visa status

The situation:
We sent in our visa applications months ago for the family along with our passports which they affix the visas to. The process is the entity where we will be GOING writes a letter to the government in PNG and they then write a letter to the embassy in the United States. Originally the letter from the entity didn't mention we had kids (somehow they were unaware), so the PNG gov't sent our approval the the United States and we received 2 visas and 2 passports. To fix the mistake, we had to reapply for our kids visas. A situation which hasn't happened apparently, and people have been scrambling graciously to help us out. Currently we're still waiting on the PNG gov't. to send approval to the United States. Once this happens we're told a rush on it would get it done in two weeks. Tomorrow is the two week point from when we leave. We are now considering formulating a plan B.

The history:
We know last minute visa stories are very common and so we submitted ours well in advanced, scanned every signed paper we submitted and put it on multiple hard drives in case we should be asked again to submit, which we were. We have prayed over the visas and the submission prior to submitting. We have recruited many people to pray through the process, and we have pretty much done every bit of urging we can do. When we originally booked our flights we considered travel insurance, but the price nearly doubled our tickets, so we figured a cancellation fee would be more acceptable should something come up. We also prayed carefully over the date on which we'd depart because of many variables, God answered some huge prayers and moved obstacles and indicated this was the right date to us.

So now we sit, two weeks away with no visas for our children. It is a daily struggle to avoid worry and stress.

Here is the struggle.
It seems that God definitely made this date, March 17, the one we were to target. We prayed over it and large doors had to be opened for this date to work, so we prayed and the doors opened. As is our practice we step through the doors when we see them open and we bought the tickets.

The tickets cost around $5,000 for all of us, one way.
We're unsure of the cancellation policy/rescheduling but we are investigating that now.

How much do we have faith that March 17th is the day and that God will supply the visas in time, and how much do we acknowledge the God is sovereign and whatever He is doing He's doing for His glory?

Completely.

We have faith that God has guided us properly. We have faith that God is sovereign. Our chief aim is that God is glorified in whatever we're doing. If we're waiting at the bus stop, God be glorified. If we're riding on the bus, God be glorified.

This is no mistake. There is a possibility that the enemy is holding the paperwork up, and so we pray against that. But if his purpose was to get us to blame God or doubt God, he made a huge strategical error.

We trust God completely that He is doing His will here. And we look with anticipation to what glory He might be getting through it.

So, if you will, join us in prayer, pray:
-that the enemy would not have power in this situation
-that God would be glorified in our response when people ask about our Visas
-that God would be glorified should a plan B be put in place, that we recognize every opportunity to glorify Him that comes our way.

We're excited about it, and we use that to choke down the stress and the worry. If we stay in California for few more weeks, sure the kids will be out of school for a long time, but on the flip side, we may run into people that God wants us to meet and share with. Or He simply may be glorified in the fact that we are taking captive the thoughts that lead to doubt, and acknowledging that God is in control.

He is!

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," Jer. 29:11-14a


We know that God can deliver those visas today and it would be a miracle. We know that they might not come for a very long time. God has proven to be faithful to us in so many ways, this is simply another opportunity for us to put aside worry, put aside our desire and passion to arrive in PNG according to our schedule, and wait on God.

The biggest part of the challenge is that we are so enthusiastic about getting to PNG. All the preparation, all the work, all the training, all the prayer, all the study, coming to fruition when we arrive, and yet, as we see, coming to fruition wherever we are, whatever we're doing.

Hunter Gatherers

ICC is over. I think to summarized what we learned there I could simply recommend a book: "Cross Cultural Servanthood". Truly learning to be servants in any context is hard enough, but learning to be servants in a different culture will be a challenge. God will help us to do it, with His grace it'll get done!

To celebrate the end of this leg of training, we went geocaching. This is our family hobby, or at least one of them. The other is making fun home movies. My daughter is holding up a stone with the coordinates for the next part of the find. We spent the Saturday hiking through Cane Creek and exploring the trails and the sites. It is a very pretty park although it seemed we were the only ones there because it was 44 degrees outside.

It is Thurs now, and Chad has been in I.T. training all week. There are two more weeks of it to go, and then we head back home to CA. Yesterday Chad got to play with Satellite telephony and email. He (I) really enjoyed playing with new (to me) technology. Although pricey, I can see how the satellite technology is useful in retrieving important email and such for translators in the jungle.

In some places email is done with a thumb drive and a helicopter. Other places with a satellite phone. The technical support team here really puts a lot of effort into finding ways that the translators can get their work done while finding new and creative ways to reduce the cost to everyone involved.

Technology is amazing. The people God puts in place to come up with ways to help the translation of God's Word is also amazing. There is a software they use here called UUplus which was designed by a christian man with the intent of increasing communication and lowering the cost of satellite fees for missionaries. It works too. A typical satellite call (using a sat phone as a modem) to do 1 email took 2:04 minutes. But using the same phone and the UUplus software, it took 30 seconds. When you're paying per minute for satellite usage, that's a dramatic cost savings over time. Also, to reduce the price of sat phones, they buy older models, used on EBAY to keep the cost down. So you may not be using the latest and the greatest, but you're still doing EMAIL in the middle of the jungle with NO electrical outlet in your hut! Isn't that amazing!

A good testimony

Yesterday in class we heard a testimony from Nard Pugyao. It was a very inspiring and moving testimony. Back in the 1950's one of _our_translators had gone to the phillipines to share the Gospel and translate the Bible starting with the book of Mark.

It was something along the lines of a very long flight, a canoe trip up the river, and an 8 hour hike to get to Nard's village. He was a young boy at the time. His village was tired of serving the spirit world. They would have to consult certain birds to walk safely. The witch doctor would consult evil spirits who proved time and time again to be angry and unpredictable. Nard's daughter was killed at the request of a spirit.

The people were ready for a new God, a more powerful God, and so they listened to the missionary. He told them about God and they loved it. But then, Nard got to the point of Mark where God sent His only son to die and he got mad and threw the book. What a powerless person God must be if He could not protect His only son.

He struggled with that and then God gave him a realization that Christ died for Nard, for him. He picked the book back up and then read that Christ rose from the dead. No one his Nard's imagination had ever done that! What power! What LOVE!

Nard devoted his life to Christ. His dad told him one day he was 7 years old and that he should go to first grade. There was a school a few miles away. He said "dad you don't know when I was born." and his dad said, "reach over your head and touch your ear....see you're 7." So Nard went, but he hated school and he cut school for months. And then, the translator had delivered to school some primers for learning to read, in the language of Nard's people, and he loved the books, and he loved learning to read.

Nard is a helicopter pilot for _us_ now. He had gone back to his tribe several times to assist in the translation work there. He has a strong memory of the scripture, you should see his copy of Mark, worn and torn, and held together by staples, but it's his treasure.

The part of the story he shared at the end, was that the week that the translator who originally came to his village was scheduled to fly out of San Francisco, CA. Was the week that the news hit the presses about Jim Elliot and his friend being massacred.

The translator could have changed his mind, and not gone. There are a lot of what if's in life. What if he didn't go? Nard wouldn't be standing there yesterday telling us of his story.

God has planned good works for us to do. God has put things in place. God has crafted us to be who we are. His provision for us is amazing when you look back and see how it all comes together. And knowing that we have the awesome opportunity to affect people for God's kingdom is overwhelmingly inspiring. After hearing Nard's testimony so many of us were charged up and ready to go yet again. God continually brings us the energy required for this job. Continually fills us up with inspiration. And this ICC training has equipped us in many ways to be prepared for what lies ahead, spiritually and mentally.

Thank you for sending us to training! It ends today, and then in the next 3 weeks Chad (me) will be in I.T. training.

The Battle

God has blessed our family immeasurably.
Recently we've had some friends stand up and say "we're going to sponsor your newsletter". Which means we can now mail out newsletters at no cost to ourselves other than time! God is great!

You should be seeing the new one very soon. It'll also be online at www.gimpel.tv/newsletter..

God has blessed us so much, but at the same time, He is preparing us to do battle with the enemy.

Ephesians mentions that God has appointed us to do the good works which He has planned for us to do. And we are going about that task. Who knows what works those will be day to day, but we go with a heart of submission to minister to everyone we can, and are in turn ministered to by the Spirit.

There are certain topics in Christian culture which are hard to broach. One of them is spiritual warfare.

The key ingredient in spiritual warfare is knowing your identity in Christ. (Eph 1:1-14). There really isn't a formula or a technique, because it isn't our power that defeats the enemy but it is God's truth. It isn't a power encounter it is a truth encounter.

In knowing this, we have been teaching our kids who they are in Christ and as a comfort to us, they really already know much of the promises they have in God. They know God loves them, made them, and protects them. For this we are thankful.

The other night, around 2am, our cell phone rang. As is our practice I answer the phones after hours, but my wife had woken up first and answered, confusedly and then hung up. The phone rang again and then I answered.

It was obviously a wrong number, and the caller was inebriated, and was saying lewd things. I hung up and turned off the cell phone.

If we do not have eyes to see, and recognize that there are spiritual aspects to life, then we could simply see this as a minor annoyance. Another possibility is that it was the enemy trying to fatigue us. If we fail to recognize that, in the morning we could be grumpy, bicker with each other, etc, which would completely distract us from glorifying God which is our chief aim.

There is a great sermon on this issue from Andy Stanley from Northpoint.org called "exposing the matrix". It is a series of well done dramas and sermons that expose the plans of the enemy. (unfortunately I can't find the link to it jsut yet, I think they took it down)

So I found myself at 2am, simply praying and praising God so that my thoughts would not stray into the arena of anything other than focusing on God, because that, is the goal of the enemy.

This is why you, as prayer partners become so important to us. That you would pray for our protection, for our strength. That we would not fail in this mission together, that as those going we would not fall victim to the many snares and would instead glorify God in whatever means He has planned for us.

We covet your prayers. Sincerely, we thank you for praying for us.

Please pray that the enemy would not hinder our visas. That the paperwork would flow and our visas would arrive in good time so that we would not have to reschedule flights.

thank you.

family fun day

Since we've all been so well behaved in class lately, today we decided to have a family fun day. Everything is at least a 30 minute drive from here, and we found a place called Zuma that had batting cages, go karts, mini golf, bumper boats, slides, pizza and games.

We decided to attend on a budget. We explained to the kids "we have to make choices, and can't do everything. So this is what we can do.. and you can choose."

And so we ended up putting the kids on 1 round of mini karts.
They'd never been on them before and they LOVED them. It was one of those things that was as much fun for us as parents to watch as it was for them to drive the karts.

Our daughter drove very carefully, not wanting to bump into anything. Whereas our son drive full throttle and lapped her several times. They had smiles on so wide it was making us laugh and smile simply watching them.

We took pictures.

It might be worth saying that mini golf was a blast too, as we all got holes in one at least once, which is a family first.

We have a family tradition called a family 5. It starts when one member of the family declares "family five!" and gives a high five to someone else, who then passes it on. A few years ago at the first family five, one of the kids mentioned "but there is only four of us, so the last one to get the five should give it up to God!" So we do. It has become our little cheesy family tradition to celebrate when we've all accomplished something together as well as remembering to thank God for it.

Today the kids called a family five after completing the golf course.

One of the things we've been learning during our spiritual warfare course is that the enemy may attack your children if and so you need to pray for them and equip them with who they are in Christ.

Their schooling has provided a perfect opportunity for us to do that as they have a tradition of a book called "The important thing about ______ is ________." At the end of my son's recent book his own entry reads: "The important thing about Calvin is God made me."

Truly finding our identity in Christ, and believing that God made us as we is something that every struggles with even through adulthood. The longer car rides have afforded our family some great conversations the last few weeks.

11th

feb 2 was our 11th wedding anniversary.
My wife and I have a little tradition, she plans the odd years, I plan the evens, unless it's a big year then I usually plan it.

So this year she planned our anniversary, which is no small feat when you're in a place you don't know a LOT of people, and you need to be resourceful.

She arranged baby sitting, and found a place nearby that did a little dinner theatre. It was nice to get away and spend some time laughing together. We really do laugh a lot when we're together.


The next day, the 3rd, we have some neighbors who have really quite the saga regarding their house. They've had nothing but hard times regarding the preparation of this home, battling a caved roof, legal issues, mold, etc. Many of us pitched in on Saturday to help with what we could. It was really neat to see 15 guys and gals pulling together to bring this house into repair. Of course no one saturday can do all the work, but the couple seemed very thankful at what got done.

God has us doing ministry in every aspect of our lives, and our eyes try to be open to each one.

Friday afternoon we were taking a four wheel driving course. Part of the preparation to go to the field is to train missionaries how to drive off road. It's a neat story how that class came to be, but anyway, my wife did well, and that made me very proud.

We are definitely learning a lot here. We are studying some very deep issues of spiritual vitality, interpersonal skills, and spiritual warfare.

Thank you for your prayers.

Laughing in Class

I've been assigned the front seat in our class this week.

The speaker for the past several days wanted to use me as an example. He had me stand up. I was expecting the typical response when someone sees me standing close to them for the first time. It came.

His head went up, and back as he tried to match my eyes.
"Woah, you are a big boy aintcha!"

The class chuckled.

He asked me to shake his hand. Now I've been raised to shake hands with a firm grip. And that's what I did. He mentioned "you see Chad has a firm grip, it shows he's a manly man. It communicates in our greeting something."

"Now what if I did this?" he said,
he reached over, and we bumped and rubbed foreheads.
"Or this"
he held my hand and walked with me.
"Or this"
his hand briefly touched my palm.
"or this"
and we interlocked two knuckles and then snapped.

Apparently no snapping sound is the same as a weak handshake in America.

The class sort of laughed each time he did different things which may or may not have been embarrassing.

Honestly, the funny thing to me, was that none of it was embarrassing. In fact, for a while now I've been considering the fact that I feel often like hugging people, and the only reason I don't is because I feel it might make them uncomfortable to have a man my size, hug them.

It was a good class. Challenging, but good.

Before walking into this entire calling, I really felt as if I didn't have a lot of experience. I consider myself naive.

But my prayer to God during this training has been that He would help my heart and my head learn the things He has to teach me.

Each day, when I'm grappling with a hard issue or thought, an example from my life comes to mind, it jsut sort of pops in there, and I see it in a whole new light.

It is amazing to me, that a memory long since forgotten, can surface, to teach your heart the truth of something the teacher is trying to express. IT is doubly impressive when you realize you hadn't thought of that experience in that way before and you gain a new insight.

I boast in the Lord here, because it isn't mean recalling these memories but it is instead the Holy Spirit who brings these to mind, and it is very encouraging to know that God is taking a personal interest in our training in a daily way.

Take Care!
thanks again

Mana

Training is going well. There are a lot of issues and concepts required as preparation to go and be quality representives of Christ and America. I'm grateful that we have this training available to us and it's really shaping us and challenging us, preparing us and encouraging us.

I'm specifically not going into detail about what is being taught for the primary reason that some of it requires deep processing, which doesn't lend itself to a blog format.

One of the interesting quirks of this campus is that people donate things. When people donate, they donate whatever their heart tells them to, and so these odds emails pop up from time to time.

For example, every day there is a table that has free, day old bread on it. We've had some very good bagles and sourdough the past few days because someone(s) keep donating bread. It's great!

There is a boutique where you can pick up free items. It is very much like a thrift store, used shoes, and clothing. Items which are very useful when you have a need.

Acclimating to this culture of supply is one of the fun unexpected quirks of living this lifestyle.

The most interesting email I've gotten recently read:

Come enjoy a program by Phyllis Heil from Hickory, NC

International Whistling Entertainer of the year 2005 & 2006

I gotta say, I didn't even know there was such a thing, but I'll be very interested in attending if my schedule permits!

Going To Church

one of our assignments during our intercultural training, is to attend an "ethnic" church. Our family assignment was a local Baptist church. We entered as the only white skinned people in the church.

I should start by saying, I absolutely loved it!

The approach I am taking to developing a relationship would be first, to be seen, to be known, and to participate. I entered the church with my family with the attitude of being involved, and I believe a smile, a good attitude and humility can go a long way to fitting in. I didn't approach with the idea that I knew anything, and that I would suspect judgement on everything I saw until I could come to a conclusion with enough data on it. I greeted people I met with a smile, and if they offered their hand I shook it. I found it a welcoming place and I enjoyed the service greatly.

I was looking for ways to serve the church specifically during announcements. Honestly I didn't see any multimedia involved and therefore instantly realized my technical skills would not be helpful in serving. So I listened for other areas. One announcement was that there was a canned food drive coming up and they would appreciate contributions. That is a very easy way that I can demonstrate my desire to serve. Until I find out their need though, it'll be hard to find a deeper way to serve.

I observed many things using the attitude that my learning is my responsibility. I noticed the women wore very decorative hats. This is something that I am not used to and I found it very pleasant. I think my new favorite word is "glory" as pronounced by the Reverend Johnson. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire service. It has been a long while since I've enjoyed going to church that immensely. I enjoyed the flow of the service, the way that singing, praising, worship, thankfulness and prayer intermingled in a community sharing way. It was all I could do to keep from embarrassing myself by belting out an Amen here or there. I felt controlling myself until I got the flow of the service was the best idea, but by the end I was quietly muttering my "Amen"s.

I enjoyed how the reverend took the time to pray before his sermon quietly as the choir led us in song. Regardless of the pomp, I felt he had the time to truly seek out what the Spirit would have him say. Ironically, the two main themes of the sermon were seemingly directed at me. The symbolic theme of "shoes" was humorous since I had forgotten my nice dress shoes and socks and was thinking "I was hoping this whole morning no one would look down at my shoes". The second "faithfulness" echoes something I had recently blogged, and that is "God is faithful to us, but He asks us to be faithful to Him." At a time when I feel God's faithfulness is at an all time high to my family, and I've been encouraged to be faithful in return by my personal study, I realize, that the emotional approach to this service gave me an experience that will fortify me to stand strong for God in the near future.

There was one brief moment of culture shock and that was it. When we sat down, my daughter said "why is everyone wearing black?" And then my son said, in earshot of everyone near us "black is the worst color." My thoughts were, "oh please son, they're gonna think you got that from your daddy." Graciously God allowed him to continue, "because it covers up all the other colors they're wearing." The lady in front of us turned around and said to my children, "See honey, I'm wearing green underneath." It was a good moment. In California, everyone is very worried about being politically correct. But in this church, one lady took an innocent comment as jsut that, an innocent comment. My children don't see skin color, and she knew it. They saw coat color. They saw they were in red and white and pink and no one else was. God bless them. Between my shoes and that comment I could have been very nervous, but I wasn't, and that's because I felt the Spirit of God in that place.

After the service we shared our observations. My wife noted that in some ways the church was more formal than our Calvary home, in other ways less. For example, everyone wore suits, and the Reverend wore a robe, people were only permitted to enter during certain breaks if they were late. But on the other hand, people could sing out songs as they felt led, people could stand, sit, shout Amen, and hold hands during prayer.

My daughter asked "I didn't understand why they said "Amen" at the end of every sentence." I told her, "Amen" means I agree and that when the pastor ends a sentence with "AMEN?" he is inviting us to agree with him out loud about what he jsut said. He's saying "God is good, do you agree with me?" "AMEN! Yes we agree with you!"

She turned to my mom "hey mom, tonight we should have spaghetti, Amen?"
and my son replied "Tomorrow we should have pizza for dinner amen?"


At one point in the service, one of our co-visitors little boy wandered free up the isle, up in front of the reverend around towards the side and off into a corner. It was hilarious. A single little white child 4 years old wandering free, feeling no nervousness or lack of fitting in.

They called the children up so the Rev. could speak with them. My kids went up with only a small amount of prodding and then were guided off after the talk to their children's thing. They made friends in there pretty easily.

We were definitely aware that we didn't quite fit in completely, but we felt as if we belonged. It will take a few weeks to learn the traditions, but we'll get there. As we plan to return. The church was very friendly, and I think that feeling was much more not knowing the traditions of the church and much less the color of our skin.

Training Progress

yesterday training was very interesting. We were given the assignment of making up rules for our cultures, simulating those cultures as small groups, and then visiting other cultures and hosting other cultures.

It taught us a lot of about how easy it is to view differences as negatives.
In some ways we didn't fall prey to the negative impressions but in other ways we did. Honestly this exercise encouraged us more that we're prepared for this than it did to discouraged us that we are not mentally prepared for culture differences.

This morning, the kids waited at the bus stop in the freezing cold for 20 minutes, until we realized "perhaps the bus isn't coming"

We called the school, "sir, the school is closed today" in a polite southern drawl.

What now? We still have class to go to. This never happens in the silicon valley.

So today we're attempting to juggle watching the kids with both of us in class and giving our 8 minute oral presentations.

The phone jsut rang, grown-up school is starting an hour late, but they are working on something for the school age kids. So that is good.

Another day, another way to remain flexible.

Being flexible takes different amounts of energy for different personality types. Probably the most important part of being a missionary is to remain flexible. You come across and live in tight quarters with people from all over the U.S. here, and all over the World in PNG.

We're in N.C.

We made it to North Carolina!
We're about to head out and try and get oriented, but thus far the view is beautiful (we came in at night).

We've moved out of California successfully thanks to the help and prayers of you all.

We have a small 2 bedroom apartment that we're acclimating to and unpacking into.
Thus far this place feels like a little cabin in the woods, Arnold, CA or perhaps even up in Oregon.

The trip here was guided by God the whole way.

When we pulled up to the airport at 8:30am, nearly 2 hours early for our flight, we found out our flight was cancelled.

We were able to book passage with seats near each other on another flight leaving 15 minutes later. Within 20 minutes that flight was empty. Had we not arrived earlier than expected, we'd have missed our connection.

In Dallas we had to rush to our connecting gate, but we made it in time to board, and in enough time to buy some food for what our kids dubbed as "linner" which we later ate on the plane.

As we were boarding I noticed my daughter's boarding pass had the wrong name on it, we were stopped at the gate, but luckily this was remedied in under a minute, and we got on. My daughter was slightly confused when I jokingly said to her "for the next ten minutes your name is Rachel Estrada."

On the plane the kids did great. The next mishap was the flight attendant spilling hot coffee all over my leg. Apparently her pitcher was leaky. I kindly informed her that I don't drink coffee, and requested the next spillage be decaf. (-;

Once off the plane we made our way to the luggage area and found that our ride was there and had already picked up our bags and put them on a cart. We loaded it up into a suburban with a trailer, they had cool water in a chest in the truck waiting for us, and they took us to our new apartment.

What a great greeting! One of our luggage boxes was damaged but nothing was missing.

Overall, it was a good trip. What makes it good, is our attitudes. What makes our attitudes is the knowledge that these trivial things don't matter a whole bunch, but how you react to them does.

Thanks for praying for us.

God is faithful, very very faithful.

Movin' Out

wow, what a crazy 24 hours.
we've moved out of the house after a decent bit of energy.

Remaining to do:
-ship our belongings to PNG
-clean up our garage
-final walkthrough with our landlord

PLEASE pray that the trucking company arrives in time. Weather has already made them miss their schedule by 2 days. They are scheduled to arrive at 9am friday, and that is about the absolute latest they can arrive.

One of the things we have to do before leaving for PNG is sell my car.
My car has been a reliable little Ford, but I have been treating it like what it was, a temporary stop gap. I've put new tires on it, new radiator, refreshed the A/C, kept fluids in it, but did the bare minimum that I could.

IT is a 1998 Ford Contour with 70k miles on it. Not my favorite car. But it was cheap.

Tomorrow I intended to sell it to a used car lot, but alas that shall never be.
I had a doctor appointment this morning, and last night I noticed the battery light was on. I had replaced the battery in the summer of this year so I assumed I could fix the problem later, perhaps with a trickle charge.

I went to the doctor's and my ipod kept cutting out.
Then after the doctor's (an appointment which was completely unecessary) I drove towards work.
I say towards because I didn't make it.

My ipod wasn't dying out, it was my stereo. On the highway, my electrical started blinking in and out and I suddenly lost all RPM's. I wasn't accelerating even though my foot was all the way down on the gas. So I tried to get off the highway. Feeling it unwise to cut off a big rig without having any way to speed up, but seeing a hill coming up and knowing I had to get to the shoulder, I did my best, and got to an "okay" spot. I stopped and hit my hazards, which apparently weren't showing because the electrical was failing. Smoke proceeded from under the hood.

Guessing the battery died while I was driving, meant that my alternator wasn't working. I called AAA.
WE had a premium membership for many years, two of them in fact, until I realized that I never used mine. So we renewed only 1 this year under my wife's name. I kept her expired card, she kept her original. Thankfully AAA was benevolent and towed me for free.. within 5 miles of where I work.

"Transmission's out." said the driver who arrived surprisingly fast. I doubted his diagnoses.

We were already driving, getting on the highway, and the driver says "where to within 5 miles or else I have to charge you."
I replied " a junk yard." he explained he couldn't do that. Given all of a whole ten seconds to think, I defaulted to "My dad's work." Knowing full well that he'd say yes without even thinking, and be the most helpful person in this situation. I gave a moment's thought to the burden I might be posing on him, and that was it. I knew he wouldn't mind at all, if anything I minded giving him yet another thing to have to deal with today. That's how my dad is, he'd drop anything he was doing to help family.

So, 10 seconds from his parking lot, I call him on the cell, which was choppy, and all he heard was "coming by your work....in a towtruck." and he replied "okay, yes." I'm rather sure he didn't know what he was saying yes to, and I'm sure it didn't matter.

The driver was very helpful, and talkative, and soon left.

Here I was a 33 year old man, about to embark on this huge task which will take me away from my dad, and yet, I was coming to him much like I had when I was 16 and I wrecked his truck. Relying on dad again to help me with a vehicle.

It felt good to know I had that safety net. It felt scary to know I would soon be without that safety net nearby.

He lent me his truck to get into work, and as I drove off the song on the radio lyric said,
" Daddy's always been there for me,
From T-Ball to touchdowns.
Fixed my car an' fixed my heart,
When they've been broken down"
(the rest of the song didn't really apply but it was Trent Tomlinson's 'One Wing in the Fire')

And I thought to myself about how this day could have gone, how worse it could have been. Really I'm not put out or upset or anything.
We have a lot of things to do this week, and today, final details to handle. And yes, this threw a monkey wrench into the works.

Finally the day had worn down, and we got into bed.

PHEW! we did it... and then... our daughter began throwing up at midnight.

BUT praise God, we're in our hotel room, with only smaller little things left to do before our plane flight out.

During this time of stress God has somehow protected us from feeling overwhelmed, and has enabled us to get everything done.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Going Away Party

Our adult congregation hosted a nice little "going away party" for us tonight. I can tell you I was really hoping it wouldn't be a tear jerking kind of time. And it wasn't. It was a good night of fellowshiping, talking, and trying to tell people how truly excited we are about what God is having us do.

There is something very faith building when you know that God has called you to do something. You have no idea of your immediate future but you know you're where God wants.

Thankfully no one asked me to do a speech. Although, if they had, this is the speech I would have done, impromptu of course (-;. Here is the abridged version, sans the jokes that would only work in person.


--Ten years ago, my wife suggested we attend an "adult congregation" class. I replied "Sunday school is for kids. Why would I want to go?" But I went because she made good sense and I was hoping it would be a way to make common friendships as she was new to the Bay Area.

Over the years there have been a lot of good times together. The better part of my character has been shaped there in large part by the experiences I've had with people in this room. Looking back I can see how God intended me to walk through those doors into this class and how He has used it to His glory.

The interesting thing, is that jsut as God planned for us to come through those doors to join you, He also planned way back when, for us to walk out those doors to leave you.

It could seem like a sad thing. It does feel sad to realize you won't be spending as much time face to face as you're used to, but our eyes are set on God's kingdom. And that's why this isn't a goodbye party, it's a going away party. We're going away, but it's not goodbye.

Everyone here has contributed to God's glory in the very fact that we've spent time with you and seen God through you in some way or another and have been inspired to give back to God because of that.

This is fellowship, this is what God intended for all of us to do. To lift each other up.

We're excited about the stories we're going to share that God is doing in our lives. And we're very excited to hear the praises everyone of you have and will lift up to God for the rest of our lives together.

Happy New Year

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check out http://www.gimpel.tv/newsletter

Today we added a google earth movie and a PNG F.A.Q/Stats that I threw together for Kendal who is going to present to our childrens' classes next week.

Well we're packing. For weeks we've been packing but now we're in the: furniture leaving, boxes everywhere, stage. It's great! WOW there's THAT much dust back there? hehe.

Last night we came across a really nice lady who's a bit down on her luck financially and happened to be looking for precisely what we were giving away. Couches, dining room table, and a computer desk.

(yes it is true, in the silicon valley, down-on-your-luck means that you own a cell phone, and a computer, but no couch. (-: )

The shipping company is supposed to come on Jan 10 to pick up our belongings going to PNG. From there, each member of this family will be living out of 2 suitcases each until we see our stuff again.

WE fly on Jan 13 to Waxhaw, North Carolina
We train to learn some intercultural and technical skills.
We fly to PNG on March 17!

There are so many things to do between now and then that we have to keep a clipboard jsut to keep track of them.

In the middle of it, we're trying to make time to spend with the kids and with family and friends to help everyone ease into the transition.

Please pray for a smooth transition for everyone.
We are seeing the kids needing a little more attention and care right now, they don't realize it, but we can see they need an extra hug or cuddle time or lego making time or whatever and it's because they see things going into boxes. They really are brave and resilient. Please pray for their emotional state as they transition. Especially Calvin he's very sensitive at 5.

Right now, we need coverage in prayer, it's very easy to get stressed out with the packing, then get saddened at the goodbyes and be emotionally spent right around the time our kids will need us most.

We believe that our kids will respond to any situation with the same attitude and energy that we exude, they reflect us. So we need to avoid the temptation of short tempers, avoid the desire to do all those things that one does when you get pressured.

Thank you very much for your prayer.
I'm hoping to keep the blog up while in North Carolina and I am attempting to make a photo/video travel log.

Merry Christmas

What a great Christmas we had! We were able to see a lot of friends and family and host a full house for several days in the midst of packing everything up.

You can't really ask for a better "last christmas in the States (for a while)".

Thanks to everyone here and more, we are currently at 101% of funding! What a great Christmas present.

Our PNG plane tickets arrived in the mail.
We are expecting the shipping company to arrive January 10th, to haul our belongings to Papua New Guinea.

We are moving out January 13.

We have tickets in hand for Waxhaw, North Carolina for 8 weeks of training and then we're leaving for PNG in March.

101% sounds like an exciting number, and it is! But there are numbers and then there are numbers.

I am cautioned when sharing the "inner workings of mission finances" and I'm not sure really why. I've heard the advice, and honestly if I get in trouble I'll probably get more cautious in what I share.

But again, my intention here is to demystify missions. I've been raised in the church and I've held many of the same misconceptions about missions as many people have. This entire process is a huge eye opener to me.

See even though we're told "you can go once you get 100% of support" the truth is, you really should be higher than 100% of "promised commitment". There is the promise, and then there is the actual. People are people and they sometimes forget, or their circumstances change and the funding you planned on doesn't come in.

A true miracle would be if we received 100% of the commitment. 100% equals the budget it takes for us to live in PNG and it's a very stripped down budget. The common question is "what happens to the extra?" 100% means that we've reached 100% of the comitted support required by our budget. In a perfect world any extra would go towards unexpected costs, towards immediate needs, or into savings for future needs (such as vehicles and gas, which we have not budgeted for since we do not own a vehicle over there yet). However in a realist's world, sometimes accounts dip under 100% support on a month by month basis. Sometimes the funds didn't come in, and sometimes emergencies required straying from the budget. Missionaries tend to play a lot of catchup, which is why working for an organization who can afford to allow you to play catchup. They have been burned in the past by this though, which is why they require 100% before being allowed to go to the field these days.

If one dips too low, to often, they are encouraged to return and do more partnership development (fund raising).

So we gleefully tell you, we're at 101%, and we wouldn't shy away from being at 110% before we depart, the extra money will go to cover the eventual loss we expect over time. We do expect to see a few drop offs as churches change and people age.

Glory to God, this is all in His hands. And miraculously, it's been chiefly through individuals. That's unheard of really. Most missionaries depend on churches. In our scenario, each and every person is a major player in getting and keeping us in PNG.

So Thank YOU! and Merry Christmas to your house!

Christ the Lord be glorified forever and ever!

Health Update

For those that have been praying.

My son had tubes put in his ears, and his adenoids removed yesterday around 1pm. The procedure went smoothly. His adenoids were very large.

He's almost back to his normal self, except he's been unable to hold down solids but he's working through it. What a trooper, was calm the whole time.

We got great care. This had God's hands on it from start to finish:
-we needed him in quick, the doctor got him in 3 days later because he was sympathetic to our cause.

-the anesthesiologist (sp?) had done several volunteer global short term trips himself and even was able to compare notes with my wife on certain places. He was GREAT with kids, a very pleasing bedside manner.

-that time of day the recovery room was empty so we got focussed attention.

-after we got home, my wife, who wasn't feeling great, finally took a moment to realize she had strep. We were able to get the oncall doctor to write a scrip for drugs for her without a visit and she's feeling a TON better today. That almost NEVER happens.

God had his hand on this family through this entire process, I'm sure there is more but I'm pretty tired from taking care of sickies all night.


Thanks God!

Side note:
Yesterday was the first time I ever had to see my kid attached to an I.V., with breathing mask and everything. I admire the strength of so many of my friends who have had to do that for prolongued periods of time during their child's infancy. Ear tubes and adenoid surgery is a cake walk compared to some of that stuff. And through it all, somehow my little son, with his bravery and calmness, facing his own nerves, made me respect him and proud and thankful to God all at the same time.

It is amazing what God will help us get through.

Prior to the surgery I was talking and walking with him. We spoke about bravery.
"Son, bravery is when you do something you need to, even though it scares you to do it. Can you think of an example?"

without hesitation he responds

"yeah, like I'm scared to go to Papua New Guinea, but I'm gonna go."

From a child's mouth, at any moment, without warning can come silliness, or poignancy.

Quick Prayer

We saw the specialist.

He said that our son has fluid in his ears, and recommended implanting tubes. At age 5 when chronic fluid is prsent, they usually take a look at the adnoids and possibly remove them. A procedure akin to removing tonsils.

PRAISE GOD:
-this will enable him to fly without pain (with tubes)
-this procedure lasts long enough to not require constant checkups (1 a few weeks later then maybe a year later)
-it could resolve his hearing issue and not have permanent loss.
-his current hearing loss, should it be permanent, isn't enough to affect his speech or learning or functioning. (not strong enough to require a hearing aid), and isn't progressive if we treat it now.

Because of our timeline the doctor was able to fit us in this Friday. Which is another huge answer to prayer. Being fit into our insurance plan AND his schedule 2 days after seeing him?

It's not because it was an emergency but because the doctor would like to check up on him before we left for N. Carolina!

THank you for praying.

Continue to pray :
that the procedure goes smoothly
that there be no permanent hearing loss (the doctor was avoiding my "worst case scenario" questions, but the bottom line is, he may never get better, or he may get entirely better, but he shouldn't get worse)

also throw in a side prayer that our visas come through soon.

thank you! PRAISE GOD, that's a load off our minds.

a Lot is going on

There is more going on than I can even blog but the energy is very high around here. We're very very excited. I tend to use that word a LOT these days.

We're going!

Funding wise, we haven't technically reached 100% yet, we still need some more monthly committments and partners. However we have reached 100% if you look at it another way.

(it's funny how finances can be viewed in multiple ways) So we're cleared to leave the country! We're hopeful that by the time we actually leave we'll be at 100% EVERY way you look at it, but 1 way is good enough for us for now.

The nature of support they say:
1 - you'll never be higher support wise, than you are when you first leave.
why? - because people won't feel your presence anymore, won't see your energy, won't experience your enthusiasm, and will forget your face over time.

2 - your support raising will never be over
why? - because people will stop sending for various reasons, or forget to start.

So, by no means are we intending to stop, for multiple reasons.
We're very excited to actually start creating experiences to write you all about.
Pictures! New stories! The good stuff! The exciting stuff... what God is doing over there stuff!

Well we've begun packing too. Giving away furniture, selling stuff on craig's list, donating to the neighbors, hauling away junk, putting stuff in boxes, and trying to find people who'll store a box or two for us here and there.

We have many piles: TO PNG, TO STORAGE #1, TO STORAGE #2, TO DUMP, TO DONATE

It is quite the logistical puzzle to craft moving, when to get rid of what furniture, when to sell/donate cars, when to quit work, and when to pack up... say.. your computer equipment, etc.

We have our tickets!

All signs are pointing to GO... but there are a few more obstacles God has to clear.
Before that though,
our itenerary:

January 13 - we fly to Waxhaw, North Carolina to live in an apartment for 8 weeks.
During those 8 weeks we will undergo cultural sensitivity training and technical training while our kids attend a local school.

March 10, we return from NC to stay in the Bay area for 1 week, visiting, saying goodbye, and tieing up loose ends.

March 17, we begin to fly to PNG.
March 20, we arrive at our destination in Ukarumpa, PNG. (I can detail the flight more later)

Obstacles:
- visas. while the adult's have been approved, there was confusion with the kid's and while were confident it'll be resolved quickly, it still needs resolution. The embassy needs a letter, which we're told was sent, but they haven't received, etc. and so forth. Clerical stuff. God'll work it out

- packing. Logistics of getting it all done.

- holidays. We're hosting Christmas, and it'll be a very full house, with family from both sides attending. IT promises to be a mixture of the stress of moving, the emotional stress of leaving, the logistic stress of having visitors stay in our home, and the christmas commotion of all the goings on. It's a perfect storm, and everyone is going to feel the pressure. But, the reason for it all is love. Folks want to be around us during this time, even if part of them are upset at us for taking away the grandkids, they love us. Pray that all of us can be kind and sincere during this time.

-our son's hearing. This is a very personal issue and one that we share not to embarrass our son. He's 5yrs old, and the doctor's are telling us we might expect some percentage of permanent hearing loss. A few weeks ago, I noticed something odd about his hearing and didn't dismiss it as a young child being stubborn. We did an impromptu hearing test and he didn't do so well. So we went to his pediatrician. She said she suspected fluid, and because we were leaving the country in 3 months, put him on aggressive anti-biotics.

Aggressive anti-biotics is a bit scary of a thought because I had heard of children being deaf because of this type of treatment for ear infections. In fact memory serves that one year our son had 2 infections and the dr. said a third would require tubes instead of anti-biotics.

The treatment possibly cleared up the fluid but a tympanogram proved no movement of his tympanic membrane. So we went to an audiologist who said there might be "some" fluid but they suspect a percentage of permanent loss.

So on Tuesday we see a specialist. What are they going to tell us? We don't know yet. We have many questions.

We need more data on his situation first. As you would guess, there are a lot of questions, and a lot of prayer needed about this right now.

As always, Pray that God would envelop us in a pocket of God's presence. That we would defer all decisions to Him, that we would submit gladly to His will and recognize it.

thank you for reading and praying!

Breakfast

Yesterday we sold the kid’s swingset. AT noon I posted on craigslist, by 1pm I had cash in hand and someone was tearing down the big wooden structure. By 4pm the structure was gone. That was nice.

The kids came home in the middle of the deconstruction. I thought “oh this is gonna go badly.”
“Kids, remember that we’re moving.”
“yes”
“and we can’t move our swingset with us.”
“okay”
“and where we are going there will be new things to play on.”
“okay”
“so we’re giving or rather, we’re selling your old swingset to some people who have grandchildren who’ll enjoy it while we’re gone.”
“okay”

They then ran off, and were playing in the backyard where the swingset was… busy making a museum. Not a lick of sadness at all. I asked them what they were doing and they were very happy playing and said “now we have all this room to play in! We can play football, or make a museum or play tag!”

I love our kids. Another example of God preparing them for this ministry. They take change so well. My son is anxiously awaiting today when we give the neighbor his train table.

—–
This morning at Breakfast, my daughter says “I planted four apple seeds in the place our swingset used to be. I got them from my Macintosh Apple.”
I sat there and stared at her, and thought “what mac? oh… that powerbook 100 I gave her as a toy… but why were there apple seeds in it? Did she store them in the…..OH!!! She means a REAL apple.”

That was a funny moment for me. I had forgotten my daughter knows her apple types well.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Today I said goodbye to my vhs movie collection. I started it in 1991, in college I used to lend movies to people. As a young kid my mom used to say “you have a gift for remembering movie trivia.” And I did, and I do.

When people ask my hobbies I often say “film”. But I don’t say it with pride, I say it with shame.

When we’re sitting around talking and someone says “you know that guy.. in that one film… who did that thing?” and I quickly reply with all the relevant data. I don’t take joy in that.

Why?
Because I realize that inside my memory is more movie trivia than scripture. Something about “where my treasure is.”

Today as I began to toss out old vhs’s (no one wants them donated) I started to realize the futility of that hobby. This collection, one by one, going into the trash. It became an act of worship as each time I threw out a tape I was sad and then said “God you are more precious than that film.”

It was easy on some of the lame ones, and harder when I got to some of my favorite classics.

I was struck by a sobering thought. I looked at the futility of collecting these movies now on a nearly defunct medium, unloved for years, and finally put into the trash.
I felt sad, as if I had wasted a lot of time and energy.

And the thought that struck me, was this:

I wonder if this is a small fraction of what it would feel like to stand before God on judgement day and realize your entire life was spent chasing the wrong thing.

Lord, I don’t want to chase the wrong things. I know movies aren’t sinful, but I also know they're trifles, not things to be largely concerned with. God help me not to continue the habit of spending too much time on trifles. God give me a consuming fire for your Word. God I know myself and I know I have these moments of clarity that are later overridden by unbroken habits. God help me to break that habit.

Thanks for loving me.

God's Encouraging Confirmation

When we first started this adventure we had a list of prayer requests before God.
"God, these are the concerns on our heart, we will follow you and obey you regardless of whether or not these are answered, but we put them before you."

In the past year, that list has been systematically answered.

We still have petitions before Him, but He has graciously answered the chief concerns on our heart, and now we stand before the threshold ready to serve Him with an unburdened and unworried heart. It is such a wonderful confirmation that God would alleviate those concerns of ours.

Thank you for praying!

More updates

95.7% today.
We have all but 2 pieces of papers in to submit our visa application. We've been working hard on this. There are many doctor's visits and revisits to get all the papers we need. I'm anxiously awaiting one email so we can submit our visas.

We're starting to investigate air fare to Papua New Guinea! 95% is when you begin the final preparations!

Needs:
--we still need free long term storage for our stuff.
--we still need around $160 more p/month to meet our criteria.

Praise:
-God is working, he's comforting our last minute worries, He's providing for us in so many ways, He's even making work exodus go smoothly.

I had a dream last night that shook me a bit. I rarely pay attention to dreams, but you know sometimes they can affect you emotionally as you wake up and start your day. I woke up with questions and fears. Instinctively I turned to the Word. I grabbed my "Message" and walked outside after 6am and read it. Sometimes the Message is best for morning light reading. I prefer NKJ for the more mental exercises.

I decided I needed to spend some time praising God in the midst of my fears etc, so I turned to a random Psalm. Man what the perfect Psalm for my mood this morning:

Psalm 37.
I'll point out my fear and thought and the verse that calmed me:

--God what if I'm making a huge mistake? Should I keep my job?
7 Quiet down before God,
be prayerful before him.
Don't bother with those who climb the ladder,
who elbow their way to the top.

--God what about the spiritual attack I'll be putting my family under?

12-13 Bad guys have it in for the good guys,
obsessed with doing them in.
But God isn't losing any sleep; to him
they're a joke with no punch line.

--God what if I make a huge mistake and mess up my family's future?

23-24 Stalwart walks in step with God;
his path blazed by God, he's happy.
If he stumbles, he's not down for long;
God has a grip on his hand.

25-26 I once was young, now I'm a graybeard—
not once have I seen an abandoned believer,
or his kids out roaming the streets.
Every day he's out giving and lending,
his children making him proud.

--Okay I get it, but God how do I make sure I don't falter and mess things up? I'm only human.

30-31 Righteous chews on wisdom like a dog on a bone,
rolls virtue around on his tongue.
His heart pumps God's Word like blood through his veins;
his feet are as sure as a cat's.

34 Wait passionately for God,
don't leave the path.
He'll give you your place in the sun
while you watch the wicked lose it.

37-38 Keep your eye on the healthy soul,
scrutinize the straight life;
There's a future
in strenuous wholeness.
But the willful will soon be discarded;
insolent souls are on a dead-end street.

39-40 The spacious, free life is from God,
it's also protected and safe.
God-strengthened, we're delivered from evil—
when we run to him, he saves us.

God speaks to His people. I am very uplifted. I've been listening to John Piper and one thing he mentions is that there are two parts of the Christian faith.

one is believing God
the other is desiring God.

I tell you my passion is that God's Word would pump through my life like blood through my veins. WOW. I can't help but get excited about that. God is so good, so praiseworthy! Get excited about His stuff!

The improved site

We're at 92.5%
We're being considered by a few churches in the area for support.
We are mailing out a new newsletter soon.
We are also mailing out postcards. These are for supporting members to keep and remember us by. (a picture to go on the fridge) They are also for others who have mentioned not receiving a commitment card and that they wanted one.


We've put a new face on the ministry's website.
Check it out here: www.gimpel.tv/newsletter

You can see the new newsletter there online, but it should be coming in the mail to you.

The Weekend

This weekend we worked on our newsletter and some prayer cards.
I was able to share a bit of my thoughts in our adult congregation class, as well as help out in AWANA for their first night.

We're at 92.5%
We're going to North Carolina in January for 7 weeks for training.
Then, if we're at 100% by then, with our Visas in hand, we'll leave the country.

Between now and then we need more financial partners, we need prayer, we need to pack up, we need to store our belongings and we need to buy airfare to PNG, and we need to get our Visa's completed.

I thank God that he created in us, something that feels good when we do good. How simply good you feel when you do something cheerfully for someone other than yourself is part of what God instilled in our nature.

To be used of God is an extreme honor, one that adds value to our existence. IT is never meant as an opportunity for individuals to be elevated but for Him to be glorified.

That is our attitude as we go into this.
We look to heaven. We are not bound by the restraints of this world because this world will be made new by Him who has called us into the work ahead of us.

The wonderful thing about heaven, is heaven's a wonderful thing.
(to borrow a line from A.A. Milne)

The Yard Sale

It is getting closer, we're purging ourselves of our possessions.

A Yard sale is a recognition of all the junk one has accumulated, and an effort to simplify.

My family is not especially materialistic. When any four of us see something we want, our second thought is usually "do I really need it?" This is another one of the subtle characteristics I've seen in this family that reminds me that God has been preparing us for a life of mission work. But no matter how good you think you are at living simply, a yard sale opens your eyes to the sea of junk that has infested your home.

Today I looked out, and I saw so much stuff, that at one time was valued and new, and now, is a burden to rid ourselves of. It is an endless cycle.

Becoming a missionary, you can only take so many things with you. You have to decide what is junk, what is essential to keep with you, and what is storable. Then you have to pay for shipping for the essentials and storage for the storables. This levies quite the price on whatever you decide to keep. The logical side of my brain says "put it in the dumpster" but my wife makes a good point, we should try to sell what we can, otherwise it's wasteful. Now that the yard sale is over, she feels justified that she gave it her best shot to avoid waste, and we took it all to our local charity.

I figure each item has 4 prices. 1. Original purchase 2. Storage 3.Labor in trying to sell 4. Labor in donating or 4. Cost to take to dump.
And that's IF we get rid of it. I have entertained thoughts of a massive bonfire, but have you seen how much firewood is these days (-;


We have tried to live simply, but you never truly realize how far you've missed the mark until you've had a yard sale. And each yard sale is a symbolic moment. Like a New Year's resolution. "I'm going to stop buying junk." It is a cost of being a family and having roots. You acquire things. The important thing isn't the cost of these things, or the amount of these items. The important thing, is that we maintain the proper attitude towards them. God's kingdom is more important than our kingdom of junk, and all our worldly possessions can burn in a fire before we value one of them higher than every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Limbo Life

There are a lot of things that need to be done in a short amount of time.
We are currently at approximately 90% funding. 100% is required before we can leave the country or even book airline tickets out of the country.

To find the remining 10% of supporters, we're praying, writing letters, and making calls. We've exhausted our own personal relationships as sources of financial partnership, and are branching out to churches and other areas where we share common interests but no common relationships.

God has chosen for us a path that looks like individuals are going to be the main contributors instead of churches. That is exciting for many reasons, but I'm attempting to make this blog more logistical than emotional or spiritual, so I'll leave out a lot of the why's etc.

We have been sending emails to groups of people who are technically minded believers. Christian aliases at work, things like that.

If you have a christian alias at your company, and are willing to send an email for us, I have one composed that I would love for you to send. Thank you


So while we're patiently waiting on God to unveil the final 10%, one inch at a time, we have other things to do:

-finish our work permit applications and visas.
-finalize our training - we have 8 weeks in jan/feb/march time frame to finalize training.
-find storage for our worldly possessions that we are neither taking nor ridding ourselves of
-pack
-quit work and leave

As of now, it appears that since we do not know when 100% will come, we can not know when we will actually be leaving the country, but we DO know that all things would be MOST smooth if we could be packed and moved out before we leave for Carolina at the end of January to finalize our training.

Please pray for our funding to come in quickly.
Please pray for creativity. We are finding ourselves stretched to come up with new funding ideas.

Many of the churches we've reached out to, have responded with "we only support members" types of reactions, which is understandable. The final 10% is what is known as, the second HALF of financial support. IF that is true, we will patiently and joyfully accept that as God's will, and we go, whenever He says go.

There are several other logistics, but we're starting to cross items off the list which is making this very real for us. Our house is beginning to be emptied out slowly, our boxes will begin being filled.

We are having a garage sale on Oct. 14th, to unload most of our stuff we won't be keeping.

All of this adds up to.. "this is really happening".

IT is an interesting place to live, not being sure WHEN but having a goal, and a hope. For those type A's which both my wife and I are, it is difficult to not have a concrete calendar, but we remind ourselves that we can't push God, and we wouldn't want to.

Thank you for praying

answers to prayer

I recently got an email.
We've been praying that God would see fit to increase the bandwidth in PNG before we got onsight in January.

the email today was exciting news. they are deploying new internet service technology (I'm being vague on purpose) which will allow them more reliability and bandwidth!

There are a lot of technical questions at the moment, but, it is a definite and direct answer to prayer.

God is awesome. He chooses to bless us through continued answer to prayer and He is worthy of praise. When we see answers to prayer like this we get excited! God thank you! We do not deserve these mercies!

Going for 100%

Well, summer is over and the kids are back in school. Calvin started Kindergarten this year and Sydney is in second grade. We had a very busy summer, but were blessed to have a chance to spend lots of time with some of our extended family. Those times become much more precious when you realize that by next summer we will be living halfway across the globe.

We’d like to take a minute to say thanks to all of you who are partnering with us in this journey. Your prayers and financial support are invaluable. We are definitely looking forward to getting to Papua New Guinea, but this time we spend in preparation has given us a chance to get to know some amazing people who are a part of our team. In fact, this summer Kendal had the privilege of meeting some of our prayer partners. The residents of the retirement community where Kendal’s mom works have been faithfully praying for us for the past year. While in Oregon this summer, Kendal had a chance to meet this amazing group of people and share with them a little more about what we will be doing and where we are going. What a blessing to meet and share with these faithful members of our team!

Financial update:
We are at 84.8% with $600 p/month left to discover.

We don’t use the word “raise” because really we aren’t earning or raising any money, but you as our partners are supporting us because you care.

We are constantly reminded that we are on God’s clock, not our own. Personally, I (Chad) would like to see 100% before September ends. That would mean we could buy plane tickets to North Carolina at the best value, and make all our training on time, as well as finalize the details of moving. It is an interesting limbo state that we are currently in. If we do not reach 100% in time to purchase plane tickets and leave in January, then we will have to wait until the following August to go. God is sovereign, His timing is perfect. He has answered so many prayers that indicate that this January is the right time that we are acting in faith He will provide. All signs point to January as being when He wants us to depart, which is why we strongly believe we will reach 100% in time.

Please pray. Currently we have reached out to everyone we know, and friends of people we know. Historically missions finances primarily come from churches, but that does not seem to be the method God had in mind for us as over 95% of our current funds come from individuals.

If you attend a church that has an active missions department please contact us.
If you are interested in partnering with us through prayer or finances please contact us.

Please pray that God provide the 100% in time.

If you really want to sing shouts of praise, pray that we reach 100% by September 30th as it would take a load of pressure off of us. Not that God wants us to live pressure free lives (-;

Again, thank you to everyone for your prayer and support. It takes a team to accomplish this work, and we are very thankful to God for you.

Learning as we go

I don't desire this to sound preachy, so if it does let me know.
Part of the process of becoming a missionary is learning to let go of control.
Control of when the support will come in, how long it will stay.
There is also the kind of control that comes in the form of leverage.
Americans have leverage because of competition and because they are consumers.
If a service you pay for, doesn't live up to your standards, there is competition you can go to.

As a consumer, you have power and control.

Inside of a missionary organization things are different than inside of a company.
In a company, if they want you to train on something, they pay for the training, and typically it is optional but strongly encouraged.

In a missionary organization, the training is mandatory, and they don't pay for it.

Does it strike you in an odd way if I said, "you have to go to this class, AND you have to pay for it."

In my corporate America culture, that is an offending thought. I don't HAVE to do anything, I'm an employee with skills, I can quit and join a competitor!

Pay for it? Why would I pay for something YOU need me to do?

And so we have this sense of control, of leverage, of options.

I'm in the process of discovering how it feels to lose those ...options.

Admittedly, I have discovered that a lot of my trust is in my ability to creatively negotiate my options.
I don't like getting stuck in a corner in any way. Whether it's a service I pay for, or my career. I like to have possibilities.

It boils down to, finding the truth behind where my trust lies.

When I desire control, and I become upset when I can not have it, I discover that my trust lies in my abilities.

We're losing control. (not self-control). We're losing a lot of our ability to exert force over our environment.

It seems like a sad thing but it isn't.

We are discovering the truth behind putting our trust in Jesus (who is alive!).
Our hope is in Jesus. Not in ourselves.
The possibilities in Christ are endless, who can stand against Him?

Truly, this is a process of dying to self. It is not an easy process. Admittedly for the past week or two I've been emotionally struggling with the idea.

But in the last two days, I've changed from focussing on us, what WE lose, what WE are giving up, and instead discipline my heart towards praising God. It is amazing how, you think you figured it out before making the decision. You say "sure I can give up this, and this and this" and the growth doesn't really come from the easy things to give up, it's when you hit the parts that are harder to give up, the sneaky ones, the parts you didn't anticipate. Something as small as the fact that you won't have as much variety in life.

It was not until I was praising God that my perspective was altered, and I was transformed into a step of humility and understanding.

God is great, God is good. Christ is Risen!
Our trust is not in ourselves it is in Christ.
Our trust is not in our ability to make things work, but in God's ability to fulfill His plan.

still on the journey.

Status 8/29/06

News from the homefront is that the cost of health insurance has gone up, which changes our monthly goal from $3700 to $3900 which in turn brings our progress from 86% to 82%.

AT first what seems dissapointing (as if they moved the finish line while we were nearing the end of the race) is in fact another opportunity to worship God.

God is great. Christ is risen! Christ is alive. We don't serve a Jesus who is back in Israel 2000 years ago. We serve a Christ who is here, who is now, who is alive!

God can bring in the funds.

We have some pressing needs:
- we need to get to 100% by January, but I'm really praying for September.
- we need more contacts, more interested partners, more churches.

We've written and visited everyone we can think of, so now we need new ideas, new resources, new ways to get to 100%.

We are excited because we've made it so far so quickly and it's all because of you, our partners in this ministry!

Thank you.

As we continue to wait on God, we wait for some people to make final decisions as to whether or not they wish to support us.

We wait on God's timing as to when our Visa's will be completed.

In this society we live in, everything is HERE and NOW, instant, fast-food, microwave culture, learning to wait is something that is hard, but an experience we're becoming more accustomed to.

Praise God, His timing is perfect!

It's happening

pausing a moment for reflection
in the past week our support has gone up almost 8%.

As I look around now, we’re nearing 90% of funding, it’s sinking more deeply in that we’re leaving.

I’m having a great conversation with my dad and in my brain I hear “you won’t be doing this next year” and I start to tear up.

I’m looking at my nieces and cousins and having fun camping and thinking “you won’t be doing this next year” and choke up a little.

I’m hiding zucchini at my neighbor’s house and I think “this is my last practical joke in America for a few years” and I start to get melancholy.

The tragedy of this process is that it lets the pain linger for a very long time.
It’s like attending a wake for a year. No person should have to prolong these emotions.

There is a definite sadness to this process. I would be negligent if I didn't mention them in the blog.

You ask yourself questions like, "how long will it be before I see them again? What if something happens? Will I ever see them again?" In every person's case there are specific details and difficult to cope with emotions.

There is sadness on the side of those watching us go.

My dad explained it to someone like this "it's a joyful heartbreak."

This blog is about the process of becoming a missionary, and so I have to include these harder parts, even if they make it seem less...what's the word.. "glamorous" doesn't quite fit.

We aren't guaranteed that if we follow God's orders we will have a happy life. It is a temptation to believe that in following God all will be good. We know God desires good for His people, but we are prepared for bad to happen as well. Modern day martyrs are rare, but the heart still needs to be prepared.

So what do we do during these sad times? Do we complain to God, do we try to bargain with God and ask for Him to let us off the hook? No, because He jsut might (-;

We turn it, through discipline, into worship. Sacrificing our emotions of sadness and turning them into tears of praise because we know that following God is our goal in life. We don't know what the outcome will be, but we know, we need to be obedient, even unto a broken sadness that is leaving loved ones.... even further than that.

A mind like mine, asks "what if" a lot.
"what if you lost a child because of this?"
"what if you died and your wife was left in the country with 2 kids?"
"what if your grandmother got sick while you were gone?"
"what if your best friend marries and you weren't around to be the best man?"

but there is a what if question that trumps them all:

"what if, you didn't obey God?"

What would our lives be like if we decided to turn our back on what we know to be God's direction for our lives? We have very clear marching orders, He's confirmed it to us time and time again. To refuse to go, would be a clear case of ignoring God's specific will for us.

Living life after rejecting God in that way, would be a path we don't want to go down. God has set a banquet before us, and invited us, we're going.

We have fields and committments we're leaving behind, but that is the price we pay in order to live a life of obedience.

It's not all sad I don't mean to concentrate on that too much, it's mostly joy. Because knowing we are doing what God wants, is more comforting than anything, and it is also what comforts our family in our absence.

There is great honor and joy and comfort and hope and excitement and anticipation and love in knowing that we have been asked to do a small thing for God.

July Update 2006

wow, a lot of stuff has happened.

First, the new newsletter is up
http://www.gimpel.tv/newsletter/newsletter3.pdf

In the interest of getting the information out, we sort of hacked up the original format to squeeze in the info.

Let's see.

So we were praying:
1 - God would bring our finances up over 70% ... we're now at 76%
2 - God would bring folks who have committed to joining us, to telling us what level they are comfortable with.... .still in progress but some folks are saying "remember when we committed months ago.. .well this is how much we'd like to give.."
3 - God would allow the training scheduling to work out. See the training we need to take is only available at certain times, and they require multiple weeks of leaving work to complete. BUT ALAS... a huge prayer was answered and now the schedules are all worked out so that we can attend the training we need, AND get to the country by our desired departure date! (Jan/Feb. 2007)

God really worked out a major issue for us. POC is a 14 week in country camp/training based on teaching you how to live in the country. My future manager needs me at the job at soon as possible to train me before he leaves in country. If I were to attend the 14 week training it would drastically lower my ability to do my job right out of the gates (I like to hit the ground running).

So now the story is... in January we'll be attending 5 weeks of training, move to PNG, live there for 6 months, and then go to the 14 week training, which will allow us not only to have more time acclimating, but create a better appreciation for the 14 week training as well as more preparation.

All in all, God moved a mighty mountain for us recently!
so now...
visas are in progress
and we're waiting for the final 24% of people to let us know what they are comfortable with committing to!

We're excited... the rubber is meeting the road and we're ready to go!!!

thank you all, and please pray:

-that our funding hits 100% by September.
-that our visas and work permits go through smoothly.

This is very exciting stuff! We're seeing God answer prayers in His incredible style!

Exciting News

People are asking us if we're excited. The answer is yes!
Today we moved passed the 70% support line into 75% support!
That is exciting. 80% is our next milestone. We'd like to be there by the end of July. And we'd like to be at 100% by the end of August.

That's our timing, God's timing seems to be keeping in line with that, and we definitely will wait on Him.

We are going to take some family time this July, and hope to fit in some time to visit churches and friends.

We have submitted the application for the kids enrolment to school, and we have finalized the Visa application (it takes a while to get all the documentation in) and are sending it in today.

Pray that all paperwork gets to it's proper destination and is processed in a timely fashion and that things go smoothly.

It is definitely a discipline to do your paperwork thoroughly and on time, and completely. A discipline that is part of the job and that we are learning.

On a personal note, I find it ironic because I have always disliked paperwork, and now I am at a time in my life when paperwork is a huge portion of my day.

Doesn't God always work like that? Always trying to strengthen us in our weak areas (-;. As my folks used to say... "it builds character".

Financial and Prayer update

Today marks 67% of our financial goal!

We have begun our Visa application process and require prayer that it goes smoothly.
There is a lot of paperwork to fill out and rules and regulations to adhere to, official copies of this and that to get and such.

We do our best to make sure this all goes through smoothly, and then trust God to guide it all to the right people to get it through. As we start sending off document after document, pray for it's smooth sailing.


Thank you.

Progress

We are now at 60% financial partnership! Only 40% more to go! If you know of any interested parties we have yet to contact please let us know.

OUR LATEST NEWSLETTER is online at:

www.gimpel.tv/newsletter
(click on newsletter #2)


the financial data is out of date because in 2 weeks time we have had such a response that we were unable to keep up with it.

Support, and prayer

we've finished newsletter2, a few weeks ago.
now we're compiling everyone's email addresses.

With each email we send out, we save approximately one dollar. (printing costs and mailing costs).
So in the interest of stewardship, we've taken the extra week to compile email addresses.

If you don't think we have yours, please contact me at owens@gimpel.tv

now for the big news:

51% financial partnership!!!! (as of 5/13/06) We jumped right passed 50 and went straight to 51% !!! YAH....YIPPEEE!!! (didn't want to give a search engine free advertising).

Also, for those of you who desire a more personal touch, the newsletters aren't it. The newsletters go to a wide range of people, and as such, are typically more informative and general... as is the news.

For the personal touch, look first to the blog, which while public, is more personal. And secondly we do try to keep in touch with everyone on a personal level as well.

If you have any questions, or simply want to talk, we would love to have a chat with you.

thank you for your support.
God answers prayer in incredible ways.

Here's a funny one:
I (chad) have learned throughout my life to pray for everything. I don't believe in coincidence, and I don't believe anything is too small to pray about. God is all powerful, to Him it is as hard to raise full support for missions as it is to find a good parking space. His power can handle both with relative ease. In our eyes, things are harder, and so we tend to gravitate towards only releasing the harder things to God. BUT, in my daily life I pray continually, and while I sometimes do feel silly praying for the small stuff, I definitely have seen God take those opportunities to be glorified and encourage me.

Yesterday we were with some family at the beach. I needed to find a parking spot, so I prayed "God, please find us a good parking spot." It was the kind of day where prayer would be the only way you found a convenient one. With my son not feeling so well, and a van full of family, the closer we got the better. (-;

Well I was taking my time, not being rude at all, and I paused at an intersection to let people go, but jsut as I did, a large group of people decided to cross the street and block the river of traffic coming at me, so I took the opportunity and pulled behind a big convertable with one man driving.

His bumper stickers read: "hedonist" "apes evolved from creationists" and "boycott A.A."

I thought "God, this man apparently lives his life in mockery of you."
Well, the man was looking to his left, I don't know why, because I was looking to my right, and right in front of him, a car was pulling out.

This man missed it completely, and I got a prime parking spot.

I laughed and thanked God.
Not only, did God part the waters to allow me to drive smoothly, but He gave me a perfect parking spot in a very encouraging way as if to say "there will be those that mock me, but I reward my faithful."

It seems like a small thing, but I believe when you have eyes to see, you can see God working everywhere.

Prayer

A team of friends went to Senegal for computer work and networking. The whole world needs this stuff!

This week has been an amazing week of answered prayer.
Inspired by Karl Bastian's childrens book "Order of the Ancient" I have taken to making a specific intercessory prayer each day for something to occur that day.

I pray many things in a day but chose to focus on only 1 thing to have answered in a short amount of time.

Monday - Lord please let our support break the 37% barrier. When I got home my wife told me we were at 39.5%
Tuesday - Lord please let the team in Senegal successfully complete their installs by Saturday ...today I got an email that they were successful.
Weds - God please help me to understand [a complex problem at work I'd been having trouble with for weeks] by 11am something clicked and I finally understood the issue.
Thurs - (I can't remember, I should journal this stuff)
Friday - God please let us get a check in the mail tomorrow. Today - for no reason AT&T sent us a check for $79.00. Admittedly I meant a new partner, but God still answered my literal prayer. I think I shall be more specific from now on (-;

And so today, is Saturday and I've saved my short term answer prayer for you the blog reader.

Lord may everyone who reads this blog today be filled with your joy and may you be glorified somehow in their lives today.

We are at 40.5%... that's almost 50%! We've been doing this PD for almost 3 months now, but honestly it's YOU who has been doing it and God.

Our second newsletter is complete and we'll be mailing in out early this week.

I will also be putting up a link for information, so please stay tuned.

progress

We have been at 37% of our promised monthly funding for a few weeks now. We are praying that our trip to Southern California would increase this number as well as prayer partners.

We are also hoping that those who have committed to joining us will communicate at what level so we can get an accurate read of how close we are to our financial goal.

Please pray that God would advance this number towards 100%. Thank you.

God Answers Prayer

We've come to rely on answered prayer.
I personally get a kick out of watching God work! This last week, our trip down to Southern California was an experience in worship and faithfulness.

Worshipfully we recognize that as men after the fall, we have to toil. It's a plain truth, and toiling without complaining and grumbling, and is a form of worship to God. It brings with it encouragement and faith building.

Praying that God would work, and then being blessed when He shows you a glimmer of what He is doing, is faith building.

This week was one moment after another of being blessed and excited by the Holy Spirit. Seeing small groups study the Bible, hearing personal testimonies, hearing sermons, seeing old friends and family, visiting churches, seeing old friends in new ministries, all these things glorify God and we have become so encouraged seeing God's hand at work!

When people study the Word, when they worship and praise, we are filled.
When you are raised in the church, the idea of going to several churches in a week can either be exciting or can seem like more of the same.

At some point in your walk, you may get the impression that you've heard it all before. Church services can become mundane. But when you find a heart of worship, which is what God has shown my family these last two years, when you find that heart, suddenly the services take on a new light. The songs you've heard a million times before, take on a new life.

It was so exciting to praise God and worship Him in these new and old settings. WOW.
I got so energized we drove the night through to get home. I'm not a night driver, but I spent the quiet and dark hours praying and praising God.

One specific example is that, since we've grown somewhat addicted to seeing God provide (please Lord don't let me get too spoiled) I asked if He would give us one new Partner on Saturday. One day away. "God tomorrow when I wake up, will you please provide one new partner."

God did it.
How encouraging is that? How awesome is that?

I am convinced, that we need to focus our hearts into hearts of worship, and that will establish a relationship with Christ that surpasses anything that might sap our joy. And that relationship will grow and all things will spring from there. Loving others will grow, prayer lives will grow, all things will grow from that relationship which comes from a submissive heart of worship.

WOW! the Me of 2 years ago is envious of the me now. Two years ago I'd see people on fire and think "I have been a christian for 27 years now, the fire is strong but not explosive, I want to be explosive again." and now, 2 years later I am!

God we praise you and thank you for your faithfulness.
God this easter, you were victorious over death and sin. The world seeks heroes and Christ is the largest hero of them all. Beaten and bruised and conquered on Friday, with justice and strength He arose on Sunday to defeat all foes, death, sin, and prove to the world who will one day admit it, that He is GOD!

He proves to us daily that He is God.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us!

Anatomy of Partnership Development

A large part of the appeal of Wycliffe to me is our view towards "financial support". This is more accurately called Partnership because of the equality in ownership of a ministry that God is doing. He puts different people with different abilities and hearts together to accomplish something that otherwise would be impossible. I will hopefully put more detail later, but the gist is...
you're not asking for money, you're asking for people excited who want to join, and letting them decide the level of that partnership. Will they be prayers, encourages, come visit us, help financially support us.. what?

Thus we don't go on "fund raising trips" we go out seeking to do 2 things:
1 - glorify God by telling people, anyone, what God has done in our lives
2 - find the people who desire to get involved in some way.


number 1 above, is what planted the seed in our family years ago. We pray that God would be glorified through us and that we wouldn't be an obstacle (firewall) to His glory.

so... with that said... there is a reality to the fact that you have to pray for people to talk to, they don't know us or they do, they are excited to hear us or they aren't. We don't know how long we'll have or what the topic should be, or sometimes we do.

It can definitely sound like a chore. Pack the family up, get in the car, drive to a church, speak in front of the church, find a small group, get to know them and share what is going on. It sounds energy draining, laborious even.

It isn't. The reality is, yes it is work. Since Genesis man has had to toil. But...
God is SO awesome.

He is encouraging us every step of the way. How exciting is it when you find someone who really cares about what you are saying? It blows me away when people enjoy being around us and hearing what God is doing. I am deeply honored by the people who are joining us as partners.

I find that in my heart I am uplifted... seeing God work in Southern California is great! Some churches here are really catching on fire.

I can't describe what it is to not want to do a job, but know you must, set your mind to the point of sacrificing whatever you do, all the work, to God as worship, and then aligning your heart with God's because there is no point in grumbling while doing this chore, you need to be absolutely submissive to God's heart and will.... (excuse the run-on sentence) and then, when you've put everything you have into it, and are drained, God fills you through relationships and experiences. You find His Word, you meet people you love and who love you, you receive encouragement.

This process is a process of recognizing that God meets you when you work towards Him and for Him with the right heart.

We're in the middle of the week down here, and have visited 2 churches and a small group, we've spoken 2-3 times, and are anticipating one more church visit.

That's the work part... the blessing list is huge:
-we heard an amazing sermon
-we experienced an absolutely amazing testimony from one of the vp's at pepsico
-we saw people we haven't seen in years which is always so great
-we were able to meet other missions minded folks
-we spent time in family's homes and friends homes which is always an honor and a privilege.
-we saw the power of God in this process.

Honestly, I'm the kind of guy who finds leaving the home, packing, and driving 400 miles a huge chore. Staying in other people's homes you're always worried that your kids will behave etc.

But once I got my heart and mind to the point of... this is not a chore, it is a task that you are doing because God called you to the field, you are doing this out of obedience and out of worship to God.

Once I got there, and I got there pretty quick, God showed up and changed my attitude into one of flexibility, and awe.

God works like that, always has... working for Him, when you're in that zone, that right place, is ALWAYS more filling than anything else.

To me, the fact that serving is energizing and filling and encouraging and strengthening your walk in Christ, is the most important signal that you are in God's will.

I've been in "ministry" my whole life, some jobs are really draining, others pump you up.

This job, has pumped us up, and we've only jsut begun!

Thank you to all who have been praying and reading... HI to all our new friends and readers!

Prayer:
----we would LOVE to see more people come on board as a result of this trip, we would love to find great prayer warriors and ... because we like making a task so huge only God can accomplish it and thus be glorified we are praying that within a month of this trip we'll be at 50%

Could you join us in that prayer?
I'll throw out the biggest one, we're praying for 100% by July, 2006.

Only God can accomplish this task. If He opts not to, we realize we will submit to his timing and clock, but our passion is to go in January.

April 10-easter

WE will be in the Los Angeles area from April 10th through to Easter.
IF you are in the area and know of anyone who would be interested in hearing about our ministry and might be interested in partnering with us for financial and prayer support, please contact us at

email:
owens@gimpel.tv

Status:
We are at %37 of our financial support. We hope to see that number grow as we continue approaching churches for partnership, however thus far the trend is about a 25% success rate. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad rate, but it's God's plan so it's good regardless.

We anticipate hearing from many of you who are still deciding at what level you wish to partner with us financially, once we know that we will be able to get an accurate reading of how much more work we have to do.

We have been working on a second newsletter. We have also completed our ministry portfolio which is a folder containing introductory information to our family and our ministry, intended for churches and groups who may be looking to support missionaries with a shared passion.

If you know of any groups or churches who would like to hear from both or one of us, we are more than happy to come share or even to give you one of our portfolios.

We are excited to say that Bethany Church (where we were married) is the first church to partner with us financially on a monthly basis.
A few churches have declined financially supporting us in an ongoing way but are still encouraging. A few have shown no interest, and even fewer haven't liked where our organization stands theologically.

It is an interesting process, but we are confident that God will pull us through it with a stronger faith.

Prayer Requests:
--that God would move in the hearts of people and churches to partner with us
--that we would be at 100% ($3700 p/month promised committment) by June 2006
--we would be guarded against spiritual attack in the form of discouragement (or any form)
--that our kids would be protected against attack and would grow up wise in Christ.

thank you
also if you are praying for us, and happen to think of it, drop us a line, it would be very encouraging to know who is praying and who is reading the blog.