NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Just last night, we all had a fun experience here…  The water pressure was a little low early in the evening, and within a half-hour it was totally dry!  The entire campus was without running water.  Now, there’s always the possibility that they are wanting to give us experience with a more ‘tribal’ setting…however, that was not the case.  A water line broke, draining the entire system.  Well, Becs and I decided we wanted to have a little water on hand, and it just happened to be raining outside (as it had been all day).  So we grabbed up 1 bucket, 1 pan, and 1 plastic bag-lined box and headed to an area of run-off.  Becs thought we should leave the box behind and make trips to fill it up.  I preferred making only 1 trip [totally should have listened to the roomie on this one!]  So, off we go, pails in hand to fetch water.  It felt so ‘old fashioned’.  So, we fill up, after I soaked my foot in the water and got us both giggling.  She took off with the bucket and pan (per my request…I can’t carry a big box of water while laughing!!), and I proceeded to try to pick up my box…  Long story short,  I made it (barely) and with Becs carrying it the last few feet to its destination.  Whew!  Then I iced my back so I could walk the next day   And of course, at 11:20p that very night, the water came back on.  I currently have a box of water sitting outside on the lawn that I don’t have the heart to dump…I worked too hard for it!!!

So the revelation this morning (as the rain continues), is that we cannot use this water to brush our teeth, wash our dishes, or drink without first boiling it for 3 minutes.  Oh, and if we do our dishes in that same boiled water, we have to soak it in bleach tainted water AFTER washing it!  This will only last a day or so…so I think I prefer to put of the dishes even longer.

Hmm…maybe that run-off water may come in handy after all????

Last weekend, most randomly, my sweet roomie Becs and I decided to take a road-trip to Tennessee!  The candidating pastor for my home church was speaking at his home church in TN, and Becs has a friend near there.   We had peace about going, so we decided (on Thursday) to leave on Friday!

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It is time to get this blog up and running!  My life here at the MTC (Missionary Training Center), thus far, has been interestingly good   (For lack of better way to say it without more adjectives!)  One of the high points and fun classes has been phonetics.

We began the class four weeks ago.  As of tomorrow (ideally) I will know 13 out of a total of 28 vowels in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).  I have not yet counted the consonants…I’m trying to keep a positive outlook!
During phonetics, we break up into small groups (10 students to 1 teacher), which creates an amazing learning environment.  Then we go around saying sounds we never knew existed in English, or sounds that do NOT exist in our language!  For example: say “cotton” quickly.  Don’t pronounce the ‘t’ sound distinctly, but emphasize the catch in the back of your throat.  That sound is called a ‘glottal’, and looks like: ʔ   It’s like a question mark, without the dot at the bottom.  We also tend to say the glottal before our English vowels that begin a word.  There you are!  You are on your way to becoming a phonetician!