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
"Everywhere I look I see Your face": The kids did a great job singing on the last night.
This is my friend Blessing from high school. She and her family were in town for a wedding, and I got to spend a little bit of time with them. It was great to see you guys again!
My brother, Tim, was here on leave for two weeks and we were able to spend some time together. He has some pretty cool shades he got from the bank. :-)
Maryland-Pennsylvania Border from High Rock, MD
Pappy at High Rock, MD
Elliot untying Pappy's shoes
These are our 26-ish high school youth.
You are now entering Narnia!
Carlos and Nathan pulling aside the coats for Lauren
Koni, Gretchen, and Heidi licking the light pole
Our four seniors: Kent, Brian, Kathy, and Heidi
Mr. Tumnus' house
Can you see Mr. Tumnus?
See you soon!
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:
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! 
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.
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.) 
Thanks so much for coming to visit us, have a safe trip home!
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:
The view from the front door
My room is to the left