{"id":259,"date":"2012-02-08T22:14:24","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T03:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/?p=259"},"modified":"2012-02-09T09:41:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-09T13:41:37","slug":"smith-update-jan-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/2012\/02\/08\/smith-update-jan-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Smith Update Jan 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Dear Supporting Friends and Family,<\/p>\n

Show of hands, How many of you love roller coasters? Ah, many hands went up, but still some did not. Since some people do not appreciate roller coasters we have refrained from sending out an update for a while. I\u2019m referring mainly to our desire to get to the other village for evangelistic teaching. It\u2019s been a roller coaster to say the least. We\u2019ve taken you along that ride and decided to wait to communicate with you all again until we knew something a little more definite. I, for one, love roller coasters and have laughed and cried all along this trip. But for now let\u2019s disembark and take a deep breath.<\/p>\n

After much prayer, hiking, and consulting we will do a literacy outreach first. This will give us time to establish a presence in that village and \u201cgive them a picture of Christ.\u201d The other village has agreed to build a literacy school and a house for the teachers. All of them still aren\u2019t completely on board with hearing the Bible yet, so we will use literacy as sort of a John the Baptist to prepare the way. Please pray for this to succeed. We don\u2019t have dates yet, but will let you know as things progress.<\/p>\n

The two believing villages continue to grow and discipleship opportunities abound. It is so good that we are still here. Some believers still struggle with security of salvation or slip back into old thinking. While others continue to grow and flourish. For example, two married couples (one pictured below) recently desired to make changes in order to glorify God in their marriages. Sometimes the challenges make it tough to be here, but we wouldn\u2019t trade anything for being a part of these believers\u2019 lives as they grow. It\u2019s the greatest joy there is!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Family Stuff: Recently our family got to take a break in town at our mission center. There we have the privilege of seeing a mission doctor and getting everyone\u2019s teeth cleaned by the mission dentist. There is a school there on center and each one of our kids got to go for four days. They enjoyed it very much and loved interacting with other friends. But probably the highlight for Esther and I was the report we received on Caleb. As most of you know he struggles with a learning disability. This has even almost brought us to having to leave the tribe in order to meet his specific challenging needs. However, the Lord has provided a way. There is a trained specialist on the mission center who has given his life to serve missionaries and their children to help them receive the education they need. He could be in the States making much more money and living much more comfortably. But he has chosen to live here and serve the church by helping missionaries. Anyway, he tested Caleb several years ago and revealed Caleb\u2019s challenges to us. We made adjustments but the progress has been slow and painful, especially for Esther.<\/p>\n

On home assignment in \u201909-\u201910 school year the Lord provided a way for us to enroll him in a special program called \u201cDiscovery,\u201d and the specialist there also tremendously helped us with our specific needs of living in a tribe. Equipped with curriculum designed for these needs, we returned here in 2010, believing that God would improve things with him and enable us to remain in the tribe to serve the Dinangat Church. For the past year and a half we have seen improvement but were reluctant to claim anything as we can\u2019t properly test him. While we were on center we asked this man, Mitch Hoskins to retest Caleb and see how things are going.<\/p>\n

Well, the report was great! Mitch, the specialist said that Caleb made great improvements, much beyond what he normally sees! This was a huge affirmation to Esther\u2019s perseverance and patience and Caleb\u2019s hard work. It\u2019s been a tough row to hoe, but it has been amazing seeing God provide all that we need along the way, enabling us to remain here in the tribe.<\/p>\n

Likewise God uses each of you to the same end! Thank you for your faithfulness and support all these years. It\u2019s a privilege serving with you.<\/p>\n

Gary for all us Smiths in Dinangat<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Supporting Friends and Family, Show of hands, How many of you love roller coasters? Ah, many hands went up, but still some did not. Since some people do not appreciate roller coasters we have refrained from sending out an update for a while. I\u2019m referring mainly to our desire to get to the other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-ministry","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/gary-smith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}