The last few months have been quite the whirlwind! We’ve hopped from one place to the next after we finished up the Cherokee language practicum in Tahlequah, OK (by the way, it now makes sense to me why there is an “h” in the middle of Tahlequah). Now that we are somewhat stabilized in Fayetteville, AR, here’s the recap on how we’ve spent our time!
We wrapped up our time in Oklahoma at the beginning of October and packed up for the Missionary Training Center in Missouri, so I could work on my Cherokee write-up. It was a daunting task that seemed never ending, but I learned so much from the process!
From here, we took a much needed trip to Waukesha,WI to visit our church, Brooklife, and many of the dear friends we made during our time in Bible School. Incidentally, our friend’s son Kojo taught Rynn how to walk during this time!
Then we hopped a plane to Seattle to visit all of my (Lael’s) extended family. What an amazing time! Just to have the chance to spend quality time with these lovely people over long dinners and morning coffee was so nice. We even got to celebrate some birthdays, including my Grandma’s. What a lady.
After a hectic time of packing up, cleaning, and resettling in Fayetteville, AR (yay!), the Thanksgiving holiday hit, and we whisked ourselves away to Brenham, TX where my brother and his sweet, wonderful family live. Nora/Rynn got some much needed cousin time, and we met littlest cousin Lola for the first time ever! It was such a blessing to have all of my immediate family together on Thanksgiving for the first time in years, along with my aunt Alex and uncle Spencer and Becca’s family. And we felt so welcomed by Becca’s parents opening their home to us!
I felt like we blinked and it was Christmas time! As you all know, we had “A Very Tribal Christmas” in mid-December, and God really moved us through that experience. It was incredible to share about our future in PNG and show the video “bisorioland” for the first time (so convicting!). We were in awe of people’s generous giving. It gave us an encouraging jumpstart on our start-up fund for moving into the tribe!
We spent Christmas between Tulsa and Fort Smith, visiting with family and basking in our last holiday season stateside. After the New Year we made it back to Fayetteville, and since then we have finally been experiencing a mild sense of stability. I think it has done our girls some good to be in one place for a couple weeks.
Through this time, God has brought us so many opportunities to share more about our ministry vision with churches and individuals. It’s been both humbling and wonderful to see friends and family step in to organize events and speaking engagements for us to share our hearts with people we don’t even know, but feel immediately connected to because of Christ. We are so often deeply moved by how God has designed Church to work together in this way. I’m daily thankful for sincere Christ followers who are willing to give sacrificially and prayerfully for the sake of the nations. It’s so humbling and exciting that we get to be a part of that! God is truly growing our faith and dependence on Him.
Our partners, the Sanders and Hambrices arrived to Papua New Guinea a few days ago! Please keep them in your prayers during this time of transition! They made it through a long series of flights with five children total, and now they get to start learning the trade language! We’ll be moving this July, and we just passed the 50% mark for our monthly financial budget! God has truly been gathering an amazing team around us!
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