Monday, September 23, 2013

Since my last blog post...

Since my last blog post...we have been very busy. We took a family vacation to a campsite in another city in Tanzania. We went for 2 reasons. Firstly, we needed some time out of the city with our family. The place we went to had space for us to run around and explore and plenty of bugs to keep us interested and on our toes! :) Thankfully not many of the bugs entered into the room we were staying in. We also went there because we are going to be having a language course there and we wanted to check out the facilities since I am coordinating with the leaders who are not in Tanzania. 
Since my last blog post...Shelbyanne had her 8th birthday, and Donovan had his 4th birthday. They had great birthdays and were very blessed by the gifts sent from family back home. Thank you all so much! Now that Donovan is 4 he is ready to turn 5. At least he knows the order that it goes in. He loved his birthday so much he is ready for the next one. :) 
Since my last blog post...the kids all started school. Snelbyanne is in grade 3. Emily is in Grade 1. Donovan is going to a Tanzanian pre-school near our home. They are all enjoying school. However waking up in the morning is hard to get used to again. I am helping in the Library at the girls school 2 days a week teaching grades K-5 their library skills. I love getting to know the kids and being a part of their lives as well as getting to know their parents. 
Since my last blog post...we have hosted a workshop here for learning about doing People Group Assessments (PGA). PGA is the first steps of getting people into the tribes here in Tanzania. We are excited that this process is starting. We had a great time hosting a good friend of ours for the week of the workshop. I am excited that his wife will be coming in November for a language course and I will get to hang out with her. Someday we will have to get our families together. The kids were together in childcare when we were in training, but they don't remember each other, which I can understand because it was 5 years ago!
Since my last blog post...I have continued on with my work of learning the language and culture, preparing resident permit documents, creating Philosophy documents for our work here in TZ, welcoming new families, preparing to welcome more new co-workers next year, translating children's church materials for the kids at our church, helping coordinate for a language course that will be in TZ in November, but most importantly being a wife and mom of 3 very energetic kids. I am so thankful we are here doing what we are doing. 
Thanks to all of you who are a part of this ministry here through prayer or through finances! We are so blessed by you all and look forward to the day we get to see you again and give you all big hugs!
Amy

Ways to pray for us right now...

  • As you can see by what I am doing right now we are quite busy. Pray that we don't get ahead of what God is doing just to get things checked off our lists!
  • Pray for our kids, that we are raising them to know the Lord and have the characteristics of Christ to those around them. 
  • Pray for our language to progress to the next level. Once we reach it we are able to stop formal language study and be able to continue with more of our other Service Team responsibilities more. We will be lifetime language learners of Swahili, but reaching this next level means we are able to communicate on a wide range of topics including cultural issues with a high level of understanding. 
  • Pray for 3 of our co-workers who are having babies within the next few months. 
  • Pray for God to be preparing the way for us to send missionaries into the tribes to share His Story with them in their tribal language!

This is our church.
Betty, Donovan, Emily, and I sang
"How Great Thou Art" at church one Sunday,

in Swahili!
"Roho Mungu, Nashangaa Kabisa..."
This is where we went for a little
family vacation over the school break!
Large Spider
Centipede being eaten by ants
Scorpion


Rob was the bug hunter one morning
when we had lots of unexpected visitors. 
This is where the kids sat watching Daddy while
he was killing bugs and feeding them to the ants. 
Awe...
Ahhhh...
Look what I can do!
Hiking!
Donovan dressed up as Men In Black
to celebrate the start of the school Year!
The girls got in on the dress-up action
with their little Green Lantern brother!
Shelbyanne was a pirate Hans Solo!
Donovan's first day of Preschool for this year.
He loves his school.
He even gets to go swimming once a week. 
Shelbyanne on her first day of Grade 3!!!
Emily on her first day of Grade 1!


Happy 4th Birthday Donovan!

Donovan was super excited to receive mail
of his very own. He was with me when we
picked it up from the post office. 

Eating birthday cake!



Rob and Joel, who came here for a workshop from where
he and his family live. It was a blast having him
hang out with us for a week. Come Back Soon!


1 comment:

  1. Blessings on all the work you do for others. Looks like the language thing is being slowly overcome. Congrats on that alone. We all continue to support and pray for your mission...:)

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