Road Trip

Early tomorrow morning I will be taking off for Chicago. I will be spending about a week in Chicago with family and then I will be heading up to Waukesha to pick Zachary at Bible school. My mother's health is very poor and so I want to be able to be a help to my folks. My parents are also going to be celebrating their 50th anniversary next month so I will be working with some of my siblings on planning for the big party. It will also be very nice to connect with our kids again. I would appreciate your prayers as I travel tomorrow. I am gald I won't have to deal with any snow. (smile)

Cave In

These are a few pictures of our house in jungle camp and as you can see there is a bit of a cave in. Our students build their house with poles and then use plastic for the roof and sides. Since there are two staff families that move up to jungle camp every year there are two staff houses that stay up all year round. Last year we got a new roof on the staff house that has been ours these past five years. The old roof had leaked for over 20 years and it was also very dark and hard to see especially if it was a rainy day. We were thrilled to have a new tin roof put on our house last year. There were even a few clear plastic panels which really brighten our place up. The team that was putting our roof on last year checked out our beams and they seemed like they were still strong. We got a lot of snow this winter so maybe it was too heavy for the roof. When all the snow melted and we went up to check on our house, we found the CAVE IN. The walls of our house are plastic so we always have a lot of repairs to make on our walls but it looks like this year there will have to be some major work done on the roof before we move in.

Come One, Come All

There was a crowd of people gathering in the gym here on campus last night. One of the main events for the evening was a dessert auction. This was another fund raiser to help raise money for field trips. As you can see all the desserts looked wonderful. (YUM, YUM!!!) The auctioneer did a great job of trying to sell the goodies while getting the highest price possible. Ruth was able to get in on the action by helping to display each item being bid on. It was fun to see everyone getting into the spirit of the auction to help raise money for the school. I would like to say it was a success but for those walking home with no dessert in their hand it might have been a sad walk home. (smile)





























There were a couple of musical performances by students from the academy and one little girl did an awesome hula hoop number. However the other main event of the evening was a mini musical called "Stone Soup". The 1st-8th graders have been working very hard for several month on this mini musical. Last night they presented it to family and friends. Titus played the part of a traveler. Anyone who knows how much he loves walking sticks can see his part was perfect for him. The kids did a great job and it was a lot of fun watching them. There were two ladies heading up this play and working with the children and they put in many hours outside of official play practice to see this whole thing come together. But all their work and effort as well as the childrens' paid off and it was an outstanding performance!

Pizza Anyone?

Ruth and Titus have the privilege of going to school right here on the campus. The school is called the "NTMC Academy". It is a small school of 39 students. It is so nice that the kids are in a Christian environment with a staff of teachers who not only educate our children but have a desire to see them grow and walk with the Lord. They try to make school as affordable as possible. The tuition covers only the cost of books, heating and electricity, and things like that. There isn't money for extras like field trips. So this past week has been a week of fund raisers. On Saturday there was a Bike-A-Thon. Tonight there is going to be a dessert auction, and from the 7th - 9th there is New Orleans Pizza Fundraiser Nights. Every pizza that is bought from someone from the school, New Orleans Pizza is donating half the proceeds to the school. (Way to be New Orleans!) Ruth was not able to do the Bike-A-Thon since she was working. However, she did want to support her school and she loves pizza. So she had a couple of friends over and treated us all to a pizza supper. It was such a nice treat, plus fun, knowing that it was helping out her school.

RENEWED

Ruth and I woke up and took off early this morning for a trip into Toronto to renew Ruth's U.S. passport. Her old passport had expired and we were waiting for her to turn 16 so she could get an adult passport. We don't know yet whether her Mozambique trip is going to work out but we want to have everything in place for her to travel. Everything went well and we were in and out of the embassy within a 1/2 hour so it worked out that we only had to pay for a 1/2 hour of parking. (YES!) We were pretty close to the 1/2 when we got out of the embassy so Ruth ran the couple blocks to the parking lot to get our keys and turn in our slip. It was quite funny because there was a man who walked out of the embassy the same time we did and when Ruth took off running he was blown away at how fast she could run. (All her jogging in preparation for field day is paying off. SMILE!) Ruth is looking so serious in the picture as the lady at the photo studio would not let her smile in her passport picture, even though the application say that you can smile. Oh well!









Do I need to say more, I think the cup speaks for itself, the trip was a success!

Put a SPRING into your step

What happens when you have three bored kids, six springs, and a roll of duct tape? Well the possibilities are endless. But our kids bounced into action. You talk about good cheap fun. As you can see Vern helped the kids get their SPRINGS duct taped onto their shoes. At first it was a little hard to maneuver but once they got the hang of it they were bouncing all over the place. They definitely had a SPRING in their step.

Jungle Camp Class

This morning we all headed up to the bush for a jungle camp class. We went to the different storage buildings and looked at some of the supplies that there is for the students to use. Then we went to one of the jungle camp lots and it was explained and then demonstrated how to square up a jungle camp house. We went over the water system up in the bush and how that works. We have an old student house still standing so that the students can see how a house is put together. We went over and looked at the stove which is one of the biggest projects that the students will work on in their house. The stove was not it that great of shape as it has been there for almost five years and a lot of moisture has gotten in. But it was still good to look at to see generally how a stove will look. Then the students were free to go to their sights take measurements, look at their supply of poles, and continue to work on their house plans. The students will start building their jungle camp house on June 4th and on June 16th it is move up day. Between now and then I will probably have different posts as we get closer and closer to the jungle camp move up day. Please pray for our students as there is a lot of planning that takes place during these weeks as they finish up their canning, make meal plans, get the needed supplies for building, and they start buying their month's worth of groceries.

Team Work

Last night was the last night of Awana until September. When I was asked in August to start a Cubbies club at our church I felt a bit overwhelmed with the responsibility. As I prayed about it, I was was willing, but I knew I could not run a club on my own. These are my two faithful and dedicated leaders who were such a HUGE help in the Cubbies club this year. They gave 100% of themselves at Club and they were a blessing to me as well as all our little Cubbies. Thanks Theresa and Ruth for being a shining light to these little one!

Parents To Be

One of the things we enjoy most about being here are the relationships we build with the students. Our lives have been so blessed and enriched by all the friendships we have made. We are so thrilled to see our students finish up and head to the mission field. But it definitely pulls on our heart strings as we don’t know if our paths will ever cross again after they leave here. Let me introduce you to Andrew and Amberlynne Claussen. They are just finishing up their first year of the training here and are one of the couples that we had in for discipleship every week. Right now they are heading toward Indonesia. How neat to see young couples like the Claussens willing to serve the Lord overseas! They announced about six weeks ago that they were going to become parents in October. We are so thrilled and excited for them. They will make great parents. Please be praying for our students in the training as they prepare to serve the Lord on the mission field.

Class Update

In the church planting course there are many different things that have been covered over the course of the year. Last semester our students studied a group of Indian people called the Yuroks. They listened to many tapes and learned about the Yurok culture and way of life. The students also studied how one goes about cross-cultural evangelism withing a church planting context. New Tribes Mission has seen the value in teaching people chronologically starting in Genesis. It lays a firm foundation. We are in the last week of the "Church Planting" class. All our students were given a Bible lesson that they were supposed to prepare. They were to write up the Bible lesson following the "Building on Firm Foundations" lesson plans but they were supposed to write them as if they were teaching the Yurok people. The students were supposed to pull in as many examples as they could to make it understandable to the Yurok people. This week the lady and men have split up and each person is presenting their Bible lesson to their group. The ladies have done such a great job. Each lady has their own style of teaching. It has been good to see how they have tried to get their audience involved and made it as interactive as possible. (There have been some really great ideas that I have written down and I will try to incorporate next year as I teach in Awana.) Although this is only a glimpse of what it will be like teaching cross culturally in a tribal setting, it has been a good expereince.