Montana

A little less than two weeks ago our outreach team arrived in Montana. We are staying in a little valley, with majestic mountains on either side of the countryside. This valley happens to be a Native American reservation, and the reservation is why we're here.
We are here to reach out to the very distraught and broken people that live on the reservations. We're working with Tribal Waves, an organization that reaches out to these people. One of the ways Tribal Waves is reaching out to the kids is by running the Zone, which is just a safe hang out spot for the kids located in a bakery. Here the kids can play games, have snacks, and hang out while Christian music is playing. Another way that the team I'm with is reaching out is by doing yard work and other community services. We have been getting up early almost every day and working until about mid afternoon.
Tomorrow we leave for Tacoma, Washington where my family as well as one other team member will continue our outreach and the rest of the team will travel on to the nations. Continue to keep us in prayer!

Update

We have an important update to our outreach. The leadership felt strongly that they should offer our family (as the only family in the DTS) an opportunity to serve for two weeks on the Flathead Indian Reservation with YWAM Tribal Waves , then afterward to go on to serve with Freedom River (http://freedomriver.net/) in Tacoma, WA for the rest of our two-month outreach. Freedom River is a multifaceted ministry, but its main focus is on serving the homeless community in the Seattle/Tacoma area. We have chosen to take this opportunity, after much prayer, for several reasons.

First, the leadership here felt that since our family had already been doing missions short-term, and were now planning on staying long-term, that we could meet the DTS Outreach requirements in full by serving in Montana and Tacoma. We were well on our way to being fully funded for the other trip, but this option allows us to return to the Springs with funds available to get settled in and get to work. Our leadership here feels, and we agree, that this is a better use of the funds we have received and of our family's giftings.

Second, the Freedom River leadership came and taught for a week during our lecture phase and put a burden on our hearts for their ministry. We've seen that our family can serve as a whole with them as they have ministries where even Faith and Lydia will be a blessing.

Third, Freedom River is also developing an aviation program and have a need for my Dad's expertise in a consulting role. This will also create a working partnership for the future between the two aviation programs.

Finally, there is another student who found out that she could not go overseas with her team due to fairly recent chemotherapy disallowing the necessary inoculations. No one should be a one-person team. Please keep Nicole in prayer as she travels with us.

Although we were enthusiastic about going overseas, we are truly excited to be going to Montana and Tacoma. We've learned a great deal about our giftings and calling during the lecture phase of our DTS, and feel this will be a great opportunity for our family to serve together.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and financial support. God has been meeting our needs faithfully, in ways that we would've never dreamed, and consistently growing our faith; so we've come to know that He will provide for whatever He tells us to do.

Rain

The other day Rachel and I decided to go to a movie. Afterward we were hungry, so we went and got Chinese takeout and took it to a local park to eat it. It started pouring down rain, so we packed up our lunch and ran to the van. By the time we got to the van it was hailing. We finished our lunch in the van, although it was a little soggy.
At the library, surrounded by books, it seems you can enter another world. Actually, thousands of other worlds. A world with no pain. Escaping into books allows you to forget about the past, future, and present. Books are full of color, illustrating remarkable scenes of beauty. Many people wish to escape out of this dull and gray world, to escape from hardship. But if they were to open their eyes, they would see that the world isn't such a gray and dull place. The fact that they don't know or understand is that we are only here for a short time, and God put it here for us to enjoy while we're here.

A couple of members of our school got baptized the other night. Did I mention it was outside? And it was about fifty degrees out? Or that the water still had ice in it? Anyway, it was a beautiful spot. The snow just added a bit of glitter. The three getting baptized were literally thrown into the water, and the third was dropped. I don't think any of them will ever forget that experience.
One if the students is from Hong Kong, and she is teaching me Mandarin. I'm excited about this because it's a language I've always wanted to learn. It's very complex, and I only know a few phrases so far, but I have five years to learn (it's also for high school credit). I don't think I'll be learning any characters anytime soon.
Faith and Lydia have a new friend named Ellie. She's a native American that does Origami, and Faith and Lydia have figured this out. Now every evening before dinner, poor Ellie is stuck making paper elephants, swans, and baskets. She finally told them to go find her a pink elephant, but Faith and Lydia figured it out after a few days. Little girls, you gotta love 'em.

On Saturday, the DTS team reached out to some homeless. We fed them pizza and gave out clothes. These are people who live in a tent, even in the cold, with little babies who don’t get enough to eat. Most of them live on a “homeless site”, where they are given a free place to pitch their tent. A few of them found out that the government is evicting them from their site. They don’t have anywhere to go if they get evicted. Please keep our homeless neighbors in prayer. I’m looking forward to doing some other things like this every Saturday for the next two months.
Ah! Warm weather is amazing! It’s almost seventy degrees here in Colorado, and it feels so good! However, it’s supposed to snow this weekend. With all this weather change, I wonder how they keep their plants alive.
As I said before, if you ever have any questions about what we’re doing here in Colorado, write a comment and ask.

Random Ramblings

Here in Colorado, the weather is quite mysterious. On Monday, it was freezing cold and snowing (I went for a run). On Tuesday, it was really warm and we didn't need shirts (Rachel and I took the kids to the movies). Yesterday, it was cold again and raining, and now today, it's sunny out and looks warm, but it's chilly.

Our days look like this: in the morning Mom and Dad go to the base, while we (meaning my siblings and Rachel and me) stay home and do school and clean the house. Then we join the DTS students at the base for lunch, and while they go back to class we take the kids to the library or some other fun activity. Then we head back to the base and hang out until dinner, after which we leave for home. Kind of a chaotic schedule, but everyone is adjusting.

On Sunday afternoon we went for a hike in the mountains with one of the staff of YWAM as our guide. It was about a two mile hike, and as we got higher, instead of getting colder, we got warmer. After traveling back down the mountain, nine of us crammed into an eight passenger SUV. At least the view out the windows was beautiful, even if I couldn't feel my feet. :)

This has been Random Ramblings of a homeschooler, thanks for reading.

Lydia

My sister Lydia is not enjoying having Rachel be in charge. The other day Rachel was sitting across the room when Lydia tripped and fell. Lydia said, "Rachel made me fall, sissy!" with tears running down her face.
Then Lydia goes: "I don't like you, I don't want you in this family, so can I have some gum?"
So now Rachel has been rejected from the family, blamed for everything, called stupid, mean, and Frito, all in a week.
Lydia also has nicknames for several people in DTS. We have Lord Fluffy, Little Turtle, Lollipop, My Friend, and Jungle Tim. She also confuses two names and came up with Hellie.
Three year olds, you gotta love 'em, right? Don't worry, Rachel doesn't take anything personally. At least as she gets older she will hopefully be a very sweet person.