We have nearly all our referalls in, our transcripts were faxed in 2 days ago. That will complete the application itself. Last night we took the MMPI2 (personality test). The bummer thing about this test is that I've taken such profilings multiple times and they always start by saying "you will not get feedback regarding this test." GREAT! People are always asking me if I have taken such tests and what I register as, and I say "I have, but I dunno what type of personality I am."
People in the past, (mostly psychologically educated people) have been interested in my personality. I do not know why, but several people have said to me "I would love to give you a _________ test." Personally I don't put a lot of value into these such tests. I really have a hard time being put into a box with a label on my personality. It could very well be that there is a personality type out there that shifts personality types, and depending on which month you test them, they register differently. I've taken a test one time that broke personalities into 4 types, and I wound up RIGHT SMACK DAB in the middle of the four squares. What does that mean?
I don't know, they don't tell me.
anyway, we are scheduling to take our 165 question bible knowledge test, and then we move onto the interview and acceptance stages.
oh yes I should mention that my wife finished the mmpi2 about 40 minutes ahead of me. She's smarter than me, and more focussed. It took 2 hours to finish on my part.
7/27/2005
7/17/2005
Calling
This weekend my wife and I attended a national conference ACMC geared toward equipping churches with the information they need for missions.
I heard several ideas, some of the ideas involving motivation for going were:
Find a need and fill it (fill the gap).
Filling the gap is an old idea, find your specific passion.
Find your passion, then find a fit for your passion.
Find your skills and then find where you can fit.
We are all told to serve, are you willing to answer.
You need two character traits to do well - Self Discipline and Self Esteem.
We need to reach the unreached with the Gospel of Christ.
Now, I knew that I was being called to Papua New Guinea specifically before all of these ideas, so I'm testing them currently against what I know. The true help of this ACMC was in equipping me and my wife to go, showing us what we need to work on, and prepare for.
Deliberate path for discipline our kids.
Home base of encouragement and accountability for family, finances, prayer.
Deep spiritual formation and character.
Preparation for suffering.
A Heart of love for the lost.
Those are the key areas we need to develop. There are skills we need to develop as well.
Another benefit of the ACMC was that we were exposed to many different organizations. We got excited about several, but Wycliffe really reached us. Before this conference, I didn't know as much as I do now about the various passions people have and methods for reaching and discipling the lost.
SO...
My family is in the process of applying to Wycliffe for full time service in Papua New Guinea, lifetime.
and the question I get asked is "tell me about your call".
But people ask that question so cavalierly, as if I can get it all out in a soundbyte. It takes me 2 hours to discuss on any level of thoroughness. God is so thorough. (http://gng2png.blogspot.com)
so last night I was working on my soundbyte to tell people about my calling, but I think it does God a disservice... here it is (my wife is working on hers):
I've always wanted my life to be a way to glorify God and not be about myself. I married with the intention of becoming a dynamic team for ministry. When we had kids, we devoted them to ministry. We got involved in all kinds of ministries, but I never felt that I had found the specific place God intended for me. And then we heard a man talk about PNG and I went. When I got there, I was so absolutely convinced through a myriad of seemingly unrelated events in my life, parts of my character, and personal interests, suddenly connecting, that this was the exact place engineered for my family to be. So I prayed and studied and sought out God and listened, and He put a burning on my heart for PNG, that I belonged there. I am homesick now for a place I've been to for only 16 days. I no longer live in this world, I belong in that one.
I heard several ideas, some of the ideas involving motivation for going were:
Find a need and fill it (fill the gap).
Filling the gap is an old idea, find your specific passion.
Find your passion, then find a fit for your passion.
Find your skills and then find where you can fit.
We are all told to serve, are you willing to answer.
You need two character traits to do well - Self Discipline and Self Esteem.
We need to reach the unreached with the Gospel of Christ.
Now, I knew that I was being called to Papua New Guinea specifically before all of these ideas, so I'm testing them currently against what I know. The true help of this ACMC was in equipping me and my wife to go, showing us what we need to work on, and prepare for.
Deliberate path for discipline our kids.
Home base of encouragement and accountability for family, finances, prayer.
Deep spiritual formation and character.
Preparation for suffering.
A Heart of love for the lost.
Those are the key areas we need to develop. There are skills we need to develop as well.
Another benefit of the ACMC was that we were exposed to many different organizations. We got excited about several, but Wycliffe really reached us. Before this conference, I didn't know as much as I do now about the various passions people have and methods for reaching and discipling the lost.
SO...
My family is in the process of applying to Wycliffe for full time service in Papua New Guinea, lifetime.
and the question I get asked is "tell me about your call".
But people ask that question so cavalierly, as if I can get it all out in a soundbyte. It takes me 2 hours to discuss on any level of thoroughness. God is so thorough. (http://gng2png.blogspot.com)
so last night I was working on my soundbyte to tell people about my calling, but I think it does God a disservice... here it is (my wife is working on hers):
I've always wanted my life to be a way to glorify God and not be about myself. I married with the intention of becoming a dynamic team for ministry. When we had kids, we devoted them to ministry. We got involved in all kinds of ministries, but I never felt that I had found the specific place God intended for me. And then we heard a man talk about PNG and I went. When I got there, I was so absolutely convinced through a myriad of seemingly unrelated events in my life, parts of my character, and personal interests, suddenly connecting, that this was the exact place engineered for my family to be. So I prayed and studied and sought out God and listened, and He put a burning on my heart for PNG, that I belonged there. I am homesick now for a place I've been to for only 16 days. I no longer live in this world, I belong in that one.
7/10/2005
Why Wycliffe
We have sent our application in, require an interview and our transcripts to be completed. Next step, the testing. We will be required to take an mmpi2 (personality profile) and a bible knowledge test.
We're not very nervous about the testing, but it has challenged us, how much Bible knowledge do we really have? It'll be exciting to see if the test is truly about issues or about references or about tiny trivia.
Since we couldn't wait to see, we picked up a bible trivia game and have been asking each other these insane questions of the most minute detail. Some of them are so horrendously trivial it's funny. I suppose you buy trivia, expect trivial.
In my scripture reading I find that the names of people, are really hard to remember. I can remember the geography if I see a map, like I know where Susa was (king xerxes palace of esther (aka hadasseh) fame). But I can't remember the bit player's names.
In one sitting, I read about Amnon and Absalom, Sheba, Achish, Tamar, Hagar, Adonijah, Abimalech, and Abiathar. Ask me which one had their head thrown over a city wall, I won't remember. Ask me what Sheba did, and I might remember. All I know for sure is what David did, what Joshua did.
That is what fascinates me about the Bible. No matter how many times you read it, there is always something you forgot that stuns you. Something like "WOAH! .. oh yeah why did i forget that?" God's Word is so rich and full on so many levels that you can spend your life digging into it like an onion.
We were asked a question on the application, and here is a tidbit of my answer:
Write a statement explaining why you feel motivated to be involved in missions, and why you particularly desire to serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Out of all the questions in this application this one is the best, because it’s the one I have had to struggle with the most. I was expecting the question “how do you know you are called to serve God?” I have my answer for that one. But missions, I believe everyone is called to missions, in the respect that we are to spread God’s Word to all people. When you ask most people what missions is to them, they think it means leaving their home and going to another country, but to me missions is everywhere I am. It is talking to my neighbors, it is volunteering to pass out turkeys in downtown San Jose, it is spreading the Gospel on the street corner, it is walking through October fest sharing the Gospel to people with time on their hands. When I say I’ve never felt called to missions what I truly mean is that I’ve never particularly felt the desire to go to another geographical place, solely for the sake of going. I believe we are all called to missions as believers, but we’re not all called to go to a new culture and geographical area. For that reason I don’t differentiate the call on my heart to go to Papua New Guinea from the call to go downtown and feed the homeless. I’m specifically being guided to do I.T. work in PNG. The second part of the question is where God has been working in my heart the most. Why Wycliffe? I watched the video of a Bible dedication ceremony on the island of TubeTube. This was a ceremony we were supposed to attend but a scheduling conflict made us miss it by one month. As I watched it, my heart was grabbed, and squeezed, and I felt a rush of eternal significance in what was happening. I had never taken the time to really value what it meant to have the Bible in your own language. I had taken for granted my own Bible. Tears streamed down my cheeks, which is a very rare occasion, and I saw a people praising God with all their might for this wonderful Bible they’d been working to finish. I saw the tears on the missionaries we support as they realized the fruition of their efforts. Wycliffe is the logical choice of organization because we respect your goals, your theology and your structure, and you are key to getting into Papua New Guinea. I wanted to answer this question honestly and say that there wasn’t so much a call to Wycliffe as there was simply making a logical choice. But I thought about this question for the past week, and I remembered that moment nearly a year ago when I saw the TubeTube people singing, and giving speeches, and I can’t forget that, ever. I can not fathom not serving God in this way now. I go into work today, and I feel like my efforts, all the stress and the politics and the difficulty I struggle to overcome, but for what? No eternal purpose. If I could work towards a goal, as precious as putting God’s Word into the hands of someone who has never read John 3:16 in their heart language, who had never read Psalm 84 in their heart language, who has never fully grasped the wonder of God speaking right to your heart through pages in your own words, the reality of combining our ministry with Wycliffe is starting to be overwhelming for me, as I am not sure I am deserving of such an honor. I see Wycliffe as being something huge, of eternal importance, that affect large people groups if not nations, and I see myself as a little helper in that process to fill a need somewhere. A need that God could put anyone in, but for some reason He chose me, and I’m willing to go, and I’m excited about the chance to spend my life doing something worthy.
We're not very nervous about the testing, but it has challenged us, how much Bible knowledge do we really have? It'll be exciting to see if the test is truly about issues or about references or about tiny trivia.
Since we couldn't wait to see, we picked up a bible trivia game and have been asking each other these insane questions of the most minute detail. Some of them are so horrendously trivial it's funny. I suppose you buy trivia, expect trivial.
In my scripture reading I find that the names of people, are really hard to remember. I can remember the geography if I see a map, like I know where Susa was (king xerxes palace of esther (aka hadasseh) fame). But I can't remember the bit player's names.
In one sitting, I read about Amnon and Absalom, Sheba, Achish, Tamar, Hagar, Adonijah, Abimalech, and Abiathar. Ask me which one had their head thrown over a city wall, I won't remember. Ask me what Sheba did, and I might remember. All I know for sure is what David did, what Joshua did.
That is what fascinates me about the Bible. No matter how many times you read it, there is always something you forgot that stuns you. Something like "WOAH! .. oh yeah why did i forget that?" God's Word is so rich and full on so many levels that you can spend your life digging into it like an onion.
We were asked a question on the application, and here is a tidbit of my answer:
Write a statement explaining why you feel motivated to be involved in missions, and why you particularly desire to serve with Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Out of all the questions in this application this one is the best, because it’s the one I have had to struggle with the most. I was expecting the question “how do you know you are called to serve God?” I have my answer for that one. But missions, I believe everyone is called to missions, in the respect that we are to spread God’s Word to all people. When you ask most people what missions is to them, they think it means leaving their home and going to another country, but to me missions is everywhere I am. It is talking to my neighbors, it is volunteering to pass out turkeys in downtown San Jose, it is spreading the Gospel on the street corner, it is walking through October fest sharing the Gospel to people with time on their hands. When I say I’ve never felt called to missions what I truly mean is that I’ve never particularly felt the desire to go to another geographical place, solely for the sake of going. I believe we are all called to missions as believers, but we’re not all called to go to a new culture and geographical area. For that reason I don’t differentiate the call on my heart to go to Papua New Guinea from the call to go downtown and feed the homeless. I’m specifically being guided to do I.T. work in PNG. The second part of the question is where God has been working in my heart the most. Why Wycliffe? I watched the video of a Bible dedication ceremony on the island of TubeTube. This was a ceremony we were supposed to attend but a scheduling conflict made us miss it by one month. As I watched it, my heart was grabbed, and squeezed, and I felt a rush of eternal significance in what was happening. I had never taken the time to really value what it meant to have the Bible in your own language. I had taken for granted my own Bible. Tears streamed down my cheeks, which is a very rare occasion, and I saw a people praising God with all their might for this wonderful Bible they’d been working to finish. I saw the tears on the missionaries we support as they realized the fruition of their efforts. Wycliffe is the logical choice of organization because we respect your goals, your theology and your structure, and you are key to getting into Papua New Guinea. I wanted to answer this question honestly and say that there wasn’t so much a call to Wycliffe as there was simply making a logical choice. But I thought about this question for the past week, and I remembered that moment nearly a year ago when I saw the TubeTube people singing, and giving speeches, and I can’t forget that, ever. I can not fathom not serving God in this way now. I go into work today, and I feel like my efforts, all the stress and the politics and the difficulty I struggle to overcome, but for what? No eternal purpose. If I could work towards a goal, as precious as putting God’s Word into the hands of someone who has never read John 3:16 in their heart language, who had never read Psalm 84 in their heart language, who has never fully grasped the wonder of God speaking right to your heart through pages in your own words, the reality of combining our ministry with Wycliffe is starting to be overwhelming for me, as I am not sure I am deserving of such an honor. I see Wycliffe as being something huge, of eternal importance, that affect large people groups if not nations, and I see myself as a little helper in that process to fill a need somewhere. A need that God could put anyone in, but for some reason He chose me, and I’m willing to go, and I’m excited about the chance to spend my life doing something worthy.
7/04/2005
Kendal's words
So a lot of this blog is my talking, but I've asked my wife to chime in on the question "how do you know God is calling you to missions, and particularly to Wycliffe?"
---------------
Ever since my first experience with missions in high school, I’ve felt God leading me in the direction of missions. I feel passionate about doing my part to bring others to Christ and to help them learn more about him. He has given me a great interest and passion for experiencing other cultures. Learning about other cultures has given me such an appreciation for God’s creativity, His complexity, and His vastness. During college, I wondered if God was calling me to be a teacher in the mission field, however, that was not his calling, at least not at that point in my life. I fell in love and married a wonderful man. Went on to finish earning my teaching credential and began teaching in San Jose, CA. At that time, I believe God was calling me to minister to children in the public schools. Many of the children I taught came from very difficult situation at home and I believe that God placed me in that school to make a difference with those children. I hope and pray that I was able to accomplish that. After three years of teaching I became a mother and my life started down a new path.
Almost as soon as I started down this new path, I was looking for a way to minister to others. I soon became involved with a MOPS group and God allowed me to minister through that ministry. It’s interesting that my youngest child will enter Kindergarten in another year and I now feel God calling me to start down this new path in missions. Looking back over my life, I see a constant desire to serve God and make a difference in the lives of people. I had sort-of given up hope of ever being in missions full-time since that was not a calling my husband shared with me. About 2 years ago, a family from our church who serves with Wycliff in PNG came home on furlough. While they were home, we had the chance to hear them share on a Sunday morning. It was exciting to hear them tell how God was using them. Not only did I leave that day excited about the ministry, my husband did too! Several months later, we heard that our church was sending a go-team to PNG. My husband expressed his interest in going to the informational meeting to find out more. I said, “great, let’s go.” So, we went. I was so excited about the opportunity to be part of another go team (I had done a couple of go-teams during my college years). As the trip approached, my husband felt really strongly that God was calling just him to go on this trip. I struggled a lot with this decision.
I so badly wanted to be a part of this team, but in the end I knew I had to submit to God and to my husband. He ended up going alone on this trip. From that first email he sent while on the trip I knew it was right that he went without me. You see, I had been a part of short term missions teams before. This was his first experience and practically his first time out of the country. He was so excited about his experiences and God was teaching him so much. I was convinced that he needed to experience this on his own. I remember as he shared things with me while on his trip, my first thought was, “well, of course, that’s what happens on trips like that.” I realized this was all new and exciting for him and my being there could have interfered with that. My husband came home from that trip with a new outlook on missions. We both began to pray about what the next step should be. Was this just a great experience for my husband and now we were supposed to go on with life as before or did God have something else in mind for our family? My husband and I have always felt like, there’s got to be something more for our lives. What does God have planned for us? But we didn’t know what it was. I resolved to sit back, pray, and wait to see where God was leading my husband and me. About six months after that PNG trip, one of my husband teammates told him he was returning to PNG for another go-team. Little by little PNG was creeping into our everyday lives. Little things kept reminding my husband about PNG and he bean to talk more and more about it. I still waited and prayed for what would happen next. My husband and I began to talk about what direction God was taking our family. We decided to look into going on another trip to PNG. Again was struggled with who should go. Should our whole family go, should it be just my husband and I, or should I go alone?
Our reason for this second trip was to get confirmation from God, get to know the Wycliffe process a little better, and give me a chance to experience PNG and see how I adapted to that environment, since we feel like PNG is where God is calling us at this point As we began filling out paperwork and talking about this second go team, however, all the reasons for a second go-team seemed to go away. Three weeks in PNG wouldn’t really give me a good idea of how I would adapt, the Wycliff process for a go-team is completely different from applying for full-time ministry, and most importantly we already feel like we have confirmation from God. We also considered the cost of the second go-team and realized that did not seem like the best use of finances, if full-time was our ultimate goal. So many small seemingly insignificant things have been happening over the past few months that keep pointing us to missions. For me, it feels like God has always had missions in mind for me and now all the pieces are falling into place.
As I look back over this explanation it seems like the bulk of this process has happened in the heart of my husband, yet I believe God knew from the beginning my heart for missions. I believe he put my husband I together knowing that we would eventually have like minds and would desire to serve together.
Why do we particularly desire to serve with Wycliffe? It’s interesting that my very first experience with missions was with Wycliffe. As a child, I attended a small baptist chuch in Southern California. Our church had one couple we had sent to the mission field. They were translators with Wycliffe. I’ve always had a great deal of respect of the Wycliff organization. I also, believe that the organization is vital to our success on the field. I have confidence that Wycliffe will give us the support we need.
---------------
Ever since my first experience with missions in high school, I’ve felt God leading me in the direction of missions. I feel passionate about doing my part to bring others to Christ and to help them learn more about him. He has given me a great interest and passion for experiencing other cultures. Learning about other cultures has given me such an appreciation for God’s creativity, His complexity, and His vastness. During college, I wondered if God was calling me to be a teacher in the mission field, however, that was not his calling, at least not at that point in my life. I fell in love and married a wonderful man. Went on to finish earning my teaching credential and began teaching in San Jose, CA. At that time, I believe God was calling me to minister to children in the public schools. Many of the children I taught came from very difficult situation at home and I believe that God placed me in that school to make a difference with those children. I hope and pray that I was able to accomplish that. After three years of teaching I became a mother and my life started down a new path.
Almost as soon as I started down this new path, I was looking for a way to minister to others. I soon became involved with a MOPS group and God allowed me to minister through that ministry. It’s interesting that my youngest child will enter Kindergarten in another year and I now feel God calling me to start down this new path in missions. Looking back over my life, I see a constant desire to serve God and make a difference in the lives of people. I had sort-of given up hope of ever being in missions full-time since that was not a calling my husband shared with me. About 2 years ago, a family from our church who serves with Wycliff in PNG came home on furlough. While they were home, we had the chance to hear them share on a Sunday morning. It was exciting to hear them tell how God was using them. Not only did I leave that day excited about the ministry, my husband did too! Several months later, we heard that our church was sending a go-team to PNG. My husband expressed his interest in going to the informational meeting to find out more. I said, “great, let’s go.” So, we went. I was so excited about the opportunity to be part of another go team (I had done a couple of go-teams during my college years). As the trip approached, my husband felt really strongly that God was calling just him to go on this trip. I struggled a lot with this decision.
I so badly wanted to be a part of this team, but in the end I knew I had to submit to God and to my husband. He ended up going alone on this trip. From that first email he sent while on the trip I knew it was right that he went without me. You see, I had been a part of short term missions teams before. This was his first experience and practically his first time out of the country. He was so excited about his experiences and God was teaching him so much. I was convinced that he needed to experience this on his own. I remember as he shared things with me while on his trip, my first thought was, “well, of course, that’s what happens on trips like that.” I realized this was all new and exciting for him and my being there could have interfered with that. My husband came home from that trip with a new outlook on missions. We both began to pray about what the next step should be. Was this just a great experience for my husband and now we were supposed to go on with life as before or did God have something else in mind for our family? My husband and I have always felt like, there’s got to be something more for our lives. What does God have planned for us? But we didn’t know what it was. I resolved to sit back, pray, and wait to see where God was leading my husband and me. About six months after that PNG trip, one of my husband teammates told him he was returning to PNG for another go-team. Little by little PNG was creeping into our everyday lives. Little things kept reminding my husband about PNG and he bean to talk more and more about it. I still waited and prayed for what would happen next. My husband and I began to talk about what direction God was taking our family. We decided to look into going on another trip to PNG. Again was struggled with who should go. Should our whole family go, should it be just my husband and I, or should I go alone?
Our reason for this second trip was to get confirmation from God, get to know the Wycliffe process a little better, and give me a chance to experience PNG and see how I adapted to that environment, since we feel like PNG is where God is calling us at this point As we began filling out paperwork and talking about this second go team, however, all the reasons for a second go-team seemed to go away. Three weeks in PNG wouldn’t really give me a good idea of how I would adapt, the Wycliff process for a go-team is completely different from applying for full-time ministry, and most importantly we already feel like we have confirmation from God. We also considered the cost of the second go-team and realized that did not seem like the best use of finances, if full-time was our ultimate goal. So many small seemingly insignificant things have been happening over the past few months that keep pointing us to missions. For me, it feels like God has always had missions in mind for me and now all the pieces are falling into place.
As I look back over this explanation it seems like the bulk of this process has happened in the heart of my husband, yet I believe God knew from the beginning my heart for missions. I believe he put my husband I together knowing that we would eventually have like minds and would desire to serve together.
Why do we particularly desire to serve with Wycliffe? It’s interesting that my very first experience with missions was with Wycliffe. As a child, I attended a small baptist chuch in Southern California. Our church had one couple we had sent to the mission field. They were translators with Wycliffe. I’ve always had a great deal of respect of the Wycliff organization. I also, believe that the organization is vital to our success on the field. I have confidence that Wycliffe will give us the support we need.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)