Kick-off

Dan and I (Carolyn) have decided it would be best to start our first post by informing you all of how we got to the point that we’re currently at in our new adventure. In following posts, we'll share more specifics in regards to the ways the Lord has been leading, but we’ll take it one step at a time.

About a year ago, in the fall, Dan and I began to pray that the Lord would guide us to wherever it is that He desires for us to be. At that time, His direction was for us to wait and that we were where he wanted us to be; he would show us the next step when it came time for us to move on.

During the winter we felt guided that I should begin looking at graduate school. I majored in Linguistics in college so I looked for Linguistics masters programs and was directed to SIL-UND. After looking into the program we quickly decided that the nature of the program and the nature of our lives did not fit together so we dismissed SIL-UND and continued to look for other options. However, the Lord had other plans and revealed to Dan that He wanted us to pursue SIL-UND. We had the assurance that He would continue to show us the path ahead once we arrived at the University of North Dakota.


SIL-UND occurs only in the summer time (SIL stands for Summer Institute of Linguistics), and during the summer all the students and instructors come to the University of North Dakota participating in various courses in Linguistics (in both spoken and signed languages). Because this occurred during the summer my job at the church childcare center allowed me to leave during the summer months, however, Dan needed to continue working at his job as a Paramedic.

Dan was available to come visit me a total of 4 times during the summer, he traveled nearly 9000 miles to do so over the nine week semester! Specifically during the times that Dan was in ND with me, the Holy Spirit began to speak in our hearts through the sharing of missionaries and their families who were also at SIL. We were in prayer as to what this might mean for us, continuously praying that we would be available for whatever work He would have us do, whether that be on US soil or abroad. By the end of the summer, we were confident in His leading to apply to Wycliffe.

We are currently in the long process of applying to be members of Wycliffe Bible Translators. There are multiple interviews, questionnaires, and meetings to complete the application.  Once we complete the application, we will find out if we are accepted as members. In the meantime, we have encountered (as we were warned) spiritual warfare in our lives as we have begun this next step. We have been in prayer, and we have asked many others to pray for us as well. We would like to ask that you continue to be in prayer for us in these beginning steps, soon we will be asking for more specific prayer support.