Tim and Sharon Simmonds Equipping the Next Generation of Missionaries! Shades of Normal
The Big Move: Transitioning is part of “normal” for us, and transitioning from serving at the NTM Missionary Training Center in Missouri (where we had been for over 9 years) to serving with Radius International in San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico has been a big change for us! We are truly appreciating and enjoying being in this new location and serving with Radius International, and we are figuring out what our new “normal” is here.
Seattle visit and Fitzgerald Family Get-together: What a blessing and encouragement to visit with friends and supporting churches, and a special blessing to see the love and support they gave to Sarah as she moved in with a family from church, gave her ministry opportunities and showed so much love. Another highlight of our time in Seattle was having the opportunity for Sharon’s family to get together to celebrate her Mother, Jerry Fitzgerald’s 80th birthday!
Fitzgerald Family Get-Together!
Saying good-bye to our kids: A bitter-sweet part of “normal”, but it’s good to see our kids moving on. We had a great time visiting with Jason in Chico, CA on our way home from Seattle. Sarah is spending the next few months in Seattle as she prepares for the next step in her life. We appreciate your prayers for both of them.
The Castillo
An amazing building in the heart of Tijuana, Mexico, where Radius International will be holding it’s first classes starting in July 2012! Until then…lots of work is being done on the facility! We travel there every week or two for staff meetings, as well as helping out co-workers who are themselves in the middle of Spanish language and Mexican culture learning.
Culture / Language Acquisition (CLA) Course Development: We are mostly working from home until July 2012, as we develop the course materials for the first Radius classes starting in July! Since the first semester of Radius training will be held in Tijuana at the Castillo in a cross-cultural environment, CLA will be an integral part of life, learning and ministry from the earliest days of our students’ experience! Deciding what to teach first is a big challenge. (You can’t teach everything first!)
Travel to Mexico:
Anxiously awaiting our SENTRI Passes!
Getting into Mexico: about 20 minutes from our house to the Castillo.
Back into the USA: Shortest crossing was 25 minutes; Longest was 3 1/2 hours!
On a recent visit, after 2 1/2 hours in line, and just a few cars away from the US crossing, our car died! A very kind local man pushed us up to the immigration check point (for 70 pesos), then an immigration officer pushed us out of the line towards “secondary.” Of course, that day we were also randomly selected for a “secondary” inspection which meant another 1 hour wait. Pray that our SENTRI passes will come through quickly, as it will shorten our travel time drastically – to about 20 minutes on a long day!
Family Visits! (We hope this stays a normal part of life!). We so much enjoyed having Tim’s brother Dave and his family here for a couple weeks. Besides enjoying great times together, we enjoyed seeing parts of California that we might not have seen for a long time, and were at the San Diego Padres’ opening game (vs LA Dodgers)!
Sarah coming to visit for Mother’s Day! (Please God, let this be a normal!) We are excited about Sarah coming to visit us for a few days!
Looking Ahead With classes beginning in July, we have a whole new “normal” to look forward too. Please pray for all of the instructors, as we prepare for classes. Pray for the students as they get ready to embark on this journey of being prepared for church planting ministries among unreached people groups. Pray for those working on the Castillo, getting the building ready before the first students move in. Pray for Radius International as they seek to obtain another property in the El Cajon (East of San Diego) area for 2nd and 3rd Semester. And pray that we will all keep our eyes on God, who can do the impossible! Thank you for your part in this ministry!
God is Faithful!
The constant “normal”, for which we are so grateful! It’s been amazing to see His provision for us emotionally, spiritually, and financially as we have moved and begun this new adventure. Thank you for allowing God to use you in this process!
More Pictures!
(Click on links below to see albums)
- San Diego, Tijuana, Seattle, Fitzgerald Family Get-together
- Simmonds Family Visit and Travels
- Sarah’s College Graduation, December 2011
- The Castillo
Peeking ahead to 2012! And Merry Christmas!
Peeking ahead to 2012, and the many changes that are coming, we are grateful to be serving a God who never changes and whose grace is always sufficient. We are also thankful for new opportunities to serve Him. We appreciate your prayers as we transition to a new location (San Diego, California) and new ministry with Radius International. We will be developing and teaching the Culture and Language Acquisition courses. Thank you so much for your part in this ministry of equipping new missionaries for the great task of reaching the yet unreached with the gospel.
Moving Plans: We plan to move by the end of January. We can keep you updated by email about our plans—if you send us your e-mail!
We Praise God for his provision of a rental home for us for at least the first year (contact us for the address). It is located about 20 minutes from Tijuana, Mexico where we will be traveling to regularly once Radius classes begin there in July. Email us for more info about our new ministry or read more here!
Thanksgiving was spent in the Pensacola, Florida area with Sharon’s brother, Dan, his family, and Sharon’s Mom, Jerry Fitzgerald. It was a great time, and we are thankful for the chance to spend time together. It was worth the 30 hours driving time!
Jason moved to Chico, CA in October and is doing well there, living with some friends. He plans to fly back here for Christmas and spend a couple of weeks with us, before returning there. We are thankful for how well his move and adjustment are going.
Sarah’s Graduation! Sarah’s university graduation ceremony will be held at Southwest Baptist University (Bolivar, MO) Dec. 16th at 7 pm! We are excited for Sarah as she completes this milestone in her life. She will receive two Bachelor’s degrees: BA in General Music, and BA in Intercultural Studies. Sarah plans to move to San Diego with us, at least to start with, with her goal being to serve in East Asia eventually. Pray for wisdom for her, as she makes plans. She hopes to be involved in one of the ethnic Asian churches in San Diego while she is there.
Praise God for another group of missionary candidates who will soon be graduating from the NTM Missionary Training Center and making plans to serve in cross-cultural church planting and support ministries around the world. Praise for those who have heard and believed the good news of Jesus Christ in their own language for the first time this year, and can celebrate the Savior with us this Christmas! Pray that the Lord of the Harvest will raise up more laborers—and be willing to BE one! Praise God for his amazing provision for the disaster relief of the Mamusi tribal villages that were devastated by flooding and landslides back in August. Please also Pray for the ongoing growth and outreach of the Mamusi tribal churches.
We so much appreciate your prayerful interest and partnership in our ministry. We trust you are truly blessed this Christmas.
Moving to San Diego area in January!
Thank you for praying for us as we have considered some major ministry changes this summer (not what we planned on for the summer!)
Moving to Radius International in January! We are excited to report to you that we believe that the Lord is directing us to the San Diego area to work with Radius International! We wrote you a few weeks ago, asking for prayer as we considered a request for us to move to the San Diego area to work with this new mission training school, that was initially called “Among All Peoples” (AAP). We were able to visit some of the leaders of Radius in July, when some friends from one of our sending churches in Seattle were also able to join us to help us work through this potential ministry change.
We came away encouraged, but still had some things we needed to consider and clarify before making a final decision. We have talked with Dave Burdette (Academic Coordinator of Radius) a lot on the phone over the last month or so, and we visited San Diego again this last week for the Radius board meetings. We had an excellent visit with the board, we are excited by their heart and vision, and have accepted their invitation to work with them. Tim will be responsible to develop and teach the Culture and Language Acquisition components of the course. We are privileged to be a part of assisting in the pre-field training aspect of this God-sized project of World Evangelism.
What is Radius International? Radius International is a new missions training organization. It is not a missionary sending agency, but is a comprehensive missionary training program, desiring to provide similar missions training to what we have been involved with here at the NTM Missionary Training Center (MTC), for the wider evangelical missions community. You can obtain more information by visiting the Radius website at www.radiusinternational.org.
NTM seconding (loaning) us to Radius: We have really appreciated being a part of training future missionaries here at the NTM MTC over the last 9 years, and have appreciated our coworkers and leadership. We had no plans to leave and were not looking for anything else, but after receiving a request to consider working with Radius and looking into it more, we believe God is wanting us to take this step of faith and move this way. NTM has been supportive of us as we have considered this change of ministry and has arranged for us to be seconded (on loan) to Radius for a period of 2 years, meaning we will continue as full members of NTM for that time frame.
Radius location: Starting in July 2012, classes will be held at a property in Tijuana, Mexico for the first year or two, while a property in El Cajon, California (just east of San Diego) is being prepared. We will very much appreciate your prayers for us as we look into housing possibilities in the area. We will be traveling to Tijuana for classes at least for the first year or so.
The next few months: It has been amazing to see God provide co-workers to take over our ministries here at the NTM MTC! Tim’s responsibilities have been lightened somewhat this semester, as he will be working on making sure his current course work is ready to pass on, and will be working on training some coworkers, as well as hoping to have time to give some thought to course development for Radius. God has also provided replacements for Sharon’s various responsibilities here on campus and she will be busy with training for these jobs as well. We are praying for someone to replace Sharon’s local ministry with Medical Missions for Christ and our various ministries at our local church here (Lake Area Evangelical Free Church). It’s going to be really hard for us to leave our church, but we believe just as God moved and caused people to step forward and take responsibility when we left our tribal churches in PNG, so He will do here.
Family plans: Jason is strongly leaning towards moving to California, although he may go to a different area of the state where he would live with some of his friends. However, there is also a possibility that he will decide to stay in Missouri, at least for a while. Please pray for him in this decision. Sarah will be graduating from University in December and is also considering moving out with us for a while, before moving on with her mission plans. She may even use the Radius training as she prepares for ministry. This move appears to be good timing for her!
Pictures! You can check out some of our recent pictures here.
Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support, and your part in this ministry of training the next generation of missionaries!
Partnering together to see the least reached people groups exposed to the good news of Jesus Christ,
Tim and Sharon Simmonds
