we had plans to have some fun!  In some parts, Paul sank up to mid-thigh!  For the most part, it was 12-18 in deep.  We had never been in snow like that and it was a blast.  Snowballs were thrown, snow angels were made, snow was eaten.  In general, a great time was had by all!  

  

Roadtrippin' With My Three Favorite Allies

We got on the road yesterday and headed west.  I have never driven any further west than Dallas, TX, so I had so much fun!.  We woke up to a thick layer of fog over Shreveport, expecting it to lift at some point.  It never did!  As we headed west and then a little north and then a littler higher, the temperature just dropped steadily (from the 48 degrees in S'port).  It was great and I learned about a new-to-me weather phenomenon--freezing fog!  As we drove, everything become more and more beautiful because it was covered in lovely, silvery ice.  The trees and tall grasses, the fences, the furrowed dirt.  It was amazing and the boys could not stop taking pictures!

All in all, it was a wonderful drive across Texas and we all had fun and kept good attitudes, even though it took about nine hours.

We stopped in Amarillo for the night and stayed with the parents of a very sweet friend. We had such a fun night and they have played with and indulged our boys with stops to play in mounds of snow!  The boys are enthralled with the little piles of snow in the parking lots here, so I cannot wait to see their little faces when we actually catch our first glimpse of "real" snow!  

We are headed out this morning for the second leg of our journey and will arrive at Missionary Training International this afternoon.  We are all more than a little excited!  

THIS Monday?!?!

We have a lot of training coming up in the next few months.  Intense medical training, cross-cultural training, language acquisition training, Bible story/Orality training, etc.  It is a lot of training that will span many topics, and it is be sure to be emotionally draining, as well as absolutely vital for our success on the field.  That's why we thought we might sneak in a vacation before we got started--a little time to laugh with the boys and enjoy some relaxing free-time with family.  That is what we thought we would do.

That is NOT what God had in mind for us.

Paul was on the phone yesterday (Friday) trying to set up our reservations for the month-long training we need in Colorado at Missionary Training International.  I had a trip to Guatemala planned for the first week of March, medical training the last two weeks of March, and an exploratory trip to our new people group in Guatemala in April.  So we knew that we needed to attend the May session to fit our full training schedule, not to mention our family trip this coming week.  Wouldn't you know, the session filled up and a waiting list was started all while he was speaking to the representative!  We weren't sure what to do, but then the rep told us that she had just gotten a cancellation.  "Would you consider coming in on Monday for your training?" she asked.  "THIS Monday?!?!"  

Well, it turns out that we would consider it.  And our advocacy team prayed and considered and recommended that we go.  So, here we are, frantically packing, buying warm socks and boots, gathering schoolwork, and trying to get all of our ducks in a row.  

Praise God for these opportunities to practice obedience!  Praise Him for adventurous little boys who never balk at a sudden change in schedule! And praise Him for a wonderful husband who steadies me when I might quake a bit in my (new hiking) boots!  I may be nervous at times, but I love that I serve a God who constantly stretches me so that I may be well-fitted for His service.  

I'll let you know how it goes!

The Volcano We'll Call Home

   

This is the Tajumulco volcano.  At 13,845 ft, it is the highest point in Guatemala and all of Central America.  Fun Fact:  That makes it a whopping 13,660 ft higher than our current home of Shreveport, LA!  Pretty cool, I think.  Many of you may know that Paul and I are moving our little family to the side of this [dormant, PTL*] volcano.  There are precious people there who have not yet heard that Jesus is Lord and we are humbled that God would use us to share this good news with them.

These past few months of praying and researching and praying some more have been wonderful for my walk with the Lord.  He has constantly reassured me in nervous moments. He has confirmed His plan whenever I have doubted. He has replaced my fearful spirit with one of adventure and boldness.  He has been a faithful lamp at our feet and, when we have cried out for more, He has shone a light on our path.

There is still so much that we do not know about what this new adventure holds, but we know that the Lord will be with us each step of the way.  He promises us His presence.  Matthew 28 tells us, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  How could we ask for anything more than the abiding presence of Jesus?

God told Abram to go.  He told him to leave his country, his people, and his father's household.  He said, "Go to the land that I will show you."  And Abram went, as the Lord had told him.  I am always so thankful to have these acts of faithful obedience to encourage and embolden me in my own walk!

This is our adventure in obedience.  I am excited, nervous, humbled, and, let's be honest, a little bit terrified!  I can't wait to tell you all about it!

*PTL-Praise The Lord