Teaching Adventures

  • Struggles

    Missionaries are often put up on pedastals, but we are just real people with struggles and problems too.  I wanted to take a blog to share some of those so that you don’t get the idea that we are perfect, and so you can pray for us. Lately Ben and I have been getting stressed out about: finances, the school we are running, how to raise Cassie, and what to eat for dinner :).  
    We’ve been travelling non-stop since July and we can tell that is making us more sensitive and more argumentative than usual. It is amazing how life’s circumstances can affect all areas, like relationships. Also, Cassie and I are both sick with colds, and my neck has been tight and sore for days now. And so, overall, it has been hard to keep a positive attitude.
     
    Thankfully I have a refuge I can run to. I can identify with David when he writes Psalms 18:28-33
     It is you who light my lamp;

    the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.

     By you I can crush a troop,
    and by my God I can leap over a wall.
    This God—his way is perfect;
    the promise of the Lord proves true;
    he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
     
    For who is God except the Lord?
    And who is a rock besides our God?—
    the God who girded me with strength,
    and made my way safe.
     
    He made my feet like the feet of a deer,
    and set me secure on the heights.
    Thank you to everyone who prays for us. We know that God hears and answers. Life isn’t always this perfect bowl of roses, but God is faithful to help us endure. Thanks for listening (or reading!)
     

  • December 1

    This month went by SO fast! I remember thinking the
    first week, "How am I ever going to remember these peoples names; Gulzat, Sagan,
    Alibek…". But as we left on Saturday, these strange faces with strange names
    had become wonderful familiar friends. We were foreigners to their land but they
    welcomed us with hospitality and love. We in turn devoted our time and effort to
    giving them the best teacher training we could. Leaving is always hard but it
    was definitely worth going. And maybe someday our path will take us back to
    Central Asia. But for now we’re on our way back to Taiwan to get ready for our
    next Titus Training Time that begins the night of January 4.
     
    Lots of love, ABCD

  • November 15 – Getting Tired

    9:00pm is our regular bedtime, if we make it that
    long! 6:00am seems to come so early. It is hard to remember back in the day when
    I worked for WestJet and 6 am would have been considered a ‘sleep-in’
    day!
    This past week was jam packed with Rachel, Ben and I all teaching. I
    taught a new lecture I hadn’t taught before on learning styles. It was a
    lot of fun, and was a good reminder not to ask the question "How smart is
    Joe?" but instead to ask "How is Joe smart?" Don’t worry, I contextualized
    it by changing Joe to Asan (a popular name here). For many it was an important
    two days of learning so that they, as teachers themselves, will look for
    the potential in every student.
    Just as a reminder, we can’t access our email
    and facebook until we get back to Taiwan, so we aren’t ignoring you if you have
    emailed us or written on our wall, we just haven’t received it yet.
    In
    Cassie’s news, Ben cut her hair today for the first time. She looks a little bit
    like a monk with a bowl haircut. But to us she looks as cute as ever- isn’t that
    the miraculous part of parenthood!! No matter what everyone else thinks, to
    us she will always be the cutest little thing!
    Well, off to go buy some
    coffee to make in the french press that Katelyn bought for me. Thanks
    Katelyn!!!

  • November 9 – Week 2

    Things are going great. Ben will be teaching on
    Tuesday – The Basics of Pre aching. Angela has Wednesday & Thursday – How
    People Learn. Our 15 students taught for the first time last week – they did
    great but there is still lots of room for improvement. Can’t wait to see how
    they’ll do this week.
     
    We just changed homes, this is where we’ll
    stay for the rest of our time here. It’s a nice home and we’re sharing it with
    some other people. Cassandra is sitting up lots by herself, today was her first
    shot in a high-chair. No food yet, though, just sitting up with the big people –
    she loved it!
     
    It snowed here, good thing we grabbed warm stuff
    before we left! Hopefully, you’re enjoying your snow as much as we are ours. Ben
    ran outside, grabbed a handful and brought it inside when he first saw it. It
    was really nice, reminded us of home! Lots of love, ABCD
     
    PS. Thanks
    for "thinking" of us so often, we covet your
    "thoughts".

  • From November 5

    We are half way through our first week here. I shared yesterday and Ben did today. Both went very well! We have a great translator and the people here are amazing! They are warm-hearted and very kind – especially to Big C. We have 15 students who are all going to be travelling and teaching their own people! Ben and I were just saying yesterday how privileged we feel to be here doing what we are doing. Life is good.
     
    Our first few days here we stayed with a super nice couple and now we are in an apartment. There is no heat yet but the apartment is really nice with two bedrooms, an office, two bathrooms and a nice kitchen. We didn’t expect such a great place to be but we are thankful! On the 11th we’ll move to a different place where we will be the rest of our time here. We can’t put up any pictures yet, but when we get home at the end of the month we’ll show you this beautiful place.
     
    We can only update the blog from where we are and not anything else, so for the next month this will be Cassie’s blog too. She is doing great, she is sitting up really well on her own and she LOVES the Jolly Jumper that Chris and Lorne lent us. All this travel is getting to her though, she has been waking up at 4:00am since we have gotten here. She goes back to sleep after about 20 minutes, but it is still rough on mom and dad.
     
    Hope you are all doing well, time to go finish dinner, and feed Cassie hers.

  • We’re Off

    The bags are packed…well not quite! You would think after all the packing we’ve done this past year we would have it down to a science. Unfortunately..not so!
    We are off to Central Asia to train local believers how to teach their own people how to study the bible. It’s going to be awesome! We are going with our leader Rachel who has set the whole thing up! She works so hard, we are privileged to have her as our teammate and friend.
     
    We went to a beautiful place in Taiwan today, it is at the very north tip of the island. We’ll put up a couple pictures. It was fun to get out with a bunch of friends and be in the fresh ocean air of Taiwan. since we live in the city I often forget how beautiful this island is.
     
    Well, bed is calling. Tomorrow is a big day. Central Asia here we come!
     
    PS. The prayer opportunities have been updated – thanks for praying!

  • Home

    Home. For everyone that word brings up different images and experiences, places and people and of course, emotions. For us, the simplest way to describe home is like a big sigh. Everything melts out of you as you take a few deep breaths.
     
    We just spent 10 days at home. Sigh. We got to see all of our immediate family as well as nearly all of our extended family and even much of our church family. Many people made trips to Winnipeg specifically to see us – well, probably more to see Cassandra than us, but who can blame them. Sigh. Thank you all for taking time for us, to bless us and show your love, we really appreciate it.
     
    After more than 16 hours in the air (plus a few extra waiting in airports) we have arrived home – Taiwan home. Yes, this is also home. Sigh. Both of our homes have very special places in our lives and we would be amiss if we didn’t call both ‘home’. We are healthy, though rather tired as we begin the time change in earnest. Cassie is a little out of sorts, of course.
     
    But we all will soon adjust to being home again. Sigh.

  • Blessed

    Right now I am sitting on the lanai overlooking the ocean thinking about just how amazing God has been to me. After being out of a 1st world country for a year (Taiwan is pretty good but you still can’t flush the toilet paper) Hawaii is such a blessing, plus being able to see my best friend and spend time with her…wow! Not only that, but our time here is for more than just ourselves. We will be able to pour our lives into 40 students who are just beginning the 9 month journey of studying the bible. We will be teaching them through Ephesians and it is going to be awesome! We are also going to be doing an extra night to teach people how to involve others in their mission through communicating and fundraising etc. Plus we were asked to help promote Titus Project in the other SBS as well. Never a lack of things to do :) Thank you to those who are praying for the students. Teaching the bible is much bigger than just giving the students head knowledge to memorize, we need their hearts to be open so it goes deeper. For those in Winnipeg, we look forward to seeing you soon!!!

  • Typhoon strikes again…

    It’s true. Today is the final day that Typhoon JANGMI will be blasting our island. We couldn’t be happier considering the fact that we will be flying out in two days . A few weeks ago we flew in during a typhoon and it was really scary. We aren’t ready for that experience again anytime soon.
     
    The nice thing about a typhoon is that everything cools off! I am currently sitting in our living room and we don’t have to have the airconditioner running, and I don’t have sweat pouring down my face :) 
     
    One thing we are really looking forward to about being home (among many things) is the weather. We are hoping that the leaves will still be on the trees (Dad K.- don’t let the big wind come! Keep watching those squirrels) all pretty like the background of this webpage, and the grass will be green. We really miss being outside in nature. City living is convenient, but not as beautiful.  

  • Great friends

    Yesterday we went for coffee with our great friends Brett, Alison and Lana. They are Taiwanese and we always have such a good time with them.  We looked over Alison’s pictures because she recently got back from San Diego. She went there for a month to study English. Ben and I reflected as we walked home how blessed we have been to meet such great people here. We are so glad that God created friendship. What would life be without good friends?! 

  • Debriefing…

    I picked up the bottle of Coke and had this
    incredible urge to shake it…to shake it really hard!
     
    Just to clarify, debriefing is not removing one’s
    briefs but rather releasing the emotions and stress involved in cross-cultural
    experiences (and you don’t have to leave your city to have one
    of these). Similar to opening the bottle of Coke after shaking it. And just
    like it takes quite a bit of strength to open a very tight cap, similarly, we
    need to take time and effort to specifically open up ourselves so that the
    pressure can be released and we can return to normal life without the baggage
    but rather with clear minds and souls filled with joy.
     
    This week we have been debriefing. Living in close
    quarters, even with friends, wears on everyone, including us. Eating the same
    foods, having an inability to connect on a deeper level than, "Hi, my name is
    Ben", living out of a suitcase, seeing social problems but not having
    opportunities to fix them all, feeling the rich/poor gap even with friends…
    These, and many more things, are all part of the stresses that build up while on
    "outreach". And so we must take time and energy to talk about the feelings we
    have felt and the things seen and the relationship problems we have had and the
    good things we have experienced too. Then we can move on as healthy (well,
    healthier) individuals.
     
    No, we don’t have all the answers, we are learning
    too. But if you want or need some information on debriefing, need an open ear or
    want to know more, just give us a call, 204-977-2950 or shoot us off an email.
    We are glad to help in any way.
     
    So this week we have spent time opening the bottle
    of Coke, releasing the pressure, so that what comes out will be sweet and
    satisfying.

  • Busy as can be

    We have had an amazing week with lots of teaching! We’ve been at the YWAM base here in Erdenet, Mongolia. Robbie taught the first two days in the bible class (SBS) on the book of Titus, and then Ariel followed with teaching Ephesians for the rest of the week. Nate (with a little help from Ben, myself and Robbie) taught the week in the Discipleship class (DTS) on Hearing God’s Voice. Plus Ben preached in church on sunday, and I preached in the YWAM base meeting. Tonight our team splits up and teaches in three different small groups from a local church here. Whew! It’s been busy, but awesome! We’ve been listening to people’s life stories and enjoying the great hospitality that YWAM has shown us here. Yesterday I was even blessed to get a facial for only $5.00 (I got my haircut last week for $2.50). We are trying to get some things here which are much cheaper than getting them in Taiwan. Any ideas how to ship back a space heater for winter? :) It’s been awhile since we’ve gotten any comments- is anyone out there???

  • Beep, Beep, Beep

    Our alarm clock wakes up our team every morning.
    Bright and early we have prayer and preaching time. In Korea every church has
    morning prayer, some as early as 4:00am for those who work at 6:00am. If you
    speak to a Korean, they couldn’t imagine their church without morning prayer.
    Well, for us Westerners, getting up this early to preach has been a little more
    challenging. I won’t lie, I am happy to have Cassie to watch over as she sleeps
    until 7:00am.
     
    Why do we mention Koreans? Well, there is a Korean
    woman who came here and started this church. The church’s name is the ‘Jesus
    Loves’ church. She has also planted 6 other churches throughout Mongolia. These
    are the churches that we have been working with the past month. Since the
    majority of Christians in Mongolia have been Christians less than 10 years,
    there is very little leadership and so most of these churches don’t have
    pastors. The Korean pastor has started up a discipleship/training program for
    the young people in her church to try to raise up leadership, but in the
    meantime it is travelling teachers like us that have helped to disciple these
    churches.
     
    In personal news we are both healthy and enjoying
    leading a fantastic team of three teachers. Ben has also discovered that shaving
    cream is a great illustration that can be worked into almost every teaching! I
    have worn the same clothes for days (no laundry machines and no showers) and
    actually feel quite clean. I guess I am getting used to this life
    style. This week we look forward to teaching in an SBS (9 month bible
    school with YWAM) and a Crossroads DTS (6 month Discipleship school for adults).
    We will be staying in a little apartment with hot running water where we can do
    laundry and shower…can someone say paradise!!
     
    Thanks so much to all who have been praying
    for us!!     

  • A Resort Town … Mongolia Style

    That is what we were told to expect in Bain Boral, the little village we have been serving in this past week. It was an extremely beautiful place, it reminded me a lot of British Columbia. We actually were teaching three churches this week, one a short 30 minute walk from the main church, and the other was another stop further by train. At the main church and the church farther down the tracks we taught Bible Overview (basically story-telling the big picture of the Bible), we also walked to the church 30 minutes away and prayed for people at their homes. Here in Mongolia they drink tea with milk and salt added. We drank a lot of this in the villages. We also were given a lot of homemade yogurt, this stuff is soooo good!! Ben would add a bunch of sugar and then eat tons :) We have lots of stories from this past week, again too many to tell, but the people were very interested in learning the story of the Bible because they really have never heard it before. When they understand the Bible is simply a huge rescue plan between God and people and His desire for relationship they really can understand God’s love. Our team is getting ready for a lot of teaching over the next two weeks, we are excited to finish strong!

  • Week 1 Mongolia

     
    Sand whipping around our bodies we realized we were experiencing a sandstorm.
    We’ve been in the middle of the Gobi desert for the past week. There is a little tiny town here because of a nearby coal mine. Most everyone in the town works at the mine. There is a small church here planted by a Korean woman. She came here as a missionary and has now planted 5 churches all over Mongolia. The Mongolian pastor of this church became a Christian only 3 years ago and she is faithfully trying to disciple the beleivers here. She has a prayer meeting at 5:30am every morning, and services wednesday, friday and then 3 on sunday (one for adults, kids and youth). our team has spoken at all these services and prayer times, plus we have run 4 evenings of seminars teaching through the big picture of the bible and how to study the bible. We also have run kids times three days of the week. It’s been busy, but really good.
    The kids are so cute and have absolutely loved Cassie! one girl even gave her a pair of little moccasins. The culture here reminds me a lot of native culture in Canada. People in the countryside live in buildings called Gers (rhymes with hair) which are similar to Teepees and they are nomadic peoples following their herds.
    However, the Russians occupied here this country for about 70 years so the food is very similar to what my heritage of Ukranians eat. Every meal consists of onions, cabbage, potatoes and meat- just in different combinations.
     
    Obviously, you can tell from the pictures that we don’t have internet access in these villages so our next web entry will be in at least 1 weeks time. We are doing great, thanks so much for your prayers!! Our team is very unified, enjoying teaching and making a difference!

  • One story from our week in Malaysia

    There is so much I could write about from our time in Kota Kinabalu Malaysia but I’ll just tell one story for now.
     
    This week we have been teaching the book of Ephesians. Since it is a book about the unity of the church we had a building theme going from the first day. We had them build their own building from spaghetti and marshmallows, we also talked about the KL towers etc.
     
    This morning we finished the week with application and we talked about the church as a building. During a time of sharing one girl told us that last night she had a dream that she was given bamboo and told to build a building. After she finished I came up to her and told her that her building was long, but not wide and deep enough so if the wind came it would blow down. Then she woke up. She prayed and asked God what the draem meant and she felt like he said that she had not been building her life with the materials that he wanted her to and that there was something hindering her.
     
    This morning I handed out the application worksheet and the first question at the top of the page was ‘What is hindering you and the church from becoming the strong building that God desires?" She nearly fell out of her seat! God is still alive and at work in people’s hearts!
     
    We’re off to Mongolia tomorrow morning!

  • Perspective…

    A few months ago I wrote about perspective. I’m reminded again today of the same topic. Why you ask? Well, thanks for asking, let me tell you.
    (disclaimer- sorry boys for the awkwardness of the topic)
    I woke up with my left chest feeling very sore. I thought maybe it is just because I need to feed Cassie, but after feeding her I was still sore. Grabbing my handy ‘What to Expect in the First Year’ book I realized I may just have Mastitis (I won’t give details, if you are really curious look it up). The book makes it sound very scary- if you don’t get it looked after ASAP it could turn ugly and require surgery. I called Amy in Winnipeg and asked her advice, talked to my other friend Amy here and decided I needed to go to the doctor.
     
    Possible reaction #1? I am leaving for Malaysia tomorrow! Now I will be in pain flying and feeding. Why did this have to me happen now?
    Possible reaction #2? Thankfully this happened this morning and not tomorrow when I woke up to go the airport- what would I have done then? Plus my doctor only takes appointments two days a week and today is one of them. She was able to fit me in 30 minutes after I got there and now I have a perscription that will get rid of it before it becomes a major problem!
     
    God is so faithful, I see His care for me in the little details.
     
    Speaking of faithfulness, we leave for Malaysia tomorrow morning and we will be there for a week teaching locals how to study the bible through the book of Ephesians. It is an amazing book about our identity in Christ and the unity of believers. We are trusting that God in his faithfulness will use us to impact the lives of these students.
    We’ll be back in Taiwan for a day on Friday before heading out to Mongolia for a month so we will update the page again then!
     
    But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all?surpassing power is from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7
     

  • Birthday

    This last week I had my birthday. Angela had two surprises up her sleeve. She sent out an email to about a million people asking for a few special words to be emailed so that when I woke up on my birthday I would be surprised… and surprised I was! Thank you all SO much for writing and it was such a pleasure to get so many emails. As they were downloading I wasn’t paying attention and then I noticed a huge number of new emails and I got all confused and then it dawned on me, how did all these people remember my birthday (it’s really not that memorable). Anyways – thank you!
     
    The other surprise was that Angela hooked up Saturday night to go ice skating in the city. Yes, there are a couple of places you can go ice skating (indoors of course) here. So we met up with a couple of our Taiwanese friends. It was Brett’s first time and Lana’s second but they did so well, I was very impressed. I’m so glad I learned when I was young. Here’s a few pictures of our skating experience!
     
    Thanks Angela, you’re the best bride a fella good ever catch!

  • New Video

    A short video of clips from our Titus Project Training time is loading down the page, don’t forget to scroll down and watch.

  • Titus Training Time

    We’ve got our laptop back…
     
    So new photos from the training time earlier in July! Please enjoy.
     
    I guess I should give a little overview. The pictures highlight 3 things from training time. The teachings we give, how to prepare a lecture, how to present it, learning styles, Bible overview, teamwork. Second, we give time for preparation and practice so that teams leave ready to go! Finally, training time is filled with evaluation – because practice does not make perfect, practice only makes permanent (you might hear that a lot). Anyway, these three things fill three weeks of training so that two months of outreach are filled with effective teaching that builds up the church in places that desperately need it!
     
    Thanks for being a part of this with us! Together…