Back In the Swing of Things [MTC]

We had a good and busy Christmas break that included several unexpected happenings (threatened miscarriage, being snowed in, sicknesses). It was nice to have a break, but we are always thankful to get back to a routine and back to missionary training! One step close to heading to PNG...

Our classes this semester are sporadic and we have a lot of short, quick classes. We also are getting into more practical classes.

So far, here are the classes we have taken:

- Romans (completed)

- Missionary Technology (in process)

- Families in Ministry (in process)

- Biblical Parenting (completed)

- Student Teaching (in process)

Romans: We discussed Romans 5-8. Rather than being a deep study of the book of Romans, this was more of a class of practical application. Most of us have already taken a class on Romans, so this class focused on applying the truths in Romans. Later this semester we will study Romans 12-14.

Missionary Technology: In this class, we are learning all of the ins and outs of technology in a tribe. This includes things such as: batteries, soldering (we are soldering in the pictures below), solar panels, AC and DC, the watts each appliance takes, and more. We have textbook reading for the class every night. Some of it is good and helpful and some is over my head (some of it is even too much for Ben, so that should say something, since this class is much more his niche). Then we have lecture-style classes and labs.

Families in Ministry: In this class, we discuss different aspects of what it means to work together as a family in a ministry... particularly tribal missions as that's what we are all here for. We have to make a mission statement as a family, we'll talk about our philosophies of what it looks like to work as a family in a tribe, and we'll talk about homeschooling in this class.

Biblical Parenting: Just as the title suggests, we learned about parenting from a biblical perspective. We read Shepherding a Child's Heart, read a few articles, and spent class time looking into what relationships and responsibility looks like in parenting.

Student Teaching: We have this class every Monday this semester. We have to do different presentations in front of our class. Our first speech is on our testimony. Ben did his this past monday, and I will do mine next monday. Our next speech is a devotional, and the final speech is a sermon (only Ben has to do this one).

Thank you for your continued prayers and financial support as we do this training!

And just for funsies, here is a picture of Ben and I with our classmate Nathan. We all sat next to each other wearing a similar color blue, so we had to get a picture :)