Conference and Pictures

Haven't been quite as faithful to post on here as I would like due to the internet situation here. Right now, I'm on the New Tribes base at Hoskins with my uncle, aunt, and cousins. We've been having a great time here! This weekend was the regional conference for the missionaries located in the outlying islands of Papua New Guinea. Then this week, there is a Church Planting Workshop for missionaries here. It's been fun attending the sessions and listening to the teacher, who is actually one of our teachers from the Training Center back in Missouri.

While here, I've gotten to connect with a lot of the missionary kids. They are a lot of fun, and it's been cool to interact with them and hear their stories. A lot of them are undergoing some REALLY stressful situations, and they just need to talk about what's going on. I'm so glad I can listen to them and get an idea of what missionary life is like for them.

Here are a few pictures from my time in Tigak:

Learning how to make brooms Tigak style

About to eat a typical Tigak meal

The Tigak church

Sunset from the island

Thanks again for your prayers! God is teaching me a lot, and I am very grateful for my time here!

Time in Tigak

Wow, I can't even begin to describe my time here. It's been incredible getting to see firsthand what I've been preparing to do for the last year.

The Tigak tribe is spread out among several islands in the New Ireland province of Papua New Guinea. They are a very laid back people. They enjoy laughing and hanging out with their friends. For a living, they fish. The men hunt with spears and the women use a line and a hook. Just today, I got to see several dead stingrays that several of the men had speared. Very cool!

I've been able to spend a lot of time learning about the Tigak culture. Since I'm staying with the single lady, Aimee, on the team (the team consists of two couples and Aimee), I've been asking her all kinds of questions about how they live and think. It's a lot more complex than you would imagine! For instance, pretty much everyone is related somehow. If your relative comes to you asking for help (money for instance), you have to help them, even if you don't have much to begin with. It's an interesting concept and not one that we have in America. Not wrong, just different. (Yes, that was a Larry Craig reference for all those from MTC).

I've gotten to do a variety of activities from weaving a mat from palm leaves to attending a Tigak church service to snorkeling to learning how to speak Pidgin (the trade language of Papua New Guinea). I've been able to see firsthand how missionaries over here work together on a team, learn to deal with culture shock ans stress, and disciple a baby church.

Speaking of church, the Tigak church is very small but growing! You can be praying for them. There are currently 13 believers in this village (which is about 250 people), and they want to reach out to their friends and relatives. They are still baby believers, so the missionaries here are working hard to disciple them in God's Word.

It's so sobering to me to see these people living in fear and darkness. The hopelessness and heartache run deep. One unsaved couple in the village got in a fight earlier today, and the husband ended up slicing the wife's shoulder with a machete. It makes me so sad to hear things like that, and yet it fuels my desire to be able to go overseas and share the Gospel with a people group like the Tigak.

Pictures are coming! I should be able to post them by the end of this week.

Thank you all for praying! I know Satan wants to distract and discourage me. But God is really teaching me a TON, and I am so thankful that He has allowed me to come here!

Hi from PNG

I made it safely to the Tigak tribe in the New Ireland province of PNG. It's been a really neat day so far. I got a tour around the village and got to see the ocean in the daytime (we boated out to the island in the dark last night), which was really pretty! It's raining right now, so I'm happy to be inside, listening to the rain pounding on the tin roof. It's a really comforting sound.

Travelling here was good, but I'm very glad it's over! I had 6 flights and 1 boat ride to get here (not to mention the boat engine stalled on our way out to the island), but it's been really cool to see God's hand through it all. He showed me how much He cares for me and is protecting me, even in things like getting a good amount of sleep on the 14 hr flight over and allowing us to sit in first class on the flight from Salt Lake City to LA (we got to sit there since it was the airline's fault that we missed our flight from Cincinnati to LA). :)

Thank you all for praying! It's a huge blessing to me!

Flight Fun...

So our flight out of Kansas City was delayed a bit due to weather, so we missed our connecting flight to Cincinnati by 4 minutes (go figure). It's so funny how Satan really tries to distract and discourage us from doing God's work, and yet God is so incredibly faithful beyond our wildest expectations. There was a flight leaving for Salt Lake City (and then on to LA) in 20 minutes, so the agents were able to book us on the flight and we were able to make it on! Praise God! So now we're in the Salt Lake City airport about to board our flight to LA.

Thanks to all who are praying! We appreciate it more than you know!

Flying over the Rockies (see the snow?)

Heading to PNG!

So for those who don't know, I'm flying today to Papua New Guinea for a 5-week trip to get more familiar with the country and people there. I'll be traveling with Josiah and his girlfriend, Rachel, though I'll be headed to a few different locations during my time there. I'm very excited about this trip! My first flight leaves in about half an hour and I'll have one more flight in the US before I get on the 14 hour flight to Australia. From there, I'll catch another flight to the capitol of Papua New Guinea, and then one more flight to a town called Kavieng. From there, I'll be picked up by boat to spend a week with some missionaries on an island called Tigak. It will be an incredible time of getting to know the missionaries and see how they live life there.

I'll try to keep you guys updated fairly regularly (and post pictures!), but I can't promise I'll have consistent internet. If you'd like to contact me while I'm gone, the best e-mail address to use will probably be ashlyn_farrell@ntm.org.

Thanks in advance for all your prayers for my time in PNG! I'm very excited to see what God will teach me while I'm there.

Last Day of Class

It's incredible to think that today is our last day of class for this semester. Time has flown by! It seems like I just started my first semester, and now I'm finishing up my second. I only have one more semester before I graduate!

Here's a picture of our class. It's so exciting to see so many individuals united together with the purpose of reaching the world with the Gospel!

A Fellow

Many of you receive my newsletter so you've already heard about Clint, but I also wanted to post about him on here as well and post a few more pictures from our time in Georgia.

God has brought an incredible guy into my life, Clint. He is in his third semester of studies here at MTC, so he's graduating this May. He was in Papua New Guinea for a year helping with various construction projects, and he really would like to go back there. Right now, he's planning to return to MTC in August so that we can continue building our friendship while I finish my final semester.

I'm blown away by God's goodness and faithfulness! 

TPR, Pig's Feet, and Cowboys

TPR
No, TPR doesn't stand for Toilet Paper Racing.

TPR is a part of our CLA (Culture and Language Acquisition) Class this semester. It stands for Total Physical Response, and it's a really cool way to learn a new language. Our class is divided into small groups, and each group is learning a different language. I'm learning German, and it's been really fun! Basically, we have several objects in front of us. For each object, we listen to a real person who speaks the language. We don't try to repeat the phrase because that can get confusing. We just try to recognize each object when we hear it. Then, we point to the object, so that our brain connects the visual representation with the sound that we're hearing. We've already learned a lot of objects, and, while I probably can't repeat them at this time, I can recognize them! Later on, we can try pronouncing, but it's often so hard to learn vocabulary and pronunciation at the same time. This kind of approach is similar to programs like Rosetta Stone.

It's been really fun so far!

German meal (wiener schnitzel) we made! YUM!

Learning objects with a native German speaker

More TPR

Pig's Feet (or Suturing)
Another fun thing I did last night was suturing! We learned how to suture using pig's feet, which was quite interesting. They have really tough skin (for all who were wondering). Here are some pics:

Suturing

Sutured pig's foot

Cowboys (and a few Indians)
This last Saturday, we had a campus-wide Western Party, which was a lot of fun! We played games, had a chili cookoff and pie contest, a cake eating contest, learned how to line dance (SUPER fun!!!), and I even learned how to rope like a real cowgirl (not that I was any good at it, but it was still fun!)

Learning to rope

So all in all, I'd say it's been a very diverse and fun week!

My trip home was such a blessing. It was great to get to spend time with family and friends and be encouraged with what God is doing in my life and the lives of others.

I've been going through the Psalms recently and listing characteristics of God. It's incredible to see who God is. I feel like in the past month and a half, He's been revealing more of Himself to me and more of how much He loves and cares about me. It's pretty insane.

And yet life isn't without its trials. At times, especially in the past day, I've been wondering why God allows pain and suffering in this life. Why does He choose to use heartache to grow us? It hurts. It's not fun.

But am I still willing to trust?

Our Biblical Peacemaking class has made me think about that some. Dealing with conflict between people is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life. It's so hard to admit your faults, to begin with yourself. To trust the results to God. And yet, God uses conflict in our lives to strengthen us and make us depend more on Him.

Crazy.

Update on Classes

I feel like I haven't posted about classes in a while. I guess that's because I haven't.

We've had a lot of deep, thought-provoking class sessions recently.

• Animism: Wow, so incredible! Definitely one of my top favorite classes here! I never realized the depth of the beliefs held by animists. They live in so much fear of the wrath of the spirits and gods that they worship. They do so many worthless rituals that can be so destructive. One case study that we had in class talked about a tribe where they have a ceremony in which they burn the skin of the dancers with torches. It's a part of the ceremony. The dancers don't die, but they suffer the consequences of the burns for months afterwards. It was so sad to hear about, and yet this happens daily in tribes all around the world. The darkness that exists outside of the light of Christ is so thick and deep and terrifying. 
• Folk Catholicism: This class was so good in conjunction with Animism. Catholicism is so focused on traditions, rituals, and saints. Many of the people we will be going to have been influenced by Catholic missionaries, so it's crucial to understand the basic beliefs of the Catholic church.
• Culture and Language Acquisition (CLA) Methodology (current): We just started this class last week, and it's been really cool. This class is continuing to prepare us for learning a new culture and language. We affectionately abbreviate this class as CLA Meth Lab. 
• Romans 12-14 (current): I've really enjoyed learning more about Romans 12-14. It's been so cool reading more about our responsibilities as believers, and trying to determine how we would explain these concepts to believers who had never had any background in Christianity. How do you explain "transforming your mind"? What about spiritual gifts? How does the Holy Spirit give you gifts? For that matter, how does He live inside of you? I'd never thought through some of these concepts on a simplistic level before, so it's been really good (and sobering) to think through the concepts in light of my future ministry overseas.

It's crazy to think that we have just under a month left here. Time has flown SO quickly in the last month. It feels like it was just Easter Break!