Our Family Hero

For those of you that don't know, this is Otto Koning.  He and his family served in Papua, Indonesia for many years.  He is well known for his Pineapple story and many other messages that have inspired us in more ways that we can mention right here.  Jeff and the girls were able to visit him in his home and knew that they had met a real-life hero.

Happy Letter

We are happy to announce that we received a letter from Pioneers International inviting us to come to their orientation in December.  This is a week long event held in Orlando, FL (their US base) where we get to know each other in person.  We we be in lectures for many days and I believe that there is a total of 6 hours of personal counseling/evaluation for Jeff and myself.  This is probably to make sure that we are who we have said we are and to see if we are indeed ready for foreign soil.  We also received a folder full of other evaluations to fill out.  Praise the LORD!

Good Counsel

If you have known the Youngs for any amount of time you might discover that we are not naturally inclined to go slowly.  Some people just seem to know how to walk through life at a steady pace, where as we seem prone to run.  We are slowing down in our "old age" and realizing that running ahead (especially of God's timing) doesn't get you where you want to go any faster.  So here we are thinking that we were taking things slowly - I mean we had looked into agencies for over a year - talk about slow in Youngsville, but God is so good to continue to hem us in.  Our recent hemming came from our church.  The elders and deacons met with us on Father's Day and after asking us many questions and listening very well (and long) gave us some very good counsel.  They asked us to wait until December (instead of July) to go to the orientation with Pioneers (if we get invited) and to put our house up for sale.  So we are happy to be hemmed.

Filling Out Our Application

We spent much of June filling out our application to Pioneers International.  This was the second, more in depth, application.  We also needed pastors' references and 6 personal references each!  I didn't think we knew 12 people that personally! :)  It was a funny turn of feelings for us as we spent so much time evaluating agencies and being cautious about jumping into any one before we were sure we had "sniffed them out" enough - that now we were just really hoping that THEY liked US enough after "sniffing us out" to invite us to their orientation.  We shall wait and see...

Who to Choose?

Many of you know of our struggle to know the best way to go. The choice at one point was between a small, new Bible translation agency and a larger agency without a specific Bible translation emphasis.  After much prayer and deliberation we have decided to apply with Pioneers, International.  “Pioneers” is a larger agency that allows for many different kinds of folks and ministry giftings to function under their umbrella of authority and vision of bringing the Gospel to the unreached.  They have served in Indonesia for many years and have contacts that can help our family become more easily established once on the field.  They seem to have many resources that will help us minister to the unengaged people group we have on learned about that needs the Bible in their own language.  

Thanks and and Update

Thank you for all your prayers and input over the last year as we were looking into full-time Bible translation missions.  You probably know that our desire to go to the mission field predates even our marriage.  For many years we knew we needed to put this goal down as we became strong as a family.  Since mid-2011 we have been seriously considering being missionaries overseas.  There have been many things to explore, investigate and pray about – more than we ever dreamed possible.  This journey has been longer than we anticipated, but we have learned much along the way.  God has been faithful to guide us past certain opportunities that sounded ideal, but proved otherwise after missionaries gave insight and other issues were brought to light.  We have seen God’s hand slow or stop our journey  through delayed or lost emails when we were looking in the ‘wrong’ direction.  Another example of God’s providence in our path happened during a brief family vacation, when we met people on an evening walk.  They invited us to their church, where the Lord had such encouragement for us and also some helpful guidance.  What a sweet Lord we serve!

No news is big news January 2012

Our apologies for leaving our blog unattended for so long!  In January , we decided to move into our rental 'garage apartment.'   Our apartment was not renting out as usual - very few responses.  We wanted to save money on our expenses and with the house not selling, thought perhaps a rent-to-buy option might work out well for us.  After showing it to a half-dozen people and families, we started moving slowly. Then a family came and gave a deposit.  Our moving pace quickened as we had a 1 week time to be mostly out of the house.
   Approaching the move weekend, Samantha had a thought of concern about moving large items that she shouldn't do that if she was pregnant.  She then confirmed that she was and is still pregnant!
With help of friends, the old house got totally cleaned (Thanks Candace!), and everything out of the upstairs two floors.  About 3 days after getting into our new apartment home, Samantha's nausea morning sickness began (as has been our pattern) and she was confined to bed and couch for over 2 months!
    Our church family ladies gave of their time and food and came to our house to take care of the children, cleaning, and providing many meals.
Our fourth child, now 17 weeks along, is a blessing we're thankful for.  We had thoughts of having our 4th child before leaving the country.  Our baby is due September 22nd.  We plan to not get an ultrasound exam to know more about our baby before the birth.

Regarding our desire to leave the country, we are submitting our desire and timing to God, and considering our steps from where we are to going into training.
the timing may change, but this seems to be some necessary steps.

Continued Bible training for Jeff; possibly more for Samantha as well
Skill training - Jeff will be in training for ESOL - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages May-June (4 evenings) - this can be helpful in ministry or job overseas.
*Join an agency and attend their candidate school.

   We are considering Pioneers International.   We've talked with the recruiter, and a wonderfully helpful missionary at home after many years in Indonesia, who is returning.  We are going to contact a few other families to hear how the agency works with families.

They have candidate schools in Orlando in July or December that we could attend.  Do we try to go quickly so we go before the baby is born?   Wait til December and go with a 2-month-old? wait til much later?    the only real hindrances to going in July are the need for someone to care for our children, and the financial cost of the school/room/board (and child helper).

Please pray for discernment of God's will and timing.  While we'd be happy to wait, we also believe we should start sharing our vision with others and making a widening circle of partners.  The agency we join is somewhat foundational to our mission, and the partners that will join us should know the agency we partner with.

Thanks for your reading interest and prayers!
Jeff & Samantha Young