Please pray with us!

Church family, prayer partners, PLEASE join us in praying for negative Covid tests for our boy’s teachers. One or more of them is exhibiting symptoms of Covid, and our three youngest boys have been exposed. The staff here is hoping to hear back about the testing by the end of the weekend. If the results are negative, things will resume as normal next Monday. If anyone tests positive, our three youngest boys are to be in quarantine in our extremely small apartment until March 10th (two days before we are scheduled to fly back to Omaha). Elijah and Judah were not directly exposed and neither were we, so for the time being we do not have to quarantine, but that will likely change if the test comes back positive.
It goes without saying, we cannot imagine being quarantined in our tiny apartment for the next two weeks, and there are so many families here effected by this. It looks as if all but one family that are here with children are in the same boat as we are. It would also be a disaster if Covid started spreading on our campus, for so many reasons (political, logistical, etc). Please join us in prayer on your knees interceding on behalf of everyone here, that this testing come back negative! It is growing ever more clear that the enemy is hard at work to throw up every road block he can during this training, as it truly has just been one thing after another. We are weary and I, in particular, feel pretty defeated. However, we take heart knowing that Satan is on a leash. He cannot work outside of God's providence, as we see in Job. In fact, this week our session focus has been about spiritual warfare, God's providence, Satan's limitations and the Lord's triumph over darkness.  How timely. This spiritual battle we find ourselves in the midst of will bring glory to God as he proves once again how his timing and ways are perfect, despite how the outcome appears to us.

Thank you for loving us well with your prayer support. 

Covid free bubble

We had to leave our hard earned Covid free bubble of a campus this weekend because of a power outage and faulty back-up generator issue this weekend. Our prayer request surrounding this is that the Lord continue to sustain us and keep our campus free from Covid. With the lot of us, over 200 people, being bussed out to various different hotels around the city and having to order food in, there’s definitely a risk of Covid exposure. It would be very unfortunate for our campus to turn into a super spreader location. Please pray with us!

And praise the Lord for his provision in safe places to stay while the generator and fire-suppression systems were being fixed!

There’s a post on our blog page that goes further in-depth about this, and it can be found here.

"First, 2nd day!"

Our 13 year old exclaimed over breakfast this morning, “It’s our first second day!” It took us a few seconds to figure out what he meant, but we quickly realized that yes, he was correct! He was talking about the first 2nd day for their classes, but as I thought through the truth of that statement, it’s really the first 2nd day of any routine for the past month and a half. Today was their 3rd day of classes at the school here on campus, but it was the first, 2nd day in a row they’ve had, since the education center was closed last week because of the teacher’s exposure to Covid. They all tested negative at the end of last week which, praise the Lord, meant classes could resume as normal this week. We split the mornings and afternoons all last week to keep one of us in the quad with the boys in the morning and then the other with them in the afternoon while attending our sessions. Typically by the 3rd week in, folks would be well adjusted to the 7-3 schedule for each day, but again, it was our first, 2nd day. We’ve been on the go with ever changing circumstances and routine really since the Christmas season. It was good to have a second day of routine! And speaking of routine, and lack there-of, we are pretty wiped. We’ve got about 4 1/2 weeks of training left, and are realizing that the boys being in class all day makes for long afternoons with exhausted us and them, especially Zeke, who is a sleeper through and through, and is used to 3-4 hours of nap time each day. He’s sleeping for an hour in his little classroom during their afternoon quiet time, but this leaves him in a heap from about 4:30 on. We’ve backed up his bedtime to 6:15 in hopes that it will help him a bit.

With that little update, here’s the ways you can be partnering with us in prayer, and the praises we can share to encourage you that the Lord hears the prayers of the saints!

Pray with us:
1. We are tired. There is so much to be done in way of session homework for us and the boys - it’s good stuff, but this is all very new for our family, to be this busy day after day.
2. Zeke has a really rough time being dropped off, and I’m feeling the pressure of only have a few hours with him in the afternoons/evenings. I want that time together to be sweet, but he’s so tired that he really can only keep it together until 4:30 or so, and then he crumbles into a weepy mess about every little thing. This is very unusual for him. Please pray with us that he would adjust to less sleep during the day and also that he would be able to learn to communicate with more words than he knows right now - it’s gotta be tough to have such overwhelming emotions and not be able to tell us what’s making him sad.
3. We have to figure out our homeschooling curriculum to take with us when we fly to Kenya. Because of Covid travel stuff, there won’t be any support ministry teams headed our way anytime soon that can bring it (this is typically how curriculum is brought for hs families), so we just learned we need to get that all planned, ordered and packed up while we are here, so we can add it to our ever growing mound of luggage. Please pray with us for clarity of mind and that we’d be able to plan effectively so we don’t get to the flip side and realize we forgot something vital.

Magnify the Lord with us:
1. All the kids teachers tested negative for Covid, after all being exposed at a staff meeting a couple of weeks ago. This meant we could resume the normal schedule this week.
2. I am really thankful for all our years of being able to homeschool our boys. While there were days I thought it would be the death of my sanity, I have a new appreciation and thankfulness for it as our boys are in class here from 8-3. It’s a major adjustment to only have a few hours with them at the end of the day, when we are all cognitively tired and still have homework to complete. We are excited homeschooling is feasible on the field, and I am not more excited than ever to get back into it, though that is months down the road.
3. We had really encouraging conversations yesterday: one with our team leaders and the other with the “M’s in residence” that are here on campus doing a stateside term, serving the current lot of us headed overseas. Their work is also in Tanzania, but in a different city than where we will be. They told us of their transition from the States years ago and the hardships that came with that. They told us a bit about the incredible ministry the Lord has provided for them, things they couldn’t have imagined. Our team leaders were very encouraging and conversations with them always get us excited to get to our destination point, so we can do the task together! We are continuously blown away by the team the Lord has gathered up for us to work with.

Thank you for tracking with us, reading updates and continuing to speak with the Lord on our behalf!

Grace and Peace!

Rebekah

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Apologies - we have been remiss in updating

Greetings, all! Thank you for signing up to get updates and we apologize for the radio silence. You can find a somewhat in-depth description of our moving week here, and the first week of orientation post will follow that one. We are on our second day of our second week here at orientation in VA. While things don’t look the way we expected them to, the Lord knew all of this ahead of time, so we are finding ourselves readjusting our expectations and being patient with the staff as they try their best to work around difficult circumstances. Here are some praises, updates and prayer requests. Again, thank you for partnering with us with your prayer support. We are learning in our sessions about the importance of prayer in missions. Missions, all of life, in fact, cannot be done without prayer!

Praises:

1. We were retested for Covid this past Friday. The entire family came back negative. My test was botched when they ran it, they had me redo it and it was negative, but the health department found out and asked me to come off campus for a PCR test. The turn around time for testing here is 2-4 days, but we received the negative results in about 36 hours, which allowed us to resume class on Monday, with the rest of the campus here.

2. Despite the fact that we didn’t pack appropriately for snow (as it’s a bit unusual here), we’ve immensely enjoyed playing in it! It’s fun to have a last chance at this, as it will likely be years until we see snow again. We are using socks for gloves and drying out our boots on the heaters at night.

3. We are all catching up on sleep! The last two months have been rough in the sleep department, for most of us, but we are catching up on sleep!

Prayer requests:

1. The first is for contentment in our circumstances. One of the children’s education resource center teachers was exposed to Covid last week, but this didn’t come to light until late last night. We had our first day out of our little apartments and in classrooms yesterday, and received the notification early this morning that today and for the remainder of this week (and most likely next week, as well, if any of the teachers test positive this week) the CERC is closed down. With the boys not able to attend class, we are having to take turns attending the sessions. Sessions usually go from 8-12 and 1-3, but now they are repeating the 8-12 sessions in the afternoon for those with children, so parents can take turns. We are disheartened and discouraged by this, to be sure. If the CERC is closed each time a teacher is exposed, we may be looking at the next 6 weeks of swapping boys while we attend sessions. We were strongly encouraged to not bring school books with us, as they would typically be in class from 8-3, but now with nothing to do, and the weather too cold to play outside for extended periods of time, we find ourselves drumming our fingers, unsure of how to occupy ourselves in the coming weeks.

2. Please be praying for our personal growth and diligence in our personal devotion time. We fully recognize that walking into cross-cultural life, especially ministry, will be a lot harder if we don’t keep our relationships with the Lord healthy! This is being heavily emphasized in our sessions, but we find that between our early wake-up hours and the business of the day and keeping boys busy while they are out of class, being disciplined to find time with the Lord is a bit more challenging than usual.

3. There’s some pretty weighty stuff happening on my (Rebekah) side of the family. I can’t go into details about what it is, aside from asking you to please pray for my mom. I know being vague doesn’t help with knowing how to pray, but please just pray with us for her. This weighs heavily on my heart and I find myself distracted by it, often.

4. There are seemingly countless logistics to moving a family of our size across the world, both for us on this end, and for our team on the other end. Between finding vehicles and housing large enough to fit us and the small things like how to get our homeschool curriculum there, sometimes this all feels like “death by a thousand cuts”. We thank the Lord for his sovereignty, and rest knowing he’s worked the details already. We just wait to see how. We are SO thankful to be going with a company that has been sending folks for 175 years now, and that this is not new to them. They do what they do very well!

Thank you, and may the peace of the Lord be with each of you as you walk through each day with which the Lord has provided!

Grace and Peace!

Rebekah

Beginning Goodbyes

Update 1/12/2021

Prayer requests:
-Praise the Lord that our house is under contract! We had 8 showings last Wednesday and 2 offers that day!
-Continued prayer for Rebekah’s health. Her vertigo/Meniere’s disease has been miraculously mild.
-Please pray for health for the family. We are under quarantine now until we go to Field Personnel Orientation. If any of us were to get COVID it would cause some travel delays.
-Please pray for the boys: Elijah, Judah, Joel, Luke and Ezekiel. These changes are always hard on them, resilient as they are. Lots of tough goodbyes, a new school/language/culture…

BLUF(Bottom Line Up Front): Even though this move is different from the others, we are moving forward joyfully, in obedience, and looking forward to the second coming of Christ!

The longer version:

This transition is HARD! Our family has made 3 overseas moves and many more domestic moves, so moving isn’t new to us, but this move is proving to be a different animal.

The difference between this move and others seems to boil down to two main differences. The first is the timeline/distance. We will be 8000+ miles away for a period of years. Our ability to travel back and forth will be limited due to the time and cost of travel to/from rural Africa. As we say goodbye to elderly relatives we are realizing that this may be our last goodbye with them on earth. Some of the people we are leaving are experiencing major changes or crises in their lives, and it is painful to realize we won’t be there to walk alongside them in person. God has blessed us with many deep relationships, and we recognize that these relationships will fundamentally change in the coming seasons.

The second difference is the inherent dangers in the work we will be doing. Tanzania is not considered a hostile location and is much safer than many other countries around the world, but there are dangers, nonetheless. We go to the mission field prepared to lay down our lives for the sake of the gospel, and implicit in that commitment is the possibility that we may never again see our parents, siblings, friends, etc in the flesh.

While this transition is different and difficult, we are comforted by these truths.

First, obedience is where we want to be. We don’t know what the future holds, but like Abram striking out into the unknown, we know that we must obey. We are compelled by the gospel. We have no other reasonable option. Like Peter in John 6, when Jesus asks him if he’ll turn away, we ask “to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life, we believe and know you are the Holy One of God.”

Second, modern technology that allows us to communicate via video and voice over great distances. Facetime, WhatsApp, Marco Polo, and other tools will allow us to stay in touch with our church, family and friends in ways unthinkable just years ago.

Third, we look forward to Christ’s coming as the impetus to Christian living and service. We know that our goodbyes with other believers are never final. Perhaps we will not see them on this side of glory, but that will make our reunion in eternity all the sweeter. On the other side of that coin, we know that our sojourning on earth is limited. Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, and left us a Great Commission to fulfill in the meantime. Rebekah and I believe with all our hearts that the gospel(the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of sinners) is the most beautiful and most precious truth on earth. Our prayer is that God will use our family to carry this gospel to Sub-Saharan Africa, so that He may be glorified. In the light of this weighty commission, what do we have to lose? Our home? Our material goods? A salary? Our lives? On the contrary, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Please be praying for our family this month! May the Lord bless you and keep you until our next update!

For a more detailed look at the month of goodbyes and to get Rebekah’s take on things, head over to the Midwest living portion of the site.

The timeline

Josh here.

Thanks for checking into our site! Put your email in the box on the left to sign up for our updates!

We’ll try to keep this site updated with a big update every couple of weeks, and will put periodic small updates as things come up.

Many of you have asked about our very convoluted timeline, so here’s a quick summary:

June2018: started the application process for “the company”.

Dec2019: completed the application process, and were invited to interview

Spring 2020: Interview was delayed

June 2020: Interviewed

August 2020: Appointment and Training were delayed by 3 months

Dec 1, 2020: 2 more week delay on decision for training(due to COVID numbers)

Dec15, 2020: We are a go for training!

Tentative: training in Jan21-Mar21, Language training in Kenya Apr21-Jul21, Move to Tanzania Jul/Aug21!

So here we are! We believe that God is sovereign(knows all) and supreme(above all) over this whole process and we trust His timing and will in ALL things. Sometimes we feel like the father of the boy Jesus healed in Mark 9- “we believe, help our unbelief!” We’ve always loved this account, because it so well captures the “already, not yet” nature of our sanctification. We are made new in Christ, and still the old man and his unbelief tempts us at times.

So we press forward in belief, always praying for greater faith, greater trust, and greater hope.