Browsing the blog archives for February, 2005

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Adam's Updates

Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Grantsburg, Wisconsin

Dear Family and Friends,

It is really hard to believe that almost an entire month has gone by since my return to the States on January 26th. The days have been fruitful and full of opportunities to reach out to others. It is amazing how spending some time in ministry overseas changes your perspective. I do pray that the Lord will allow me to keep a ministry focus in my “Jerusalem and Judea”, not only in the “uttermost parts of the earth.”

As I was preparing for my return to the States, I had arranged to spend a couple weeks at the Character Training Institute in Oklahoma City. I figured that the extra time there might allow me to spend some time with Isaac, Rachelle and David, since I would not see them much at the farm.

I also wanted to take the opportunity to give back a little to the ministry that the Lord has used so much in my life over the past several years. I had the opportunity to work with Jonathan in the computer department all the time that I could over the two weeks that I spent in Oklahoma City.

God’s amazing timing was again seen in an unexpected message from Mongolia. A few days after I arrived in Oklahoma City, Jedidiah from the Mongolia team let me know about some warning signs that the hard drive on our main computer there was probably failing.

We worked together for the next several hours to get the data transferred to another computer and backed up in case something catastrophic happened to the ailing computer. This proved very timely as the hard drive failed completely on the following day!

It was so neat to see the timing in all of this! Because of the early warning signs we were able to get things moved and transferred with zero data loss! That is an unusual blessing with a hard drive failure.  🙂  My recent experiences with the hard drive on Tim’s laptop also prepared me to more efficiently assist Jedidiah in handling the situation.

While in Oklahoma City I was also able to replace the hard drive from Tim’s laptop and get the software installed and set up again before sending it off to Rebekah Myrick who was heading over to Mongolia a week later. We could hardly have planned it better to have the laptop repaired and hand-carried back to Tim.

Spending some time catching up with a number of people in Oklahoma City was an added blessing to my time there. Even Timothy Crawford that had helped us at MIU in Mongolia earlier last year stopped by to hear what was happening in Mongolia.

I had the opportunity to share a report on what the Lord has been doing over in Mongolia, and on Monday evening about 70 people gathered to see over 200 pictures as I tried to briefly describe the work and opportunities before us.

Flying back from a training conference in Indianapolis, the arrival of my younger brother David brought the entire family back together for the first time since March of last year. We traveled a few hours south to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to spend a week together at a beautiful cabin that some friends most graciously allowed us to use.

We enjoyed beautiful weather as we spent time together hiking through the woods, fishing in the stream, jumping across rocks, and roasting marshmallows over a campfire. A park area in town was the perfect setting for those long-anticipated family volleyball and soccer games, and the small lake gave the younger ones a chance to actually catch some fish.

Lydia was following our instructions to carefully watch her bobber floating in the lake, and finally she told me, “Adam, can you watch my bobber for a few seconds? My eyes are getting blurry!” “Okay, Thanks! They are better now.” Sometimes they take our advice a little too seriously…  🙂

Homemade tacos accented by a few bites of fresh bluegill was a treat for everyone, but it was just nice to be together. The last couple miles of our hike, and finishing the dishes in the kitchen afforded some great opportunities to talk with each other.

Returning to Oklahoma City, we left Isaac, Rachelle and David to continue their work there while the rest of us departed at 4:00 AM on the 19th for the drive back to Wisconsin where I was scheduled to preach at our church the next morning.

The Lord again gave grace as I finished my outline on Sunday morning and preached on the love of God that always gives what is best for His children.  That afternoon I shared a Mongolia presentation with several families from the church. We didn’t have a projector, but Dad’s laptop screen was large enough for most everyone to see pretty well.

It has been really special to see how my younger siblings are growing and maturing. Even Samuel was showing a new sensitivity as he tried to get my bed ready for me and turned off the light so it wouldn’t shine in my eyes as we got ready for the evening.

All of my younger siblings have been really excited to have me home, much more than I had anticipated. They have been asking about building a snow fort, and Lydia wants to show me the barn and the animals.

This morning as I was finishing some Bible reading, several of the younger ones came in to my room to talk with me. “Adam,” Matthew spoke up, (he will be turning 7 next month) “where do you think is the best place to be?” “Well,…” I said, and gave a subconscious answer as I read through the next few verses. “Do you want to know where I think is the best place to be?” he continued, “In Heaven.” “But it would be good to go to Mongolia, because then they can go to heaven too.”

On Tuesday I shared another presentation with several families from the area. God really answered prayer and made that the best one so far. Even the projector failing half-way through gave a good chance for an intermission. I had some very good discussions with different ones on how teaching character lays the foundation for sharing the gospel.

Coming up to me afterwards, one little boy said “I know a verse that sounds like what you said in your prayer.” He went on to quote John 3:16. I had to smile as thanked him for sharing that. It wasn’t very many years ago that I was the 8 year old boy, talking with the visiting missionary.

Getting things organized here at the farm, catching up with family and friends, helping out with projects on the farm, building snow forts and playing cars with younger siblings and working on several computer projects for Australia and Mongolia looks like it will make this a very full couple months at home.

I am so excited to see the divine appointments, opportunities to share with others, and so many things that God is opening up here! I know that this is exactly where the Lord has me right now, and it is exciting to see His blessing in answer to the prayers of His people.

Also, I should mention that right now the tentative plan is that I will spend a couple months at the farm with the family, then head back to Mongolia in mid to late April.


Praise Points:

– Praise the Lord for the very productive and fruitful time in Oklahoma City, and the memorable week together as a family.

– I am grateful for the continuing opportunities to invest in the lives of those around me. It is really exciting to see what God is doing here in Wisconsin through my family and others over the past year.

Prayer Requests:

– Pray that the Lord would continue to give me His wisdom as I seek to maintain balance in investing my time and energies between the family, farm projects, personal projects, and continued work for the ministry abroad.

– Our family is traveling to Indianapolis this weekend to attend the wedding of a friend. Pray that the Lord would use us to be a blessing and encouragement to those around us.

– Next week I am planning to do some research and look at purchasing a number of hardware and software items for the CTI-Mongolia office. Pray that the Lord would give wisdom in making the best use of our resources as we prepare for the expanding needs in computer equipment.


Pictures:

Together at last. The whole family posed outside the Oklahoma City Training Center for a family photo.

The cabin in southern Oklahoma provided a wonderful opportunity to spend time as a family, and the weather was beautiful. It was really hard to believe that we were doing this in February!

Isaac bought a fishing license and some bait so he could help the younger ones at the lake. They enjoyed catching about 10 small fish which Isaac carefully prepared for dinner that evening.

Instant Messaging and phone calls are great, but the real thing is even better.

All the children pause for a picture before jumping across rocks up and down the creek.

Building snow forts in the back yard with your younger siblings can be just as important of a ministry as mission work in Outer Mongolia.


Thank you for your continued prayers! Location changes, but opportunities for ministry and outreach are just as real.

In Christ,

– Adam

Adam Waller ~ MyAllForChrist@CadLinx.com

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if
we faint not.” – Galatians 6:9

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Happy reunion

Adam's Updates

Tuesday, February 1st, 2005
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Dear Family and Friends,

I had intended to send one more update just before leaving Mongolia, but an unexpected computer issue kept me quite occupied right up until the time that I left. Maybe I can start with a brief summary of my last week in Mongolia.

On Wednesday evening, Tim and Angie went out to the airport to welcome George Mattix on his very first visit to Mongolia. As the director of the IBLP International Department, Mr. Mattix was on his way back from Hong Kong and the Philippines, bringing exciting reports about what God is doing in these branches of the ministry.

The next morning I started the Teacher Training Course in our classroom while Mr. Mattix, Tim, and Angie went to the government office for meeting with Naran, one of the city leaders that is over all the social work in Ulaanbaatar.

Hearing reports of what is happening with the orphan ministry in the Philippines, the meeting continued for most of the day as Naran drove Mr. Mattix, Tim, and Angie to two different orphanages in Ulaanbaatar, giving them a personal tour of each.

They arrived back at the apartment just in time for the Thursday evening Character-English classes. The next morning started off with the Teacher Training Course again in the morning, and that evening we had a dinner with our pastors and several other Mongolian coworkers and friends, concluding with a hymn sing.

Saturday morning Character-English classes began the weekend, and in the afternoon we visited the Mongolian ger where Dumaa, Sahiaa, and their family live, and then we toured the New Tribes Mission headquarters building.

It was quite fascinating to see how they heated the 10,000 sqr. foot building. They have a special furnace that burns used oil from the old locomotive trains. A very inexpensive alternative to coal, they are able to heat the entire facility for about $1,000 a year! A sudden power outage there in the basement made me again grateful for my key chain flashlight as we found our way out of the darkness into the light.

Mr. Mattix taught a Sunday school lesson, then preached for the main service at Holy Way on Sunday. Puja did a great job translating, although we had to smile sometimes as we realized our new awareness of how much we as Americans tend to use idioms in our speech.  🙂

All in all, I think that Mr. Mattix was able to get a very good taste of the work here in Mongolia, and will be able to report back to IBLP headquarters with better information for ideas and decisions. In a final meeting before he left, he told us “I had no idea of the scope of the work that you all are doing out here.”

The next few days went by very quickly as I tried to wrap up some final things before my departure on the 26th. Among these projects, I thought it might be nice to add some more memory to one of our main computers. This is typically just a five minute job of turning the computer off, plugging in the memory, then starting back up.

Well, shall we say that this time it was not a five minute job. 🙂  I tried plugging in the memory but the main computer did not like it. (I had purchased 133mhz speed memory instead of the 100mhz type.) I thought it might work in one of the other computers instead, so I tried it in one of the workstations. Instead of beeping with a message about the wrong type of memory, this computer stopped responding completely.

In the hours that followed, it became clear that the main circuit board in this other computer had taken a fatal memory lapse, so to speak. I got to make one more trip to the computer store for a new main board, and the evening before I left the Lord allowed me to finish getting that computer up and running again. The failed hard drive in Tim’s laptop made it all the more important to have the five other computers in running order when I left.

Even with the busy schedule and projects to finish, the Lord still allowed for some good opportunities to spend time with people before I left. That Sunday afternoon, a young man from our church invited the three of us young men to come over to his apartment and join him for lunch. Having spent several weeks working with a Christian ministry here in Mongolia, Andre’ was headed back to his home in New Zealand in a few weeks.

Sharing some simple sandwiches, we had a most profitable discussion on spiritual things. How do we study the Bible? How does a person find God’s direction in life? It was neat to be able to share from our lives some of the things that God has been teaching us over the past several years.

On the mission field it is often easy to forget that the missionaries themselves are sometimes are just as much in need of encouragement and good Christian fellowship as the nationals. Rather than jealous competition with one another, there is a great blessing in working together as a unified body.

Of my flights back to Oklahoma City, probably the most notable event took place in the Chicago airport. Arriving at 4:30 in the afternoon, I had a few hours layover before my flight to Oklahoma City at 7:50 PM. I spent some time walking around, bought a couple hamburgers for supper, then settled down in a quiet spot to catch up on some journaling.

As I was sitting there in a quiet terminal, I noticed a couple young men across from me, talking on the phone. They looked clean cut and well dressed, and then I noticed their little name badges. We had seen some Mormons in Ulaanbaatar, and my heart went out to these two young men. They were probably close to my age, a little younger perhaps, and likely going out for their two years of service.

Looking at my watch, I prayed that the Lord might work out an opportunity to talk with them, and possibly be able to share some truth from the Word of God. About 45 minutes later, my flight was scheduled to start boarding, and the guys were still talking on the phone. I decided that the Lord must have had another plan for them, and gathered my bags, I started walking to the gate.

Arriving at the gate, I discovered that the plane still had not come in yet, and the flight was delayed an hour or so. That is interesting, I thought, and walked back to where the Mormon guys were still talking on the phone. A little later one of them finished, so I went over and introduced myself. He was on his way to Moscow, I learned, for his two years of service.

I asked him a little about his family, and told him what I had been doing in Mongolia. He seemed quite open to talking, and responded to a warm, friendly attitude of genuine interest and concern. I told him that I was a Christian, and began sharing a little about my faith.

The Lord really seemed to guide the conversation as I shared about Christ being the full atonement for our sin. All the religions of the world are based on man trying to be good enough to have a relationship with God, while Christianity reveals a God who so loved the world that He gave His Son to reconcile us to Himself.

As well as they could, the two Mormon guys tried to explain how we need to prove our faith by our good works, and try to earn back a fellowship with God. It was a little more difficult for them as I continued gently probing them to show me from the Scriptures where we need to do something to earn our salvation.

Again, there was such a neat spirit about the whole conversation. There was no arguing or defending opinions, no taking up offenses, just a genuine interest in revealing the truth. “Where are you basing your faith?” I asked again, “Is it in what some man said, or is it in the timeless and changeless perfect Word of God?”

More than just feeling or impression, I want my faith to be based upon the Word of God alone. All around us we see groups that have added or taken away from the Word of God, and have been led astray by the enemy. “My greatest desire for you,” I shared with them, “is that your faith would rest not in the wisdom of men, but in the eternal power of God’s Word.”

Their flight was about to begin boarding, so we shared a few more final thoughts before they had to go. It was so neat to see how the Lord brought Scriptures to mind that revealed the deception in what they believed. Isn’t that why we are exhorted to study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth?

I trust that God will use this conversation, and while I may never know the outcome, I don’t believe that our talk will be quickly forgotten. They allowed me to pray for them at the end of our talk, and I continue to pray that God will open their eyes to the truth of His Word.

There will always be people who can win a debate, or defend an opinion, but it is not so easy to silence a conscience that bears witness to the truths of God’s Word.


Praise Points:

– I am grateful for how the Lord allowed me to wrap up some complicated computer issues before I left Mongolia. These would have been much harder to deal with if they would have happened a few days or weeks later.

– I praise the Lord for a very fruitful and special time in Mongolia over the past ten months. Many memories and joys, many lessons and challenges, yet a personal testimony of God’s grace to help in time of need.


Prayer Requests:

– On Monday evening, February 7th, I have the opportunity to share a report of my time in Mongolia to the staff here. Pray that the Lord will allow the details to come together for this, and that it would be an encouragement for the ones that “stayed by the stuff” to make this work possible.

– Here in Oklahoma City, I am spending a couple weeks working at the Character Training Institute, (Character First! Headquarters). Pray that the Lord would give me wisdom in making the best investment of my time between family, staff, Mongolia, and work projects.


Pictures:

Snow removal is a little different in Mongolia. Here you see some workmen chipping up ice, then sweeping it away with straw brooms. One asked me what was wrong that I wanted to take a picture.  🙂

On the shores of Mongolia. Well, not quite. 🙂 Our dining room mural made a nice background for a last picture with pastors Enkhee and Dugermaa.

Mr. Mattix had his first opportunity to visit a ger on his four-day visit. Dumaa and Sahiaa’s mother made some fried bread and a hot yogurt type drink for us.

This is how running water works in most gers. Conservation and recycling are learned by those that frequently carry water.

A Chinese catering company loads the meals onto a jet for an International flight.

A happy reunion in Oklahoma City. Isaac and Rachelle drove out to pick me up after my delayed flight got in at about 1 AM.


Thank you so much for praying for me over these months!

In Christ,

– Adam


Adam Waller ~ MyAllForChrist@CadLinx.com

“And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if
we faint not.” – Galatians 6:9

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