When you’re riding in a car with a new driver, you’ll notice that it’s not necessarily a smooth ride. Instead it’s often jerky: sometimes you feel like you’re at a standstill, then you jerk ahead just to slow down again. It’s after the new driver has gotten the hang of the gas and the break that they start to drive more smoothly.
Here sometimes I feel like I’m in a car with a new driver like that. As you know, my desire is to move out into a village among an unreached people group to be able to bring them God’s Word in their own language. Sometimes it seems as if I’m not making any progress in that direction, and then at other times it seems like I’m heading full-speed ahead and will be there before I know it or know what to do once I get there.
Yes, lately I’ve had some of those full-speed-ahead moments! Let me show you a little bit of what God’s put in place, including a teammate and a people group to work among!!!
You heard that right. I have a teammate! Some of you met Jen this last summer when she came out to visit me for a week in Wisconsin. She has been in Senegal for a few years, and now is planning on coming out to My Country in March! She will then have to study Jula here in the city as I continue on with my PGA work a bit more. Then, likely in 2016, we plan to be moving and working among Our People group! We actually know the name of the people group! They are one of the people groups that we researched on our PGA trip at the end of 2013. As time goes on I’ll tell you more about what I know (and what I’ll be learning) about them.
So here’s what the timeline looks, though the farther out it gets the more and more tentative it is:
* Beginning of March – Meetings in Senegal with NTM leadership to learn how we go about starting to work with a new people group. After that, Jen comes back to My Country with me!
* April – go back to the US for my brother Jeff’s wedding. 🙂
* June – continue on from the US to Senegal for NTM’s West Africa Field Fair. Then continue on to My Country.
* The rest of 2015 – continue to be engaged in PGA work, as well as starting to research and get involved among the People Group
* Beginning of 2016? – Jen and I will begin to form relationships among our People Group.
* End of 2016? – Move into a village in our people group to start the process of language and culture acquisition all over again
* After that – Lots of work, and after that, at some point in the future, Lord willing there will be a church planted with Scriptures that they can read!
I’m so excited for what God is doing and preparing! As you can tell, though, I’ll need lots of prayer for all of these upcoming changes. If you think of it, please pray for me, for us, and for our people group.