If only it was THIS simple!
Here we are now, settling in for 3 weeks at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It’s beautiful and peaceful here, and we’re enjoying fellowship with some special Colorado relatives and friends.
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| Phonemics and Grammar (!!) |
We are spending this time here so that I can do my linguistic write-up on the Cherokee language, which I spent the last 7 weeks studying. We arrived here yesterday, and today I spent my first full day of analysis. For details about what I’m doing, I must refer you to some of our previous blog posts (Jan 2013 – present).
Many of you know that linguistics has proved to be a ‘rocky road’ for me. I anticipated enjoying it and excelling at it, but the difficulty and pace of the course, and simply my own limitations, proved to me otherwise. It’s been a bit frustrating. But I’m thankful to have learned many principles of linguistics which should certainly be (some sort of) an asset to our future church planting team. 🙂 It has also been a ‘special’ season for Noe as well, as he had the ordeal pleasure of watching 8 children every morning for those 7 weeks!
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| Beautiful girls, and beautiful oak tree in Nebraska |
And finally we’ve begun experiencing some emotional rockiness as we have begun saying goodbye to family and friends in Missouri and the Midwest. Lots more of that to come in the months ahead. That is the tough part for sure! Please pray for us that He will bring us encouragement and joy in this rocky part of the journey.
You know, one Thanksgiving, some friends joined us in Cannon Beach, Oregon for dinner. One gal brought a bowl of unique rocks. I was working that night, so Noe picked out one for me. It was rough and jagged. But when I turned it over, the other side was completely smooth. This rock comes to mind at the moment, because in the midst of the ‘turmoil’ we’ve been experiencing, He has shown Himself faithful AGAIN and AGAIN. The evening before we left Missouri, Noe came home with a card. In the card was a significant gift. Not only is the love of that family overwhelming, but what takes it over the top is that EVERY time we have moved to EVERY next step of this journey, He has provided for us- financially, with friendships, with prayer from His children… It is as though He is saying, “Yes this is difficult, but look! I’m with you! Go!”
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| Let us enjoy His goodness (and some coffee and cake) no matter where we are in the world! 🙂 |
So as long as He continues saying “Go!” (and as long as He is with us, as Moses also pleaded), we will keep running this race with confidence in Him. It is a wonderful thing to be a part of what His heart beats for! Are you involved?
~the Martinez family