March was an interesting month.
It started off with Angie helping in the Scripture Impact classes that were being taught as part of the VISTA module. The focus was on equipping Sunday School teachers so it was right up her alley! Then she got sick and had to miss the last two days of class and spent the next week (including her birthday!) in bed feeling miserable. So it was good and bad.
Then after two weeks of delays Matt finally headed to Malo for the church conference meetings where he represented Pioneer Bible Translators and our team. The conference itself was good and he had lots of chances to work on language learning and building relationships. Unfortunately, he spent the boat ride home from Malo crouched under a tarp trying to stay dry and keep most of the water out of the boat. It was a bad end to a good week.
The next week was pretty normal (whatever that is) – getting the Bible translators back to their islands, working on some finance tasks for the team, homeschool, rain and more rain, etc.
The end of March brought two sets of teammates back – one from the States and one from Australia – and we had 3 days of team meetings. It was good to all be together again. A really good week but also really tiring. Oh, and there was more rain…and everything started to mildew…and then our washing machine broke….but I digress.
We do have one big announcement to make. At our team meetings Matt was appointed to be our Vanuatu Team Leader. We knew this was coming, but it still feels like a big step. Matt will be figuring out what all this entails over the next few months so please pray for him. As Gregory Ohrenberg was passing the torch – so to speak – to Matt, he told us about
this old commercial that he felt really expressed his sentiments. Take a look – it’s funny and touching all at the same time.
Thank you for sending us to Vanuatu. We appreciate everything you have done and continue to do to make this possible.
~ Angie (for Matt, Ethan, Aidan, and Lauren, too)