Wednesday, August 30, 2006

We've had visitors!!!

This week has been phonetic-ful. There are a few sounds that I'm not familiar with that are harder to form.
But what you'll be really excited to hear about are our visitors this past week. Thursday night we were sitting in our living room and kept hearing something hit the picture window. Each time we would get up and go outside, we couldn't see anything. I finally went out with the light off, and who did I find?
This huge thing was quite stunned and laid outside until the next day when our 2 year old neighbor boy found it in his bucket. I'm not sure which was more scared, but it brought quite a crowd!
Friday I went to WalMart with Noah, my 18 month old jungle camp neighbor. He was very amused in the fish aisle (more so with the lobsters in the sea food, but he's not old enough to understand that's food!) While we were there we bought a red beta fish. This is Mr. Wilson:

Saturday evening Sammy came over to visit with his mom. They made smoothies, and he got to watch The Polar Express. This is a picture of my roommate Sonya and Sammy eating their smoothies.

Please continue to pray for my classes in phonetics. My afternoon work detail this week is painting the trim in the lobby of the main office building. Yesterday we spackled, so today we're going to try to paint it all so it doesn't look like Dalmatian spots!

Love, Carrie

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Why Phonetics?

I was asked many questions about this year of training, and I told many of you that I would study phonetics. I made attempts to explain this, but since I wasn't sure myself, how could I explain it to you?!
Well, a Biblical example of phonetics can be seen in Judges 12:6. Here the Gileadites would test the neighboring Ephramites to see if they were from Gilead or Ephraim. When the Ephraimites failed the test of "Shibboleth vs. Sibboleth", they were thrown into the Jordan River to drown. Just as one sound difference meant life or death for an Ephraimite, so will the importance be of learning the national and tribal languages of the country in which I will serve. My purpose for learning these two languages (seeing nationals and/or tribal people to come to a saving knowledge of Christ)is a matter of life and death.
Phonetics will assist me in learning to write an unwritten language. It will also assist me if I learn a written language. Once I learn the sounds and symbols on this chart, I will be able to reproduce them as needed.
As I study through this chart over the next few weeks, I will become familiar with sounds not found in the English language. I will also learn how to become more native in a language as I force my mouth to make these new strange sounds.
Amazingly enough, our curriculum takes us through that which we know first--sounds which are found in the English language. We have begun with the most simple sounds 'th','s', 'z', 'sh', and 'zh'. God saw fit for me to have take three years of speech therapy with these sounds as an elementary student. While these are actually some of my harder sounds to produce, God knew what was ahead of me and trained me ahead of time! Please pray for my patience during this class that I would heed the intructions of our teachers and absorb all that I can!

[This picture is NOT a copy of the Lake of the Ozarks, but of the "speech apparatus" or the areas of your throat, nose, and mouth that are used when making sounds.]

I thank you ahead of time for your prayers as I go through this class. Also this morning we took our Linguistics test to see if we qualify for the third semester of extensive linguistics training.

Praise: My friend Kimmie is home from the hospital from a staph infection. She is on bedrest for ten days, but she is not able to hold her new baby Esther for very long.

Love,
Carrie

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

My New Apartment


Welcome to my new apartment!
Don't worry, the open door is our apartment in the four-plex. Five girls live here, Carrie (that's me!), Sonya, Ginger, Amy, and Rachel. We're getting along well, and just finished our first meal together in our wonderful kitchen.

(Don't look now, but we actually have a DISHWASHER! What a blessing that is!)
We've spent quite a bit of time already in our living room that is attached to our kitchen.

Upstairs we have two bedrooms and a full bathroom for the five of us. My little corner of the room is mostly finished, except for a few piles of items searching for a home.


I hope you've enjoyed the tour of my new house.
Classes began today, and it proves to be an exciting year. We have around 35 students in our class and four main teachers for Culture/Language Acquisition training. When we practice training our tongues new tricks, we will be split up into groups with our teacher. I am in Verne Johnson's group along with 8 other classmates. Please pray for us as we begin this stage in the process.
Thanks!
Love,
Carrie

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Summer is Over...

I'm "home" in Roach, MO at New Tribes Missionary Training Center. I'll put up pictures of my new apartment and roommates soon (we have to unpack first!) Here's a few pictures from this summer, since I couldn't put them up before. Enjoy!

Camp Bethany's pond in the morning

The tree house in my VBS room.

VBS Tribal Council Family Night

Always teaching! :-)

Thanks for praying as I get situated here at the MTC.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Soon and Very Soon

I've come to the end of my summer partnership with Shreve City. I'm nearly finished with the last project I'm responsible for this summer. This weekend I'm singing at Montclair Nursing Home, and twice during Sunday morning service. Tuesday I'll begin packing all my things up and filling up the car. Wednesday night will be my last service here in Louisiana. I'll be leaving early Friday morning for the 8 hour drive through Arkansas to Missouri. It's a beautiful drive, partially on local roads and part on the highway.

I'll have three roommates at the Missionary Training Center. Ginger and Sonya were in my class in Jersey Shore, and Amy is in her third semester of linguistics training. I'm looking forward to seeing all my classmates again, and even some of our teachers who followed us!

Love,
Carrie