Beautiful Morning

The Language School is a beautiful place, right on the Lake of the Ozarks. My schedule is pretty busy, but it's refreshing to get out every once in a while and just "repose" (think about God's goodness and remember why I'm here, remember who my life is all about...as a Christian, I belong to Jesus and I can rest in that relationship that I have with God). I so appreciate your prayers:

• To grow in my dependence on the Lord each day. The only way that I will be able to stay on the field and do the things I need to do, will be if I have a growing walk with Christ (that goes for all of us wherever we are).
• Continue to pray for my cousin Nat, in Iraq, whose Hummer ran over a bomb recently. Pray for healing and that he would be a powerful witness for Christ to the guys he is with.

"Yeah Grounds Crew!"

I'm on the Grounds Crew here at school! There are about 220 people here at school, each with their various responsibilities. As for me, I get to soak in the joys of push-mowing!! I love it! It's a 2 1/2 hour work-out every day that is scheduled in for me already, and with 300 acres on the property, there's plenty of work to keep us busy all the time. This elite group of land-scaping talent is comprised of a mere 8 strong men. The 4 crazy guys pictured here are "the few, the proud, the push-mowers!" (we've actually discovered a new sport that works great on steep grassy hills...we call it "lawn surfing" - you can actually get moving pretty fast!...talk about a wipe-out!) haha

Here at NTLI

Well, I'm in my 3rd week at Language School here in Missouri and it has been quite the adventure. The first thing I did was go out and buy an air conditioner. The humidity here is like 80-90 percent! (hard for us Idaho boys to breath, coming from such a dry climate) Classes have been great! We're doing phonetics right now (learning a new alphabet that will make it easier to learn a tribal language - to be able to write down their words). It's always consistent, so you can always pronounce what is written (even if you've never seen the word), very unlike English. Anyways, they tell me that I'll never be as good at spelling English words again...haha j/k. Please pray for me during this time of training. In the scope of the tribal group that I will go to some day (hopefully soon), this is my ministry to them right now, because it is equipping me to learn their language and culture a whole lot faster and more efficiently when I do arrive, so that I can present them with the life-giving Message of the cross one day. Really, for those skeptics out there, this one year of training (really four years) will cut off many years that it would take to integrate into a tribal culture if I were to have just "gone out there" and told them about Jesus. This is for real, folks. Thank you so much for lifting me up in prayer! You are such a vital part of the team God has put me on in His work of reaching those who have "no one to tell them about Jesus."
Love in Christ,
Josh