NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Dear Friends and Family;

How are you? We are fine. It has been a while since we have updated, and in this case, no news has been good news. We have just been plugging away at our various ministries and family responsibilities. We have all been very healthy for a long time now, with only the occasional cold or upset tummy and we thank the Lord for that.

Greg has been back from his language check and team meetings for several weeks now. They had good meetings and the language checks were very encouraging. He is back home working on translation and formatting the translated materials we already have, getting them ready for publication.

The kids and I have been diligently homeschooling trying to get caught up from the three weeks I was gone with my mom. The curriculum we are using is really working for us this year, and that is such a blessing. We have been doing alot of gardening and cooking together too, and it is neat to see our children turning into capable young ladies and men.

My mom is doing very well. She is back home and very happy with her new doctor and the care she is receiving. Thank you so much for your prayers for her.

Caleb is happy and healthy. He is 26 lbs now, at almost 16 months, and is walking (er. . .running, bouncing, climbing). He is saying lots of words, and ordering the kids around and telling us in depth stories in a language all his own. We all get so much joy from him. Nate thinks we should train a camera on him all the time. He thinks we would be sure to win on America’s Funniest home videos

Caleb, Grace and I (Pam) will be going to Singapore for a week on the the 22nd for his annual echocardiogram. We had enough frequent flyer miles to take Grace along too, and she is excited to have a special trip with mommy. We have worked it out with Greg’s folks and Darcy that they will be there at the same time getting their medical check-ups so we will be able to share a motel room with Darcy and will have some nice family time. We are trusting, as healthy and “normal” as Caleb has been, that his Echocardiogram will be just fine and really haven’t been worrying about it at all, but you can pray for those results all the same. As nice as a yearly trip to Singapore sounds, it is expensive and interrupts our schedule quite a bit, and we would love to hear that Caleb is perfectly healthy and doesn’t need to be checked next year.

Darcy will travel back from Singapore with us and Greg’s folks will arrive a few weeks later to spend Christmas with us (what a huge blessing it will be to have a family Christmas!) Then, in January, Greg will be headed back to our tribal location for several weeks, but surely you will hear from us again before that!

We are missing the fall season this year, so step outside and take a deep breath of the crisp fall air and look around at the beautiful colors of fall for us.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers, support, and encouraging notes, we love you all!

In His loving Grace;
Greg and Pam Berglund

P.S.
If you want to see some recent family pictures you can follow these links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008105&l=cc982&id=1321659393

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007305&l=65554&id=1321659393

And if you want to read about some of our thoughts and recent experiences here you can look here:

http://indomom.wordpress.com/

Eleven years ago today I married my best friend! Since then we have crossed the ocean together seven times, moved eighteen times, looked into the newborn faces of five beautiful children God created through us. Laughed together . . . Cried together, buried Grandparents and my Dad together, and lived life together day by day. Eleven years seems like a life time together, and yet just a breath! I am so blessed that God knew just what I needed and created Greg for me before I was even born.

Prayer Requests:
1.) Our good friend and Indonesian Co-Worker Wanda Wewengkang is going through an especially difficult time right now. She has been in Jakarta for a week now taking care of her 12 day old nephew born to her sister Kristin and husband Jonas. He was born by C-section and Kristin was able to come home from the hospital after 3 days. 5 days later, at home, she started experiencing severe headaches, unconsciousness, and seizures. She has continued to decline and is not expected to make it. Please pray for Michael and Wanda, for the family and for Kristen’s 2 very young children and husband. Wanda is still getting over the loss of her mother just six months ago.

2.) We have Buru team meeting at the beginning of September. Please pray for our team and we make plans for the future. It is difficult to be so far apart without reliable forms of communication or transportation. Pray that the waves would calm enough that all of our team members would be able to get out for this time. Pray that we would be able to get some good direction regarding how to continue the translation project, and what books we should focus on next. Pray for the Buru church as they are feeling neglected, and some of the believers are backsliding as a result. Pray about how we should focus our team personnel in order to meet these needs of the Buru church.

3.) Pray that God would provide for our needs as we finish our house and pay of our remaining medical bills.

Praises:
1.) We found out this morning that we have received a special gift that will cover about half of our remaining medical bills. This is a big relief to us as medical bill payments have been taking a big chunk out of our monthly income.

2.) We were able to book Pam and Caleb’s tickets to Singapore in November for Caleb’s annual echocardiogram using frequent flyer miles! Grace will even be able to come along.

3.) Doug and Nancy have been traveling since we got back to Indonesia, but they will be back here next week for a few months, and Dad will be coming next month for a short visit, and mom and dad and Darcy are planning to visit us for Christmas.

4) Ok, admittedly this seems like a small thing, but it feels BIG to us! The Public television station here in Indonesia is airing the Olympics! 4 years ago it felt like a huge sacrifice to be giving up watching the Olympics. It feels like God arranged this little treat just for us!

Only take care, and keep your soul diligently,
lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen,
and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.
Make them known to your children and your children’s children.

Deuteronomy 4:9

We are rejoicing today on Caleb’s 1st birthday and remembering the amazing miracles the Lord has performed in our little Caleb Life.
So many of you joined in prayer with us, petitioning for his life and his health, Here is a glimpse of his journey!
Thank you! Greg and Pam Berglund

July 2007 – 5 days old

November 2007 – 4 monthes old

January 11th, 2008 – 6 months old

This weight isn’t exactly accurate because his feet are on the table, he is actually 22 lbs


July 17th, 2008 1year old!

We are getting nice and “nested” in our new house. I always know I am starting to feel moved in when I start feeling like I have time for the all the “extra’s” like baking cookies, scrapbooking, sewing curtains, planting a garden, etc. The garden is so exciting to us because we have never lived anyplace long enough to think of long term garden planting!

The kids have been earning special privileges by learning Indonesian words and it has really been a nice incentive to make them pay attention to the words they hear around them. Caleb is a Whopping 20 lbs (20th percentile!) and is pulling himself up to standing and saying several of words. He is such a delight to the whole family. We have started calling him our “bumble of boy” rather than our “bundle of Joy” although he is that too

Greg has not been able to visit the tribe yet because of the high waves on the ocean, but has been correcting several passages of scripture that have been checked and preparing to print them for the believers there. We are saving and planning for a trip in October for certain, and maybe another before that if we can work it out.

Like you in America, gas prices have been rising drastically here and is now the equivalent of $3/gallon. That may seem like a great bargain to you, but many of our friends here in Indonesia MIGHT earn the equivalent of $100/month and many not even that. And although they don’t have tanks to fill, the prices have driven up the cost of food, public transportation and everything else. So please keep the Indonesian people in your prayers. We have also had HOURS of no electricity every day, sometimes up to 6 hours! It is very frustrating to be working hard on the computer and suddenly have the lights go out, not knowing if they will be out for a few minutes, or all day! We joke about a guy at the power company walking by the switch every so often and just flipping it, either off or on. I hope there is more rhyme and reason to it that that, but it doesn’t feel like it.

Despite these Inconveniences we are feeling very blessed with healthy children, our new home and most of all the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those around us. Please continue to pray that God will use us to show people Christ’s love for them. We are praying the same prayer for you!

In Him;
Greg and Pam Berglund
Nate, Hannah, Grace, Katie, and Caleb

Dear Friends and Family;

We can hardly believe we have already been back in Indonesia for two months now, we asked for your prayers for this time of finishing our house and getting settled and we have certainly felt them. We are nicely settled in our house and feeling more at home everyday. We even got phone and internet installed this week! This is a HUGE blessing, it is such a big part of our ministry and we have some friends who have been trying to get a phone here for 3 years! And I think we have chased out all the especially large spiders and ALL of the members of the rodent family!

Dede, who helps Greg with translation, just finished school for the summer break so Greg is gearing up to do some Translation checking with him. The kids and I have a nice school routine down and we are planning to continue with that for another month or so to make up for the time we were off school during our move.

Caleb is doing great, he is 17 lbs 10 oz and is crawling, waving, clapping and even saying a few words. The rest of the kids are enjoying our treks through the jungle right outside our fence and enjoying having their dog back and a new kitten to play with. They still miss their friends and family in America but are slowly making the adjustment.

Thank you so much for your prayers, your support, and your encouragement! Now that we are “online” at home we will be able to reply to your personal emails, they are always such a blessing to us!

Those of you who know me well know that I DON’T like spiders, not even little ones. You might be surprised to know, then, that I completely ignored a silver dollar sized spider that was on the wall in my bathroom. In light of the several large plate-sized spiders I had seen (and fled from) in the last couple weeks that “little” spider didn’t seem worth the effort to kill:-) Then there was the Mamma rat and her five baby rats that were nesting in a box I was unloading, and the electric meter that caught on fire, costing us several hundred dollars to replace and a day and a half without electricity . .

After these kind of experiences these last two weeks you might be surprised to hear that we are doing well, really, really well. Our kids are healthy and thriving. Caleb is officially on the charts! 16 1/2 lbs and in the 5th percentile! I promised myself when we were watching him hang on to life by a thread in the hospital that I wouldn’t sweat the small stuff any more . . .and while I can’t say I’ve kept that promise completely . . . It has been easier to focus on the blessings rather than the trials. Healthy children, our first home in nearly 11 years of marriage and 18 moves, cement walls that don’t catch fire when the electric meter does, and on and on!

So, thank you for your prayers and please continue to pray for us.

Dear friends and family;

Well, we are on the verge of moving into our house. There is still LOTS to be done and the electricians are moving VERY slowly, but we have to be out of the house we are staying in on the 29th so we will start the cleaning and furniture arranging tomorrow. We have a couple ladies who live close by coming to help me clean all the construction dust and grime off all of our belongings. They have been stored right in the house since the owner of the house we were renting sold it, so everything is quite a mess. I know we will have to “rough it ” for a while, but we are so excited to actually be moving into our own house, and if we start to feel sorry for our selves we can always look around us and the many homes that are made out of woven bamboo walls and dirt floors. I think it will be nice to paint the rooms one at a time and really take the time to think about how we want to do it instead of making quick decisions just to get things done and then be unhappy with them.

The kids are adjusting well. They are really trying hard to re-learn the language and have been very willing to have Indonesian friends over to play despite the language barriers. Caleb is 15 pounds and has gained back all he lost during his bout with the flu plus another pound. He is right on the verge of crawling.

Please be praying as we start sorting and moving and unpacking it is a daunting task as much of it is mixed in with other people’s things and in different locations since it had to be moved so quickly, and some of it has been damaged by mold and mildew. (also pray for me as I open boxes and find little “friends” hiding in dark corners). Pray also for wisdom about whether or not Greg should try to go to some meetings at the beginning of May in another town. They are meetings about our tribe with leadership that he would love to be at, but with so much unsettled at home it is hard to think of him leaving me on my own. We would also need to come up with the finances for the trip, and since it would put him close to our tribal location he would like to combine the trip with a visit into the tribe, which would mean a two week absence. It doesn’t seem feasible now, but we know that if the Lord wants him to be there He will make that clear to us.

Thanks you so much for your continued prayers, we appreciate you so much!

Dear Friends and Family;

We are safely in the land of the blowing coconut trees. Everyone is healthy and completely recovered from our trip. The kids and I have gotten into a nice school routine and I am enjoying having them home all day again. They probably get into more arguments but we also have more of those wonderful moments were they are completely enjoying each other, giggling and playing and just contented with each other. I love those moments!

Greg is busily working on our house, we had a special blessing yesterday when we received news that we got approval for a phone to be installed, we are now hoping it is the type of line that we can get the faster internet service. Our electric is almost installed, the floors are finished and Greg is about half done with the plumbing. He thinks we may be able to start doing construction clean up and painting late this week or next. We may have to live in a partially finished house for a while but it looks like it will at least be livable by the time we have to move out of the house we are staying in.

We have really been doing well with the adjustments to Indonesia. It is much easier to come back to a place where you have already established friendship than it is to move someplace for the first time. The kids are trying hard to re-learn their Indonesian and we are enjoying being here again.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support of our ministry. It has meant so much to us! I will try to send a few pictures soon so you can see our house, I might sneak in a few of the kids too!

YAY! We are all cleared to leave for Indonesia early next week! We are in Sacramento tying up loose ends and visiting family that we won’t see for a while. One of these day we may share all the little miracles and blessings that we have seen these last few days, but right now we need to focus on our ducks (we are getting them in rows

Please pray for us this coming week, and we will let you know when we are safely on the other side of the world!

K;
First the good news;
Caleb is 13 lbs 3 ounces! A 6 ounce gain in a week, despite being sick! He is still not quite on the charts, but is moving steadily that way.

Now the not so good news;
Exactly 24 hours after finishing the antibiotic for his ear infections his symptoms returned.

There are some blessings to be noted, we tested for C-dif (the bacteria that caused much of his previous weight gain issues) and that was negative, they also did a chest X-ray to check for pneumonia or Bronchitis and those were also negative PTL!

BUT: The Doctor feels like his weight gain and general health are good but she is a little concerned that the strong antibiotic he was taking didn’t knock out his ear infections. She said she wouldn’t recommend taking him overseas (obviously) UNLESS we can get this under control, she prescribed a longer dose of the same antibiotic (14 days) and wants us to see her after that to make sure he is all better. This digs right into the time we are supposed to be heading to Sacramento.

We tried to push our tickets back one week, still giving us time to get to Indonesia before our visa’s expire but there are no seats on those flights.

So we are going to trust that this round of antibiotics with take care of this infection and continue with our plans as they are with the exception of leaving for Sacramento a few days later. If Caleb’s infection is not gone then we will deal with that then. It is hard to think about already having moved out of our house and packed up and then having to stay longer but we really don’t see any other options at this point.

I don’t really like this “flying by the seat of our pants” approach, I like nice, neat, orderly plans. But obviously God is trying to teach us to TRUST HIM, not our plans. So we are TRYING to do that. Your prayers in all of this are greatly appreciated.

We would also ask you to pray for Greg’s sister, Darcy, who is in Indonesia translating the Bible for the Semandang people. For several months she has been experiencing weakness, dizziness, and chills for several days at a time. She has seen the doctor at the Baptist hospital there and he feels she needs to be seen by a doctor either in the US or Singapore. She is waiting for her Visa paperwork to be granted so she can leave if she needs to. She already has plans to come home in April. Please pray for her health and that her paperwork will be granted quickly, also for wisdom for her as to weather she should come to the US earlier than planned.

Now for a bit of humor: 3 year old Katie has a new word this week, it is “expert” She has told me that I am an expert at cooking dinner, Daddy is an Expert tickler, etc. Well yesterday she told me that Caleb is an expert at crying and spitting up! Yes, he is, and isn’t that a nice way to look at it?

We are hoping to become experts at trusting God through all the uncertainties and we are so thankful for the way he is molding us into the people He wants us to be.

Thank you again for all your prayers and support!