Back from the Jungle! - Part One

After 4 weeks of living off the grid, I'm back in "civilization" and excited to update you on what God has been doing.

(This is part one of my jungle camp updates, so keep an eye out for part two, where I'll be sharing some pretty big news about how God has been directing and re-directing me during the past several months!)

So, how was jungle camp?

Great. Challenging. Difficult. Enjoyable. Relaxing. Stressful. Hot. Rainy. Encouraging.

The adjectives could just keep coming. Overall though, it was a wonderful learning experience, and I can honestly say I enjoyed doing so many news things that I had never done before. What kind of things? Well, let me take you on a tour of Jungle Camp as I answer some of the FAQ I've heard since getting back!

WHAT WAS THE BEST PART OF JUNGLE CAMP?

I loved living together in community with all of my classmates and two staff families who were with us in camp. There was a closeness that is totally unique and different from our normal North American life together.

Our Jungle Camp Family!

In the evenings, I could sit in my house and hear one family singing the doxology together before supper, another family reading through "The Hobbit," someone playing guitar down the hill, and laughter filtering through the trees from the ladies across camp. There in the isolation, we were together!

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST PART OF JUNGLE CAMP?

Building my house was the most difficult part of jungle camp for me. Putting in two weeks of 15+ hours work days, and facing things every single hour that I had never done before was exhausting and overwhelming at times. However, it was also a really good time of growing and trusting God for guidance and strength as I desired to persevere and finish well.

Endless digging of holes!

Putting up the sides of our house

Rafters are done and we are ready for the roof plastic!

Putting on the roof plastic! We definitely had a love-hate relationship with this piece of plastic. Loved when it worked and hated when it leaked!!

Corner support posts - Gotta love duct tape!!

Working on our stove was a daily project as layers and layers of clay had to be added to the inside and outside so they could dry and harden. 

Planning and leveling out counter top frame

Installing our counter top supports

Staples, staples, and more staples!!

Yes, I am sitting in a hole in the mud!

Measure, mark, and measure again!

HOW WAS LIVING IN YOUR HOUSE?

Two weeks of building produced this house!   

It isn't fancy and definitely wasn't perfectly executed, but it represents so much work, a lot of learning, and quite a bit of fun as well.

While building our house was definitely challenging for me, I loved living in it. Sure, there were inconveniences, bugs, leaks, and frustrations that came along with living in a plastic and duct tape house in the woods, but I learned so much from building and living in it, including: how to wire a simple DC circuit for our lights, how to bake and cook in a clay oven/stove that we built, how to disassemble a sink to fix leaks (I was marginally successful), how to kill spiders as big as my hand (seriously, I'm not kidding!!), how to chop wood, how to build a fire and get it hot enough to actually bake, and so many other things.

Move-in day was both exciting and very tiring! 

Lots of unpacking, organizing, and sorting to do before our house started to feel like a home.

My bedroom: the bed is covered with a mosquito net that protected me from both mosquitoes and spiders! 

My mattress was layers of cardboard and styrofoam glued together and then foam on top. It was far more comfortable than I expected. 

The back half of our house was our bedrooms and living space, which could be divided up by curtains we pulled down the center and across from the sides. 

Our kitchen was very functional, and for once, I got to work at a counter top designed from a 5'7'' person! :-) 

Chopping fire wood was a new adventure for me! And believe me, you use plenty of fire wood when boiling water takes 45+ minutes. 

WERE THE ISOLATION AND LACK OF ELECTRONICS DIFFICULT?

Time passed so quickly because everything took longer in Jungle camp. Every day is filled with just living life, and because we lived in a community there, I'm really thankful that I didn't struggle too much with the isolation.

Hammock time with friends took the place of facebook time.

That being said, I was certainly excited to get to check facebook and catch up with friends when I got out. I definitely missed my laptop though when I had to write a paper by hand...haven't done that since middle school!

WHAT DID YOU EAT?

We hiked in all of our supplies, including our food, so we had a lot of canned meat and vegetables with basic starches like rice or potatoes. I successfully made bread in our jungle camp oven, which was exciting! Overall, we ate similarly to normal, but had fewer fresh fruits, veggies, and dairy.

The food we canned: pears, peaches, applesauce, chicken, beef stew, and chicken soup.

We also brought store-bought canned food, and didn't even get close to using up all of our food. 

DESCRIBE A TYPICAL DAY IN JUNGLE CAMP? 

Living in Jungle Camp involved many of the same tasks as regular life...they just took a lot longer. Our typical days involved building a fire, cooking breakfast, working around the camp on clean-up or building projects we were assigned, cooking lunch, washing laundry, studying/writing letters/journaling, taking a nap in the hammock, helping watch some of the kids in camp, cooking supper, and visiting together in the evenings.

Our laundry station: tubs of water, a plunger, and a ringer produced (mostly) clean clothing.

Laundry was always more fun if there were cute little helpers available to pitch in! 

WHAT WERE NON-TYPICAL THINGS THAT YOU DID?

We had a lot of first-time experiences and had a lot of fun together in between just living life and working hard!

During our first week, we butchered chickens.

Then we enjoyed a big community chicken potluck!

We celebrated Canada Day, with festivities that included a flag-making contest,

face painting,

and a slip-n-slide made from left over plastic from our roofs.

We enjoyed lots of time singing together,

playing games,

celebrating birthdays,

worshiping together,

working on building projects,

and just living life together in camp!!

WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

If you are curious about the purpose behind jungle camp, check out my last blog post where I answer that question in depth.

WHAT IS NEXT?

Stay tuned for part two of my jungle camp update, where I'll share with you some new ways that God is directing me, blessing me, and growing me as I prepare for what is coming up in the future!

Hope you enjoyed your tour of jungle camp! I'd love to answer any other questions you have about my time in jungle camp, or my training up to this point. Visit my blog and leave a comment on this post with your questions!


Follow me on Facebook to get more regular updates, prayer requests, and pictures of my everyday life here at the training center.

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.

Jungle Camp: It takes a team!

There are no lone rangers in this line of work!

I've been reminded over and over again this past month how essential teamwork is in so many different areas of life, and specifically missions work.

On the mission field, church planters depend on the help of language consultants, pilots, supply buyers, leadership, prayer supporters, financial supporters, accountants, and the list goes on...

It's not an accident that no one person is able to do it all. During the past several months, our class has read through Acts, Romans, Revelation, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, and we've been reminded over and over again that God has designed and fit together different parts to work in different ways in His body, the Church. We aren't supposed to all do the same things, think the same way, or have the same skills.

JUNGLE CAMP

Hopefully my jungle camp house will be livable in less than a week! 

Jungle Camp is definitely one of the things that God has been using to remind me how much I need other people to help me!

"What is jungle camp?" you ask. Well, it is a 6 week practicum where my classmates and I have the opportunity to put into practice some of the skills and lifestyle changes that we'll need to use on the mission field.

Here are the basics.

First two weeks = Build a house
I have teamed up with one other women to build a house in the Canadian "wilderness" without using any modern, electric tools. Our primary materials are pre-cut poles, plastic sheeting, screen, duct tape, twine, dowel rods, and staples (nails/screws = forbidden).  We dig holes, set posts, make a clay-covered oven, install a roof, and hopefully end up with a house that is livable, because...

The site of our future Jungle camp house (after several hours of leveling the dirt). 

Final four weeks = Live off the grid
On Saturday, we will move into our house and live there for a month. On our move-in day, we'll have 17 hours to hike/carry in any supplies we want (It is close enough we can make multiple trips). Anything forgotten will have to be lived without. Our entire class is building houses, so during the month, we'll be living in fairly close proximity to each other and hopefully able to help provide supplements for forgotten items.

Day Two: Frame is up, roof plastic is on, oven is built and covered in clay.

What's the point?
We aren't just doing this because we are missionaries and thus like adventures! :-) This exercise is intended to teach us lessons and skills that we will need while living in remote locations with unreached people groups. It isn't designed to exactly replicate living on the mission field, because every field is different, but here are some of the valuable lessons we can learn through it though.

1. Teamwork
We get to plan, pack, build, and live with one other person, who probably has very different skills, preferences, and ideas  and a different personality from us. Can we learn to work together when we both love our different but incompatible ideas? Can we be flexible and find a middle ground? Can we prefer one another when the conditions are less than ideal and our nerves are raw?

Day Three: Digging holes for counter top posts

2. Time Management
We have a limited amount of time to plan, limited time to build, and even while living in jungle camp, everything will take longer. Making coffee suddenly becomes an involved, lengthy task to say nothing of laundry! We will also be given reading and writing assignments to complete, and some weeks will have a required number of hours of study time. All of this will require us to carefully and thoughtfully make choices about our time. That is so practical for the field, where missionaries routinely have to put in 8-12 hours of culture and language study per day for years in order to learn an unwritten language.

Day Five: Counter top and shelves done. Sink plumbed.

3. Unplug
Learning how to live without being in close contact with everyone in our social circle is not as easy as it sounds. What happens when you can't keep in touch by checking facebook? When you can't "google it" to find your answer? When you can't unwind by listening to music? When you can't even type up your paper? We will find out how dependent we are on electronic devices for convenience, but also at times for validations. During jungle camp, we'll get a small taste of the future disconnect we'll most likely experience once we move into a remote people group.

Jungle Camp Tech Class: We learned to solder, wire a simple DC circuit
from a car batteries, and utilize solar energy to charge our batteries.

Our class with "our" jungle camp solar panel successfully set up. 

4. Endurance
While some of you probably think this sounds like a great adventure, it will also be challenging. During the building days, we've been spending 10-15 hours a day doing hard, physical labor. During jungle camp, we'll be very busy; and in the middle of all of this, we'll be going on a 2 day (3 day for the guys) hike. This whole experience is a chance to test our "grit." When we are tired, when the bugs are terrible, when we just really want nothing more than COLD water with ice cubes, when our shoulders ache from digging our 30th hole, do we choose joy or grumbling?

80+ HOURS of work in one week represented right here! First week of building is done. 

5. Learner's Attitude
There will be a lot of new things during jungle camp. From building a house, to cooking in a clay barrel oven, to learning to use solar power, to installing wiring in my house, it will be full of lessons, probably some failures, but hopefully successes as well.

My new oven...friend or foe? I'll let you know next month!

I can't do this alone, but that is true in all of life. I've already been incredibly humbled at the help I've received as I've prepared for jungle camp. As I recognize areas where I need help, it reminds me to be so thankful for the skills and gifts of others in the body of Christ.

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

Click HERE to find out more about financial partnership.

(My apologizes for not having a printable pdf of this update attached. I'll return to that format next month.)

Halfway there (This is no joke!)

Happy April Fool's Day! Because of the ironic timing of this post, I just want to begin by promising that none of the news I share in this post is a joke. What's a person to do though when the first free day in a long time falls on such a "suspicious" date?!

Thank you for all of you who have been praying for me these past months! Last time I posted, which was over two months ago (yes, I'm quite late getting this post out...promise I have good reasons), I was sharing about milestones, many of which were taking place in Papua New Guinea.

Today, I get to share with you a few exciting ones for me. I'm praising God because I've officially passed the 50% support mark! Woohoo! I'm amazed at God's faithfulness and so humbled to see the passion and willingness of individual believers and church families who are excited about being part of taking the gospel to people who've never had access to it before!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to each of you who are giving and praying! It is a joy to be serving the Lord with you!

In additional to reaching the halfway point in my support raising, I'm also halfway through my training here in Canada. I'm not sure how that is possible! (Wasn't August just last month?) These past two months have been really intense and exciting in my classes! We've dug into the "nitty gritty" of phonetics and phonemics, learning how to accurately recognize and record the sounds of any language we encounter. Lord willing, these linguistic classes will allow my team and I to develop an efficient, usable orthography (the fancy word for alphabet) and make accurate choices in the Bible translation process in the future.

Oh yeah, remember that confusing looking chart I showed you in January? (See here if you don't remember.) I understand all of those symbols now. Along with my class, I've been studying, drilling, analyzing, listing, sorting, and charting these symbols to prepare for the work ahead.

We've also been digging into the animistic worldview, and understanding the cultural barriers that are present when we begin to teach the Bible in an animistic culture. (This video gives a heartbreaking glimpse into the life of animistic people). 

Throughout each step, God is continuing to increase my passion for this work, and my excitement to GO! 

SERVING NOW

Although the training is certainly my primary focus right now, the reality is that I'm not in a waiting period to serve God "someday." I'm called to serve now, and one of my desires when I moved to Canada was to find ways to actively get involved in outreach here. 

One of the really exciting opportunities God has provided has come through my friendship with a Syrian refugee family who came to Canada last fall. Because of my prior ESL teaching experience, I volunteered to work as a language helper to guide them as they work very hard to learn English and integrate into life here in Canada. While I started out in a teacher role, over the months as I've spent time with them each week, they really have just become my dear friends.

I spend most of my time with the girls, and they have been very curious about my faith, asking question about what I believe. Although there is still a great deal of our communication that is "lost in translation" because of their limited English (and my non-existent Arabic), some seeds have been planted. Please pray for "my" Syrian family to understand the love of God and the gospel of grace! Also, pray for me as I struggle to clearly communicate and answer their questions about my faith while dealing with the significant language barrier.

Follow me on Facebook to get more regular updates, prayer requests, and pictures of my everyday life here at the training center.

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.