An Update all about Sophie

Guess who is 11 months old today? Sophie is! Here is one of her cute 11 month photos...

(to see more 11 month pictures, go to my mommy blog)

And since I know many people's favorite part of my blog is pictures of Sophie, here are some more. I'm not that big into fashion myself, but I must say that dressing up Sophie is fun!

(Jeggings has to be one of the best inventions ever for little girls... they're so cute and practical!)

She loves to stand at the gate, watching for people...

Sophie loves hanging out in child care. This is the mini toddlers class. Sophie is still in the nursery since she doesn't walk, but recently she's learned that the fun bigger kids are in the mini toddlers classroom because she keeps knocking on their door to let her come over!

We also learned last week that Sophie loves black beans!
If you're friends with me on facebook, you've already seen this picture because I'm in love with it, but here is a picture (that my mom took) showing Sophie's beautiful blue eyes!

Sophie is currently:

-Crawling everywhere

-Pulling up on everything

-Walking along the couch and walking with a walker

-Drooling all the time (up to 7 teeth now)

-A super social bug!

-In LOVE with balls- basketballs, kickballs, soccer balls, volleyballs!

Following Jesus = Hating my Mother and Brother???

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" Luke 14:26

I've known this verse for a long time since I've been in the church since I was little. I've always had a relative idea that it didn't really mean that you had to hate your mother, but that it meant that following Jesus had to be more important. But I don't think I really grasped the concept until Ben and I decided to go into missions.

By going into missions, we will be leaving all of our family and friends that we have ever known and loved to go around the world to live with and love on people that we do not know and do not understand. That is hating your mother and brother.

By going into missions, we will miss births and birthdays, weddings and funerals, Thanksgivings and Christmases with those we love most. That is hating your mother and brother.

By going into missions, I recognize that it will most likely mean living apart from my children in the future as either we will remain overseas or they will continue on in their own mission work as many missionary kids do. That is hating your mother and brother.

By going into missions, we continue to build friendships during our training with many whom we will have to again say good-bye to. That is hating your mother and brother.

By going into missions, we are taking our children away from the comforts of America as well as their extended family and taking them into an environment and culture that we are unfamiliar with. That is hating your mother and brother.

When Jesus commands that you must hate your mother and brother, he isn't being literal. But when I think about our leaving all of these things behind, I understand why he uses such a strong word to emphasize his point. Because when I really think about leaving these things, I feel such a strong urge to jut stay and not leave them. And when I have these feelings rise up in me, I know I must put them aside for what I know to be true even though my feelings don't always reflect it... and that is that following my Jesus is more worthy than being with my mother and brother, father and sister, and even [husband] and children. And when I make this choice, I feel like I'm turning off all emotions I have toward these people that I love the most. Essentially, I feel like I'm hating them.

We love these people and are sad... in our human hearts... that following Jesus means that we will miss (and have missed) special moments with them. We know, even when it is hard, that there is no one more worthy of giving our lives to than Jesus. In fact, when we really grasp it, we know it's the least we can do.

We are also thankful for modern-day technology that will allow us to stay connected with these loved ones in a way that past missionaries never were able to: planes and skype and telephones and facebook and blogs.

Classes in our Final Semester

I haven't mentioned what we have been studying this year. Since we take our classes in blocks, we take just a few classes at a time and then finish them before starting new ones.

We started this semester off with 2 hours of Philippians class. This is my favorite book of the Bible, and we had an excellent teacher so we really enjoyed our time in this class.

In this class, I have quotes from my teacher all over the sides of my notes ... things that he said that really stuck out to me. Such as:

- "The test of a Christian life is not when we're riding the wave of success but when we're riding the wave of suffering and persecution."

-"Can we forego things we need or want because we see a higher need elsewhere?"

-"This is not a non-risky religion."

-"Our sorrow is wrapped up in hope."

-"Money is something God can always, always replace."

-"The cross is the leveling place of all mankind."

A favorite verse: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." Phil. 3:7-8

We then took Colossians and Philemon for 2 hours.

A favorite verse: "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." Col. 2:13-14

And now, our current classes are Christian Life, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Ben is taking Daniel and Revelation (I wish I could take this class, but it's at 8am when child care isn't offered).

A favorite verse: "Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more." 1 Thessalonians 4:1

We're amazed that even though we're in our final semester here, we feel like we may have more questions than when we arrived. It's true that there is always more in the Bible to be studied... always more to be learned. Praise the Lord that we believe we are more established in the foundational truths of the Bible and the overarching theme of the Bible after our time here at New Tribes. Please pray for us as we still wrestle through doctrinal positions.

And here's a picture of the cutest member of our family:

Valentine's Day- A Day to Celebrate Love

I know there are many people who dislike Valentine's Day... claiming that it's a commercialized holiday and that we shouldn't need a day set aside to show our love, that we should show it every day. I agree that both of those statements are true. But I still like Valentine's Day. I suppose it's really no different than Mother's Day, Father's Day, 4th of July, and even Easter and Christmas. I mean, we shouldn't need a special day to celebrate our mothers... we should do it every day. Yet, Hallmark and flower shops bank big on Mother's Day! And we shouldn't need just one day to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection... we should remember and celebrate it everyday. And the same goes for Father's Day, 4th of July, and Christmas. All of these holidays stand for things that we should celebrate every day, and not just one day. However, having a holiday devoted to these allows us, in the right perspective and with the right attitude, to truly celebrate something important and special together as a country. It gives us one day where we put more thought, energy, thankfulness, and time into it than other days.

I think Valentine's Day seems different because the flowers, cards, and chocolate get blown out of proportion (but doesn't easter candy and Christmas gifts too?). But celebrating love is never a bad thing. In fact, it's the greatest commandment- love the Lord your God and love one another! And celebrating it seems like a great thing to me! It shouldn't have to include spending money, but there's nothing wrong if it does (I told Ben last night that I truly wouldn't be disappointed if he didn't get me anything- and I meant it!). It also shouldn't have to be limited to spouses and significant others. I love it when families make cards for each other and remind each other of their love on Valentine's Day.

I am thankful for those I love- family and friends. And I'm especially thankful for my husband. He surprised me with what is one of my favorite gifts I've ever gotten from him- a spa and salon gift card! (He's probably sick of me bugging him for back rubs.)

The best thing is that Ben's a great husband all year round, and not just on Valentine's Day. He works hard for us, to provide for us (he's actually spending his entire Valentine's Day at Red Lobster working) and also to help around the house... here he is making dinner...

He has also been getting me gifts for the last few mondays, just because... His love language is definitely gifts! I appreciate his thoughtfulness. The first week, he got me this bamboo plant (my friend Laken who is in this picture has also been getting gifts/cards from her husband on Mondays... I'm not really sure what made our husbands decide to do this for us, but it's sweet!)
The 2nd week he got me Bath and Body Works spray and shower gel (I LOVE practical gifts... and everyone needs shower gel!)
And this past week, I forgot to take a picture, but he got me McDonalds for breakfast... yumm, greasy goodness!

So today, on Valentine's Day, I want to say I LOVE YOU to my husband, Benjamin. We were young when we fell in love (just 16!), and I'm so thankful for how far God has brought us. I'm glad he's constantly working in both of our lives. We're so different, but God has used our differences for so much good. Ben's not perfect- there's times I wish he'd take less naps or take the garbage out before it's overflowing or not get frustrated so easy... but luckily, along the years, I realized I'm not perfect either. And I'm thankful that he's always loved me just the way I am and hope that God will continue to teach me how to show that same love back.

Party'n

We've been party'n lately! This past week has been a fun one here in Jackson for us with a lot of socializing!

Last tuesday we had dinner with our friends, Aaron and Jill. They fed us some great food, and then Jill and I enjoyed beating the guys in euchre (they may or may not have beaten us in the second round).

On thursday, we had our third "2nd floor marrieds' hall dinner." The theme this time was soup, so everyone brought soup (we were in charge of the dessert though, so I made ice cream cake! ... my mom's yummy recipe). We added two more married couples to our hall this semester, so it was a full table (or 4 tables pushed together). I'm glad we started doing these dinners... they've been fun...

On friday, we had a marrieds' social. It was a Hawaii Luau dinner. Everyone brought a dish, we had some great music played by fellow classmates, and we all hung out and talked. The food was so great! We're always a fan of enjoying other people's food. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures!

Then on Sunday, we hung out with our small group at Josh and Tamara's house for a Superbowl party! None of us were serious fans for either of the teams, so Josh and Tamara cheered for the Patriots while the rest of us cheered for the Giants. We had a ridiculous amount of food, and we enjoyed the game and some great conversation too...

And tonight, we enjoyed dinner with our friends Jason and Laken. We're thankful for the friends we've been blessed with. While we miss our friends from home, we are so thankful to make new friends here in Jackson. We hope some of these friends will be life-long friends.

The Road to Missions #5

After we decided that we were interested in New Tribes and that we would go to the Bible School, we talked with our Life Group and pastors about this decision. They were starting to have mission meetings with those interested in missions at our church, and we attended one. We learned there that they were trying to get a team together to join missionaries from our church in Tanzania with AIM (Africa Inland Mission). I can't say that I jumped up or got super excited about it... NTM was more interesting to me... but Ben liked the idea, and we wanted to be open to the way God could use our pastors in helping us as we looked into missions.

Even though Bible school was the part Ben liked least about New Tribes (because he doesn't like school), we actually decided that we should still go to NTBI even if we were going to go with AIM. So when we came to NTBI, Ben and I had taken a step back. We came here unsure of where we would end up... possibly we would go on with New Tribes, possibly we would go to Tanzania with a group from our church, possibly we'd go with another organization. We tried not to plan too far ahead. AIM never felt "right" to me, but I've also learned that Christianity and missions isn't all about feelings. If God could use me in Tanzania with AIM, I needed to be willing to go. And I had decided I would submit to my husband and our church in this area.

In the middle of our spring semester, we learned that some things had occurred which was not going to allow the Tanzania trip (which would have been at least a 2 year commitment) to be put together. Of course, we could still go with them if we wanted. Ben and I talked about it though and felt that the recent happenings with that team were for a reason, and we felt God leading us more in the direction of New Tribes Mission. We can strongly see our gifts and talents being used with this organization, and while it's not a perfect organization, they have a great desire to make Christ's name known to the nations and we are passionate about this.

So the timeline looks something like this:

Aug 2009: Decided to go to NTBI

Sept 2009: Started the application for NTBI

March 2010: FINALLY finished the application for NTBI

May 2010: Officially accepted

August 2010: Moved to Jackson and started at NTBI

February-ish 2011: Decided that we would pursue continuing with New Tribes after Bible School

May 2011: Finished our first year at NTBI

August 2011: Began our second and final year at NTBI

Future decisions we need to make which we would appreciate prayer for already:

We need to decide exactly what Missionary Training Center we are going to and in what semester (we are thinking Missouri in January of 2013, but we're still praying about this), we will need to choose a country, we will need to decide if we will do support work or work in the tribe... and if we work in the tribe, we will need to choose a team to work with and a tribe to go to.

The Road to Missions #4 "Flashback"

I ended in the last post saying that in May of 2009 we decided not to build a house... or buy one of any kind. We decided that God had been leading our hearts to missions, and we needed to pursue what that meant very seriously. We began praying at that point, honestly having no clue where we were going to go or with which organization.

In August, Chris and Evie Jones came to our small group to share with us about their time at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) which is the second phase of training with New Tribes (after NTBI). They had visited our group before, so it was mostly an update kind of get-together. I looked forward to seeing them, but that was all. God had other plans though. When they shared that night, God grabbed my heart. I listened intently, and afterwards I told Ben that I thought we should have them over to ask them more personal questions about New Tribes.

We had them over for lunch a few days later, and we had a great time learning more about New Tribes. After they left, we talked about it. Ben was nervous about the Bible School part. He generally hates school. But we both agreed that New Tribes sounded like an amazing organization that was doing great things for the Lord. We loved the idea of going to people groups who had never, ever heard the gospel of Christ. It felt right, and NTM was definitely answering the Great Commission. We prayed about it for a few days, but I think we knew all along, ever since Chris and Evie talked to us, that this is the path we were going to pursue.

At this point, I decided to drop the education part of my major. It would take another year and a half to finish with the ed. part of my degree because I would have to student teach. If I just finished with English and missions, I could finish in a year, and then we could go to NTBI in the Fall of 2010. It was a hard decision for me to make, but I realized that I was holding onto the education part of my degree for the safety of it as well as the comfort in it. Letting go of the education part of my degree was a step toward trusting God in a way that was difficult for me.

We are so thankful for Chris and Evie Jones and the way God used them in our life to help us start down this path!

The crazy thing is that, after Chris and Evie came to talk to us, I realized how many times New Tribes had been in my past without me noticing it. You know how sometimes in movies (especially crime solving ones), at the end, the main character solves a problem and then flashbacks through a bunch of different moments in the movie that helped prove the solution... as in, he puts all of the pieces together finally. This is what I felt like happened when we decided we would attend New Tribes Bible Institute.

So, my flashback moments were:

-- Chris and Evie had came to our small group before and shared about NTM and MTC, but nothing stuck out to us that time... they were just missionaries sharing what they were doing.

-- I actually met Chris for the first time in the weight room at Grace College during my freshman year of college. He shared some about New Tribes with me at that point which I vaguely remember. I saw his wife, Evie, a few days later in the dining hall and thought she was beautiful

-- I worked in the admissions office with Lee-Ann McKay at Grace College, and I particularly remember her talking about her time as an MK. She was an NTM missionary kid.

-- Ben and I were playing games with friends of mine (Ryan and Julene) from college, and Ryan's parents had Gracia Burnham's book and was talking about her story and New Tribes.

-- On family vacation, Ben saw the Awayo movie about New Tribes with his family.

-- My cousin Jason Walton is an NTM missionary in Paraguay. I remember when he was at Bible School (the same one I'm at now), and he shared with us at Thanksgiving about school.

-- My grandparents love NTM, and one time when Ben and I were at their church, they had an NTM missionary couple there who worked in aviation. Grama told me she thought it would be awesome if we did something like this (this was probably in 2004)

The thing about all of these flashback moments is that none of these moments seemed particularly important at the time. None of them stuck out to me when they happened. Which is a reminder that God has his own timing. I think God used all of these moments in our lives but was waiting to bring any action out of them until his timing when he knew Ben and I were ready.

Here we are playing rock band with our Life Group when Chris and Evie were visiting.

Speaking of our Life Group, we are so thankful for their involvement in our lives! The group has changed quite a bit over the years we were in it, so this is only a part of the awesome group of people that have impacted our lives. We are especially thankful to Josh and Janelle, our Life Group leaders, who faithfully led the group and strongly encouraged us and impacted our lives.
Here is a picture of Evie and Lee-Ann. Both ladies have been so encouraging to Ben and I before and during our time at NTBI.

I have one more blog post to add to this series. Thanks to those who have been following! It's been good to reflect on this journey that God is taking us on.