Home Sweet Home

It is going to be a while before I post again. the last 2 weeks have gone by so fast. We have been working from sun up until sundown on our house. I wish that I could show you more pictures but as it is I am running out of time. Tommorrow is our Move up day, the day that we move all of the stuff that we are going to be using for the next 4 weeks. Our house is finished, well, for the most part. It's livable anyway. I am very excited about living in a house that I have built and wired! We move back down on July 15 from now until then the only communication that we have is through snail mail.

We worked on our house a total of 10 days! Here are some more pics of our finished jungle camp home. Not bad, Eh?!

Day 5

Day5 Stove, kitchen counters, and shower drainage pit





















Glad we got that done , all but the stove anyway

Day 4 Rain and Hail!

Now that the roof is on we start on the stove















We could get more work done if it didn't rain




















And even MORE work done if it didn't hail...




















Still the work must go on




















even with the rain and hail we got a lot done

Putting on the roof

More Jungle camp building...
Day 3
putting the roof up and testing out the loft to see if it is sturdy enough..















Once the roof was up we had to staple it down. That can get a bit tricky!




















that was an all day project!!

Day 2 of Jungle Camp building

Second day of building...
6:45 am Julie is working on the ladder to our loft

I am working on the loft cutting of the long poles.

We had some help from some of the guys. they are helping us put up some of our ridge poles.

I am tying on the last of our ridge poles. The top or our house is 14 feet high.

Amanda, my roommate and I, are putting on our ridge poles. 30 inches apart seems about right.

By the end of the day we had our loft built and all of our rafter poles on. Tommorrow we put up the roof!!

First Day of Jungle Camp Building

Well, the first day of Jungle camp building was a long one. Our alarms went of at 5 am. We packed our lunch, gathered our tools and headed off to our site. we put in 13 1/2 hours that day and got much accomplished. Check it out...

6 am we headed up to our building site.













2 hours later we had our first wall up.



















here are my two roomates digging holes and putting in poles. and me notching for our loft.

End of the Day.. we have all of our main support poles up and part of our loft on.

Jungle Camp Preparation

We have started our jungle camp building For those of you who don't know Jungle Camp is a time in the training here at NTM when we design and build our own house then we live in them for four weeks. It is a time of preparation, patience and STRESS. We have 2 weeks to build our house and 1 day to pack all the things that we will need for the next four weeks.

My roomates and I have been planning our Jungle camp house for months now and the building has finally begun. Here are some pictures of our site and the preparation.


Here is the site
















Site Clean up... racking the leaves

Sorting our poles...

Moose on the Loose

A few days ago we were inturped from our class when a moose went running through the campus. We all ran to the window to try to catch a glimps of it, some even went running after it. Moose are rarely seen in this area so is was a big thing in small town Durham. This news paper article appeared in the paper. I hope that it is readable even though it is a little fuzzy.
If you click on it, it will enlarge and be easier to read.

Spring Break in Florida

I had a wonderful spring break. We had a week off and it was nice to have some time off for classes. 4 students, Jacob, Todd, Patty, my roommate Julie, and I (left to right in the picture)loaded up my Honda and set out Friday afternoon around three and headed to the New Tribes Mission Headquarters in Sanford, Florida. There was still snow on the ground and we were eager to get to warmer weather.


Our first stop was Niagara Falls. Night was coming on and and the cold prompted us to head south. We wandered around for about a half hour or so, climbed back into the tight car and continued south. My roommate, Julie, was eager with anticipation as we traveled because the farthest south she had ever been was Durham. We traveled through the night and were awoke by the occational announcements that we had crossed another stated line.

Morning dawned somewhere in Virginia or maybe North Carolina. We were all tired and cramped from the long nights drive. We stopped at a rest area and unfolded ourselves from of the car. We had a picnic breakfast of bagels and bread. The air was cool, the sun inviting, the flowers and trees were in bloom, and we enjoyed every minute of it. Some of us played Frisbee while others stretched out on the picnic blanket thankful for the space to stretch out. We all wandered to stretch our legs and take in the wonderful spring air and admiring God's wonderful creation. After a long while and a look at the map we got back on the road. We were half way there!


After several more hours of driving we were tired and hungry. I don't think anyone slept very well in the car. We stopped just across the state line in Georgia for lunch. The weather was warm and the trees were lush and green, birds chirped happily all around us, and even a few ants joined us for the picnic. After lunch we all laid out on the grass and rested. None of us wanted to get back in the car. We consoled ourselves with the fact that there was a beach about 1 1/2 hours away. With that in mind we crammed back into the car.


Georgia was new territory for most of us so we decided to get of the interstate and take the scenic route to St. Simmons Beach. We drove through the small towns looking at the scenery of the South. The highlight for the Canadians was the Piggly Wiggly store that we went into. They had never been in one. We made it to the beach in the late afternoon, all of us happy to see the water. It was windy and the water was cold but that didn't stop us from rolling up our pant legs and wading in it. We attempted to play volleyball but the winds were too strong so we all took to exploring the beach to see what we could find. A sting ray and a few jelly fish that had washed up on shore, hermit crabs and snails. Looking at us from a distance we probably looked like giddy 12 year olds not college kids.

We booked rooms at the Headquarters guest house starting Sunday night it was Saturday night when we got to Florida. We tried calling the guest house to see if we could bump the reservation up to that night but could not get a hold of anybody. None of us wanted to spend another night in the car so we decided to try our luck. We made it to Sanford at 9 pm, Saturday night, tired and weary. We called security and told them our situation, they in turn called the hostess, who thankfully informed us that our rooms were ready and we could certainly come a day early. Praise the Lord, a bed to sleep in and a shower! Tommorrow, the beach!

Two of Todd's brothers Tim and Jeremy met us in Florida. We had a pretty exciting group. We spent most of the week at the beach, taking walks, playing volley and frisbee, building sand castles, digging holes, going for walks, boogie boarding, and my favorite laying on the beach blanket absorbing the sun. When we went to other places to, the Daytona Race Track, Blue Springs State Park, NASA, or the parking lot anyway it was too expensive for us to get in.


We left Florida, Saturday morning, weary and tired from the wonderful week that we had. It snowed in Virgina and we almost turned around and headed back. We got back to school Sunday morning, the trip home was quite a bit faster and less eventful than on the way down since we didn't stop as much. The sun was shining in and it was warm, a nice welcome home. We were all thankful that it wasn't snowing! We all headed off to our homes to catch up on some much needed sleep. What a great week!

Spring is Here...?

A few of us spent our afternoon washing and waxing a truck the other day for work detail. We and a few days of sunshine and warmer weather but as you can see from the picture there is still a lot of snow on the ground. It was cold for washing vehicles but I think that we all enjoyed the sunshine. I don't think is is car washing season just yet. I thank God for the few days of nice weather that we have had and am looking forward to more.
Is spring here? Not yet but soon!

Trip to Waukesha, WI

On Sunday at 4 a.m, 19 staff and students loaded our bags into the 2 vans and headed off to the New Tribes Bible Institued in Waukesha, WI for 3 days. The roads were slick and the snow fell heavily in the early morning as we headed for the border. Driving was slow but I didn't notice because I was asleep most of the way. We drove in snow almost to the United States border. We stopped there long enough for the 2 European students to get visitor visa's then we were off again. As we crossed the bridge into the U.S. the snow was gone, the sun came out and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. I looked back over my sholder to Canada and saw a the wall of clouds and snow that we had just left behind it's nice to be back in the states.

We stopped on the other side of the border to get breakfast and fuel for the van and since the second van ran on propane we looked for that but didn't find any so we headed down the road. After stopping at a few more stations and being unsuccessful at finding any propane we asked some of the locals who directed us to a small farming town 6 miles off the interstate. We headed for the town and filled the tank, and drove the 6 miles back to the interstate. I didn't know that finding propane could be such and excursion.

Map Quest said the trip should take about ten hours so we guessed it should take us about 12 but with all the stops and detours that we made it took almost 14 hours to get there. We were all glad to get to Waukesha.

We spent the next two days encouraging the students to continue on in the mission training and answering any question that they might have. We had two 1/2 hour chapels, a coffee social and and a 1 hour question and answer time to explain to them what the second half of the training is like (Bible School being the first half and Missions Training, what I am doing right now, being the second half). I had a great time talking with students about the training that I am getting right now and what they could expect from it. I also got to see some old classmates and some friends. It was wonderful catching up on what has been going on in our lives. All in all I had a great time.

We left Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. I was not quite ready to leave. Being with old friends enjoying the warm weather, well, warm compared to Canada, and not having any snow. We spent a several hours in Chicago on our way back home. We did some shopping, some site seeing in down town and had lunch. We arrived home at 1 a.m, Thursday morning even more tired I think than when we left.

Please be praying that God will open the eyes and hearts of the students to see the need of the tribal people. These students may be the only hope that these tribal people will ever have of hearing the Gospel. Pray that God will guide them and prepare them for what He has for their futures and that they will be open and receptive to what he has for each of their lives.

Strange Weather!

We have had rather awkward weather this month. With 2 feet of snow on the ground we had thunderstorms and pouring down rain. The snow had a hard layer on top so the water collected on to and turned everything into on big skating rink. The power went out for several hours and we took the opportunity to play volleyball by the light of lanterns, flash lights and candles. After we played for about an hour we went to Tim Horton's for coffee. Yes the power was out but nothing keeps Timmy's closed. All in all we had a wonderful night of fun and games with fellow students and staff.