The Bridge of Chaos

In class yesterday, we did a great exercise while we discussed the following diagram.  It's hard to see in this picture, but it is a bridge from "settled in America" to "unsettling" to "chaos" to "resettling" to "a new settled in new country." 

To show how this works, we created a bridge with chairs and balls.  Some of the chairs, representing "settled" were stable on the ground, but the "unsettled" chairs were rocking.  The "Chaos" stage was represented by three large yoga balls.

A few people in the class were choosen to form a team, representing a family and two singles.  Katelyn played the part of "daughter" :)  They were all roped together, representing their unity.

Their trip to their new country began quite smoothly.  Dad took the lead and gave instructions.

But soon they hit "chaos."  Nothing was stable in their life.  But the rest of the class rallied around them and supported them as they made their trek and no one fell. 

And as we worked together, we all knew...this is what we need....the support of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We need our family to pray for us and love on us as we face fearful words like "unsettled" and "chaos."  We need you praying for us and the grace of God lifting us, if we hope to make it across that kind of bridge to Uganda.

After class, the kids went downstairs and made their own bridges.  Their bridges had USA on one hand and Uganda on the other.  The popsicle planks were labeled by them with words of their choosing...some nice sounding, like "adventure" and "new friends."  Others didn't sound so nice, like "sad," "hard," and "goodbyes." 

But under each of their bridges is a heart...the love of God the father, lifting us up...carrying us through...

Please hold us in your prayers as the ground beneath us shakes... 

A Couple of Day Trips in Colorado

MTI is located quite close to Focus on the Family.  We spent one of our days off playing at the Focus on the Family facility.  We were quite impressed...especially considering it is free! 

They even had space enough for all 10 of us! :) 

Right before we left home, so friends in our church gave us a whole sack of Adventures in Odyssey tapes.  So we just *had* to have some ice cream at Whit's End Ice Cream Shoppe.

We thought that surely we could send the above mentioned friends the bill because had it not been for listening to hours of Odyssey in the car, the kids probably wouldn't have cared...  :)

Then, today, we drove part-way up Pike's Peak today.  It was super pretty. 

But super cold at the top...

And the snow plows were super cool... :)

Crazy Busy at MTI

We have been wonderfully busy here at MTI.  A silent blog speaks only to a crazy schedule from the time I force my eyes open in the morning, until I fall into bed way too late. 

This has been our home away from home for the past month.  Yes, it is really this beautiful.  And yes, we Eric is loving all the snow. 

For about five hours a day, we are in class.  We start the mornings with singing and prayer.  We have truly enjoyed the spiritual fellowship and feasting here.  It has been a delight to our souls.

Sometimes the kids join us for lessons.  In this particular class the teacher had them line up in no particular order and place a rope on their heads.  He called it his "line graph" showing the ups and downs of settling in a new culture... :)

After class we unwind together in our room until supper.  Since all of us are exhausted at this point we usually chill with a video or a book together.

 We eat all our meals together in the cafeteria.  The food isn't being gracious to our GI tracks, so I have allowed the unthinkable (haha!.)..cereal for any meal they want...

Our Day Out...

What a week it's been here at MTI!  We have had much sickness sweep through our family.  We have struggled to not be discouraged as one or both of us missed many classes.  We have continued to work "upstream" to make sure that our family/kids remain our priority and that we are meeting all the needs of our kids, despite the community living and rigorous schedule.  But God has been extremely faithful to us and has brought us through.  Eric and I still have colds, but all of the kids seem to be on the mend.  For that, we praise the Lord. :)

Today our family took a much needed break from MTI and went to eat lunch at Chic-Fil-A and then went to visit Garden of the Gods (or, as our family called it, "God's Garden" :)  It was a stunningly beautiful day! 

Benaiah and Talitha were with us too, but it was too much effort to get them in the picture! :)

After we left "God's Garden" we went for a drive while the little ones slept in the car.  We saw a herd of deer next to the road.  Very cool, but the boys were disappointed to not see them clashing their antlers together.

Then, thanks to Eric and his map (once again) we attempted to drive up a random mountain.  The road deteriorated into dirt and snow and we never found the top, but it was a beautiful drive (and we never got lost, blew a tire, drove off the edge....etc....)

The view from the top was great. :)

Next week, we are starting the second part of our time here at MTI.  It's a 3 week session on cross-culture training.  We've heard that it can be emotionally rigorous.  Please continue to pray for us.  Living away from home isn't the easiest and we would really like to be (and stay) completely healthy again!  It is our prayer that we won't just survive MTI, but that we will thrive here and use our time here to build God's kingdom.

And, if you keep scrolling down I put a few other posts up, as well. :)

Snow!

We've had lots of snow at MTI... It's so pretty, but sooo cold!!

This is the view in the morning from the balcony...♥ love ♥



The kids playing with their new friends...



Colorado-- The First Week!

Well, we’ve finished one week here at MTI. Wow—what an intense week. I have a re-occurring dream where I find myself back at Covenant College, living in Carter Hall again…with my husband and 8 kids…trying to do my assignments and take care of my family. Just to state the obvious… in it, I’m always completely stressed out.

After this week…I am convinced that the feeling I have when I awake from my dream (nightmare?) isn’t that far off base.

In my dream, I always am thinking to myself, “this is ridiculous, why am I still at college?” But, thankfully, this time at MTI does not leave me questioning the value of this time of learning. The teaching and fellowship is great and we are already seeing the benefits of it. But it’s still very hard! My brain and body are exhausted by the end of each day. One of the ladies in the kitchen told me that they even have to cook extra food during this program because the participants get more hungry than in the other programs!

These first two weeks here are all about language acquisition; in other words, how to learn a foreign language. We’ve learned all about the anatomy of the mouth and how our mouths form English sounds.  We are also teaching our ears and mouths to hear and form all sorts of foreign sounds.  And we also spend a great deal of time in “drill”—holding a mirror in front of our mouths and forcing them to make new sounds. (No small task—except the glided vowels—those came super, duper easy for this southern girl. :)

We also have spent a great deal of time putting language learning techniques into practice. Since the point of the exercises is to learn the technique, it really doesn’t matter what language you use it with. So we’ve been studying Russian and a Vietnamese tribal language. The kids have also been learning French, Hindi, Spanish, and Chinese. Benaiah has been doing sign language.

The kids program is wonderful! They are learning so many helpful things. They also took a field trip to the Olympic training center and next week the older class (Timothy, Katelyn, Matthew and Rebecca) will be going to a Chinese Restaurant so they can practice ordering food in Chinese!  The kids teachers have all spent time abroad. Talitha’s watcher lived in Liberia for a few years! The boys were very excited to hear that and are looking forward to seeing her pictures.

It’s coooold here! Lots of snow! The kids are outside sledding right now. MTI has snow equipment (boots, pants, etc) and sleds. They seem to have thought of everything for us!

All in all, a hard, but good time—one week down, four to go!

On Our Way to Colorado!

Wow! What a whirlwind the last few days have been!

We finally got our house on the market!  Huge praise to the Lord that everything got done to prepare it!  We are praying that if it is God's will for us to sell it, that he will provide a buyer while we are gone.

Yes, gone...yesterday we left for Colorado for almost six weeks.  We will be attending a missionary training school here.  It is a institute that trains the entire family in language acquisition and cross-culture living.  It is all inclusive, so we will be living on site and eating in their cafeteria (yay! no cooking for me! :)  They have programs for all of the kids, so they will be learning the same things, but geared towards their ages.  We have been looking forward to this time of preparation and are praying that the Lord will bless it mightily in our lives and for the building of his kingdom in Uganda.

Our trip here was no small undertaking, but a huge success!  Thanks to a wonderful friend back home, we didn't have to worry about leaving our house in perfect condition to be shown while we were gone, she took care of it after we left.  We stayed with some college/seminary friends in Idaho and enjoyed great fellowship and a wonderful theological discussion that went way too late into the night.  And then after just a few hours sleep, we hit the road to drive the rest of the way here.  We are at a hotel for the weekend before classes start on Monday.  Our hotel is great, and as far as I know, the kids are sleeping peacefully in their connecting room. :)

I broke my finger the day before we left, but while it is still sore, it's on the mend, I think.  So dumb...I fell going up the stairs.  Yes, UP! (I got teased mercilessly by the kids and husband [would he do that?? :)] about that one!) In the process of falling, I jammed my finger against the wall.  The tendon pulled a piece of bone away.  I spent two hours at the doctor the day we were trying to pack, but thanks to the above mentioned friend, we still made it to bed on time!  God is so good to give me both the trials I need and the help I need to get me through them!  What a great reminder this was that we aren't doing this on our own strength! :)

We are praising God tonight for everything!  He is so good to us!  Good night from Colorado! :)