Finished! My First Semester in Review

Happy New Year!

What an incredible year 2016 was for me, full of transitions, challenges, and innumerable blessings from God!

LOOKING BACK

After spending the spring and summer traveling and presenting the work God has called me to do, in August, I moved to Durham, Ontario, Canada to begin training at the NTM missionary training center. On December 16th, I completed my first semester. It was definitely a time of personal and spiritual growth.

I've taken classes on:

• Bible teaching 
• Cross-cultural communication
• Cross-cultural learning & teaching styles 
• Family life on the mission field
• Relationships
• Teamwork
• Singles in ministry
• Bible translation
• Time and Money Management
• and of course the infamous medical training week when I got to practice my shot-giving and suturing skills (No classmates were harmed in this class. I can't say the same for the chicken). 

I grew in my understanding of my identity in Christ, learning to recognize and surrender the parts of my identity and personality that could be a hindrance when I begin to live, work, and serve in a new culture.

I spent plenty of time outdoors, hiking in the summer,

raking in the fall,

and shoveling in the winter.

Most importantly though, I've become more convinced than ever that I'm exactly where God has called me to be, and my passion for taking the gospel to people who have never heard it before has only grown!

SO, WHAT'S NEXT?

On January 9th, I'll begin my second semester of training, diving into the linguistic studies that I will one day need in order to learn an unwritten language and develop a usable alphabet for it. Check out this picture which demonstrates the complexity and challenges that these languages can present.

Please pray that I will retain this essential information from my linguistic studies that will be so critical to the work that I will be doing in the future!

Praises from 2016:

• I've had a successful first semester at Missionary Training Center.
• I've found an amazing and encouraging new church family in Canada.
• In one year, God has provided 43% of the support that I need to serve with a church-planting team in Papua New Guinea.

Click HERE to see a summary of who I am and what I'm doing.

Click HERE to find out more about financial partnership.

Click HERE to download a pdf bulletin insert of this update.