An Interview with Amy

Why do we do what we do?  We thought some of you would be interested in hearing the story behind Titus Project and how it all got started.  This interview takes us back to 1996, when Amy was in her 2nd year of SBS staff and tells how the vision for Titus Project came about:



Little did I know back then where we would be today!  God is so amazing and continues to give us so much vision!  Currently, Titus is operating in 4 locations, with 2-3 more coming this next year.  We have trained over 300 new Bible teachers, and have sent out 110 teams to 42 different countries.  We give God all the glory and feel humbled & privileged to serve Him by equipping and sending more Bible teachers to the nations!

What is Titus Project?  Here is a great 3-minute visual overview! (Dec 16 post) :-)

I'll Be Home for Christmas

A better title would probably read, "I'll be at home for Christmas" -- and this would be referring to our kids.  Christmas is not a nationally-celebrated holiday in Taiwan, and as such, if it falls on a normal weekday, it is also a normal school day.  Can you imagine going to school on Christmas day?  Well, we can't really either, so for the past several years, have requested our kids to be able to skip school on Christmas day. :-)

We are looking forward to some family fun & hanging out with friends.  Merry Christmas everyone!

And... She does it again!

Apparently our kids think we should be on a first-name basis with the ER staff at the hospital...

Anaya has just been in for her 3rd set of stitches on her face this year.  Kenna was in for stitches above her eye just weeks previous.  The only one of the kids to not have stitches so far is Nathan!

Counting the Cost

Several nights ago, as I was putting the kids to bed, they wanted to hear a story -- so I told them about winter time growing up: building snow forts, playing outside for so long we'd get frostbite, and Grandpa hooking an inner-tube up behind the 3-wheeler and taking us for rides!  What fun times and fun memories!

The girls were so jealous.  Three of our kids have never experienced snow, Elise was too young to remember.  "No fair!" "Ni hao hao oh!"  "Mom, can we go back in the winter some time so we can play in the snow?"

This evening, as I was looking at our blog, wondering how/what to update, I noticed Seth & Joy had a new video post.  So, I watched it:



It almost made me cry.  These are the kinds of things that when you watch them, it makes you realize the sacrifice of being away from family.  The brother, sisters, nieces, nephews you haven't seen for nearly 4 years.  A niece and two nephews you've never met.  I think of the whole Christmas season and the excitement of hanging out with family, eating food, playing games together, the Christmas grab bag, sardines at Walmart (a game)...  and know we'll miss that ...again.

Being so far away from family and friends in the States & Australia is definitely hard at times.  We do feel the cost of overseas missions.  However, we also feel such a burden and a passion and a calling to be doing what we're doing -- we feel humbled and honored to be in Asia, training up more teachers of God's Word and sending them out to the nations!  What an incredible privilege!

We are really looking forward to our furlough in the States coming up this summer.  We probably won't get to go sledding and inner-tubing behind the 4-wheeler in the snow (unless there's a blizzard in July!), but I'm sure we'll have lots of fun! :-)

Be Inspired!

Here is the Titus Project video that Kerry Neve (leads Titus Montana) put together for us as an overview of Titus Project.  We have watched it several times and I get re-inspired every time.  Michael & I are both filled with so much vision and excitement for Titus.  The journey of leading Titus is often challenging -- stretching our faith, requiring lots of time and hard work, but what a privilege and honor to be training up and sending out more teachers of God's Word!

The video is only 3 minutes and is a good visual of what Titus Project is all about! :-)

Overwhelmed!

There is something I've found myself wishing for over & over, but haven't gotten that miracle-I've-been-praying-for yet: 48 hour days! :-P

After returning from Australia, Michael dove back into SBS staff, the kids all went to school, and I dove deep into Titus logistics,  -- and we've barely come up for air since!

The past few months, lots has happened!!! We've both been teaching, and we have 24 people applying to come do Titus in January! I have sent out hundreds of e-mails to numerous countries, contacts, Titus applicants -- trying to get everything organized for the training time and outreach.  We'd love prayer for God's strength & grace as we're in a very busy season, with things only to get busier come Titus (January)!  Even though busy seasons can get a bit overwhelming at times, we're still doing great & looking forward with excitement and expectation to all that God continues to do!  Thanks for praying! :-)

Weekly Workout

So, I've been getting a good workout every Tues morning for the past couple of months!  Not a physical workout so much (except that the action songs should probably count for something!), but rather a Chinese workout.  A lady in our church started up a 'learn-an-English-song-and-do-an-activity' play group to reach out to non-believing moms & their kids in our local community.  She asked if I could come help for two hours each Tues as she is expecting and found the action songs to be getting a bit more difficult.

Every Tues morning, 15 moms and their kids show up (there are more who want to come, but we have to cap it at 15) and we sing a song, learn some actions, and do a craft/activity all together.  Afterward, the ladies divide into two groups and we read through and discuss an article (Christian, with a Bible verse) that speaks practically into daily family life.

It's been good.  I've enjoyed meeting more moms from the community and it has helped my Chinese a lot (since we're not taking classes anymore).  I find that I can hardly go down the street anymore without running into someone I know.

This past Christmas season, we practiced, "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Jesus Loves Me" for several weeks and then sang them in front of the whole church.  For many/most of them it was their first time ever to church -- and of course, since they were performing, we had each of them invite the rest of their family & extended family to come see. :-)  Several have ventured to Sunday school with their kids in the past couple of months -- we can all pray that God works in their hearts and draws them to Him!

Philippines: Here we come!

We have been debating, talking about, and praying whether we should try to lead one of the Titus teams for the upcoming January program.  In the past, we haven't really considered it that much -- the Titus teams we send out are usually made up of 2-5 people.  So, with us at 6 -- we are a whole team just by ourselves! :-P  We know we would one day go again, but being in the middle of a season of very young kids and all that that entails, we just didn't feel the time had come again yet.

However, as we've been praying about various locations, and as we are in desperate need for more Titus staff outreach leaders, we thought maybe we should just go for it this time.

Today we found out that the girls have an extra-long winter vacation, as Chinese New Year falls a bit late this year -- and it's perfect timing for when our outreaches go out -- so we've decided to do it!  We will take a team to the Philippines for 4 weeks (Michael may stay an extra week to two weeks while Amy takes the kids back for school), and then the team will finish out on their own the last couple of weeks.

We're all pretty excited, and this will be our first outreach since we were pregnant with Elise!