Journal pournal

So I wanted to let you all know, well, to those of you who care to read the ramblings of me, Gretchen, (wow how many comma's can you use in a sentence? Okay this is a perfect example...if you are going insane by these ramblings...then the journal page isn't for you ;) ) Hmmm where was I???? OH RIGHT....

I am starting to use my journaling tab again. YIPEE! Cheers.

More and Less

Oh how I draw blanks when I am suppose to type a "title" for these entries...so I have to say that I just write whatever comes to mind...whether it makes sense or not. And this time...probably not. :)

RAIN

Thank you guys so much for praying! We have rain. Today we were on high fire alert and the media piped it up to be a day like the one when all the fires started 4 weeks ago. So we waiting to see what the day held.

I know that many of you have been specifically praying for rain for Kangaroo Ground. And at about 9:00 tonight it happened...it had been really yucky looking outside for hours and I thought it looked a bit dangerous outside. The clouds were very angry looking (can you call clouds angry?) and I didn't really know what to think. The sky here is so hard to read...in Montana it was pretty predictable I have always thought, but since moving overseas I am totally at a loss for sky reading. ;) When I heard rain start to fall all I could do was smile! So many of you have written telling us that you are praying for rain...and for you I send a million hugs from the kids (I would send them from me but I think you would rather them from the kids :) :) ).

What a generous God we serve huh?

Our Newsletter

Check the "Newsletter" tab for our latest newsletter.

A recap of February ... in pictures

We are working on our newsletter and hope to get it out in a couple days. But tomorrow we have a fire watch so we might just take tomorrow off from our normal "work" here at the house and head into town to get away. We will keep you updated. Keep praying as we are still on high alerts (for four weeks now) with fires burning all around us and strong winds with high tempetures!

BUT for now...enjoy these pics. :)

Thanks guys for hanging in there with us!

A breath of fresh air

In more ways than one have we been breathing some fresh air. Firstly because the smoke is finally starting to settle from all the bush fires surrounding us these past two weeks, and also because tomorrow is graduation! Graduation from Summer School anyway. We all still have a year to go...but we have next week OFF! YIPPEE. :)

I want to share with you some videos of some of the classes that we have been taking these past 6 weeks. Some might be a bit boring to you but look at it in light of learning to speak another language, write an unwritten language and teach those speakers to also read and write in their own language. What a thrill to test ourselves on the knowledge that we have crammed into our full brains in such a short time! Praise God for His provision for us these weeks and also for His grace and mercy as it has been a long 6 weeks as well. The kids are now through with child care and for that I am glad and sad. They LOVED going and doing such amazing crafts and playing with the other kids there. John and Roz were amazing with the kids and we cannot thank them enough for being creative and lively for 6 weeks straight! :)

VIDEOS:

Our phonetics class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KnZdGLWO1M

Our Language Learning class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyp9hIjmivs
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-9eHHmhUM

And our Anthropology class is soon to come: (gotta get from teammate :) )

MORE TO COME of the kids and all...but wanted to post as soon as possible.

Update on fire situation

Thank you to all who were praying for us and continue to pray as there are numerous fires still burning throughout Victoria. I wanted to post some pictures of the fires that we could see just from our house.

Click on the picture to view it in a large format:

This is a website that has been set up by Equip (school we are attending) just for us as students to know the status of the fires in relation to our campus so check this out and you can get current updated info just as we get it.

Copy and paste into your Internet browser:

http://kg/index.php/kg-messages.html

Click on "Current fire conditions for Kangaroo Ground"

PRAY Victoria is on fire

Hey all. Please be praying for our neighbors! Tons of people here have been suffering in a great way from the fires that are devastating the state of Australia we now live in. Please pray for our safety as fires burn around us and we hear emergency vehicles all day and night and also pray for the hundreds of families effected by either loss of property or of loved ones.

Thanks!

To keep you updated...check out the news online.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/

A week has blown by

I have to say that today is crazy hot and windy. We reached 115 today and it was 110 steady for almost all day. At 5:30 tonight, the cold front hit. It is so weird how that works here. They can predict what time the cold will hit and, sure enough, you can feel it get cooler...like 20 degree's cooler in a minute! Amazing.

We have had another successful week here at school. Here are some pics for you to enjoy... :)

Gwen feeding her baby some apple pieces

The kids' favorite hiding spot

Si and Sorin climbing in the back of our house

watching a movie with her baby

Addy is pulling herself up on EVERYTHING.

Gwen doing her "homework" We got this awesome coloring book and markers in a care package. The markers only work on this kind of paper. So this is perfect for our little draw on anything daughter!

Si got some sweet action spider man socks and sweatshirt in the care package.

Kids dressing up

Gotta love the bed tub acoustics! Time for lots of yelling. ;)

We found a YMCA close by with a great kiddie pool

Some stickers that came from great grandma

Climbing in back yard

What our kids are up to while we go to school...

While we are in school the kids go to "play school". They love going. They do all kinds of crafts, songs, stories, play in the playground outside...you name it. They are wiped when they come home. Which is pretty good cause so are Houghton and I from school.

These are some pics taken while they were at play school.

Gracie helped out quite a bit at the begining to help the kids get used to things here. Gwen and Sorian

Ruth and her husband Don are from CO and came here to volenteer for the 6 weeks.

John and his wife Ros, live close by and volunteer every year for the child care program.

Rachel's parents are with SIL and are translators in the Solomon Islands. Her dad Taylor is one of our instructors for the year.

A glimse into our schooling

I wanted to give you a glimpse of what our days look like and what it is exactly that we are spending all this time and energy doing.

One of our courses is Phonetics. In this course we study the International Phonetic Alphabet so we can translate sounds we hear in any given language into a combination of written "letters" that is understood around the world and can be pronounced around the world...the point of this is so we can translate the language for the people group that we end up in in Vanuatu.

For an example this is John 3:16 written with this Phonetic Alphabet. (said by someone with an Australian accent I must add as this changes the "letters" or more appropriately the phonemes.)

[ fɔ ɡɒd səʉ lʌvd ðə wɵld
ðæt hi ɡɛiv hɪz ˈəʉnli sʌn
ðæt hʉˈwɛvə bəˈlivz ɪn hɪm
ʃæl nɒt ˈpɛɹɪʃ
bʌt hæv iˈtɵnəl lʌif ]
[ dʒɒn θɹi sɪksˈtin ]

We are also taking a grammer class. Which will help us identify the sentence structure of a particular language group. For example, English always has Subject Verb Object (with lots of other stuff thrown in there but I don't want to bore you too much) and this is not true of all languages of the world...so this course will also help us as we learn and write (or create) the language God leads us to.

Anthropology is another once of our courses. This is fairly self explanitory, but through this course we will be practicing how to really look and observe another culture. As well as relate to this culture and live in it.

And finally we are taking a Language Awareness/Language Learning course. In this class we are actually learning another language in the style that we would (or very similar to anyway) on the field in Vanuatu. And lucky for us, there is actually a Ni-Vanuatu man here these 6 weeks who is teaching us his native language of White Sands (from the island of Tanna). There are 4 of us (Houghton and I along with Laura, and Brad Jones) in this White Sands group. Jim and Tania Kenner are also learning this language in another White Sands group, otherwise all the other students are either learning Urdu (spoken in Pakistan and parts of Fiji and India), Indonesian, or Karen (spoken in China, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand).

We are so pumped about the training we are getting here and so thankful that the Lord has saw fit to lead us down this path. We are excited to use what we are learning in Vanuatu and to use it to better be equip for His plan for our team, whatever lies ahead.

Since Christmas

As it has been a so long since our last post... this post is FULL of pictures of our last month. Christmas, Jesiah turning 4, our move to Australia, and what our new lives look like here in Kangaroo Ground, Victoria, Australia. So enjoy the pictures of our last month.... it starts with where we left off on our last normal blog entry. So if you remember Addy having Impetigo...this is that same time... :) Hope that is clear as mud! :) ENJOY!

Guys chartered a fishing boat with some other friends here in Vila and caught Christmas dinner. This Yellow Tailed Tuna. We had Tuna steaks for Christmas! It was AWESOME. ;)

Our Tuna is in the middle and on the L is two Barracuda and on R.... cannot remember HAH (its late) :) I want you to know that the fish on the far R is about as long as half my body...just to give you an idea of how HUGE these fish are!!!!!

Jesiah turned 4 on Dec 22! He had chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup for his birthday breakfast.

Blowing out his candle.

Gwen, Piper (Jones), and Addy watching as we open presents during out team Christmas party.

Gwen got a baby and a new Vanuatu style dress.

Si got a flashlight that has different lenses to shine various creatures on the wall with. Zoe is explaining it to him in this pic. ;)

Checking out the flashlight.

Gwen getting her baby...gotta love that "ooo" face.

HAHA houghton was cutting up some amazingly potent onions so Laura and I told him to wear goggles so they wouldn't sting his eyes so much. I guess it worked but the suggestion was more for fun than really for practical reasons. :)

Flying into Sydney

Gracie and Si sat together.

On our way to our new home. By the way this was our first air-conditioned experience in 6 months. It was FREEZING! :)

While in Sydney we tried to take in all the "aussie" things we could. This included going to a meat pie vendor that was world famous here in Sydney. Meat pies were good...I guess I got a little carried away on that bite though :)

I thought this pic was funny as Houghton and I have great expressions on our faces while we try and figure Gwen out. Haha story of my life. :). Love that crazy girl.

Sitting in the harbor

Sydney has a beautiful botanical garden that we only briefly got to see. It was a beautiful day for sight seeing and we were SO glad that we didn't get rained on as it rained the day before.

Gwen all pooped out.

Our group mixed up in it all.

Chilling at Manly Beach.

On the way to Manly via Ferry. This ferry ride rocked because we saw a Ton of the popular sights of Sydney. Plus we had front row seats! Rock on.

The Sydney Opera House (back L). I hope to be able to catch an Opera with Houghton sometime this year.

Addy sitting with Pete. (You might remember Pete and his wife Liz from our early Vanuatu posts. He and his wife are from the Sydney area and were working short term with SIL when we first arrived to Vila. They went back to Australia in September and we were able to spend our time in Sydney with them...what a blast to see them again!)

Sitting in the Melbourne airport waiting for our SIL contacts to pick us up. This is just our lugguge behind us.

Gwen and I in our new house.

A long day aparently. This is the first time she has fallen asleep in her high chair.

Houghtons first driving on the other side of the card, on the other side of the road! AHHHHHHH.

Some Kangaroo pics for you to enjoy. We are literally surrounded by kangaroos. It is so wild!

Houghton took Si on a fishing trip to SugarLoaf lake.

While the girls played at home.

Gracie and Addy have become great pals. This is a trip to the mall close to our school ( when I say close I mean it took a bus and a train to get there )

I got by hair done!!!!! YAY.... It had been a while since I could actually do something with my hair beside a pony tail. In Vanuatu that is all I wanted because of the heat, but here...I can play! ;)

This is our most recient family picture. The school took it for thier records and we took it from them. We hope to get another "less posed infront of a background" shot soon.