Stateside: Yes Elias, Grandma's House is a Real Place
Elias meets Great Grandpa and hears about the medals he received from his WWII service.
Landing Stateside
Well, after 8 of Tim’s favorite part of flying (the takeoffs and landings), we were happy to be greeted by family in the airport. What a joy it is to see much missed faces that are not pixelated, to converse freely, and to share meals together. Appropriately we have much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving week. We’ve spent a few days finding pants and jackets for the boys (which they of course hate: ‘These pants are too long, Mom.’ – Elias), fellowshipping with friends at church, trying to figure out the fine print of some cell phone plans, and eating way too much. We are very thankful to our Father that the transition seems to be going so well for us all. Thanks as well to you all who have been praying.
‘Don’t forget us.’ – Soba
Furlough, vacation, down time, sabbatical, or what?
While we know that many of you all have a good idea of what a missionary might do when physically away from his ministry location for 9 months, others of you might not. In the interest of clarifying for the team, we’d like to let you know that home assignment is not a time of vacation. Instead it is a time of retooling. Sure there is a change of pace, locale, and responsibility, but the workload does not decrease. Here are a few things that we will be doing:
· Spending time fellowshipping with believers, encouraging and educating them about tribal missions.
· Organizing and reviewing 8 months of anthropological and linguistic field notes. (They say that for every hour spent in the field, we should spend 2 for organization and review.)
· Researching more of the historical influences and beliefs of the people of Papua New Guinea.
· Retooling - finding and shipping supplies to mend or improve our bush house.
· Teaching our kids about life in America (all that same red, white, and blue goodness in only ¼ the standard time)
Oh, there will be the special times with family and friends as well – we’ll make sure to make this holiday season count – and times of rest (our 10th anniversary is coming up in a little over a month), but we expect to be very much engaged in the Pal work even from 9,000 miles away.
‘Nate, your handwriting is horrible… is that a b or w?’ (two Pal men are interested in my notebook)
Thanks
We’d just like to say again how much we appreciate you all. Your prayers through all of the ups and downs over the last 3+ years, your support, and your friendship have and continue to buoy us up and help the work go forward. Thanks!
Nate for the Cs
Posted via email from PNG Time
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