Craig and Kayla Gilley connecting you to tribal missions We’ve been accepted!!!
These are exciting days for the Gilley family.
We are excited to announce that we have received our letter of “official” acceptance from Asia Pacific. Here is a brief excerpt from our acceptance letter:
“We are continually asking the Lord for more laborers to serve here in
this portion of His harvest field and we are thrilled each time we hear of
new servants coming in answer to those prayers. We will pray with you and
for you as the Lord continues to lead you in this direction.”
So, you may be asking yourself, “What does this mean?”
March-May: finishing up our final training in Missouri (Advanced Technical Course and Home School Coordinator training),
May-June: connecting with friends/family old and new traveling from east to west across the US sharing the vision that God has laid on our hearts for ministry in Asia Pacific(let us know if you would be interested in us stopping by).
July-April- stationed in Idaho and incorporates Craig working and additional travel
APRIL 2013- is our current potential date for leaving
A few days ago we asked Stella if she wanted to move to Asia Pacific and she said, “Yes, but I have to get my jacket.”
If only it could be that simple. Another portion of our acceptance letter said,
“The work here in Asia Pacific presents many imposing challenges
and yet is full of amazing opportunities too. We are certain that there
are many unique difficulties that you will face as you pursue this ministry.
Please keep us apprised of these things so we can pray with you regarding them.”
Although we praise the Lord to have field leadership that is praying for us in this process we know that it is going to take more than that. The task ahead is not simple, but we do want to have the faith of our sweet little girl. We are 100% confident that God has been preparing us our whole lives for being a part of God’s ministry in Asia Pacific and we are excited to share this with you.
We are excited too for the opportunity to join with you in what God is already doing. There are funds to raise, items to purchase, visas to apply for and obtain, tickets to buy, bags to pack, and even an apartment or house to live in and set up for June-April. The list is long and the tasks are “huge” but we know that we serve a God who promises to provide all of our needs. We would ask that you would prayerfully consider what your role in helping us “grab our jackets” might look like. Some options might include but are not limited to: monthly financial support, a one time or donation when funds allow, PRAY PRAY PRAY, send us care packages, cards, or even a phone call of encouragement, organize a fund raiser, connect us to your home church or other people that you think might be interested in partnering with us, play with our kids so we can pack our bags, purchase specific “projects” or items that will help in the ministry. This might include: technical equipment for Craig, visas, plane tickets, items for setting up our house overseas, equipment for homeschool coordinating, recording and video device for language learning purposes, …really the options are limitless!
I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers…
Philemon 1:4
We want to thank each of you for the part you are already playing in God’s ministry in Asia Pacific and in our lives. We look forward to the many ways we may work together in the future. We know that Jesus made it clear how important it is to “Go to the ends of the earth and preach the gospel….”. We are confident that this includes not only us but also YOU! We look forward to hearing from you soon! A new update video about our final semester here at the NTM missionary training center is being put together and we are excited to share it with you soon!
Kayla’s Graduation Speech
1 Corinthians 9:22 says, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
When I looked up the word become it said: to change or to grow, any process of change. Learning and growing is a continual process. It is not one of those things we can just check off the list. 
Does this look familiar? Yep, that is me and my siblings at the training center in Mississippi when I was about 5 years old.
And this picture was taken in the airport headed over to PNG for the first time when I was six. It was around this time that I started telling people, “when I grew up I wan to be a missionary mom.”
Well, here I stand the mother of two beautiful children and “a missionary with New Tribes Mission.” There we go “check check”. Not even close! I can honestly say that if you asked anyone from our class we would all share with you that this has been an awesome learning and growing experience. But even more than that our eyes have been opened to our failures and our weaknesses and most of all our need for God. We have all been challenged with our need to continually become like Christ. Orientation our first semester I remember a speaker challenging us by saying,
“You don’t magically change when you fly overseas. Who you are today is who you will be over there.”
This was a huge wake up call for me. It opened my eyes to my need to apply myself and be a learner. In our communications skills class we learned from Howard Hendricks that, “The effective teacher always teaches from the out flow of a full life. If you stop growing today, you stop teaching tomorrow.” This applies in all areas of life, parenthood, friends, family, church, in the US, overseas, or wherever the Lord may lead you. Even just a few days ago in class George Walker said, “You can save yourself a lot of headache be being a learner. Sure it takes time, effort and work but it is worth it. Others have gone before us. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” Howard Hendricks also said, “The Bible was written not to satisfy your curiosity but to help you conform to Christ’s image. Not to make you a smarter sinner but to make you like the Savior. Not to fill your head with a collection of biblical facts but to transform your life.”
I know I speak for many or all of us when I say to the staff THANK YOU for being a part of this learning process. And I want to thank my classmates for also teaching me so much and being a part of the learning process in my life. I look forward to years of more learning. I mean we are only in E1 right? I want to leave you with one last verse from James 1:22,
“But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says.”
Tags: New Tribes Mission, NTM
Graduation on Friday
On Friday evening we will be finishing up our third and final semester at the New Tribes Training Center. Although we will be staying around for another semester, it will be our “graduation”. We will be returning in January and will start off with a bang. Craig will hopefully be having his ACL surgery around Jan 10th. Craig will begin classes with the advanced Technical Course on Jan 18th and Kayla will be teaching in the pre-school class three days a week. Thanks again for checking in on us! 
New Blog….
Thanks for checking out our new NTM blog. It is hard to believe that this is my third blog in 5 years! In 2006 I started Kayla-in- Kenya and then in 2008 it was Gilley Adventures (after Craig and I got married)…and here is number three. We are so excited about all that we are learning at the New Tribes Mission Training Center. Keep checking back for updates. Tomorrow is the last day of classes for our second semester. As soon as classes are out I hope to give a more thorough update