Our first Texas style rodeo!

Dan and I have now been enjoying Dallas, Texas for a week! We started class on Monday and have begun to learn a lot. We have a small class of 15 people. Some are like us and headed out for the first time with Wycliffe, and others are home from being overseas. It is a great mixture of people and we look forward to getting to know them. In addition to our group there are people here studying linguistics in order to be translators and to perform many other jobs. We were reunited with many folks from our training camp who are here for that purpose!

You may ask what are you studying?! We will have several weeks of different classes. The main focus is on management skills. This first week has been on self management. We each came up with a personal mission statement and also had to decide on a self management project this semester which we'll have to present to the class in December along with a paper. (It has been so long, I don't remember what to do with homework!) We haven't finalized what we'll be doing, but we'll let you know how it goes! Along the way we'll be covering many topics, along with having an internship in the afternoons. Dan has already recieved word that he will be in the Discovery office, which is where they plan and design short term trips from here. That will be perfect for him! My internship placement hasn't been chosen yet!

Aside from studying, we are making it our mission to explore Dallas! Tuesday, we went downtown and saw about 30 huge bull and cowboy statues in one park and last night we went to my first rodeo! It was the Mesquite Rodeo which is world known. We saw bull riding, barrel racing, other events and tons of people in cowboy boots and hats! My favorite event was the mutton busting. This was the opportunity for 7 kids between 4 and 7 to take a try at staying on the mutton (also known as a sheep:)!) The other kiddy event was they let any child under the age of 8 into the arena. Then, they let loose two calfs; one with a blue ribbon attached to their tail and the other with a pink! The kids had to try to grab the ribbon! It was very entertaining to see a couple hundred kids chasing these calves! More adventures in Dallas to follow!

Here we are enjoying ourselves!

God Blessed Texas

We were able to dodge Hurricane Charlie without making any changes in our plans, so we didn't really see much bad weather on the drive back. I've put together a mini photo album of the cruise, if you would like to check out what we were up to last week!

The day after we got back to Alabama, Ellen and I drove over to Dallas to settle in for our four months of schooling here. We've gotten everything unpacked and have made our first run to the Super Wal-Mart, so we should be set to go for a little while.

Phone call from Nassau, Bahamas

Grinnell/Brooks Family Vacation

Tomorrow morning, we are getting up early to leave for a trip that Ellen's parents have been planning for quite a long time. Since this summer was the last stretch of time that was available for all of their children to get together before we leave for the Philippines, they wanted all of us (which now includes me--sweet!) to take a family trip together. So, they booked a four-day cruise to the Bahamas for all of us, and tomorrow morning we will be road tripping down to Port Canaveral, FL!

Packing for the trip was pretty tough for Ellen and I, because we will be leaving for our training in Texas the day after we get back from the cruise. Since we are going to be gone for four months, we had to pack just about everything we own--but only the things that would fit in the Malibu. Yep--that meant a lot of pairing down, but we feel pretty proud for getting rid of stuff that we only thought we needed before. Of course, most of our stuff that we are leaving behind is in storage here at the Grinnell's, so we aren't completely letting go of EVERYthing.

We'll try to keep in touch throughout the cruise, which might mean that posts will get a little more creative, since internet will be limited!

100,056

We traveled to Atlanta last night to see my brother, Will, and his family. Somewhere on the way back to Alabama, Ellen's Chevy Malibu rolled 100,000 miles. So, right now we are in Auburn, helping her brother, David, pack his apartment so that he can move into a new one when we get back from the the Grinnell family vacation. More on that later!

I, Missionary?

Ever have that feeling that you are just way in over your head? Just being called a "missionary" has made both Ellen and I feel that way. It's not that we don't like the term, but sometimes it just feels awkward and weighty. Then we begin to feel that we aren't "spiritual" enough to be called a missionary, or that we don't pray enough or read our Bible enough.

Fortunately, we have seen that many of the great Biblical patriarchs struggled under the same feelings that they were ill-suited to do God's work. Like Moses...standing before the burning bush, telling God that he couldn't do what He was asking. Moses was just a shepherd--all he knew was how to watch over sheep. Now he's supposed to stand before Pharaoh and convince him to release all of his slaves? I'd feel a little out of place, too.

We're sort of in the same place that Moses was; we're heard God's directive, yet we feel so incapable. We've learned that the best thing to do at this point is to throw caution to the wind and jump in with both feet. Just do what He asks, and let him take care of the details. Feeling unsafe and doing God's work is better than feeling safe outside of His work. Jesus's disciples were just fishermen and businessmen. They were not disciples because of their wealth of knowledge or their piety--they were disciples because Jesus asked them to follow, and they did.