MTI Week 3

The final week of MTI wrapped up with discussions about lifestyle choices, stress, loss, moral purity, language and saying good goodbyes. We talked about how we will live in our new cultures and all the people who are stakeholders in how we live. We made a list of all the different categories of people who will be looking at our lifestyles. A partial list: field leaders, neighbors, ministry team, supporters, family, etc. We learned we need to consider more than just our comfort, but also the implications our lifestyle will have on those around us and our ministry. We must prioritize these interests when we make decisions...God first, then look at the context and then ourselves; we want to make sure we will thrive for the long haul!

Stress: we learned it is normal! We discussed the types of stressors we will likely face, symptoms of burnout and coping techniques. I learned in going through the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale that I have been under "severe" stress in the last year! We are usually unaware of the cumulative effects of the different stresses in our lives! We learned what stresses us individually, what our warning signs are and that we need to have a plan to deal!

Loss and saying good goodbyes go hand in hand. We discussed that loss doesn't just involve the death of someone close to us, it also involves loss of relationships, loss of home, loss of status, job, stability, etc. Even though we choose some of this, we also still feel the loss of these things and if we don't recognize and deal with the feelings properly, they can tear us up inside without us knowing why. We learned 3 important principles for healthy hellos and goodbyes:
1. Choose suffering over safety
2. Express a desire to bless the other person
3. Healthy goodbyes are part of wholesome hellos.

Moral Purity: purity indicates a state of the heart where there is complete devotion to God.
Key principles: Hate sin - anything that mars your devotion to God, listen to your conscience, confess in community, flee & pursue (flee the evil desire and pursue righteousness). Underneath temptation to go away from devotion to God are longings that are godly; we need to look underneath. We talked about how the devil gets to us personally and then wrote letters to God telling Him what we will do to stay devoted to Him. This was a difficult module for me!!

At the end of the week we each went up in front of the class and told in more specifics where God is sending us and what we think we will be doing and stated our prayer requests and someone from class came up and prayed for each of us. Then we said individual goodbyes to every person in the class. Whoa, an emotional week!! I hope y'all enjoyed hearing about this important training. I learned lots and made close friends; it was awesome to hang with missionaries for 3 weeks!!

MTI Week 2

Week 2 started off with two days of training on conflict. We went over different kinds of conflict styles and had to figure out which one, under stress, we usually lean toward. I pretty much already knew I was a “conflict avoider”. They assigned an animal to each style and mine is a Turtle! They grouped us by our preferred, under stress, styles and then we had to look up scriptures that both supported and condemned our styles. Interestingly enough, each group could find plenty of scriptures to support each, but then could find plenty that advised against each style! I was thinking to myself at this point, “ok, how is this helpful?!”. The point was all styles are needed in a group, that for the most part, you wouldn’t want a group made up entirely of any of the types. Each type serves a purpose. You would be advised when working in a group to be aware of your own style and the styles of the others in your group so you know better how to use each persons strengths and minimize their weaknesses. Why is this so important you ask? Well because it is a fact that most missionaries leave the field early due to conflicts with other missionaries!! So we must be more self aware and use the tools we are learning to deal with conflicts as they happen and not let the build to the breaking point!

Wednesday we did a simulation. In the simulation we were taken to the basement of the building and put in a confined area and told armed conflict had broken out in our country and we were hiding out from the rebels. Our group was told we were hiding in the attic of a hospital. We had to watch for rebels searching every building, we had a radio to contact the outside world for help but had to be careful what we said as not to give away where we were or what we were planning. We had to decide whether to take in a couple national believers and friends of theirs we did not know. Then we were told a rescue plane was coming but it only had room for 5 of us (there were 14 in the room), so we had to decide who we would send to meet the rescue plane. Then we were told those plans fell through and we had been captured by the rebels! Then we had to pick 2 people to be executed! It was crazy!! It definitely made us think “we need to have this thought through and realize what we are willing to do” should the situation really arise! You never know! We spent some time afterwards talking about the conflicts that arose and working through them.

The next 2 days were spent talking about going into a new culture, the stages you go through and the different entry postures you could take (chosing to be open about it or critical, for instance). Part of the time was also spent talking about the issues MK’s (missionary kids) or TCK’s (third culture kids) have to deal with. Then the issues singles on the field have to deal with. We were pretty wiped out by the end of the week!!

MTI End of Week 1

The last two days of week 1 at MTI we learned about Spiritual Vitality and Soul Care. The spiritual vitality discussion centered around foundational truths and making sure we understand them so that when things aren't going well, we can stay spritually vital because we know these foundational truths:

1. God is God (and I am not!) - we have to surrender to this truth, God is a mystery and not to pretend when we do have questions

2. God may not be safe, but he is faithful - struggle is normal, there is no pit so deep that God's love isn't deeper still, there is nothing God will allow in our lives that he won't redeem

3. God is good - this doesn't mean he will take pain away, but he will be there and he will send his people to help - the enemy will shout otherwise

In the Soul Care module, we defined soul care as taking care fo the whole person, paying attention to the inner world as well as the outer world. The discussion centered around solitude and the sabbath. We talked about the busyness of our society and that in Chinese the word busyness is translated into 2 words - heart and annihilation! And that busyness is the only sin the North American church applauds! We went through Luke 6: 12-19 and looked at how Jesus spent a day. First he spent the entire evening in solitude praying (intimacy with God), then he gathered his disciples together in the morning and had "with" time with them (community), then he did ministry, teaching, healing the people, etc. So we learned the rhythm of Jesus' life was solitude - community - ministry. We looked at the many times in scripture it shows Jesus withdrawing to solitude and prayer. Jesus modelled this for a reason! Then we talked about observing the Sabbath, how it's not natural for humans, we resist it, so it must be practiced. Sabbath means cease! Rest is talked about many times in the Bible and not to rest leads to death! We ended the day taking a "God walk", walking by ourselves to observe God's creation and listen for his voice. It felt good - though it's a little cold in Colorado!!

Missionary Training International (MTI) Day 1 & 2

On our first day of training at MTI I can already tell it's going to be a great experience! They spent the day giving us an overview of what they will be covering the next 3 weeks. The name of the program is SPLICE, with each letter representing an area they cover. The areas are Spiritual, Personal, Lifestyle, Interpersonal, Cultural and Endurance/Enjoy. Their goal is to give us tools to deal with cross cultural conflict and stress so that we will be more aware of how to deal with it once in the field. Here are some thoughts that stuck out for me today...

* I have chosen to go into exile
* We usually think perfect means without flaw, but we learned it also means "functions as it was designed". So in our walk with Jesus we achieve levels of perfection as we follow Him and attempt to function as God has designed us.
* MTI staff sees us as "Perfect Pilgirms Parading by Faith to Paradise through the Land of Paradox".
* Need to learn to live in a larger story than our circumstance.

Day 2
We mostly talked about Personal Values today. We learned our values seem deeply right to us and when violated seem deeply wrong. We rated a list of values as to how important they are to us and then talked about the ones we rated the highest and whether we thought they would be met in the field. We also talked about how to decide what values we can and can not compromise on. They showed us a diagram of circles coming out from the center and the center circle is most important and represents "Biblical Absolutes" that we can not compromise, then the next circle out represents "Conscience Values", then "Cultural, Traditional, Organizational Values" and the last circle out is "Personal Values". The idea was that the further out the value falls, the more flexible we probably need to be about it. We ended the day doing skits that showed some conflicts that may come up in the field and talked about how we might deal with them. They explained that there are no hard and fast answers they can give the these issues but they are trying the get us more self aware of our values and beliefs and how they might be viewed by other cultures...interesting stuff!!

Christmas Letter

Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas!!

As I sit down to write this Christmas letter and reflect upon all the blessings experienced this year; I contrast it with the heart-wrenching stories I have been reading about children in South Africa. I begin to wonder if we aren’t blessed in this life so we can be a blessing to others.…..

It was a blessing to attend Candidate School in January – an awesome week of meeting fellow overseas missionaries and the fabulous YFC World Outreach staff! Then being accepted as an YFC missionary…because there are an estimated 13 million orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa (area below the Sahara Desert)….

Connecting with so many of you and being overwhelmed by your love and support, because only together can we make a difference for the 1000 more children orphaned in South Africa each month….

YFC Summer Institute – a time to reconnect with missionaries from Candidate School and meet new ones – one, Rita Usher, who will be joining me in Cape Town – and learning more about YFC and how they do youth ministry…because there are children heading households looking for hope for the future….

Selling my house in 5 days …because there are children living alone and on the streets….

Sponsorship from my two “home” churches – Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines and Immanuel Lutheran Church in Washington, IA….because children are turning to the sex trade to get money for school fees or food to eat….

Even the totaling of my car turned out to be a blessing – my Uncle Don is letting me borrow one of his cars so I don’t have to buy a car AND the insurance company paid me MORE than I could have sold it for….because there are villages in Africa entirely populated by children….

These stories are why I must go! God has made it heavy on my heart!! And I hope you will join me by pledging your support today! Many of you have helped me exceed the goal for upfront expenses and over 80% of the monthly pledge needs are met thanks to you! Just $300 more in pledges per month and we’re on our way to restoring hope to these children! One-time and repeated yearly donations are also much appreciated! When you think about all the ways you are blessed this Christmas season, please also say a prayer for the forgotten children in Africa and consider what you can do to help! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this ministry so far; I thank God for you every day!

Much love and blessings to you!

Bobbi