NTM

Pray for the 158 students who are currently taking classes at the MTC.

Pray for the incoming 41 students who are preparing to enter the training in January 2009.

Today, August 18th, marked the beginning of another year of training missionary candidates! 

454 total campus residents

• 137 staff – teachers, maintenance, administrative, etc.
• 159 students
• 154 children

As Registrar, I personally get to correspond with each and every new face coming to the Missionary Training Center.  E-mail has revolutionized my job, but with that easy form of communicating, also comes challenges.

One of the incoming students kept after me for "stuff."  Whether it was a template, a photo, a video, an article, there was always "one more thing" that he was looking for (and asking for in a very gracious way!).    One day it hit me that my attitude towards this guy wasn’t very godly.  I was getting frustrated by him, but in reality the Lord was using him to show me my lack of passion in not only reaching the lost, but in my ministry.  Here was a new candidate who just wanted to share the work of New Tribes Mission and just wanted to share his enthusiasm with others.  Boy, do I have a lot to learn from him!!!!!   My attitude changed and I’m looking forward to meeting this young man and seeing what he has to teach me!

Pray as we start the new semester and interact with each other.  It gets pretty hectic at times and we all live, work and study in close proxemity to each other.  Each of us come from various backgrounds and countries each with it’s unique style and flavor.  

Pray for each of the candidates that they would take full advantage of their time at the Missionary Training Center.

It’s been an interesting week!   A week and a half ago I was chatting with my granddaughter in the Philippines, via Skype-a wonderful online video/messaging tool.  She had been fighting a high fever for 4 days and not feeling the greatest.  By the end of the weekend, both she and our son were fighting the fevers and weakness.

I felt so helpless not being able to help and my mind went in all directions as I envisioned different scenarios.  The Lord kept reminding me that HE was in control-which was good since in the last couple of days, the entire family flew to a large hospital in Manila and my level of concern kept rising!

After a week of not being in direct contact, I was able to talk via telephone with both Steve, Mikayla and the rest of the family this morning and what a relief to hear their voices and know that they were on the mend.  The two younger brothers of Mikayla are now fighting the same thing, but they’re under good medical care and the support system for the entire family is great! 

What have I learned? 

• I can’t protect my children from the evils of this world!
• I can’t be with them at all times!
• I can’t, but HE CAN! 

The Lord is so faithful and has met not only my needs, but the needs of my children!  It doesn’t matter where they are, or what they are doing, they are still in the Lord’s hands and what a better place to be.

Switch to Texas!   Our newborn granddaughter has minor heart problems and breathing issues and after much testing, she was cleared by the Dr.s this week and is expected to grow out of all the problems.  Again, I couldn’t be with her and our daughter and husband during these days, and AGAIN God proved Himself sufficient.  He met my need for comfort and my kid’s needs. 

I’m so THANKFUL for an understanding of God’s character and for the knowledge of Him.  I’m also so thankful for the fellowship of believers who reach out to support, comfort and uphold not only John and I, but our children-around the world!   Thank You!

The day finally arrived and we got the call-Christine was in labor and could we hurry to Waco, TX to be there in time for the birth!   After a long 12 hour drive, we made it and thankfully, Sydney hadn’t waited on us!

Sydney Leigh Carver, born Feb. 24th at 12:11 p.m. joined big sister Abby Renae and her parents, our daughter, Christine and husband Jason.   We’d been waiting a month since it seemed as if little Sydney really wanted to come early, but she was only a week early. 

What can we say about a new baby-she’s cute, precious, lovable and hug-able!   John and I consider ourselves privileged to be with Chris and Jason during this time and were able to spend a quite a bit of time with the family.

Thanks for all the prayers that went out for Sydney!   She is such a good baby which is great, since 17 month old Abby will keep Mom plenty busy.  Abby  loves her little sister and goes looking for her first thing in the morning and then gives out kisses. 

As we approach the Easter season of remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, I’m reminded that He died for us, so that we may have NEW LIFE!

Happy Resurrection Day!

How much can be said for family togetherness?   You know we’re having a great time when grandpa decides to join his 2 grandsons in getting shark tatoos! 

The last week of our time with the kids was spent at a lovely beach front resort in the Philippines.  It was so nice being able to relax and to have the grandkids stay with us in our cottage for a week.  Steve and Jen were able to have some well deserved time to themselves and papa and gram (my new name) got to enjoy the grandkids. 

Many of our memories are of singing in the car, finding a new name for grandma-and yes, it’s gram, but NOT Gram Cracker!  Other memories are of watching the grandkids learn to wakeboard, learn to read and practice using machetes! 

Precious memories were made when we all hiked to the waterfalls, and hiked with the chieftain to his mountain top village.  Did you know that it is possible to climb a foot wide path up a mountain and not kill yourself?  It was so much fun watching the 3 grandkids interact with the tribal children even though they couldn’t speak each others language.

How does one go about recapping two months of adventures?   As I’ve procrastinated about this, I realize I can’t even begin to cover everything, but will instead break my posts down into a few memorable events.

For 8 weeks, we’ve ate, slept and lived in a third world country.  You’d think that after having been involved with New Tribes Mission for almost 30 years, that nothing would have surprised me, but boy, was I wrong!

One of the biggest impressions I (Sandi) came away with was the physical sacrifice that our missionaries make in order to take the gospel out.  The day in and day out WORK of having to live in a less than desirable situation.  Our neatly packaged American ways are hard to compare with life in the Philippines. 

Words can’t describe the intense heat and humidity that is always around.  The complete overwhelming feeling of not being home-dirty shacks, unsanitary conditions, poverty of an extreme I’ve never seen before, rough hewn shacks and lack of common necessities are always before the missionaries. 

Culture shock is probably the term that is used to describe what I was feeling, and in reality, at the end of 8 weeks, these things didn’t seem as extreme as they appeared the first week.  The reality though is that the missionaries have decided to NOT let these hindrances stop them from their goal of sharing Jesus Christ.  My heart is overwhelmed with the sacrifices they are making-in many different areas and the physical part is just a small part. 

PRAY, PRAY, PRAY for our dear brothers and sisters who are living far from home and creature comforts and pray the Lord will bring many to know HIM through these sacrifices.

It’s hard to put into words the thrill we’ve had in the last couple of weeks as we’ve toured 3 different countries. 

Our adventures started the 27th of Sept. when we flew out of Manila for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Sandi’s eyes were seeing spots, so the first stop after a good night’s sleep was an eye Dr. who "just happened" to be the leading Opthamologist in KL!   He diagnosed a torn retina due to all things-OLD AGE- and proceeded to do a laser repair around the tear.  Good as new!

We weren’t able to travel out of the city for the time we were in KL due to my eyes, but we had a wonderful time with our hosts and John was able to connect with a classmate that he hadn’t seen in 40 years!

Thailand saw us visiting temples, elephant riding, touring palaces and a serious attempt at seeing some Thailand boxing.   The tuk tuk driver (motorcycle type cab) assured us he knew exactly where to go, but instead took us to "shops" where he got credit for bringing the tourist by!   When we finally figured out what was happening, he assured us it was only one more stop and he would get free gas!   We just smiled and rode along, since it didn’t appear we would have much choice!  After finding out tickets were too expensive, we dropped the whole idea!

Our day in Bangkok was so much fun and we closed out the evening eating at an International buffet overlooking the city from 83 stories high!

Our return to the Philippines was uneventful and we leave on the 18th for a 3 week tour of the country.  We’ll see some of the works that NTM is involved in as well as actually vacation with our children at a beachside resort.  John has patiently been waiting for this part of the trip (he’s been a good shopper) and he just keeps praying that we won’t have a typhoon!

I probably won’t post again till we return to the states mid-November.  Thanks for your prayers!

The Chieftain in one of the villages took us on a hike up to the top of the mountain to see his crops and old home. This area used to be heavily populated with over 37 families living in isolated tribal huts, but now there are only 9.

The hike almost did me (Sandi) in, but thankfully I kept looking up and made it to the top and what a wonderful view it was. 

The villagers were very shy and the universal love of children opened up a lot of doors for us.  In one hut was a 2 month old baby lying on the mat with only a little shirt on (yikes-no diapers here!). 

The other exciting news was that the canoe was taken off the frame and it floats!   Our son said he’d never seen such animation among Filipinos.  They were so excited and it’s going to be very hard for them to wait another couple of weeks while it lays on the bottom of the lake to continue curing!

I’ll post more pictures after our break here, but wanted to bring you all up to date!