Summing it up

I always have such high ambitions for updating my blog and then....well, then I fall short. I enjoy writing on here because it helps me organize my thoughts right after things have happened and causes me to really focus on what I've heard/learned throughout the day instead of just listening, thinking something was great, but forgetting it days later. But instead of writing every day while I was at Wayumi, I only wrote a few times. So I'm writing now. :)

Wednesday was the day we talked about preparing people for the Gospel. It's interesting because here in America, God is fairly well known. Most people have a general idea of who you are talking about when you say "God" and can describe Him fairly well. We, of course, should always make sure this is true, however, and not just assume. But in tribal cultures, their idea of God is often very different than ours. Sometimes they have no words for certain concepts. Most people living in tribal settings feel that God is an impersonal being who really doesn't care about them. Try telling them John 3:16 (For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son, that whosoever believes in Him would have eternal life") raises too many questions to answer. So to prepare them for the Bible, you have to figure out their understanding of God, understand their culture and what drives the things they do, and then start from the very beginning. You want them to CLEARLY understand God's Word....doesn't HE? So that's our goal too, as the church. We want all people to clearly understand God's message to man and have the opportunity to respond to it. And we learned about that on Wednesday, which was also the day of the infamous hike. We drove to...some mountainous part of PA and participated in a four-mile hike. Kayla was my hiking buddy and it was really a gorgeous hike. We saw waterfalls and lots of green trees and crossed steep terrain. By the end, I had a HUGE blister on my left foot and a significantly smaller blister (but still a blister) on my right foot. Having holes in your socks apparently leads to that... So that was an adventure! It was fun and well worth the blisters! :)

Thursday was our Mumu. Mumus....welll, honestly, I'm not really sure how to describe it. Is mumu the way the food is prepared, the event as a whole, a noun, a verb.....I don't know! But what I DO know is that it encompasses an event where we prepare a pig, along with potatoes and sweet potatoes (pronounced cow-cow in Papua New Guinea), and stick it in the ground on these blazing hot rocks and it basically sits in the ground for hours and hours until the food has been adequately smoked to perfection. And then it comes out and becomes our supper. YUM...kind of. It's a cultural experience because it's traditional in Papua New Guinea. :) And it's fun of course. That day we also did skeet shooting. It was my first time shooting a gun and honestly, I was pretty nervous for that infamous kick I've heard about. But really, it wasn't that bad. I didn't even hurt afterwards. And I broke one of the clay disks!! That's right, my very first one. One out of two isn't too bad....I was pretty pleased. :) Onto my hunting license!

Thursday classes were more learning how to present the gospel. We talked a lot about the chronological teaching and it was great to learn and hear about how it worked and how God's Word truly does illuminate our darkened minds! Our Savior is so awesome! The next day was our last day at Wayumi. In class we learned about the Big Picture...what it takes to get a missionary into a tribe and what the process of sharing the Gospel looks like. You have to remember that the goal is not to share the Gospel, but to make DISCIPLES and for them to become their own indigenous church functioning without the missionaries. You want to work yourself out of a job. And so you teach them and teach elders and watch them as they take the Word of God as truth and apply it to their lives. You let HIM teach them. How cool is that! And you translate the Word into their language so they can have it for themselves. OH! And one of these days we did this exercise where we basically "learned" to read a different "language." It's both easy and hard. We learned that tribal people have never looked at something 2-dimensional and made sense of it in their heads before, so when they see a picture, they don't see it as we see it. That's something we TRAIN ourselves to do! Now here in America, that happens at a young age so we don't remember or even realize that we have done it, but tribal people who have never seen paper or a picture can't focus on the image as we can. It seems to me that it's the same concept as learning how to see those pop up 3D images (which I haven't been able to train my brain to see yet)...you literally have to LEARN how to do it! Anyway, so they have to train themselves and prepare themselves to see 2D images and then they learn how to read their own language and it's just the coolest thing ever! So awesome. :)

Okay, well I think I may have overloaded you with all my thoughts, so I'll let you think and show you some 2D images instead. ;)

This is what we do in our free time....make a Laz-e-Girl chair. :) Kayla is pretty comfy. :)

This is the Mumu. Those are cabbage leaves that the food was wrapped in so that it didn't get all dirty. Technically it was supposed to be banana leaves...but what American grocery store stocks up on those? :) (Actually, there are a few in the pictures believe it or not....but only a few...)

Here was my bunk mate and one of my best friends in the world: Jamie. I love this girl. Her and her nose ring. :)

Wayumi Day 1

Why did Jesus have to die? Why can't I merit goodness? What does God require as a payment for sin? Does God require a payment for ALL sin? Why are we on earth? What purpose were we created for? How can one man's death pay for ALL man's sins? Why can't my good and bad works even out? Is God more pleased with me when I go to church?

Imagine going into a group of people who have no clue who Jesus is, no clue who the true God is, no clue that there is a heaven and a hell. Where would you start? How would you answer the above questions? This week I am studying at Wayumi, which is a program here in Jersey Shore, PA put on by New Tribes Mission. The staff here are all missionaries who have spent time on the field and are here to give people a taste of what cross-cultural missions looks like. Their goal is for us to leave here with a better understanding of what some of us will be doing. Today we talked about language and culture and how important they both are. We also talked about what God is doing on earth. And what is He doing? He's calling out a people for His name. Hey, that's us. That's the church. How cool is that? :) And He has specified previously that it will be from every ethnic-linguistic group. We're not there yet, but we will be. Why? Cuz God said so. Awesome stuff. :)

So what's with the questions I started out with? Well, our textbook for our time here is on how to plant a cross-cultural church and it was telling stories about how many countries (and honestly, we could probably say this about some American churches as well) have churches established and when people (missionaries) go in and talk to them about what they believe, they find that the people professing faith in Christ are confused about what actually gets them saved! Many people in so-called "reached" areas are not reached at all...they didn't understand the Gospel message. And so the missionaries had to ask questions and figure out where their understanding was at. Over time they realized that the foundation for the Gospel had not been properly built. The people didn't understand God's character and based it on what they knew of their previous gods, but not the one TRUE God. And so this caused false facts and ideas to be mixed into their ideas of God. They couldn't answer the questions written above according to Biblical truth. They simply believed the "white man" and trusted his friendship. So the missionaries started at the beginning. They began with Genesis 1:1 and taught about God's character and His goals for creation from the beginning on. They showed the people WHY blood was required and WHY no one can merit goodness so that by the time they presented Christ, they understood WHY He had to die and why it was the only way to take care of their sin. They knew that they were sinners from Genesis and that they needed a Savior from that. They saw their need all through the Old Testament and understood the Law for what it really was. With the proper foundations laid, they were able to understand the Gospel message as truth. And the missionaries were able to see how important foundations from the Old Testament were. So now New Tribes presents the Gospel from Genesis to Revelation and that is how we have learned at school. I've seen the benefit of that style of teaching in my own life and I'm so excited as I hear stories of my brothers and sisters in Christ from tribes as they learn the truth that God laid out for us to hear! What a great God we serve!!

Can't Sleep

Tomorrow is the first day of classes...actually today is...and I can't sleep. I'm not nervous or anything like that, I just can't seem to get my eyes to close. So instead of lying in my bed right now for how knows how long, I decided to write. :)

Some things God has been teaching me:
- He is in control. I'm actually becoming less of a "set" planner, believe it or not.
- He is bigger than my circumstances. When things look a mess and I've royally screwed things up, He still loves me and He is MORE than enough to take care of things. All I gotta do is let Him. :)
- He has given me all that I need in Him. I think I'm going to be learning this one for the rest of my life. I'm complete. There's nothing that I lack.
- I'm going to make mistakes. But it's been so nice to see people rallying around me even when I do. And it's nice to know that my mistakes don't affect my Father's love for me. He accepts me all the same.
- I can get so caught up in things and so focused on what's going on around me that I miss the point of my existence. It's not for anything but Him. He desires to produce Himself in me and that's why I'm here...yet sometimes I get caught up in things of the earth. Wow, to live with an eternal mindset 24/7. What an amazing thing that would be. Oh how I long for that.
- I'm just like everyone else. There's nothing that makes me special. There's no special badge for me just because I'm going to be a missionary...I'm just like everyone else. And that means the ONLY way that I can be a missionary is through dependence upon Him. It's through faith in Him and trust in Him. He said to go and I will go as I depend on Him in me. I can't do it without Him.

My life today looks very different than I thought it would. I used to dream about being an overseas missionary, but I guess some part of me never believed I would be here...doing it, training for it. There have been so many times I have been scared and I'm sure I'll be scared more. There have been so many times when I've thought about all I'm giving up and not wanted to do it, so many times I've been selfish in my thinking. But what is a job and a nice house and a family raised by their grandparents? They are great things, but compared to tribal people's eternity, they aren't important. They would be so nice, but they aren't eternal. Having brothers and sisters in Christ when I get to heaven who are from remote villages...that's eternal. Having brothers and sisters in Christ who are from Jackson, Michigan or Columbus, Ohio...that's eternal. Whatever the cost. Man...I want that to be my heart ALL the time. It's all about Him, not me and my wants and needs. It's about HIM.

I've struggled a lot with this whole process. It's really real to me...I'm going overseas. I might go overseas alone, which scares me to death, but guess what? I'll go. I was supposed to speak at my church over break, but due to the weather it was canceled. I am so glad for the time I had to prepare for that presentation; I can't tell you how valuable it was for me. I learned so much about myself in the process. I learned how desperately I need encouragement, to know that this isn't MY thing, but the church's thing, believer's thing. Yes, I may be the one to go, but I so desperately need a TEAM of people who want to see tribes reached just as badly as I do. I need them to encourage me in the hard times, when I am discouraged and feeling alone. I need to know that I'm part of a team, because I'm not a one-woman show, I'm just one part of the body. I need the other parts. :) I need YOU.

And now for some photos from the past few months:

These are my three best friends and I at our Christmas party, Jamie, Bethany, and Kayla. We have a lot of fun together. :) Bethany (the other short one) is getting married this summer. I'm so excited for her and the rest of us are her bridesmaids, along with her sister. I can't wait to make my trip out west to see her get married!


This is me making Christmas cookies over break! YUM!



These pictures are from a trip I took with my parents in October to Wayumi. It's basically a crash course on tribal missions and it was an AMAZING experience. My parents really learned a lot about what I am going to be doing and it was neat to be there. These pictures are from the time we got to spend in the "tribe." That's right, we got to talk to some tribal folks and ask them questions....well okay, we kind of HAD to, but it was a really neat experience and I HIGHLY recommend WAYUMI. :)

Well, that's all the updating I am going to do for now. I'm gonna try out this bed one more time...