KONOMALA

Thank you to everybody who has been praying for us all after Token’s death last month. We still have random moments where we stop and remember him and tell some story that we were reminded of. Overall, we’re all doing well. We’ve had lots of opportunities lately to bring more and more truth to light with our friends. The fragility of it all feels very real. The future is totally unknown to us. Thankfully, we can rest with confident hope in the goodness and complete sovereignty of God.

We have an upcoming language check in just over a month. With that in our minds, we’re trying to take advantage of every opportunity each day to talk as much as possible and practice our language. On top of that we’re pushing hard to do a lot of culture study and confirmation as we’re looking ahead at writing some big reports that summarize the life and worldview of our friends here in Konomala.
The friendships and language side of things is great! The office time and constant reports are kind of like staring at the sun … all it does is give you a headache and make your eyes water. And you never feel like you accomplished anything.

But we have hope!
Someday we will be with Jesus, with new bodies, on a new earth, and with no more reports to do.
All kidding aside, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We’ll figure out more of the details during our next language check, but we’re in the home stretch. It is only a matter of months before we could be finished with the official study of the Konomala language and culture! We can’t wait to have that task behind us.

Every day we are trying to dig deeper and think through the things that are motivating our friends at a deep heart level. We’re asking questions like: What is driving them to do the things that they do? Who do they feel is the authority in their life? What are they hoping in? What is their mission and purpose in life? What is right and good as a Konomalan person? How do they see themselves … what is their identity being built on?
And so on.

Those are the answers that really matter. It’s no different in our own lives either. As God is challenging our own hearts and minds, those are the same questions that we have to answer. Those are the same questions that we have to help our kids think through as they are growing and forming their own views on the world.

Thinking and engaging on that level gets messy really fast. Thankfully God isn’t scared of the mess and He isn’t expecting instant change. He is in it for the long haul, and He isn’t uncomfortable with the time it takes to bring those things to the surface as He works in us. That’s the same mind that we want to have as we engage in the mess of our family’s and friends’ lives.

the TRUCK

So our reliable team truck hasn’t been as reliable lately. Being a full day’s drive away from help, our team has decided that it would be wise to buy a more reliable truck for the years ahead of living in Konomala.

Keep an eye out for an email in the next few days with some more details.

Please Pray

That we keep remembering the things that are true and rest in the goodness and love of our heavenly Father. It’s easy to get discouraged in the messiness of life and in the constant grind of it all.

That we love our kids well and point them towards Jesus as they grow and learn each day. It’s only as we experience and rest in His grace that we can extend that same grace to our kids and the people around us.

That God would continue to protect our friends here. And that He would keep preparing their hearts for the truth.

That we would make good progress heading into our next language evaluation. Seems like more often than not that there are long stretches of time that get completely disrupted by things that are out of our control.