September 20, 2008
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You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
Saying Good-bye (Farewell Party)
Getting Moved Out of Our House
It has been a whirlwind getting ready to head to our cross cultural training in North Carolina. After all the house renovations, garage sale and accepting a purchase offer for our house we decided we should move out before we left for training. We had a whopping 4 days to get that job done. Thanks again to the help from our many wonderful Christian friends the job went so well. We loaded up a huge U-haul truck and three pickup trucks on Friday and moved it all up to our little house in Baker, FL on Saturday. Our helpers were so eager-beaver that they even set up our house in Baker ready to start living in when we get back from training in November. Thank you to all who gave their time and backs to help get us another step closer to serving God in Italy.
Center for Intercultural Training
Union Mills, North Carolina
So many of you have asked us what this training is all about. Well, now that we’re here we can answer a little more intelligently. It seems that it makes no sense for us to head overseas to present ourselves as the “Ugly Americans”. That is, people who think that their way of life is superior to all others. In the short time we’ve been here and the two books we’ve read and the class time we’ve had we have come to realize that not everyone thinks or acts like us Americans. And, when we get into the field we need, as the saying says to, “do as the Romans do”. For us that is very literal.
So, the first 4 weeks of our training is called “equipping” which reinforces why we are headed overseas (to introduce our foriegn brothers and sisters to the gospel). And, to do it in a way that will make them receptive to what we have to offer. So, “old dogs” like me have to learn how to be slow to speak, quick to listen and gentle in what I do and say. Please pray for us, that we will be convicted of our short comings in these areas and give it up to the Holy Spirit to guide us.Missionaries- Giving their lives to Jesus
The Wilson Family headed to EquadorOne of the greatest blessings of this training for us is that we get to hang out with missionaries. We have been finding them to be wonderful people and they have such a heart for Jesus. How can you go wrong when you are making friends with such fine folks.
What is truly amazing is how willing these people are to head to far away lands to spread the gospel. Most of them are young couples with young children. Several have one or two kids, a couple of them have 6 and 8 kids. Seven of them are single folks. Can you imagine the logistics of relocating your whole family of as many as 10 with little ones as young as 1 month old to the likes of Yemen, Guatemala, Ecuador, Sierra Leone, Kazakstan, Uganda, Ukraine, North Africa, China, Germany, Belgium, Japan, Thailand and Italy? That’s what this group is up to.
My heart goes out to these wonderful people with hearts for God and His people. They could have a million excuses why they shouldn’t go and yet they are leaving everything behind and moving where they feel God’s call for them. Please keep missionaries in your prayers every day.
