Orientation Training...Personal Training

I really struggled with coming up with a subject title for this series of classes. The official title was "Living a Life Worthy of the Lord" and it was broken up into three parts. A part on spiritually living, a part on relationally living, and a part on personally living. The guest speakers were a missionary couple who had spent most of their 40 year marriage with their personal ministry which helps to take care of missionaries. You could say they are a little like a missionary version of Dr. Phil who teach people how to take care of themselves spiritually. Their own testimonies of faith are an encouragement!

The part on spiritually living drew on the verse Colossians 1:9-14. This verse talks about how we should pray. We were told that the men are the SOUL providers for the their family. Their duty is to feed their family's soul with love and encouragement as well as Bible time. We never realized how important Bible time as a family could be until they showed us an example of how to have spiritual time together. It was beautiful, heartwarming, and intimate. Afterwards, we were given our own Bible verse and were asked to get together as a couple and study the verse together. Afterwards, we were to pray together. It was very encouraging and definitely made Kevin and me feel closer. I think this was my favorite part of the training!

The part on relationally living talked about how we relate to others. So often in our lives we feel "wronged" or "hurt" by someone else. This leaves a whole in us that can only be filled by forgiveness. But, it is important for us to learn what true forgiveness is, otherwise, we can hurt more than one person. Let's say I were to get in a fight with my best friend. My husband suffers because he is friends with her husband. Their children suffer because they are friends with Adah. Then, I am no longer the only person who feels "wronged" or "hurt" but my family now feels this way towards me. It is a trickle down effect and is can tear people up physically, mentally, and spiritually. So we first learned what true forgiveness is and is not. I think the hardest lesson to understand for people is that forgiveness ultimately comes from God, not man.

The final part was on personally living. Sometimes in our lives we need to seek God and the best way to do that is to focus on a Christ like character in our personal lives. For example, humility, self-control, patience, love, joy, etc. This was a very soul searching process, especially as we did this as a couple. I have to be honest and say that this was a very raw moment for our marriage and I shed quite a few tears. Intentional living is very hard but it helps to bring you closer to God. Don't believe me? Ask God for humility and see what happens!

Overall, the training really helped to build strength in our family as well as how our family relates to others. It also helped us to see how important our prayer partners are in our lives.

Abundant Blessings

We are so blessed! Thanks to the efforts of our friends, we were partially moved in the Thursday we planned our move. By Friday, everything was out of the old apartment and in the new. By Saturday, the new apartment was clean and everything was in place. By Monday, the old apartment was cleaned up and the keys were turned in (gotta rest on Sundays).

Our apartment is the top  left one. 

We adore living on campus! We have a beautiful deck with a gorgeous view.

Sunset from our deck

There is a large open area of grass for Adah to play on and many new friends to play with.

Adah with her buddy Georgi

There are many missionary families right next door, so we have people to enjoy an afternoon BBQ with!

Adah and her buddy Oliver begging for corn niblets

There is even a swing set for our little monkey!

We have been blessed to have someone who has agreed to keep Adah during the day that Adah enjoys spending time with! Now, instead of opposing schedules and little time to study, we have matching schedules and more time together. I suppose we be spending more time reading!

Our schedule looks the same on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. We have class from 8:45-12:15, divided up into three classes. 8:45-9:45 is "culte personnel" ("culte" means worship) where we talk about our personal devotionals, in French. It is great practice using Bible words and reflexive verbs to talk about how our daily readings are applicable to our lives. From 9:45-10:15 is "les informations" where we talk about the news and culture in the local area we will be living. This is great practice for utilizing less often used terms such as those used in business, government, and military. Plus, it helps us to stay up to date on the current events in the Congo. We have a coffee break from 10:15-10:45 that is the same time as the Bible students. Since Adah will be elsewhere, both Kevin and I will have the opportunity to practice French with the other students, checking off one required French conversation for the day! Finally, we have "orale et grammaire" where we work on our techniques and fine tune our grammar and review what we learned in the past semesters.

The only exception is Wednesdays. We have school wide "culte" in the mornings with all of the language and bible students. It is from 8:30-9:30. Then, the missionaries ladies meet together separately from the missionary men. This is the time we have set aside each week to pray for one another. It is from 9:30-10:30. At 10:30, we begin our classes with "les informations" and then from 11:30-12:30, we have "orale et grammaire." We have a one hour break before we have our bible class or singing class (depending on the week) from 1:30-2:30. Adah is welcome to hang around during that class, so we will pick her up during our lunch break.

Chapel

All of our language learning opportunities are made so much better by being on campus. We are exposed to French daily, whereas in our old apartment, we were exposed to Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Portuguese, and English on a daily basis. We have more study time (and a bit more free time) because of our schedule and Adah has somewhere to play. God has blessed us abundantly!

A Lesson on Boundaries

There is an app on my iPad specifically for Adah. If you touch the screen (anywhere) the iPad will produce a piano note. Adah adores the musical sounds she can produce and will often crawl over to the iPad and will begin tapping the screen to let us know she wants to play.

Today, she decided she would discover what makes the music. She held the iPad in her little hands, tapped the screen to hear the notes, and then lifted the iPad to look at the back. She kept repeating this process, in order to determine the location of the sounds she loves to produce. In her curiosity, she placed the edge of the iPad in her mouth so she could continue to explore, something very common for a child of her age. I immediately told her that was not permitted by using the dreaded mom noise, the one that means “no.” You know, the terribly obnoxious and effective “AAAAH!” sound in your throat.

Adah was stunned and immediately dropped the iPad! She had never heard this sound before and was quite confused. But my little explorer was determined to test mom’s boundaries while seeking to ease her curiosity. She touched the iPad again to produce music while looking at me. There was no nasty mom noise, so she continued to play. After a few minutes of evidence of my child’s musical genius, she picked up the iPad and turned it to look at the back. She touched the screen again and then placed the edge of it in her mouth. “AAAAH!”

She stopped and looked at me immediately. She had a look of hurt on her face that said she was sad, but thinking. She tried it one more time, slowly placing the iPad in her mouth. “AAAAH!” She dropped the iPad and stared at it like it was her puppy that just got hit by a car. In my heart, I felt bad for reprimanding her, but I knew it was the right thing to do (especially since the warranty does not include damage from baby drool).  Tentatively, she began to touch the iPad again to make the noise she loves so much, all while watching me to ensure she was not doing wrong. After a few more moments, she continued to play her music and did not attempt to place the iPad in her mouth again (for now). Today, Adah was introduced to a few lessons. She learned about boundaries, limitations, and obedience.

Often times, life is like this for us. We test our boundaries, sometimes innocently, sometimes not. But like curious Adah, many times we are curious about the world around us. But in our naiveté and excitement, we can get into situations that lead us to places we shouldn't be. Many times, God does not immediately reprimand us verbally like a mother would. Sometimes though, He lets us face the consequences to let us grow and develop wisdom. But, He hasn't done it without proper guidance though. He has given us a tool to help us to learn The Way. Unfortunately, the Bible is not the easiest reading material. It takes a lot of studying in, and even studying about the Bible to get the context of some of the harder passages. But in essence, God is saying “if following Me is truly important to you, spending time with Me, learning my way for you, will be something you will want to do”. Sometimes the initial guidance and direction (not always in the sound of a deafening “AAAAH” ) isn't pleasant, but in the long run it will make your life more fulfilling….and less expensive, by not having to replace your iPad.

“My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and to insight, “You are my relative.” They will keep you from [trouble]*.” Proverbs 7:1-5

*Slightly paraphrased