Michael and Nancy Dore Tribal Missions Check out our latest newsletter! Below is a preview – click on the edges of the newsletter to see more pages, then download a copy for better viewing. This document is in .pdf format. You may need to download the free Adobe Reader.
Hope you like it!
Newsletter: April 2009 – Flu and Snowmen!
Hello All,
We are finally catching up from a crazy March! The first week we all suffered from a stomach flu. Sometimes you just have to laugh at life; like when you have two kids simultaneously throwing up! The next week we had a fever going around and then the third week we had bad colds. We all seem to be healthy now and are thanking God for that!
When we were healthy we took the time to make 45 snowmen, 200 hair bows, 10 gifts in a jar and Nancy’s mom made 50 scrubbies to sell for money to purchase kitchen items that we need in Guinea. We have a craft sale this weekend at our local community center, pray that it goes well! Thank you to those who sent craft things for us to use!
We also fit in time to print off several brochures to send to churches. We sent out 60 so far, pray for Michael as he calls those pastors to try to set up meetings. If you would like a brochure, or are interested in having us speak in your church feel free to contact us. Michael also found time to update our home church’s website (much overdue for a facelift) and to do several days of substitute teaching at the Christian School!
We may not be able to get to Quebec in August, as we had planned, but we continue to trust in God’s timing for us. Pray that we will remain focused as we look to Him for provision!
I know lots of you have been waiting for news of our van. We had so many paths that we started on to get it fixed and then that path would get blocked, but our mechanic finally just decided to take the transmission apart to rebuild it. He found that only the touque converter needed to be fixed! We got our van back last Wednesday at no cost to us!! A huge thank you to Johnson’s Automotive Repair of Big Rapids MI.
Pray:
That we would sell a lot at the craft sale!
That God would give us wisdom as we contact churches.
That we would have wisdom in what to do for Titus’ schooling next year.
Praise:
Our van is as good as new!
We are healthy again!
Completed!
We have done it – we have completed the church-planting training with New Tribes Mission! Michael will now further his education by taking the more advanced Linguistics course here in MO. The linguistics course will run through May and then finish up from August to December.
Nancy is looking forward to just being a wife and mother after having spent so much time in the classroom since Emma was born. She is going to start tackling homeschooling by starting with Titus in pre-school.
We finished our time of training with a Practical Skills class, it took the place of our ‘jungle camp’. We took classes on baking bread, pressure cooking, car maintenance, chainsaws, small engines, compasses, etc. We had to cook everything by scratch that week, including noodles…something that was not a success…but we did enjoy making granola cereal, granola bars, tortilla shells, and fruit leather among other things. We also could not use many electrical conveniences (if you want a challenge some time, try warming up your leftovers without a microwave!).
Newsletter: February 2008 – Christmas and a New Baby!
Hello Again,
So much has happened in the last few months, but I will try to not let this e-mail get to long. =)
We had a nice Christmas in Michigan with Nancy’s family, the kids loved playing in the snow and getting spoiled by grandma and grandpa! When we got back here to Missouri we found that our desktop had crashed! Thankfully with Michael’s computer knowledge we were able to retrieve almost all of our files, about the only thing we did lose was our e-mail list! We have been able to fix our computer and then we started to find all of our e-mail addresses.
Also during this time another important thing happened in our life – Micah Nathaniel Dore was born on January 22 at 4:10 am! He weighed in at 9lb 13oz, and was 22 1/2 in long! (to see pictures you can go to our picasa web album: http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.dorestoafrica/ ) Nancy is doing fine, she is just tired, trying to keep up with three little kids and classes! Nancy’s parents were able to come down here for about a week, which was a nice help for us. We finally seem to be catching up with everything so that is very nice.
We are looking forward to the end of February as Michael’s parents and two sisters are able to come for a week as well. We have not seen them since last summer so this will be very nice for us all!
Another big event coming up for us is the completion of our official New Tribes training. We will be done with all classes on March 14, Michael will then start the extra linguistics training the following week. He will be doing that through the end of this semester, coming back next semester to complete it (August – December). As our training begins to wind up, we look forward to being official members of New Tribes Mission!! It will be so exciting for us to finally have a huge chunk of our pre-field training done!
Many people are wondering what we will be doing for the summer. We are hoping to start some Partnership Development (deputation), so if you would like us to come to your church or know of a church we could speak at let us know.
Pray for opportunities to speak this summer.
Pray for wisdom in whether or not Michael should get a part time job this summer.
Pray for housing (what we have done in the past is no longer available for us)
Pray for our finances for our schooling.
Praise – safe delivery of Micah.
Praise – completion of training.
For Christ,
Michael, Nancy, Titus, Emma, and Micah
Dore
O-Si-O from the Capitol of the Cherokee Nation
We arrived on a Friday afternoon (10/04/07) to the Cherokee Baptist Association Camp in OK. We all had a few minutes to figure out who got what room we wanted, (they really were all the same) then we started figuring out how many bunk beds we wanted for our furniture. We ended up keeping six sets, two for the kids three for us and then a set as shelves. We then made a couch out of several mattresses. We actually are very comfortable, though Nancy is not sure how climbing in and out of bunk beds is going to go as the pregnancy progresses…
We were supposed to start with our language helpers on Monday but the nephew of our Cherokee Pastor died Saturday night so that has slowed things up. We were able to start our sessions today with our language helper. It was nice to finally start with the official language study.
We have been trying to learn some practical expressions (Hello, Goodbye, Thank You, Etc. ) Fortunately we don’t need to get those from an official language helper, we can just get them from anyone who speaks Cherokee. It is hard to use them though, as a lot of people do not actually speak it.
Our first Saturday here we were able go to a festival that had authentic Cherokee food, a stomp dance, Pow Wow and Cherokee crafts. It was really neat to observe the beginning ceremonies of the Pow Wow and see how the men and women did different dance rhythms at the same time.
Please pray for us as our whole class (50 adults plus kids) is eating together and living in the same building together. We are finding it hard for the kids to wait until it is the official meal time to eat. We have also been fighting a fever, so it is hard to not let the kids play with friends or even leave the room much.
Please pray for our Language Helper as he has dialysis three times a week and he has a surgery this Wednesday. He seems very friendly and we are excited to make a new friend!
We have a praise, actually two…we had gone into the laundro-mat only once so far and had to pay over $5 for three loads of laundry, but then they were able to hook up a washer here so now if Nancy just goes and does one load a day we may not need to go pay again! They also were able to get a better internet connection here so we are able to have internet here instead of going into town to a restaurant and having to order food to send e-mail.
Thank you all for your prayers, we love to hear back from you all…Hint, Hint!
We are trying to put some new pictures and videos up on our Picasa Web album! Check them out!
NH Trip July 2007
We got back this week from our trip to New Hampshire, something we have been planning and praying about for several months now. My parents and grandparents (on my mom’s side) are there and we had not seen some of them since way before Emma was born! Needless to say, we really wanted to go, but were not sure how it would work out… If I wasn’t able to get a job for the summer, we wouldn’t be able to afford to go; but if I did get a job for the summer, I had to rely on my employer letting me have a whole week off at the beginning of July! However, God is faithful – He provided me with a job working for one of the men in our church who has a concrete business, and who knew our situation and was very gracious in letting me have the time off for our trip!
We had a great time with my parents and sisters! The kids had a blast playing with their Aunties. My grandmother was delighted to see Emma for the first time, and we got to see almost all of my aunts and uncles. We even got to hear my dad, who is a mission representative with New Tribes, speak at a nearby church.
On the way back, we decided to take advantage of our traveling and swing by the new Answers in Genesis Creation Museum just south of Cincinnati. It was a great experience, with an excellent presentation of biblical and scentific truths. The kids especially liked the dinosaur exhibits. What a blessing that we were able to go there!
We continue to thank God for His blessings. Please continue to remember us in your prayers as we have four more short weeks here in Michigan for working, packing up, speaking at churches, etc. Pray for wisdom for us, and that our faithful God would continue to lead us.
Visit picasaweb.google.com/michael.dorestoafrica/ to see pictures of our NH trip and the Creation Museum!
Tech-Tips!
Did you ever wonder how to set up your own electrical system? Or maybe how to build an outhouse that doesn’t stink or fill up too fast, or how to best purify your water in a disease ridden environment, or how to help the indigenous people get good water.
As we get ready to go over to the field, knowing this is vital to having an efficient ministry. We cannot learn language if we are constantly sick from bad water. (Not to mention if we are dead from it!) Electricity is extremely useful to have, if only to run the computers that streamline the process of language learning and translation work. And who wants a smelly outhouse, anyway?
This is the driving force behind our new class, "Technical Tips for Missionaries". They want us to learn how to live in a third world country and know how to make use of things that will allow us to spend more time in ministry and less in surviving.
And yes, the class is fun! We get to make small projects as they teach us to work with electricity (to a certain extent), strip wires, solder, etc. Yes, even the wives! (You know everything will break down whenever the husband is not around!)
Here is a clip of Nancy hard at work, practicing her soldering skills! (click here)