Life on the Road

Let's catch up! Our last blog post had us headed to First Baptist Church of Grove City, MN. Since then we have spoken at 3 more churches.

October 18th -  Denver Baptist Church (Iowa)

October 25th - New Journey Church (northern MN)

November 15th - Grace Baptist Church (Iowa)

While it was nice to have a two week break between churches, it by no means meant less travel time. I (Holly) ended up driving to Missouri by myself on October 31st with our 10 month old in tow. It was a pretty sudden trip. I got a call at 9:30 that morning and by 11:15 I was packed and on the road.

Here's a little of what that trip entailed:

- alternator died 2.5 hours from my parents' house

- a Good Samaritan made sure Ellery and I were taken care of until my parents came to pick us up

- unexpected extra time with my parents

- visiting my best friend (Amy) from high school in ICU at a hospital 1.5 hours away

- watching that friend's baby to give her mom a break from taking care of the grandkids for two weeks straight

- visiting another friend (Merry) who had recently had a baby

- visiting my other best friend (Sarah) and her mom (Mary) who had just had a heart attack and bypass surgery

- spending more time with my best friend (Amy) from high school once she was released to go home

- my dad was able to fix the car

Fast forward to Sunday, November 15th. While driving home from Iowa having just spoken at a church, my best friend (Sarah) called with news that her mom (Mary) had passed away. We got what rest we could that night, spent Monday unpacking and repacking, and were on the road back to Missouri on Tuesday morning (Dan with us this time).

The memorial service was Thursday night and one thing that kept being highlighted was God's goodness. God orchestrated so many events that allowed for some really special times with Mary these last three weeks of her life. My friend had just gotten engaged while her mom was in the hospital and the time spent taking care of her mom allowed her fiancé to spend almost every day getting to know his future mother-in-law much better. Mary got to spend time with another of her daughters, a daughter-in-law, and her best friend while she was in the hospital. She got to see Ellery and enjoy her antics. People from the church showed love by bringing meals, praying, and more. During this time, my other best friend (Amy) was back in the hospital and out again.

God is good to us. Honestly, Dan and I have struggled with how long support-raising seems to be taking and being content with God's timing and plan for us. This past month has shown us once again that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. His goodness shines through all He allows in our lives. If we had already left for the Philippines, we would never have gotten this time with our friends and family while so much is going on in their lives. We wouldn't be here next month to see my best friend get married. We get to enjoy some holidays with family before we are separated for years at a time. We've had opportunities to bless others. We are spurred on to redeem the time we have been given here.

This weekend we are on the road again to speak at First Baptist Church in Muscatine, Iowa. Then we'll come back to Missouri to spend Thanksgiving with family. Our next blog post will be more of a picture update of the last few months.

Please pray with us in these things:

- that we would be faithful to redeem the time given to us and use it for His glory

- wisdom in upcoming decisions regarding different trips we need to make

- energy to keep up with our 'mover and shaker' of a daughter and that we would continue to look to the Lord in regards to everything involved in raising her

- our marriage; we desire to keep learning and growing together

- God's continued provision to increase our level of support and more people standing with us in prayer

- comfort for Sarah while she grieves her mom and continued healing for Amy

Here There and Everywhere

Phew! If I want to see where our time has been spent the last month, I have just to open my planner and look at the weekends! Out of the past 4 Sundays, we've spent three of those speaking at churches.

September 6th - Country Roads Church in Stacy MN -- A short drive down the road from where we live, we look forward to popping in for visits and spending more time there when we get the chance.

September 20th - Chisholm Baptist Church in Chisholm MN -- Dan went solo that weekend so that I could stay home with our sick baby.

September 27th - Karlstad Baptist Church in Karlstad MN -- Good times spent here although, we're sure our hosts would have liked to get some sleep as much as we did. Ellery was CRAZY Saturday night and decided to party most of the night. Praise the Lord we were alert and awake enough to speak on Sunday morning.

In the month of October we are scheduled to speak at churches 3 out of 4 Sundays as well. We also have a church scheduled for November.

Much of our time during the weeks has been spent getting ready for speaking on the weekends. Plenty of time has also been devoted to snuggling, playing with, and taking care of Ellery. She has been pretty congested for about two weeks now. While it doesn't affect her overall behavior too much, it's starting to wear on this mama who just wants her baby to feel better.

Where will we be this weekend? We're headed to First Baptist Church of Grove City.

What can you pray for? Safe travels, clear speaking/communication on our parts, a healthy baby, and that we would be able to build relationship with the believers there.

Dan at Country Roads Church

FAQs Series #2: The Language Question

Do you already know how to speak the language?

Maybe this seems like a silly question, but we actually get asked this almost every time we are telling someone about our plans for moving to the Philippines. The answer is no. We don't already speak the language. I (Holly) am very familiar with the sounds of the language having grown up in the Philippines and that will be an advantage. I grew up hearing people speak the language. I know some phrases and words. I can mimic the accent and sound like a native speaker (somewhat). It will all be new for Dan: new sounds, grammar, vocab, cadence, etc. A lot will be new for me too. Here's the kicker: after we spend about two years learning our first language...we'll move into a tribal location and start learning another!

We have been equipped in our training with New Tribes Mission with valuable tools/methods for learning language. We learned phonetics, grammar analysis, phonemics, linguistics and language acquisition techniques. The ideal is to learn the language in the country from a native speaker. For this reason it is not recommended to use Rosetta Stone or to start learning some other way before you go overseas. Language and culture are so intrinsically tied together that it would be detrimental to us to separate them. We need to learn both simultaneously.

Some things you need to know about the Philippines/language:

• There are two 'official' languages in the Philippines: Tagalog and English (Yes! English!); and eight major dialects: Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon or Ilonggo, Bicol, Waray, Pampango, and Pangasinan.
• Speaking of English...English is taught in many public schools (often immersion-style). Signs and billboards are often in English. Exposure to English is high in the Philippines, but that does not mean everyone understands it or is fluent.
• We will be learning Cebuano. This is the language spoken in the area we will be living. It is one of the more widely spoken languages along with Tagalog. Cebuano is also referred to as Visayan.
• Depending on the source, there are roughly 181 different languages spoken in the Philippines. We will be learning at least two of those 181 during our time serving in the Philippines.

FAQs Series #1: The Baby Question

Now that you're having a baby, how does that change your plans?

Let's be honest here. Kids were always in the plan for us. It's not like it was a surprise for us. “Oh, hey, surprise! You're pregnant!” We view kids as a valuable asset to us. Before we got married, we knew when we'd like to start having kids and had already discussed the myriad of things that would mean for our marriage and ministry. Kids are great for building connections with people in any cultural context. As they grow, they can become more and more involved in our ministry. We are excited to teach them about God and His amazing plan of saving the world (and them!).

So our plans have not changed. We are still hoping to have our support raised by next summer and head to the Philippines around then. We look forward to seeing our little girl make friends before she can even speak the language, climb guava trees, slide down mud hills in a tropical rain, and eat weird food. We also look forward to introducing her to a lifestyle where she will see people who live very differently than she does: street kids, beggars, Jeepney drivers, lepers, grocery store clerks, the person we buy our meat from at market, the guy who walks by our house every morning, and so many others.

Pray with us that we keep trusting the Lord to make us the parents she needs, that we would be diligent to teach her the truths of God's Word, and for the good-byes that will have to be said in a year from now. It will be tough.

We view being pregnant now as a huge blessing. Ideally, we wanted to have our first kid at a time in our lives when we weren't also in the middle of language learning and navigating a cultural context we are already out of place in. We are able to have our first baby in a culture/language we grew up in, have family around to help, and introduce our baby to everyone before we leave the country for several years. We have access to great medical knowledge and facilities. We're not against having a baby in another country. That may someday happen for us if God blesses us with more children. For the first kid, however, this experience has been great for us. Maybe this is sooner into a marriage than some people would like to start having kids, but for us the timing could not be more perfect. Did we mention yet how grateful we are that God has given us this baby girl?! We can't wait to meet her!

New Blog Series Starting: FAQs

In the next few weeks and months you should start seeing some more regular posts popping up on here. We have realized the need to have access to some answers to a few questions people have when we don't always have to opportunity to answer them right away. Hence, a series of FAQs about our ministry and plans for going to the Philippines. 

In the next post, please enjoy reading about what having a baby means for our plans.  

MN to MO to TN to GA to...

What a whirlwind of an adventure! We are pretty much recovered from our long journey.

In about 3 ½ weeks, we have driven from Minnesota to Missouri to Nashville, TN to Kingsport, TN to Abingdon, VA to Cumming, GA to Charlotte, NC, to Chesapeake, VA to Missouri to Minnesota. Did you keep track of all that? Now add in a side trip to the Outer Banks. Oh, and a trip to Dan's grandparents' cabin when we got back to Minnesota.

All in all we did roughly 80 hours of driving in 3 ½ weeks when you count in the extra time for stops!

The purpose of our trip was to visit family and friends along the way as well as establish some connections and relationships for building a support team. We were able to meet with the missions committee at my parents' home church and a missions committee at another church that is dear to my family. Dan got to experience good ole Southern churches for the first time. We introduced Dan to the rest of my mom's side of the family. We went to the Bay (Chesapeake Bay) as often as we got a chance. I love the ocean! My parents also treated us to a delicious seafood meal for our anniversary. I won't soon forget the taste! Dan and I took a day trip to the Wright Brothers Memorial and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse on the Outer Banks with my sister and her family. We had two family get-togethers while in VA and all the girls from my mom's side got to have a girls' night. Many stories were shared and there was plenty of joking all around whenever we were with family and friends.

Another highlight of our trip? We got to tell our family in person that we have some special news to share.

I'm 18 weeks pregnant! Come December 29th our lives will be irrevocably changed. We are very excited. We're looking forward to having our first kid here in the States with family and friends around before we leave for the Philippines next summer.

We've also been married for one year now!

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Chesapeake Bay

Typical...

Snuggles with my buddy.

 

The Beginning of Travels

We’re back! Oh, you didn’t know we were gone? Well, we were. We recently spent two weeks in Minnesota and about a week in Wisconsin.

Typical Minnesota

Dan was in a friend’s wedding up North so we went up a little before the wedding and stayed awhile after the wedding. We had opportunities to catch up with friends, meet with a couple of supporters, and (for me, Holly) be reintroduced to some people I met for about 2 minutes at our reception. We ended up spending some time cleaning and painting the house we’ll live in when we move up to Minnesota full-time. We are so blessed to have a place to live already! I also got to experience Mall of America for the first time.

I really wanted to ride the carousel.

In Wisconsin, I got to introduce Dan to a bunch of my dad’s side of the family. I took him to the Bible Institute I graduated from, showed him around downtown Waukesha, and we were able to spend some good time with my grandparents. As a bonus, I experienced my first MLB game! We watched the Brewers beat the Cardinals…from some pretty nice seats, I might add. 

Brewers-5 Cardinals-1

What’s the plan now that we’re back, you ask? It’s the beginning of support-raising for us! It’s quite the daunting task, but God has already used several people to encourage me and to show me that He’s faithful and trustworthy. He has to keep reminding me.

Grandpa and Grandma Tiegs

Dan's a good buddy.

We’ll be traveling out East to Virginia and North Carolina sometime early this summer. We plan on seeing some more family, visiting my family’s home church, and getting into some new churches to seek relationships for support-raising.

If you live in VA, NC, MN…or really any state, and want to meet with us to find out more about our ministry and how you can be a part of our support team (whether through encouragement, prayer, or giving), email us at dan_thannum@ntm.org and make sure to get us your mailing address and a contact phone number.