Some Thoughts on God

I've never really put any "theological" thoughts on here, but tomorrow morning it's my turn to share the devotions in our linguistics course. I thought maybe I would share some things with you all, too. These are just a few thoughts I have come across in the past few years.

If language is reflecting deeply the image of God, don't expect it to be simple, now or ever -- nor for any theory to exhaust it. Language is complicated, because language has its source in person. --Kenneth L. Pike, Summer Institute of Language

Since we are analyzing many different languages, this is especially important to me right now. There have been languages that I don't understand, and it has been hard for me to realize that I may not understand why the language functions a certain way. I have had to accept that I don't understand the language, yet at the same time recognizing that this language works. People use it and understand it on a daily basis. It may not work the way I expect it to, and I may not get it to fit into a "pattern" I know.
A.W. Tozer wrote, "What God is, He is without boundaries. All that God is, He is without bounds or limits...There is nothing boundless but God and nothing infinite but God." Praise God that this is true! How does language fit into this? God has created languages with boundaries, each fitting into patterns within itself. God has created this languages with predictability! What a comfort that is, along with the presence of the Holy Spirit, as our class learns to analyze these problems! The work goes from impossible to possible, from struggle to blessing, from trying to tried.

Prayer:

• Tuesday morning I have my "Welcome to NTM" interview. This is a time when I get to meet with a couple from Headquarters and ask each other questions.
  
• The next 20 days are packed as I finish out the semester. Please pray that I will finish strong as I continue learning how to analyze languages, say goodbye to classmates who will be overseas as early as August, and prepare for a month of travelling after graduation.

Love, Carrie

Linguistics has begun!

I used to look at my grandpa's four-color pen in amazement --how did they get FOUR colors into ONE pen?! If only they could make four crayons in one...
Well, I am discovering now that four-color pens are of great use in linguistics. Linguistics is a course to teach us how to analyze a given language. The manner we are learning, is to circle different areas of the language in different colors. Amazingly enough, yes, the same colors that are in the "magic" four-color pen from my childhood!
We are moving into a stage that has more homework, approximately two hours each evening. Please be praying for me as my schedule is adjusted to two hours of homework! Also, I have been filling out the proper paperwork for becoming a member of NTM as of June 2007. Please pray that I would make wise decisions.

Have a great week!
Love,
Carrie

Easter in Shreveport

I was blessed to be able to visit Shreveport this weekend. Though it was colder than I expected, Sunday morning was beautiful over the lake. As I would tell people here at school where I was going, they were confused that I would go where my parents weren't. I was able to share that my church is family, just as my parents and brother are. Thank you all for making me feel at home in your homes! It was so great to see you all and visit. Autumn and I had a safe trip home, and thank you for your prayers. Here's a picture from the Natural Bridge in Arkansas:
This week our class will divide into two groups: those staying for linguistics and those who are going home to start partnership development. Please pray for us all, that we would all finish strong. The second group is winding down as their training with NTM is coming to an end. The group of us staying for linguistics is just getting started! We will be focusing on how to analyze a language. Thank you for your prayers!

Love,
Carrie

Hmm...

Well, it's been brought to my attention that I don't have a spot for you to leave comments on here. This whole time I've just thought no one was reading...Thanks, Katie W!

Kinship Anyone?

For the most part, kinship is not as important to those of us in the western world as it is to those in developing countries. Many of us live hundreds of miles away from brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents etc. It is likely that we have relatives we have not even met and probably will never meet--and might not even care to! However, the vast majority of tribal cultures are organized around their kinship relationships. Who they fight, how they settle disputes, the work they do in the village, the gifts they give, their status in the village, and obligations to each other are all determined by kinship relationships.

The catch for us as westerners is to understand that tribal people don't view their relatives as we view our relatives. There are five main types of kinship systems, which all kinship systems include in one way or another. In the Hawaiin kinship system, a person calls all of the males in the his father's generation the same thing he would call his father (i.e. all of his uncles would be called whatever he calls his father). The same with the females in his mother's generation--all of the 'aunts' would be called whatever he calls his mother. Because of this, the children of those 'aunts' and 'uncles' (cousins) would be called that person's brothers and sisters, and they would relate to each other in that way.

There are four other kinship systems: Iroquois, Sudanese, Crow and Eskimo. These names were derived from the particular people group where the system was discovered. Each system has its own way of tracing descent and in turn, how they relate to each other because of what they call each other. In our thinking, we would naturally expect that our dad is more responsible for our well-being than he is someone else's kids. However, in one tribe, the father is more responsible for his sister's kids than he is for his own children.

Why in the world is studying kinship important to planting a tribal church? Kinship dictates how the people relate to each other through gift-giving, obligations, privileges etc. Understanding kinship is one of the keys to know why they do what they do and why they interrelate the way they do--and even later on down the road how they relate to us.

Knowing this will help us to teach the Bible more clearly when we start talking about relationships in Scripture - God as our Father, we are His children - brothers and sisters in Christ, and even how God wants us to relate to those outside of the Body of Christ regardless of where they fall in line with being kin.

(Thank you to Sonya for writing this!)

Love you all,
Carrie

My "Little" Brother

I'm very proud of my younger brother, Tim. He's been in the Navy for a year and a half now. He's a helo mechanic, and just last week got to fly up to Boston for a reward trip. The best workers for the day shift and night shift were flown up to Boston for the day.

Soon he will be going to England, Norway, and Greece for a few weeks to work on the helos there. I miss him terribly when he's in Maryland, but I'm so proud of him! Keep up the good work, Tim!

Ha Ha Tonka

My friend Autumn and I saw that it was a nice day a few weeks ago, so we decided to take a hike through Ha Ha Tonka.

To our left, we had "Florida water", blue water at 56 degrees. This part of the lake is spring fed and stays the same temperature year round. Make way for ducklings!
Also to our left, was this fallen log, with moss at the bottom and snow at the top. I though that was so cool that God could make the log warm enough near the water to grow moss, yet cool enough out of the water to keep the snow!
To our right was a cliff of rocks with some ice--a kid's winter wonder!
The trails were considerable clear, since it had snowed the night before! (Till we hit the parts of snow covering ice...) I'm currently happy with our 10-day forecast of 60 degree weather!

Have a great day!

A Note from Tɛnɛ

This week our class has begun a seven week course of Dobu culture study. The Dobu people live in Papua New Guinea, but their culture has been used here at the Language School for decades. There are teachers that dress as tribal people, and we go into a small attic area each day for our lesson. We plan each day to learn certain words and the processes to elicit them. Though we are learning Dobu culture, our language helper, "Britney" (derived from Britney Spears--Britney likes to listen to American radio) was a missionary to the Palaka people in western Africa, so we are learning to speak various phrases in Palaka.
This picture is of me learning the types of people in pictures. To be culturally sensitive, I asked permission to come sit on her mat and asked how I should sit in the Dobu culture. She told me that "Carrie" (as she pronounces it) means "go" in her language. I told her I didn't want to go, that I wanted to stay a long time, so she gave me the name "Tɛnɛ" which means "sit down." This was exciting to me, because she was accepting my presence with the Dobu.

Please pray for our class as we learn to work together as a group, much like we will in the future on a tribal church planting team. Pray also that we will be culturally sensitive to "Britney."

Nju,
Tɛnɛ

(Thanks,
Carrie)

Off to School!

Sonya and I off to school on our first day of learning how to ** read. (Make that, learning how to teach people how to read.)

We began Literacy class on Monday, and it has been amazing how far our class has come in three days. We've made sample primers for in the trade language of Papua New Guinea, Pisin. This at times has been a challenge, but, again, technology has proved helpful!

Our software we used in our language learning practicum last semester has a setting which searches for certain letters when I enter them. For example, the first letters in my primer are "k", "a", "m", and "i". When I type those into the program, it produces all the words in Pisin containing those letters. This helps me when it comes time to write sentences using only four letters.

Literacy is vital to a thriving church. It is important for each believer to have the Word of God in his own heart language--that which he first spoke. We know it is important to be able to have Scripture for our own studying. BUT...what happens if we don't teach them how to read the Bible? Sadly, the result of an illiterate church plant is that it will not be able to successfully reproduce itself in future generations. As time passes, the Message will be warped by humanity if it is not written down. Without literacy as a complement to evangelism in a tribal setting, our efforts as missionaries will not be continued successfully by the tribal believers after we leave the village.

It is so exciting to see how God is putting everything together here at the MTC as I am able to see it worked out among missionaries right now! The Dao people in PNG are in literacy RIGHT NOW, learning how to read, understand, and write there own language. In a few years, they will be hearing the Gospel, and they will be able to share it with other villages and future generations, because they have the written Word and are able to read it! Praise God!!

In Him,
Carrie

Happy Birthday!!

Happy First Birthday, Elijah!

Today I got to spend the day with Elijah and Geoff and Melissa, quite a surprise! It was so refreshing to get to see them one year after Elijah was born. He's so big now, walking and "talking". And he got to color for the first time, too:Thanks so much for coming to visit us, have a safe trip home!

The Idiomatic Story

Just when you think you know the English language...

The Idiomatic Story

Egbert is really beside himself, fit to be tied, hardly with it, practically off his rocker. If he doesn't get a hold of himself, he could lose his marbles or even kick the bucket.

Dig this: He'd been in the clouds hanging aroundt his wall flower but got himself in a stew when he stood her up and left her up in the air holding the bag. Besides having his bubble burst, he's in the dog house cuz she lost her cool, blew her stack and lowered the boom and told him he was a pain in the neck. Shre really let it fly and gave it to him with both barrells, no holds barred. She not only got his goat by spouting off at the mouth; it ground him to powder and he's lost heart, ready to throw in the towel.

But so what! No big deal! He's in no real pickle, just a little hot water. He should pull down the white flag and just hang in there, take it with a grain of salt, and not get all shook up over a little spilt milk. When she cools off he could even raise the roof himself, fly off the handle and tell her where to get off and set her straight. If he flew the coupe and really lived it up, put on the dog a bit and lived high on the hog, and showered her where it's at, then the light would down and she'd see she missed the boat and was up a creek without a paddle.

But no, he's all washed up, finished; he's shot, he's had it up to his ears. He reckons its water under the bridge. Athough he's not aiming to be a sitting duck for another slick chick, he's really not seen the light. He couldn't swallow the pill I gave him, just water off a duck's back. Instead of looking the bull straight in the eye, he'd rather crawl into his shell cuz he can't cut the mustard.

No skin off my back but I think that's for the birds.

Author Unknown (to me!)

Hope you enjoyed this, and if you understood it, it was worth it! Have a great day. :-)

Carrie

Grammar=Joy...?!

Anyone that new me well in high school is laughing right now! But I've discovered how much I love grammar. This is what our homework looks like. We take a sentence and tear the Structural form apart. This means I now know really well what Direct Object, Bi-Intransitive, Passive, and Relative Pronoun all mean. All the things that were frustrating in high school seem to come easier now. Could this be answers to our prayers? Just when I got comfortable with grammar like this, we were presented with this sentence:

COLORLESS GREEN IDEAS SLEEP FURIOUSLY.

Now, grammatically, this sentence is perfect, it has a noun, a verb, and a few adjectives. But what on earth does it mean?! Absolutely nothing! Now we are getting into Meaning rather than the Structure of grammar. Both are important when translating the Bible into a tribal language. Can you imagine if we had to read the following passage, because the translators didn't recognize the importance of the structure of our language?

God is the Lord Himself Know that
He who us has made it is
ourselves not
His people we are
His pasture the sheep of

We obviously rely on structure within our language! What if we forget meaning?

Apperceive that the Lord Himself is God
It is He who actualized us
and not we ourselves
We are His kinsmen
and the animals of His area.

Yea, meaning is definitely important, too! Thankfully, those who translated our English Bible took care to utilize their resources when it came to Meaning AND Structure:

Know that the Lord Himself is GOd
It is He who made us
And not we ourselves
We are His people
And the sheep of His pasture.
Psalm 100:3

Please pray for our class as grammar is the Achilles heel for many. Pray specifically that we would appreciate the struggles we have to go through--just think, in one moment at the Tower of Babel, God created over 6,000 languages with Structure and Meaning built into each one. Praise Him for His magnificence!

In Him,
Carrie

A New Semester, A New Apartment

My roommate Sonya and I have moved into a new, smaller fourplex. Only the two of us are in this apartment, and we're excited to be living among all the other students. After living in our large dorm-style apartment last semester, I was looking forward to being able to decorate this apartment like a home! Thank you for the Christmas gifts that enable me to splurge on making my house a home. It's not completely finished (one corner to go), but here are a few pictures of our little home:

The view from the front door
My room is to the left

So, this is it! Feel free to come visit and see it in person. ;-)

Ice, Ice...

Well, if you've seen the news in the past few days, you may have discovered the central U.S. is in a major ice storm! I've lived in some pretty cold and wintry states in the past few years, but Missouri wins by FAR! I got back to campus from the airport after fighting the storm for nearly 24 hours. By the time we arrived, ice was covering anything that stood still for too long. Classes were canceled until the 22nd because too many students were not back before the storm. Here are some pictures from my outing today:The sun through the ice looks like "blown glass" according to my roommate Sonya. It reminds me of how I imagined the forest to be in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

This is what our road off campus looks like--don't worry, once you get through this mile of icy winding hills, the roads are clear!

As you can see, we got quite the storm!
As beautiful as the ice may be at times, it has also taken out many limbs from our trees on campus. No one has been injured, no property damaged, but our trees have paid the price for the storm. This limb is outside our new apartment, and is actually one of the smaller limbs down. The campus has a nice smell of cedar.

Please pray as the rest of the students return to campus over the next few days and for the men who are doing tree removal and maintenance due to the storm. Thanks!

Love, Carrie

Home From Christmas Vacation!

I made it safely to and from North Carolina. I was able to spend a great month with Mom and Dad. Tim and Britney were even able to come down for a brief period just before Christmas. Mom, Dad, and I went to Florida to visit Grammy and Pappy Martin over Christmas. It was so great to see everyone and rest up! Thank you for your prayers as I traveled!!

Christmas Parties Abound!

As we're coming to the end of the semester (only one week left!), it's also the time of Christmas parties. It's been great to get together with friends that I haven't seen since we've been studying our separate languages for the past 6 weeks. All I have left in my Spanish course here at the MTC is two tests on Tuesday. Please be in prayer as I have one in the morning (written) and one in the afternoon (verbal). Here's a picture from our dorm party and another of some of my girls from the youth group:

Please be in prayer as we're finishing up the semester and traveling out to our homes and families. Thanks so much for your prayers and support! God bless, and Merry Christmas!

SNOW!!

We're in the worst snow storm in 11 years! Yesterday we had 2 inches of ice covering our cars--most people couldn't even get into them. (You're probably thinking this is a good thing, and you're right!) Last night after about an hour of sledding, we hunkered down in our house to hide for the evening. And we woke up to this--over a foot of snow! Looking forward to more sledding on it!

Love, Carrie

Thanksgiving Break

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This year I got a special treat for Thanksgiving--my friend Melissa and her family came to visit us in Missouri! They drove over 24 hours to get here from Florida, and spent most of their week here entertaining us! What a treat to have them back with us for a short while. Thanks for visiting, and see you at Christmas!



I also got to go home and visit with my church family and friends. Thank you for all your prayers while I was travelling and ill. They meant so much, and I am officially back safely. It was great to see you all again!

Please pray for me these next three weeks before the end of the semester that I would finish well and persevere. I'm excited to be heading to North Carolina after classes end, but I need to be here mentally and physically until then! :-)

Love,
Carrie

Youth Retreat 2006

We had a great time this weekend at retreat with the youth. Justin Franchino (in yellow) spoke on evangelism and methods for understanding what a person is thinking before giving them the gospel. This enables the person doing the evangelism to know what the listener is thinking when they hear words like "God", "grace", and "sin".



The youth worked hard to raise money to go on this trip. Here they are at the end of a carwash. It couldn't have been over 50 degrees this day, so two hours of being water-soaked was enough! All the students that wanted to go were able to go. Praise God for the finances that came in for this trip.

In February, these youth will have the opportunity to go to Dare 2 Share in St. Louis. Please be praying for them to receive the finances to go on this trip also.

Thank you for your prayers for this past weekend. This weekend I will be travelling to Louisiana for Thanksgiving Break and to visit my home church. I look forward to seeing you all--maybe even tomorrow night!

Love Carrie

espɑnol

Our first week of Spanish is nearly finished. I've learned so much this week, and it's exciting to see how much I can retain. We aren't allowed to speak most of what we learn for 2 more weeks, so right now I'm only comprehending Spanish. This seems to be a good way to learn a language, as I can now understand 108 nouns and 26 verbs--I'm shocked! This is Alexa, the Spanish guru!


I'm praising God this week for a software program created specifically for this method of language learning. Praise Him with me for the program and a great computer to run it on! Thank you for your prayers and support.

Love, Carrie