1st blog onsight! Basic Info, etc.

We’re here and if I put off writing any longer I’ll be too overwhelmed with the challenge of conveying everything and probably will just avoid trying… So I’m writing now. Internet is really slow and they pay by the minute so I probably will only update once a week or so.

The girls are staying with Leslie and Loopie Williams who have 4 sons, 2 of which (Tate and Thomas) are at home, and an adopted daughter, Bailey. The oldest son, Logan, is going to be a sophomore at Western Christian College in Canada. He arrives this afternoon. The boys are staying with Craig and Jerri (sp?) Ford until they leave in a couple weeks to have a baby on furlough. Then they will go to Marcus and Diane Reese’s house, and David and Jenna (Marcus brother and sister in law) will live in the Fords house. David and Jenna are not technically interns, but they came too and will do a lot of the same stuff as us. All the families are great, it’s fun to see how they interact. They have fun and a lot of respect for each other.

Traveling took about 30 hours from start to finish and we were all pretty beat. We all had dinner here at the Williams house and then went to bed. 7:00 pm here is 4:00 am central US time and that is what Loopie calls “pumpkin time”. I think being so tired from travel actually helped jumpstart us on getting on schedule here. I still wake up very early, but I stay in bed until 6 and then it’s nice to have time to get ready leisurely and read my Bible before the family is up. I’m going to try and stay on that schedule. It’s such a slower pace of life here, there’s no overwhelming sense of rush and stress like at school. It’s nice.

We skipped Monday flying over the international date line, and then we arrived Tuesday here and Wednesday was a “groove day” as Leslie called it. Basically nothing was planned and we rested. A coconut tree in the yard fell down at lunch and Susan, the woman who works around the house, showed us how to husk a coconut. The women, especially the young women and girls, are very shy here, but Susan talked with us plenty.

Yesterday we went over the tentative schedule for the summer and drove out to the location for the youth camp we’re doing in July. Luke and I rode in the back of the truck on the way out there and enjoyed to GORGEOUS scenery and the friendly people who all wave. People walk everywhere here there’s always lots on the road. We drove out of town about ½ hour and saw more of village life and bush houses than we had so far. At the village where the camp will be we met the man who translated the new testament into T’wala, one of the village languages nearby. There’s about 6 languages just in this Milne Bay area, but pretty much everyone speaks English.

Every update won’t be this long, but there’s some basic things I needed to explain so anything else would make sense.

Pray for: us to have wisdom and boldness and not be selfish. I’m kind of slapped in the face with how selfish I really am. That won’t work here. And pray for the church here.

One week from today we will be on our way to PNG!

Looking back over this past year I can see God working in ways I couldn't have seen at the time. On the surface I would say not all that much happened. I was always busy, and things did happen, but in contrast to other years it was relatively uneventful. But that was used, or caused, by God to give me a firm foundation on Him and to teach me to rely on him and trust him for my future. I think those are things that will be important this summer and in life in general. Also this year and even especially this past week I've been thinking and praying about my identity in Christ, and that goes back to Him being my firm foundation. And I can joyfully and confidently say that whatever context I'm in, I know who I am in Christ, because I know who He is, and I know what He says is true. I was talking with my friend Lacy recently and she was talking about giving God a name for each year, based on what he's done in your life, etc. Well for this past year I would call God "My firm foundation" or "the God who knows". A treasure which I discovered in Matt Miller's bible study this year, and my new favorite verse as of a few months ago, is Psalm 11:3-4 "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne." I think that verse addresses both of those names for God simultaneously.

I haven't tried to directly prepare myself for this summer. I don't think I really can, there's no way I can know what to expect. But I have prayed about it and sought God, and he will give me strength, and each next step as me feet fall, and everything else I will need.

Thank you for praying, God bless you all! I want to hear about your summers and what God is doing in your lives!

First Post! 16 days until departure!

I'm very excited for this summer! We finally got our plane tickets 2 days ago, Hurray! We will leave for Papua New Guinea May 27th and the team will meet up in L.A. I still have to do intercession (a full class in 2 weeks), which ends the 25th, so my mind will be on American History until that's over. I will update when I can over the summer. I don't know how reliable internet is over there, or how much time we'll have to do it anyways.

For those of you that don't know, my fellow interns are Luke Shaffer, Daniel Nicholas, Rachel Gould, and Bekah Gibb. They're all great people and I think we'll have fun and work well together. God has been faithful in this whole process and will continue to be. Praise Him! Please keep me (us) in your prayers this summer. I would love to receive emails or responses to these blogs, it would be a great encouragement! God bless!