Matt and Rachel Clayton Just another weblog 
Wow! We know that it has been some time since we last sent out an update and by now we have lots of really big news to share.
The first and biggest of all our news is the birth of our third child and only daughter: Chloe Grace Clayton. So far she has been a great baby. She sleeps fairly well at night although lately Rachel has been wishing she would sleep a little more. She doesn’t cry much and when she does it is a small and quiet cry. Rachel and I consider ourselves very blessed and are thankful that so far she hasn’t been too demanding.
Not wanting the potential chaos that could be caused by a new member of the family to be unrealized, Silas and Zachary have been turning it up a notch for us. I am not sure if it is because of the adjustment to the new baby or if it is the fact that Zachary is getting closer to the two year old marker. They’ve managed to keep us busy with lots of unbridled energy.
Because of the cold weather the kids have been kind of locked in doors. (Two weeks ago we had highs in the single digits with a wind chill around -30. The schools were all shut down. Supposedly, extreme frostbite could have occurred on any exposed skin in under 30 minutes). Being indoors so much unfortunately means everyone has been passing around colds, sore throats, stomach bugs, etc. I’m glad that everyone is finally getting healthy and that we are starting to settle back into the normal swing of things.
Things have been going fairly well over here. When we first got to Michigan we started on the paperwork process to get our visas and other paper work cleared but we ran into a snag. In order to process the paperwork they needed the socials, passport numbers, and other info for everyone in our family that would be going over. This included the information for our yet unnamed child who would be joining us after she would be born. We tried to see if there was some way we could get everything else cleared and then just kind of pencil her in later. In the end they told us we would just have to wait.
In addition to the delay there was a paperwork issue that resulted in the PNG (Papua New Guinea) government deciding that they would not process any new NTM visas from August 2006 to April 2007. This was done because of a high volume of existing visas which had expired and all needed to be renewed at the same time, not because of any wrongdoing on NTM’s part. So even when we get Chloe’s information we will not be able to begin the two month application process until April. Needless to say we were not happy about this at all. It already seems like we have spent so long training and preparing and talking about and getting ready for going over. The last thing we wanted was another delay, but it seemed we have no choice.
I say things have been going well because even though we were really stressed out about having to wait I am beginning to see how the Lord may have known this was a good thing all along. For one, it is giving our family time to adjust and stabilize to Chloe’s arrival. It has also allowed us more time to raise support. Even though this process has been steady, it has been a little slower than we had hoped and the extra time will be nice. Finally, the pace of our training was so fast that in some ways it didn’t really give Rachel or I time to really prepare mentally, spiritually, or emotionally for the next step. It’s been good for Rachel to spend time with her family knowing that she will have to be away for so long. It has been good for me to really sit down and count the cost of the challenges that are ahead. It has given us time to spiritually set our resolve.
So the time we have spent here has been good and feels like it has gone by really fast. Rachel’s parents own an assisted living home for seniors and we have been living in the basement level for free. In return I try to help with the facilities where ever I can. I have also been teaching an elective for high schoolers at the Fowlerville Christian School. We are pretty involved at the Church here too. I have been helping with the youth group and am teaching the high school Sunday school class. Then there is the support raising which has been going alright. Most of the free time in between that stuff we try to spend with Rachel’s family before we leave.
As for the lack of a newsletter, well that is kind of an embarrassing topic that we really don’t have any real good excuse for. Rachel and I have been talking about how we really need to get one out soon but something always seems to come up. We feel terrible about this because we know that many of you have made generous sacrifices to help see this ministry get off the ground and you deserve to be kept informed about our progress to that end. We are determined to get better in this by sending these updates out more regularly. Hopefully on a monthly basis. We also hope to get a website set up soon through our mission board which will be nice for keeping everyone posted as well. If we fail to get information out to you in a timely manner please feel free to ask us about it. We want to be held accountable.
Lord willing, we would really like to leave for Papua New Guinea on June 30th or as close to that date as possible. That means we have only 18 weeks and counting to finish getting everything done which still needs to be done. Since there is still a good amount of work to be done that means we will be extremely busy. But we are also very excited to be this close to finally setting foot on PNG soil. Thank you again for all your support and your prayers. Thank you for sharing in our dream and our passion of seeing the gospel taken to the unreached.
-Matthew and Rachel Clayton
