F.A.Q Round 2 - Bad Weather, Bugs and Balut!

Here's the second round of questions that we've been hearing from people.

     Q: Is there anyone you know who was hurt in the recent typhoon?
         A: We don't know anyone who lives in the Visayas where the storm hit hardest, but it was truly devastating for the people that live there so any time you think of them pray for their recovery. Our New Tribes Mission Pilots have been flying around to as many of the little islands as they can to help the more remote people. Pray that this will be a platform for future missionaries to be able to reach these remote people with the gospel.

     Q: What kind of animals will you encounter?
         A: "In the waters of the Philippines there are more than 2000 different kinds of fish. Added to that figure, the country counts about 200 different kinds of reptiles and 25000 different insects. The smallest monkey and the biggest fish in the world, they both live in the Philippines!" In truth, I'm not looking forward to the bug portion of this quote... they have tarantulas, giant centipedes, and 14 different poisonous snakes. On a more positive/fun note they have the Philippine Mouse Deer.  This is the world’s smallest hoofed mammal and they have the Philippine Flying Lemur. It is one of two species of lemurs that can fly, and this one is found exclusively in the Philippines.



Don't these guys look cute! They're geckos that the people of the Visayas call Mga Tokó. They'll most likely be living on our walls.... I'm not sure how cute they'll be then. Of course, if they eat bugs I think I could warm up to them.

     Q: What is Filipino food like?
         A: The Philippines is considered a tropical climate so there is a wide variety of fresh fruit. Also, the Philippines are an archipelago so with all the coast line there is a lot of sea food. They are also famous for their rice terraces so there is plenty of rice and rice products like rice flour, noodles, spring rolls, sticky rice balls and many other varieties.



The Banaue rice terraces

Brace yourself for this next food. You may have heard of it before, it's called Balut. It is a developing duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell. It is commonly sold as street food in the Philippines. People generally season it with salt or a chili, garlic and vinegar sauce. Needless to say, I will be avoiding that one as long as possible. :)

     Q: Will you have to build your own house?
        A: The first 2-3 years we will be living close to the city so we will rent a house during that time, but when we move out into the jungle to live with a tribal group there is a chance that we will have to build our own home. It will likely be more similar to an American house than a tribal house. Obviously we want to blend in with the community, but we also want to be able to rest and recharge so we can work with the people. That means we get to find the balance of what is familiar/comforting to us and where we need to change the way live.

Missionary house in The Philippines.

Hopefully this was interesting and enlightening for you! If you have more questions you'd like answered You can e-mail us at alex_williams@ntm.org or you can leave a comment at the bottom of this post. If we get enough questions I'll put them into a blogpost for everyone to see.

F.A.Q.s

Now that we've been meeting with lots of people who are interested in our future ministry we thought we would put together a list of some of the F.A.Q.s that we've been hearing.

The most obvious one is...
         Q: Where are you guys heading?
                A: The Philippines, and more specifically the Northern portion of the country called Luzon.

         Q: How long will you be there?
                A: We're looking to make this a career so Lord willing a very long time.

         Q: How often do you get to come home?
                 A: We do have furlough (Now they're calling it home assignment, If you keep tracking with us through our ministry you'll notice that New Tribes likes to change the names of things often. :) Anyways, We'll be home every 2 - 4 years depending on what phase on ministry we're doing at the time.

           Q: What will you do for money while your over there?
                 A: We are currently raising support before we head out. New Tribes calls this partnership development. We have been meeting with some really fantastic individuals who want to be a part of our ministry.They are supporting us financially so we can pour ourselves into ministry full time. Their giving makes our going possible. (If you want to know more about how you can be a part of our ministry through giving you can get in touch with us at alex_williams@ntm.org)

           Q: Are you going to learn their language?
                  A: Yes, In fact we're going to be learning two! We will start by learning the national language of the north, which is Tagalog. It's a difficult language for English speakers because their grammar is very different from what we're used to. We will be studying that 40 hours a week for roughly two years... that may seem like a long time, but it's helpful to look at it like an investment for the long term. Just imagine trying to have a deep friendship with someone who could only form very simple thoughts and sentences. It would be an uphill battle for both sides.
                     After we get to a level where we can talk about deep concepts we'll move out into a tribal location. We will also take the time to learn their heart language, but this should go much faster because Filipino languages are all related grammatically. We should really only have to pick up new vocabulary. (That was a relief to hear!)

           Q: Will you have help?
                 A: Ideally, Yes we will have partners that will move out into the tribe with us. Hopefully two married couples or some singles. I say ideally because of Matthew 9:37, "Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few'." It was true then and it's true now.
                 We also have the advantage of having consultants from New Tribes come out to help us in many different areas. Consultants are missionaries who have gone before us. They have been through what we're going through in life, language, culture, and teaching... they have succeeded and failed and we get the benefit from that experience.

I'll stop before this update gets too long, but we'll post some more F.A.Q.s in the near future :)
Like questions we've been getting about teaching in the tribe, foods we get to try, and animals/insects that will cross our path! Tune in next time...

Just think of your favorite dessert...

I'd like to take a little detour for a few moments before we get to some really exciting news.

Imagine with me a crunchy graham cracker crust covered with a decadent cream cheese concoction and topped with luscious cherries. Seriously my mouth is watering just thinking about my favorite dessert. It probably helps that my grandma is the one who makes it so there are many fond memories attached to this sweet after dinner treat. It's something I always look forward to.

 If your wondering why I'm making you walk down this merry little rabbit trail it's because this dessert is comparable to our last few months of partnering with people. It has been so sweet and delightful to our hearts to have built new and better relationships with believers from my church and community. The support and love that has been poured out on us is overwhelming. We have looked forward to every get together, not only because we love to eat :) , but because the people that we connect with are wonderful. The fond memories we have of this time are going to be like getting to eat that cherry delight over and over again. God is beyond gracious for placing us in this community of believers, and we couldn't be more thankful.

Now to the extra exciting news. Because of God's amazing faithfulness we have reached the half way mark of the financial support we need to raise; we are now at 53% !!!!! So thank you to all the people who have been praying for us, we greatly appreciate it.

Tune in next time for some of our F.A.Qs :)

Prayer requests:

• We will both be speaking at weekend retreats for the youth group at my (Erin's) church. Alex will be speaking to the guys the first weekend in October and I will speak to the girls the third weekend. Please pray that we will really connect with them and be able to challenge and encourage them.
• My best friend is getting married next week in TN. Pray for safe travels and a blessed day for her.
• Diligence to do all that we need to do while we're here.

Quick Update on Church Camp and VBS

For all of you who were praying we wanted to give an update on how Church Camp and VBS went.

Bethel Girls Cabin

We both had an awesome week at Camp Shakamak. Alex was a counselor for a cabin full of young men from Bethel, and I was the only counselor in a cabin with 16 young women from Bethel. I was a little intimidated to be the only leader in the cabin, but the girls really did take it easy on me so I was very thankful.

Bethel Boys Cabin

There were several youth groups from regional IFCA churches that came to camp. It was such a valuable time to invest in the youth from our local churches. The theme this year was "faithbook" so all of the messages were centered around what it means to have faith in God and how to live by faith. There were many good conversations that took place that week, and it was wonderful to see God working in young hearts.


Dog pile at one in the morning...

Vacation Bible school was a ton of fun and a little challenging all at the same time. The theme was Athens: Paul's dangerous journey. Alex and I both stepped out of our comfort zones and did a little bit of acting! Alex played the role of The Apostle Paul and I was Damaris, a member of the council in Athens. I'd say that it went pretty well... except the night we made a little girl cry because she was scared. Apparently being chased by an angry mob isn't for everyone (No children were harmed in the making of this VBS... we were only pretending that there was an angry mob.) All joking aside we had a ton of kids tell us that we did a good job and they had a great time talking with Paul and Damaris.

Teaching the lesson in Paul's tent.

We were also the missions spotlight for VBS this year. So the kids raised over $350 for us to put towards our future ministry! It was such a blessing.

 

We Should Get Jerseys… Cause We Make a Good Team.

Well, thanks to more faithful believers who have joined our team we are now at 40% of our monthly budget that we need to raise before we can head out to the Philippines. God is so faithful!

 

We’re finally moved into our new home! This is our fourth home and we’ll be celebrating our third anniversary the 31^st of this month. It’s the biggest home yet and the lowest price thanks to our brother and sister renting it to us!  We’re excited to have people over and connect with our church family. We can’t tell you how blessed we are to be surrounded by such amazing church families.

We’ll be in Indiana doing partnership development until around February or March, but we are still at a very flexible and slightly unpredictable time in our lives as missionaries. So we hold onto dates pretty loosely J. After our time here we will be moving out to Oregon for 6 – 9 months where we will be continuing the partnership process.

 

P.S. I forgot to mention that Alex joined the church league softball team and they’ve been doing really well!

Please pray

·         That God will continue to raise up a strong support team for us.

·         Alex and I are going to be counselors at Shakamak Bible Camp this coming week. Pray that the kids will have a good time and grow closer in their relationship with God.

·         Also, VBS is coming up soon and Alex and I are going to be teaching the Bible lessons as Paul and Damaris. PLEASE pray that we will be able to act out the roles well!
 

Praises

·         We are moved into our new house.

·         For our new team mate supporters.

·         For all of the people praying for us.

Graduation!

Imagine yourself standing at the base of Niagara Falls. You have been given a very important task. You are told that you need to successfully catch as much water as you can because your going to need it later. You say "That doesn't sound too hard." But here's the kicker, all you have to get the water is a dixie cup. Well, this last year and half was a bit like standing under a waterfall with a dixie cup. Let me explain, there was a torrential downpour of information everyday in class, and often we felt like all we had to hold it in it was a little bitty cup. While we do feel prepared to go and live and do ministry overseas we also feel completely inadequate to do the task God has laid before us. The most pressing thing we learned in this last year and a half is that we are in desperate need of God daily. He has chosen to use us weak and broken vessels to reach the world.

So, after two years of Bible School and one and a half years of missionary training we're finally finished with  formal schooling! Not to say that we're done learning but we are excited to be done with this phase of training. We will officially become New Tribes Missionaries in early July. The most important and exciting thing is that we are one step closer to the foreign field!

There we were again... Our little brown Camry loaded down, 15 plastic totes packed up, and apartment cleaned out. It was time to say good bye again. We loved our time at the MTC and as difficult as it was to leave our friends that we had made we we're ready to move on. It was truly a blessing to learn from such an amazing staff.

Graduation with Erin's parents

We finally have an answer to the question that has been ringing in our ears. "Where will you be going?" We are currently in the process of applying to serve in The Philippines! We have been praying and considering this decision for quite some time. Thank you for praying with us!

Right now we are looking for partners who are interested in seeing the unreached of the world reached with the Gospel of Christ. We are looking for people who will join us through finances, prayer, and encouragement. So over these next months we will be meeting with individuals and churches to see who wants to be a part of our team and invest with us in the people of the Philippines. Please pray for us and the team that God is preparing.