NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

After 28 hours from leaving the house in California, we arrived at the guest house in Asunción on Wednesday, March 17.  It was a very smooth flight and everything went perfect.  We got through check-in with about an hour and a half to spare, so we were able to spend $20 on 3 hotdogs to split between the six of us.  I guess that’s what you get at the airport.

But, wow, the flight was amazing.  If you ever find yourself flying to South America, I would recommend LAN Airlines.  It was a 767 which had plenty of entertainment built into the seats to keep the kids preoccupied.  We never even had to get the MP3 player out that we got the kids to keep them busy for the 13-hour flight.  We were served three meals over the course of the flight with real silverware and real glasses.  The kids all slept some on the airplane except Elijah and Macayla.  This flight had a layover in Lima, Peru, but we didn’t have to get off the plane.  We had three sets of two seats each; hence two of the kids were sitting without an adult, but the stewardesses were very kind and helpful.

The layover in Santiago was probably the hardest.  Not because of the recent earthquake, but just because it was nine hours long and we were all very exhausted from the first flight.  We all slept some in the airport except Daniella, especially Elijah and Macayla because they didn’t sleep on the plane.   But again, everything went very smooth.  We never had any problems getting our tickets for the second flight or finding our gate.  In fact, the area that we happened to plop ourselves down in when we first got there was the waiting area for the gate that we ended up needing.  The only negative thing that happened the entire trip was that my crescent wrench and pliers–needed for getting into our trunks–were confiscated upon entering the Santiago airport.  I thought that might happen, but I figured I’d try to bring them anyway.  They made it through LA, but not Santiago.

The last flight, from Santiago to Asunción, went directly over the Andes and was only about two hours long.  Yet, we still got a meal on this flight as well.  Nobody slept on this flight except Daniella, because she never slept in the airport.  Besides, we were all pretty excited that we would be landing in Paraguay pretty soon.  We landed in Asunción and got through customs in about 20 minutes.  On the other side was waiting one of the other missionary couples and several from our host church.  It was very good to get to meet them and at least say hi to some of the people that we will be spending a lot of time with over the next few months.

We had a really good Christmas break as we were able to spend the entire break at my parents’ house. It began on December 21, Elijah’s birthday, so we had a party for him that night. He got to have some special guests for his party as some friends, the Davises, were able to stop by for the night on their way from Mexico to Michigan. Hannah was so excited about Santa coming that she had to clear off the fire place so that he had a way to get in. She also left cookies and milk on the table. She was surprised in the morning to wake up to an empty plate and glass and a note left by Santa (actually written by Pop). My sister, Cora, and her family came late on Christmas Eve, so when the kids got up they got to wake up to them being here.

Cora and Jeremy are trying to adopt two little boys, which has turned out to be a really difficult and lengthy process. The adoption has actually been completely finished for the older boy, so he is now officially Landon James Toth. Please continue to pray for them and Caleb as this is a difficult time for them. It was good to be able to spend time with these two boys, not knowing if we will be able to do the same next Christmas. They were able to be there for about 4 days.

The next thing we did over break was quite an experience. One I did not really appreciate at the time, but one that takes skills that could end up being very useful on the mission field. We purchased half a cow to split four ways with some other students here. The other families did the cleaning before break since they were going to be gone, but the butchering was left for us to do over break. My parents were also a big help with this; my dad especially as he was in the MTC kitchen helping me for the entire 18 hours that I was in there.

The rest of the break was a fairly restful time. We spent New Years Eve and Day just hanging around at my parents’ house and watching the Rose Parade. For the last several years, we have very slowly been working on putting all of our Bible School notes in electronic format so that we can throw away all of the paper notes (starting at two boxes worth of paper). Mindy did a great job during the last week of break finishing up a lot of that; the end of that endeavor is really in sight within the next couple months. We added a Christmas Break 2007 category on our picture page if you’re interested. Although we had a really good break, we are now happy about getting back into classes. We are really looking forward to seeing what God has for us this coming semester.