Fear

I'm scared.

I never have admitted that publicly, but it's completely true, and I want to be honest.

I'm scared of going on the mission field.
I'm scared of all the "unknowns" in my future.
I'm scared of being hurt by people that I care about.
I'm scared of leaving my family and everything that I've known here in the States.
I'm scared of being laughed at in another culture as I'm trying to learn language and culture.
I'm scared.

But God is teaching me the true meaning of the verse that says "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear."

God is perfectly loving. He has a good and perfect plan for my life that I can trust.  I don't need to be afraid. But a lot of times, I still am.

This song has been a huge encouragement to me recently:

Holy Spirit Have Your Way - Leeland

Long after the tears fall I'm still your child
I put down my defenses and lay down my pride
Love and forgiveness flow in deep and wide
So I run to you and surrender all!

[CHORUS]
As I lay down my life
And pick up my cross
What a joy it is to give my life away to you
All that I need,
All that I seek
Is You here with me
Holy Spirit have Your way in me!

In times of trouble, though trials may come
The rock of ages is standing strong
I'm fighting battles, but the war is won
So I'll run to you and surrender all

[CHORUS]
As I lay down my life
And pick up my cross
What a joy it is to give my life away to you
All that I need,
All that I seek
Is You here with me
Holy Spirit have Your way in me!

More of You and less of me, God
More of You and less of me, God
More of You and less of me, God
More of You overflowing

[CHORUS]
As I lay down my life
And pick up my cross
What a joy it is to give my life away to you
All that I need,
All that I seek
Is You here with me
Holy Spirit have Your way in me!
Holy Spirit have Your way in me!

Update on Classes

So this last week, we've had a crazy schedule. We had one specific class that lasted only this week, but it was 8am-5pm. We will finish that class up this afternoon.

We just started Animism class today. We've only had 2 hours, and it's been awesome so far! We're learning about the religion of Animism and how it will be impacting our ministry to unreached tribal groups. Most of these groups are animistic, even if they have another "cover" religion like Islam or Catholicism. Animism is the belief that spirits and impersonal forces control the world, and the people must manipulate and appease these spirits in order to have healthy lives, crops, and villages. If anything goes wrong, they automatically point it to the spirits. The people live in fear of these spirits.

In order to accurately and effectively present the Gospel to tribal people like this, we need to understand how they think and why they act the way they do. That's what this class is designed to do. We can only give them truth if we understand how to assess and defeat the lies.

Please pray for all of us with this new class as we want and need to understand the concepts for our future ministries overseas.

Spring?

It's funny how your mind plays tricks on you. Actually, this time, my mind had a legitimate reason to do so. Here's my logic:

1) It's March 21
2) It's the day after the first day of Spring (meaning it's the second day of Spring?)
3) Last Thursday, it was 68 degrees. Last Friday, it was 75 degrees
4) There are a few brave daffodils growing in certain places on campus
5) We already had two big snowstorms and therefore (in my southern, Georgian mindset) shouldn't have to deal with another big snowstorm in the same winter.

So as you can see, my logic was fairly sound.

Unfortunately, the outcome did not follow the logical pattern. A did not equal B, the chicken didn't lay the egg, however you'd like to put it.

We got another big snowstorm (well, at least it's big in my estimation). Just when I thought spring had sprung, winter decided to bite back, and drop a couple inches of snow on us. Well, really, it's only like 1 inch right now, but still... we're supposed to get more...

Oh well, such is life. And the snow is really pretty!

Field Fair and Q&A

This last week at MTC was Field Fair. We had missionary representatives from almost every field that NTM serves in come and talk to us. It was a very exciting time listening to what God is doing around the world through NTM missionaries. Actually, NTM is not solely focused on the remote tribal groups. They also work in countries where it is illegal or very difficult to share the Gospel. This means they work in tribal groups that may be closer to cities. It was interesting hearing about this work.

Through listening to the different missionaries, God further confirmed that He wants me to go to PNG, and I was able to get a TON of information about what life will look like for me over there.

I am sure many of you would like to know more about PNG and my future ministry/life there. I'd love to answer your questions, because I know it's sometimes hard to get a good understanding of what missionaries' lives look like overseas. If you have a question for me, please feel free to send it to me (either via e-mail ashlyn_farrell@ntm.org or via the comment box), and I will compile the questions and post them on my blog. I can't promise I will be able to answer every single question, but I will definitely try to find the answer! No question is too small! :-)

Field Health Practicum

We've had some fun classes recently! On Friday, we had an optional afternoon session for Field Health where we got to learn how to do basic medical tasks. I knew some of the stuff, but it was good to get time to practice! I LOVE medical stuff, and I hope to be able to help run and facilitate the medical program for my tribal team in PNG.

I got to stab people with needles! Always fun! :-)

Here are some pics:

Learning how to take blood pressure

Taking temperature... apparently with a battery-less thermometer

Giving shots! And no, she didn't die later or go into convulsions, or anything.

Classes

We just finished up Missionary Tech class last week (thank heavens!). While I do enjoy knowing how to wire the electricity in my house, how to maintain my solar panels and batteries in the tribe so that I can even have electricity, and how to get clean drinking water in the middle of nowhere (among many other things), I'm so nervous that I'm going to blow the entire jungle to pieces that I am immensely grateful for the students here who are training to be Tech specialists. They are the ones who will come out to the tribe when I move in or whenever I have a problem to set up or fix the techy stuff. Knowing my skills at problem solving when it comes to technology that isn't a computer (or lack thereof), I'll probably be calling them a lot!

Now that we're finished with that class (whew! i guess it's hard to tell I'm glad about that class being over??), we are starting classes in Grammar and Field Health. I'm extremely excited about the Field Health class! We are learning about basic medical care for tribal locations. I am very interested in doing medical work in the tribe overseas, so I'm wanting to learn all I can in this class!

Grammar is... interesting. I love the puzzle of figuring out the grammar in other languages and finding patterns. However, I'm getting all tripped up with the labels that we have for the parts of speech (nouns, verbs, etc). I'm terrible with identifying that type of stuff. We'll have this class for 5 more weeks, so hopefully I'll survive! :-)

The Little Things

So often, I overlook the little blessings in my life that God generously gives me. I've started keeping a list of things, and I was amazed at how many I could think of in a short period of time.

God recently provided a pair of warm leather boots, which have been a huge blessing with all the snow we've been getting. It's funny how having warm toes can mean so much. I never realized how much I take warmth for granted.

Another blessing is laughter
      And good friends
             Meaningful discussions about the complexities of life
                     Encouragement
                              Hugs
                                   Hot chocolate on cold days
                                         The five senses
                                                The ability to read and write
                                                       The smiles of babies
Blankets on chilly nights
       Delicious food
             Birds singing
                    Worship songs
                                Campfires
                                       Clean water to drink
                                               Mountains and hills
                                                       The ability to reason and think
Most importantly
       A God whose plans are always good and perfect
              No matter what trials I face
                    Who delights to give me the little gifts
                                Who delights to call me His daughter


Thank You, God, for the little things that I so often forget.