Post Charlotte

Well we've been back for a week and a half now but we haven't posted about our trip to Charlotte. We were at SIM's USA headquarters in Charlotte for two weeks of training (called SIMCO by SIM). They were two busy weeks of 8:30AM-5:00PM+ classes and meetings about life in the mission field. Classes were on subjects like spiritual warfare, making disciples, contextualized theology, serving on multicultural teams and how not to get electrocuted in countries that don't really follow the electrical codes that we do in the US.

Our schedule was pretty hectic and didn't leave much time for play. The boys were not happy that we were less than a mile from Carowinds and never had the time to check it out. Even the weekends were filled with some classes. We also used the time to visit with Steve and Carol Kejr who spent 25+ years in Liberia. Steve worked in a similar role to what Rusty will be doing so it was great to talk about the nuts and bolts of the ELWA compound (and cons of not taking your anti-malarial meds!).

Another highlight was meeting the other 40+ SIMCO attendees. We enjoyed hearing their testimonies and getting to know them and their kids. One family was leaving for Niger the day after we left and another left two days ago for Nigeria. The rest will be fanning out across Asia, Africa and Latin America over the next year.

Here are a few pictures from the 2 weeks:

Here are the boys with the myriad of other kids.

Here is the new (moved from another location and just finished this past spring) MK house. The boys spent most of their time either at the MK house, computer lab or on field trips.

Every SIMCO they have a volleyball game of SIMCO vs. the world (the SIM staff). This year was a rare victory for the SIMCO team. We had a good batch of young missionaries this year that led us to victory.

And last but not least Kobe was excited to find a Praying Mantis (ironically the first one he's seen in the wild, and found on the SIM campus who's motto is By Prayer). The Mantis was cool, but we spent the two weeks being serenaded by a good brood of cicadas. We've never been exposed to these noisy bugs before so it was pretty interesting. North Carolina won't see this brood again until 2025.

So now we have until January to finish our reading and preparations. We found out about lots of other things to prepare for over the past month. Things like Mango Flys, Giardia, Mefloquine and Mice... (Pictures and text stolen from a SIM missionary in Liberia)

Mouse runs up ramp to first niblet of peanut butter, follows trail of more niblets onto the wire across bucket, goes for big gob of peanut butter on the pop can, can spins, mouse loses footing, SPLOOSH!, mouse goes for swim. Patent Pending for my good friend, Gary Dunseath.

New project: Mouse enters tunnel, mouse goes for gob of peanut butter with "bony" (dried fish), tunnnel tips off counter, mouse goes for swim. Patent Pending for my good friend, Eric Thibodeau.

Tony Snow

Tony Snow had this essay published a year ago today. He died on July 12th from colon cancer.

7 days down, 7 to go

Well we've been in Charlotte for a week now.

We started off the week by getting 4 different immunization shots on Saturday, followed up with another one yesterday. The Typhoid Fever immunization is pill form and we'll take the last one tonight...then only one more rabies shot to look forward to.

We've had classes from 8:30am to 5:00pm all week. The classes have been interesting, with topics like mobilization/travel, thinking biblically on diversity and worldview, islam and expectations. We only have about 3 hours of class tomorrow, and get all Sunday off.

All together there are 13 couples and 9 single women. So if you're a single man, it looks like the numbers are in your favor in missions. Between the 13 couples we have about 26 kids. The boys are split up into classes of about 6 kids each. There time is split up between learning, crafts, sports and field trips.

Both Tuesday and Wednesday we had some pretty intense thunderstorms. There was about a 15 minute period where there was pretty much continuous thunder. All the kids ran out into the rain and were soaked in about 10 seconds. We had to try to walk the 300 yards between the residence building and the main building both nights for dinner. Everyone was pretty wet...but at least nobody was struck by lightening.

Leavin on a jet plane

Well we're sitting at SeaTac waiting for our plane. It was supposed to leave at 10:10pm so we were looking forward to a good aerial view of the fireworks over Seattle, but right now they are projecting a 11:05 departure. I guess we'll watch out the concourse window.

We're heading to Charlotte for 2 weeks of mission training. The boys get to go through a special course that SIM has tailored for mission kids (or MKs). A few people have asked what type of training we will receive. My typical answer has been both small arms and hand to hand combat. Most people don't seem to like that answer though. Most of the training is in dealing with cross cultural situations, working in teams and support raising, but I'll probably be able to answer the question a little better in a couple weeks.

Jamie and I were commenting all day that it just doesn't seem like the 4th of July. Typically at this time on the 4th we have about 150 people at our house and John and Royce and I are carrying fireworks down to the river to get the show ready. At least tomorrow morning I'll wake up with far fewer burns on my fingers (and no clean up!).

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to post over the next couple weeks so I wanted to give out a couple prayer requests. We have a couple "friends" we've met through our connection with Acres of Hope that have some big surgeries coming up next week. Both Jocelyn's son Isaac and Charity & Igor's son Emmanuel will be having surgery. You can check out their blogs to keep up with the latest. In Jocelyn and Charity's spare time they've also started Redeeming Waters International to raise money for wells in Africa. Here's a video they just made.




So keep Isaac and Emmanuel in your prayers and don't forget to check out Redeeming Waters International.

I finally cut it!

I've been talking for several monthes now about cutting my hair and donating it, I finally did it this morning. After a little research on the web I decided to donate my hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. They provide, for free, real hair wigs to women fighting cancer. http://www.beautifullengths.com/en_US/about.jsp God has blessed me with very thick and fast growing hair. I figure it is a small thing for me to do. The amount I had cut is probably only two years worth of growth.

Here are a couple before photos.

And the after photos.

My hair was in several layers so I think my ponytails measured from 9 to 15 inches! After being in 90* weather in spokane this last weekend I thought it would be best to cut it before we leave for North Carolina Friday. I am always amazed at how much lighter my head feels once all that hair is gone.