Over the past four years we have had the opportunity to learn so much! It’s hard to encapsulate it in a short article, but we’ll give you some highlights.
- 2 years of in-depth Bible study with the added bonus of the focus on missions
- 1 year of Missions Instutute – instruction in church planting, cross-cultural communication, culture investigation, and practical skills for living in remote settings
- 1 year of Language Institute – instruction and hands-on experience in learning another language and culture. Focus on understanding and analyzing an unwritten language with the goal of putting it into writing and eventually giving tribal people the Bible in their own language. Other classes included literacy and field medicine.
You might think that when we graduate in May we will be done with our training! However, that is not the case!! After spending the summer with our home church and Emily’s family in PA, we will be returning here to Missouri for one additional semester of linguistic training. It will be a challenge as we will both be taking the course and we have 2 young children. We feel that it will be a great benefit, though, as we look ahead to learning an unwritten tribal language with the goal of sharing God’s message with the people. Please check back for more about linguistics.
Upon our graduation in May we will officially be members of New Tribes Mission and will begin the Partnership Development phase. We hope to be able to share our future ministry with some churches this summer. However, since we will be in school from August – December, we will not be able to do that full-time until January 2008.
We are excited about serving the Lord in the country of Papua New Guinea – sharing God’s truth with tribal people who have never yet had the chance to hear!