NTM

Happy Birthday!

This February Logan celebrated his 23rd birthday. We were able to celebrate with some of his friends by eathing his favorite food… Pizza!

Laken is 3 Months

On February 28th Laken turned three months old. He is growing so fast! At his three month check up he weighed 15 lbs 5oz and was 26 inches long! What a big boy. He has been going to childcare while we are in class and he loves it. He talks a lot  and is looking more and more like his daddy everyday!

Friends and Family

During the first few weeks of March we were able to have all kinds of fun visitors. Our first guest wasour good friend Lauren from back home in Michigan. She came to stay with us during her spring break. We had a great time visiting with her. Laken especially loved her.

Soon after Lauren left, Mom and Dad Teall arrived to spend a  few days. It was good to have some family visit. We had a great time together and Laken really enjoyed seeing Grandpa and Grandma.The weather was great and we were able to go hiking at HaHa Tonka state park.

Kendra’s grandparents were our next guests. They arrived just in time to babysit Laken as we had some special classes that week and had to be in class from  8-12 and 1-5. Laken loved Great Grandpa Swayne. He just laughed and laughed at him.

After the great grandparents headed out we also had some friends from bible school down to visit as well as Kendra’s cousins Sarah and David.

We had a great time with everyone and we continue to thank the Lord for the wonderful christian family and friends that he has provided for us.

Classes have been going very well. We had a class called "Form and Meaning"  which dealt with translating scripture. It is important when translating the scripture into a tribal language to keep the true meaning that God intended. 

We are currently in a Tech Tips class that deals with all the physical aspects of living in a tribe. We are learning about soldering, solar panels, batteries, electricity, and so much other stuff that we need to know in order to build a house and live successfully in a foreign country, especially a tribal setting.

Our New Testament Principles class was great. Since we are planning to be church planters it is good to learn and review what the body of Christ should look like.

It is so exciting to see the Lord continueing to teach more about his word everyday!

Wow, did Christmas Break Fly!

It was so nice to be able to spend about 4 weeks at home in Michigan for our Christmas break. What a blessing it was to spend time with family as well as friends. Laken was able to meet his grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles and even his two cousins.

The Lord blessed us with safe travels the entire break (I think we drove all over the state of Michigan to be with family). We just want to thank you all for your prayers as we traveled. Also thank you to all of our church family who always make us feel right at home when we return for breaks. It was so good to see those of you that we could and we wish we could have seen the rest of you. We are looking forward to our longer break over the summer. Hopefully we will be able to spend a little more time with everyone!

Welcome Home Laken!

So we know it has been a while since we have updated you all.  (We would like to blame it on Laken, but I think some of it is our own fault!)

Laken is home and doing wonderful. We are truly enjoying being parents. He weighed a whopping 9lbs 3oz when he was born and was 21 in long. He is growing more and more every day. He is a wonderful baby, we couldn’t ask the Lord for anything better. We wouldn’t trade him for anything.

Thank you all for your prayers. My labor went very well (though it was extremely painful) and both Laken and I had no complications. We appreciate you all.

If you could be praying for Laken’s health and that we would be Godly parents we would greatly appreciate that.

Thanks again for everything!

Please be in prayer for our friend Isaac Smay. He and his wife are in training with us here at New Tribes. Isaac was in a car accident about 8 years ago and did a lot of damage to his knees. He has already had several surgeries. The doctors told him this summer that his knees would only last about two more years and he would need knee replacement surgery. This is a very expensive surgery and they do not have insurance at this time. They really need your prayers as Isaac has been in a lot of pain recently and they are trying to figure out what to do about the cost of the surgery.

Thank you for your prayers!

Yes! That is our BABY!

I don’t know if you can tell, but this is the baby’s profile, with his/her arm over the face.

Wow, isn’t God amazing. Sometimes I just sit and think how awesome it is that there is a little human being inside of me. It’s crazy to think about. We just wanted to let you know that our pregnancy is going very well. We had a doctor’s appointment last week and he told us everything looked good. We had an ultrasound yesterday and the baby looked healthy. He/She weighs four and half pounds and is growing every day (along with mommy!). God is definitely taking care of us. Please continue to pray that God will keep the baby healthy and that I would stay healthy in order to go to classes. Thank you again for all your prayers so far.

Free Mechanics!

Every year a group of mechanics come to the Missionary Training Center for a week to work on student vehicles. They do this as a ministry so there is no charge for the work done to your car.

Praise God, they were able to fix our small but difficult problem. For the past several weeks our car would just randomly not start. These men were able to look at the car and diagnose the problem. They put in a new starter and the car is running great!

We praise the Lord for these men and the awesome ministry that they have!

Logan and I feel that through God’s word we know that we should be serving Him in another country. The problem is, that God did not say in his word "Logan and Kendra I want you to serve in…" Sometimes (actually a lot of the time) I wish that God would have given us a specific country to serve in, but He hasn’t. God has given us the freedom to choose where we will serve.

Though He has given us the freedom to decide what country to go to, we also know that He will be guiding us and He has a plan for us. This past Thursday and Friday we were able to attend Field Fair. In a way Field Fair is kind of like a missions conference. New Tribes Mission got around 20 to 30 representatives to come to the Missionary Training Center and speak to the students about the needs of the different fields. It was a very awesome time of hearing what God had done on different fields and what He was in the process of doing. It was also very difficult. For two days we heard speaker after speaker get up and say how badly they needed missionaries. They told us what needed to be done in each country in order for lost people to hear the gospel.

So many people are needed to reach the unreached. There are 105 people in our class. Each of these people plan to be missionaries. It seems like a lot, but more than likely the 105 of us will not be able to reach the entire world. In Matthew 9:37 Jesus says, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." Logan and I know that we are to be laborers. Now we just need to decide where God would have us labor. Please pray for us as we are seeking to make a decision. Also please be praying that people would see the need to be laborers. You may even want to pray and see if the Lord would have you be a laborer!