Daily Archives: June 15, 2013

Animism Class: If you look at this word you might say one of two things; 1. What is that word, and gloss over it. Or 2. You have heard this word in regards to spirit worship. As we began to dive into this class and this term, we learned quickly that neither is the case. To give animism a definition and to work from it could be said that “animism is the practice in which one believes in personal spiritual beings and impersonal spiritual forces that affect you personally each day of your life which you must learn how to manipulate to protect and better yourself.” This definition is merely scratching the tip of the iceberg, trying to explain an organic belief system that adapts to its surrounding and are found within human beings who live out these beliefs and make up systems to explain why they believe “what” they believe. This system will be talked about a bit more in the next class “Folk Islam”. In that class we will learn how these two classes connect.

Animism will look differently for each people group, but in that difference you can expect some similarities. Animism as a belief system is a “holistic” system, meaning that stories they use to explain creation or how people came to be are each a complete story in and of themselves and do not have to connect to one another. Their systems are complete by themselves and do not need to connect like we connect things here with our Western Linear thought process. The systems work within themselves. Animism is “particularistic”; meaning that by its definition the system is unique for the individualistic people where the people usually call themselves as “the real people” and are tied to the land. This is important to understand because we will strive to be “a part” of the people group we will be going to, and more importantly will teach them God’s Word which is a universal and personal message for all. One of the greatest challenges when teaching God’s Truth to animistic people is making them see that this message is for them! We have heard many stories that these animistic people say, “oh that’s nice, that’s your creation story… and how you view what sin is and what God looks like, but that’s not what we believe”. We must teach relevantly so that when we teach about God they understand that God is thee only God and much more. If we do not, we will only breed syncretism and create people who view Christianity for white people or that Christianity is nice to have for insurance when they die, but it does not apply to them while they live their daily lives. They will still do various acts to appease the “evil spirits” and procure a blessing so that they can hunt and provide for their family, and then go to church on Sunday to appease yet another spirit. This is the battle we will be getting into. Please pray that we become better communicators of truth and better learners of life so we can speak relevantly to the people God is leading us to minister amongst.

We had the opportunity to learn some “practical skills” recently in our training. Now when we say practical… the practical part is relevant to the field where we are heading. Most developing countries suffer greatly in the area of health and well-being, many of their illnesses can be cured easily with simple antibiotics, clean water, and basic hygiene. We take many things for granted here in the U.S., we go into our house and look in our cupboards and refrigerators and say “we have nothing to drink”… except for an endless supply of purified water. This is one of the modern conveniences that we have that aid in our well-being. We had the opportunity to learn about purifying water, how to administer shots, how to use a stethoscope, how to check ears for infections and other practical skills.

We are learning these skills, as well as adding many other tools to our belt before we go overseas and work in an adverse tribal setting. We will need as many tools as we can acquire before we go overseas in order to be as effective as possible so that ultimately we can to minister to the people God is leading us to live amongst. People “do not care what you know, till they know that you care”. We must show people the love of Christ and watching them die from things we can cure quite easily is a contradictory message. When we think about this topic we are reminded of the passage in James chapter 2, “15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” We are always reminded that we are not taking the written Word of God to an unreached people group, but we are taking the LIVING Word of God.

Practical Skills for Field Health
It is for this reason (bringing the living Word of God to people who do not have it written in their own language) why we are learning what we are learning. Another obvious reason is because we know that these people are dying and going into a Christ-less eternity. We desire to preserve their bodies for as long as possible so that they can have an opportunity to hear the Creator’s message. It will take a long time once we get into a tribal village before we can share the Creator’s message; we will have to move in, build a house, learn their language, and their culture. Once all of that is accomplished, then we will be able to share the Creator’s message with them, so that they can hear and understand God’s message in their heart language.

CLA is a thread of classes that we begin when arriving here at the training and it continues on through the entire course. CLA stands for Culture Language Acquisition; the title is pretty self-explanatory, there are so many facets to these subjects that fill libraries but we do not want to bore you 🙂

People and languages are always changing, that is why we are learning “principles” that will try to cover “most” aspects of life. We as English speakers say the word “knife”, and we understand that the “k” is silent. The “k” was not always silent; our language has changed drastically in the past couple hundred years in that one small example. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago the word “god” had a different ascription to it, and now we understand its ascription to the God of the Bible. And what about more recently??? With all of the slang, jargon, and shorthand “text-talk”, you wonder why foreigners struggle with our language so much!

What I have described, are just a few examples of complexity within our language but to understand the culture goes to yet another level. A language is merely the words used “with-in” a culture. In our culture it is very normal to see a man and a woman holding hands and we would equate that to be normal and even “affectionate”. In most other cultures if you were to see a man and woman holding hands that would be “inappropriate”, and yet it is “normal” and even a sign of friendship for a man to hold another man’s hand in another culture. How many of you just cringed at that thought?

So lets talk family…everyone knows what a dad, mom, and siblings are right? Well let me give you a scenario… a woman gives birth to a boy, she calls him mother. The woman’s husband calls his boy “mother-in-law”… and this boy when he gets older calls his mother “daughter” and his father “son-in-law”. Confusing yet? Good! It was confusing till we had more information. This is not even the “in’s and out’s” of the topic known as “kinship”. There are 7 kinship systems in the world. The Europeans and Americans go by the Eskimo System. We have one mom, one dad, etc.… and did you know only 33% of the cultures in the world go by that system. The Hawaiian system of kinship considers all aunts and uncles as “mom and dad” and all cousins as “brothers and sisters”, with it being the gift-giving season, things could become quite expensive if that was the case.

Kinship systems along with many other cultural “norms” are key to understand before ever teaching God’s Word. The Jewish cultures have the same system as ours and are also a patriarchal family (following the fathers lineage). Principles are so important to understand before you ever teach; the genealogies, a husbands responsibility, what is the Bible saying when Jesus is God the Son, and God is our Father… there are so many things we have to understand if we want to be effective communicators of God’s Word. This reminds us of Nehemiah 8 when it says that the people “had understood the words that were declared unto them”. When engaging in ministry, the words we communicate must be spoken in the heart language of the people. Thus, culture language acquisition is a vital part of missions.

I (Seth) have had to do a lot of teaching and preaching these past couple of months…anywhere from one, two, three and four times in a week.  I spoke in 9 different “arenas” with varying topics in less than 2 weeks at one point. I still have more upcoming speaking/teaching engagements before our upcoming break. To many of you, you might be saying, “what is the big deal?” Well to put it simply, I am not a comfortable public speaker; I am nervous (not an earthly fear, it is just not a place I am comfortable), I sweat, shake, and ask my wife… my heart literally pounds harder and skips beat. From talking in class, to praying, to teaching, they are all the same to me and I do not feel comfortable about any one of them.

This is one of the many reasons why God and His Word are the reason why I (personally) am pursuing missions, and not because it is something I (in myself) want to do particularly. I am not an outdoorsy person (my wife likes camping more than I do), I despise every bug, I like couches and movies, and as I previously stated, public speaking is not my forte.

All that to say, God is BIGGER than my wants and preferences, He is my strength in my many weaknesses. Watch my life and follow along in our journey. God promised that HIS strength is made PERFECT in my weakness (2 Cor. 9). If you want to see a lot of God’s power, be prepared to see it in and through my life, because there is a lot of weakness in me. We are looking to go into tribal missions, I will have to do a lot of speaking, be outside a lot, and lets not get started on the bugs! These aspects of my life show that ‘missions’ for me is not about me…but its seeing God’s Word as absolute, treating hell as real, and mirroring the example God gave us in Paul of going everywhere the gospel had not yet been preached (Rom. 15:20-21), and God wanting to do a mighty work in me. Join us as we watch God’s incredible power do amazing things in and through us!

This past week was filled with times of great joy and sorrow. Thanksgiving was awesome, we got to see many friends and family and we are sorry that we didn’t announce or give much “heads up”, we wanted to surprise our family, and well, we succeeded! God’s timing is truly perfect and works “all things” for His glory for His people. Before we ever decided on our departure to head to Pennsylvania, God worked in the hearts of several individuals to help us pay for our trip without them knowing we would soon have a big expense with the round trip from Missouri to Pennsylvania. God moved in their hearts before we ever told them, and God moved in our hearts before we ever had His provision! That’s how God works! Just like how God told Abraham to go to Mount Moriah (Genesis 22) and then He would give him instruction, God gives us piece by piece so we can place our faith in Him.

Also before this ever fully blossomed, Seth’s uncle died. This has been hard on his mom but extremely hard on his grandparents; this is the second (and last) son they lost to an unnatural death. Please pray for the Comforter to do His job during this time in Seth’s family. God worked it out so that we got to be there to comfort Seth’s mom and grandparents. Another random event; Seth’s mom’s breaks went out in her car, so we got to help her out with errands while her car was in the shop, once again God’s timing!

And yes, we were able to surprise Nicole’s parents on Thanksgiving Day and had a blessed time with them. Then the preceding day enabled us to surprise Seth’s mom and be with his family in this hard time. Side note; Nicole had the opportunity to help Seth’s mom decorate for Christmas. Nicole was quite sad that she would not get the opportunity to decorate a house, but then God provided even that small blessing and fun time.

As of this past weekend (21st), Seth has volunteered to take over as the new director of youth at our church in Kansas. This past weekend we had a kick-off on Saturday night where we played the game “break-in” and saw many kids from the community come; what an encouragement this was! Seth just lost his voice literally a day before the event and then had to deliver a message to many “excited” kids who just had Mountain Dew, hot dogs, and cookies (thanks to Mrs. Henderson). Praise God Seth was able to speak loud enough for the kids to hear him. Since we were starting this ministry as of that day, Seth chose to start from the beginning: Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God…” Seth focused on this part of scripture using facts and logic to impact this mighty passage.

After unpacking “the beginning” and “God” from the passage, Seth used the points he just taught on and showed how there is a God, and in that acknowledgement of God, we must live a life that relates to that God who is eternal, holy, and perfect. Seth really tried to hammer that point home to the kids. A belief in God should have actions that are dictated by that belief and really, in essence, believing that there is an eternal God that we must have a relationship with. This must be the foundation upon which every decision is based.

Sunday School: the next day in Sunday School…Nicole led some “icebreakers” to allow the group to know more about us in a funny way. Seth then picked back up with teaching in Genesis, walking through the first 7 days of creation. Seth hit on points from each day to show the uniqueness of God and the importance of His order within creation. Seth focused on the creation of man its uniqueness compared to the rest of creation: man is relational, has intellect, eternal, etc.… but in all that, Seth showed that man has the capacity to worship God, from his choices and actions. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not a “sin-bearing” tree, it was a tree that provided an opportunity for man to show obedience to God and to worship Him, as He deserves.

Seth also focused on the fact that mankind was created in the “expressed image of God”; do we live our lives as if that is true? Do we look at others in that light?

In both meetings, the youth seemed like they were following along and were engaged!

Pray for us as we seek God’s guidance in how to direct this group through meetings, activities, teachings, and through life-on-life opportunities with them.

Baby Kurt’s Twisted Neck and His Brace

We have a pet duck! He/she was born October 13th, this duck was born with a twisted neck (so twisted that its head was upside down). This caused the little duck to walk impaired, do circles, panic, have the family separate themselves from it, and even its mom was pecking at it as if she was going to kill it! Nicole pleaded and persuaded that we keep the duck in order to nurture it back to health! This little guy has given us joy as we watch it grow, be cute, and love upon it. God has also planned it perfectly that we could have this little guy right when we need something to help us as we are going through some various hard times. God has placed this cute little duck in our lives in order to help allow us not get down and discouraged too quickly, but to enjoy life and God’s creation amidst the hardness.

God allowed us to be there at the right time and day to get the duck, much later and there would be no blog about him because his siblings seemed to have disappeared. Also, the little duck is doing much better! After fabricating a makeshift neck brace and splint, its neck is almost back to normal. The little duck has also started swimming (2 weeks before he is suppose to!), and has doubled in weight! God can bring great joy in even the smallest of his creations. His glory will be declared in all things.

Also, as of Sunday (21st) the duck has been following us! It is so cute! Check out the pictures!

This past week we had many things thrown at us; our typical work load at school, social activities, a couple stressful events, our usual jail ministries, a trip to Kansas that begun Seth’s volunteer youth director position at our church where he taught, engaging with several kids from the community, Seth teaching Sunday school, Nicole had her monthly jewelry class with the ladies from church, all the while we both battled with illness and Seth literally lost his voice! But before the busyness came, God brought a little duck into our lives. He was cast out from his family because he had a severely twisted neck, so Nicole with her large and compassionate heart, desired to nurture this little duck to a healthy life (read the story on the next blog!).

School: This week we are still in grammar class and with each new class the study gets larger and larger with more and more parts thrown into the mixture. It is like trying to solve a massive puzzle and each day we get new pieces that look different from the previous pieces, yet they fit into the large puzzle somewhere, and don’t worry more pieces that look even more different with be thrown into the mix later! Expect it! Oh and by the way, you will never have ALL the pieces out there. That’s our job!

Jail: This past week went great! On the men’ side Dave (Seth’s teammate) taught through the first 9 plagues of Egypt. Then Seth taught on how God used each plague to directly attack the Egyptians worldview in every way in order to show that He is God and yet Pharaoh hardened his heart because he saw whom God IS! Seth continued by focusing on the Passover and showed that even during crazy situations you can have fellowship with God, and your freedom will come from the Lamb, but you can only receive that Freedom if you pass through the blood stained door (Jesus-John 10:9).

On the ladies side Nicole and Jinny are teaching through the life of Abraham and Isaac. They focused on the substitutionary death of the ram in the place of Isaac when God told Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son to Him. Abraham trusted God so much that he did as he was asked and God provided the ram to take Isaac’s place once He saw that Abraham’s faith was purified like gold. This is a foreshadow of the substitutionary death of Jesus’ death on the cross in place for us as the penalty for sin. The ladies are really seeing this connection!

Fizz Feud Youth Event at Bethel Church

We are in grammar class, but this class looks completely different from how I remember it in grade school! This class exposes us to many different and unique languages through worksheets and teaching. We have already been exposed to (in part) 20 languages. Each one is unique and functions differently, and we are not just talking about the meanings of the words but rather how they are structured and where they are placed.

We are learning what about the simplest parts of grammar (morphemes, the smallest part of a word) to what a discourse would look like in a different language. This class is very helpful because we plan to go overseas and work with a people group that no one else has ever worked with and the more “tools” we learn the better equipped we will be in order to learn a language no one else has ever learned. We are learning that God has placed an order even within languages; this is how we are able to learn these different languages. The purpose this ability is to ultimately translate God’s Word into that language so that another group of people can know God personally as their God, Lord, and Savior!

At our church in Kansas, there was a teen activity (fizz-feud) the weekend of (Oct. 13-15th) which brought many kids in from the community. The activities were fun, the food was delicious, and the messages brought from Brother Fischer were heavy. He focused on how everyone has a decision of where they will spend eternity (heaven or hell) and asked the kids which one will they will choose. Several kids professed a testimony of Salvation. Seth had the opportunity to talk with a kid named Christian, to see what he was challenged by from the messages and what he might have learned. The closing comments from Christian were, “Jesus is God’s gift to me for my Salvation” and he praised God and said “thank You God for your gift” (Jesus). Nicole blessed families by working in the nursery so that they could be involved with the “decision making” time after the messages.

Solar Electric System

The Electrical Hub with Grounding Plate
(FYI this is a long post in an attempt to explain a big concept)

Where do we begin? Neither one of us are savvy in the area of electricity, technology, or mechanics and yet we are going into tribal church planting which requires us to live in isolated jungles far away from anything familiar. We will need electricity to power our laptops for language learning and developing lessons, lights to read (and see), a freezer to have consistent food in

order to have physical energy to minister to the tribal p

eople, oh and we have to have clean water to drink, keep stored, to clean, and to cook with. We will have to learn many things in order to have a functioning house with the end

Soldering Alligator Clips

goal of being able to best serve in that foreign context. Obviously we can’t run electrical wires hundreds of miles from the USA, nor can we have giant windmills because they are far too

dangerous. Hydroelectricity is very sensitive and requires a mere perfect set-up with so much maintenance that it would be a full-time job just to maintain them. Running everything through generators can be expensive for a long period of time, fuel is very expensive overseas (as if it wasn’t bad enough here). Generators are relatively loud and many tribal locations are rather quiet which would cause disturbance to our neighbors and they also require frequent maintenance.

This leaves us with only one option: Photovoltaic Systems (PV) (also known as solar power). You say that is nice for during the day, but what about at night? Solar Panels make DC (direct current) electricity that can be stored very much like a battery (a battery is DC electricity). AC electricity is what we in America have in all of our outlets

Soldering

, lights; pretty much everything we have is AC electricity. The beauty of DC electricity is that it can be stored. The solar panels collect the energy and then the excess of which is not being used gets stored into giant 100lb batteries. A car battery is typically ¼ the size of these batteries. In this technology class, we are learning how to set up these systems and what appliances can be used on them along with how to maintain them. This has been a challenge to the comforts we have as Americans because of how reliant we are on electricity for everything and it has shown us how much we actually “need’’ and compared to how much is really a “comfort”.

First, we had to learn how to solder and de-solder because many if not all of the P.V. panel and other system connections get soldered. Soldering is long-lasting connection and provides great continuity between connections for electricity. Also, we are learning how to maintain batteries and in this process we learn how dendrites build up in batteries and that is what kills a battery. We will be learning how to slow down that process in order to preserve our batteries, so that we can get the most out of them.

We plan to serve on the foreign field long-term so we are preparing for many years at one time. We are learning all this because we see the value in discipleship and building up the church to maturity, as was Paul’s desire. He lived with the people he ministered among, he taught them from the scriptures (we have to learn the indigenous language, translate the scriptures first, and many other steps Paul did not have to do), built them up to maturity, appointed elders/overseers from that local assembly to then take responsibility of that congregation, and then moved on to the next location. This was his pattern of ministry. This is our desire as well. We were not given the gift of tongues (in foreign languages) so the process of living with the people will take longer before we can teach them. We will have to learn the culture and language of the people, and unlike Paul who was inspired by God and wrote to the people God’s Word, we will have to translate from another language into the indigenous language, present the Gospel from Creation to Christ (as Paul did) teach the people and bring them up to maturity in their belief and then have the elders take over and phase out. Then we would go to the next place (as Paul did) all of that to say this: it is a BIG and LONG process that will take time!  We plan on doing this for the rest of our lives so we are being equipped for a Big job which will take many years.