Sunday morning we briefly spoke at Capitol City Church of Christ in Dover, DE. They were already quite familiar with Bible Translation and PBT since they are Brian Paris’ home church (in fact, it was through Brian that we first learned about PBT). We are very grateful for their hospitality and support!

Take a look at this video that Adam Shreve (from the PBT media team) put together to be played at this year’s CIY events. Good stuff!

Last Sunday we presented at Dagsboro Church of Christ in the morning, and then Countryside Christian Church (in Cambridge, MD) in the evening. Both presentations went well. Both of the time slots for these presentations were a little shorter than we have had in the past, so we are learning to trim things down, which is good because it helps us focus on what is important.

We used the small screen plea at Countryside to try to convince them to move forward in the auditorim, and just as it did at Ocean View it worked perfectly here also, so we will definitely be using that trick from now on. Having everyone together and close to us really helps us to communicate effectively.

We are the mission this year for the Seaford Christian Church VBS program. Tomorrow night we are going to be speaking briefly for the opening program. Seaford was where we did our first presentation back in May and we are looking forward to catching up with everyone there again.

Sunday night we had the opportunity to give our presentation at the Ocean View Church of Christ. We really appreciated their generosity and support and are looking forward to seeing the great partnerships and relationships that will develop between us! It was a great night.

During the beginning of the service (songs, communion, etc…) everyone was sitting all the way in the back, which is apparently the normal custom there. The first 10 or so rows on both sides of the auditorium were completely empty! I was just going to take my microphone and head towards the back of the auditorium when it was time for me to speak, but thankfully, just before that time the song leader explained to everyone that we inteded to use our own projection screen, which is small, and that they would need to move up so that they could see it.

Apparently this was a good motivation, because the entire group moved all the way to the front and completely filled those 10 empy rows! This lent itself to the intimate and personal atmospere that I feel more comfortable with, so I definitely appreaciated it. I later found out that this was a very special treat, and that they never are able to get everyone to come the front.

Thank you OVCC for giving us the opportunity to express to you our passion for the bibleless people of the world, and thank you for moving to the front of the auditorium!

Our first set of informational brochures arrived from the printer this week! I really enjoyed designing it and am glad to see the finished product. We will be sending these to the churches we’ve been to already and will be bringing them with us to our future speaking engagements as well. The information contained in them is basically the same as what’s on this site in the Ministry Info and Partnership sections.

The graphic here is a preview of the inside of the brochure. It folds in half from top to bottom and has a picture of us on the outside cover. It was designed in Pages and printed by U Printing. I’m definitely happy with the result and hopefully will be using this workflow for several more flyers and brochures.

We spoke at DCSC Monday for campfire. The campfire was rained out so we had to make do with candles. It’s Senior High week this week, and although attendance is down this year, they are a great group. Rather than our normal PD presentation, I took the opportunity to challenge them to give up everything to Christ, who will use it all in a much bigger way than we could ever imagine.

We’re now back home and mostly unpacked from our trip to Dallas for PMI2. We had an awesome time meeting up with friends and learning more about the organization. The classes were just what we needed, preparing us for life as full-time missionaries.

The praise and worship times were amazing. I haven’t heard that many people singing that loud in a long time. It’s great to be in room full of people who are singing there hearts out for God.

All day Friday was a Partnership Development workshop. This came at just the right time for us as we are just starting our PD efforts. We heard some great stories and picked up a lot of tips that we will be using over the next few weeks.

Our trip back home went well (although we had to get up at 5AM to catch our flight!) This morning we did a presentation at Discovery Christian Church, which went really well. Tomorrow night we’re off to camp to speak at the Senior High week campfire (should be a good story-telling opportunity).

You can view photos from our trip to PMI2 here.

Today we arrived in Dallas, TX (at the PBT headquarters) for Pioneer Mission Instute (PMI). It’s a week long intensive training that PBT puts on every year. There are two main sets of classes that happen during the day – PMI 1 and PMI 2. PMI 1 is for discovering what PBT is about and how you can be involved. PMI 2 is for preparation for people who are definitely interested in joining PBT or, as in our case, are already recruits.

In addition to the classes, there are main sessions every evening where everyone gets together for a time of praise and worship and for a presentation from each branch of PBT. There are many PBT missionaries who come to Dallas for this week to teach classes, so it’s also a great opportunity to meet people and build relationships. Actually, that’s pretty much what it’s all about.

We went to PMI 1 last year (on our honeymoon, actually), and are back this year for PMI 2. The classes we’ll be taking this week are:

• Translation & the Great Comission
• Transitions: What to do with them?
• Learning to live as good, rich neighbors
• Spiritual Disciplines
• Worldview & dealing with the unseen
• Intro to PBT’s System of Financial Accountability
• Physical Preparation for the Field
• PBT Computer Resources
• Sexuality & God’s Gifts: Celibacy, Marriage, & Family
• Mental Preparation for the Field
• Intro to PBT’s Missionary Care Program
• Translation, Literacy, & Scripture in Use Strategy in Ministry
• Partnership Development (3 parts taking and entire day)

If that seems like a lot, it is! We’ll be in classes five hours a day for the next five days, not including the main sessions and the other extra meetings that we are involved in. We’ll start posting photos soon, but in the meantime, here’s PBT’s PMI promo video:

If you can read this, the web site is online and mostly functioning. Right now we just have the basic info, but we will be keeping this up to date with the latest travels and happenings, plus we will be posting lots of photos, so stay tuned!