North African Family

Congratulations to our daughter Anna (w/ my wife's parents) for leading her CC team to the state meet

Last night I visited the home of a North African pastor who is studying theology here in Jordan. They have 2 kids under 5 yrs of age. Because they are not from Jordan, their social opportunities are limited. When I asked his wife what her average day looks like, she talked about cooking, taking care of the kids, and visiting a Muslim lady daily who is from her home country. His wife asked me how to get her son to do what she tells him to do. It was my first time visiting them and I had already been there for longer than an hour, so I told her that I would visit again soon and we would talk about it. As the father walked me out to the street, he told me that he thinks his wife spends too much time at the Muslim neighbor's home. She tells him that she can't just stay at home all day but he says that his son is learning bad habits from the neighbor's older kids as they pick on him. He wishes his wife would have more structure to her day so that the kids would be more obedient. As I drove away, I thought about how I first need to read and discuss with them some of the foundational principles of biblical parenting before moving on to more practical lessons.

Thanks to those of you who prayed for the completion of the parenting website in Arabic. While I was waiting, I began using a simple Google doc which I actually like better than the website, at least for now You can see the English translation here. I've visited and sent the Arabic version to more than a dozen pastors/parents over the past month. While they all say that they will do it, no one has contacted me yet. Pray that I have a healthy balance of patience, flexibility, and persistence.

Please pray also for my wife as she has been experiencing back pain that she thinks is related to prior hip pain. She is trying to continue her stretching/strengthening exercises... not exactly yoga as I had thought :-)   

Answered Prayers

Will you thank God with us? We have seen answers to many prayers in our 10 months in Jordan....

• a healthy home fellowship of other American believers 
• older, godly leaders who advise and counsel us 
• good relationships with many Arab believers, especially in our Arab church 
• an opportunity for our family to serve together for 6 months at a center for Iraqi children 
• a language helper and ministry partner, as well as time to study 
• several apps that have helped the kids learn Arabic while homeschooling 
• a vehicle 
• continued financial support from many of you 
• funds to purchase an apartment with good neighbors in a location central to friends and ministry opportunities 
• a park across from our apartment where we can exercise, socialize, and practice Arabic 
• a youth group of 50+ teenagers where our kids have made good friends 
• excellent host families and good learning/serving/working opportunities for our 3 oldest kids in KY 

All of these blessings together do not equal the blessings we have in Christ Himself. "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." ~ Philippians 3:8. Please pray....

1. for my mom Pat as she transitions to life without my dad Jim, who went to be with the Lord suddenly after a heart attack on August 21st. 
2. for many details to be completed related to the online tool for biblical parenting in Arabic. 
3. for my wife and I to parent, as well as relate to one another, according to John 1:14 ~ "full of grace and truth".

Promoting Biblical Parenting.... Slowly

Remember the online tool for biblical parenting in Arabic I mentioned in last month's e-newsletter? After 6 months of waiting on different volunteers who have been working on it, it is still not ready. This has been discouraging to me. I don't want to begin meeting with more pastors/leaders here until this online tool is functional. However, I think I see God's hand in this. The waiting has given me time to focus on Arabic. I have been working with a tutor to correct my speaking mistakes. I realize that I have formed a lot of bad habits that I did not know about. This is humbling for me but at least I now realize it! For long-term effectiveness in the region, language is essential. The waiting has also given my wife and I time to process our recent transitions of moving and sending Samuel and Anna back to the US. Still, I'm itching to promote biblical parenting here. Would you ask God to make it happen, in His timing?

Remember the Egyptian family I mentioned in last month's e-newsletter? We had our third meeting yesterday. In the second meeting she said that while she believes that spanking is biblical, she cannot bring herself do it. Instead, she waits for her husband to come home to do it. She repented of this and says that she has begun chastising her children herself, with less yelling. I asked her if she had a flexible daily routine with the kids. Her reply was, "No... we are Egyptians!" Her children basically do whatever they want whenever they want, including meals. I told her that there are American families with no routine also, but that God wants our young children to understand that they are under authorities who know what is best for them and therefore plan their day for them. The sooner they can learn to live under authority, the easier it will be for them to accept Christ's Lordship over their lives. She agreed to try it. The husband said that he has been experiencing more victory over being angry with his kids. Please pray for this family. They seem very teachable. They are a committed Christian family who has left their country to serve God here in Jordan, where there are fewer Christians than in Egypt.

We like our new home. The park beside us has been a great place for all of us to get exercise and met others. My wife has begun homeschooling the kids. We are not sure how involved we should be with the pre-school for refugee kids. Please ask God for good ministry opportunities for my wife and the kids, especially for Max.

We Moved.... Again

We bought a house! Well, actually it is an apartment, 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, on the 3rd floor in a neighborhood centrally located to everything in Amman. We liked living on the outskirts of town in a small community but feel it will be better for both our family and our ministry to be in town. The best thing about our apartment is that it is beside a park with a soccer field, basketball court, playground, etc. It will be a great place to meet families and for our kids to learn more Arabic.

I still have yet to meet with the Egyptian couple I mentioned in last month's e-newsletter. The wife just sent me her evaluation a few days ago. There are a few other couples I hope to meet with soon also. I have been working on an online tool for training in biblical parenting. You can see the beta version here and maybe use your browser to translate it to English. Lord willing, the site will have both the texts and audio recordings of both Shepherding A Child's Heart and The Faithful Parent in Arabic. We may add some video lessons such as these later. After each chapter, the user must submit answers to two questions: What did you learn from this chapter? How will you apply it to your parenting? These answers are automatically emailed to the user's spouse and vice versa for healthy accountability. I have hired an older Jordanian believer with lots of ministry experience to help me finalize the online tool and begin using it in conjunction with home/church visits. This brother is also Max and my language tutor. If anyone would like to learn Arabic, even via video chat, I highly recommend him. Please pray that Kamal and I would be able to discern how we can best serve born-again parents here.

Anna and Samuel have settled back into Kentucky well. Anna got her driver's permit and Samuel got stitches after taking an elbow to the eye playing basketball. Kendra is enjoying being a professional photographer. See her work here.

Samuel Returns to the US

Yesterday our 17-year old Samuel returned to our home state. Over the summer, he will resume working the part-time jobs he had before we moved overseas. He will also participate in summer league basketball practices at a local high school, where he has begun the enrollment process to attend next fall. He has a wonderful opportunity to live with the head coach and a good friend of mine. Samuel is a hard worker..... as a student, as an athlete, and as an employee. He does not draw attention to himself, yet he is a magnet for young kids, probably because he has had so much experience relating to them with 6 younger siblings. Samuel will most likely be successful at whatever he does because he is loyal, consistent, diligent, and does things with excellence. We are looking forward to seeing how God will work in and through Samuel as he leaves our home and spends the next year with another family.

The past month has been about continuing language study, initiating relationships with other evangelical leaders here, continuing facilitation of on-going ministry stateside, and spending 3 nights at the Dead Sea with my wife for our 20th anniversary :-)

Remember the Syrian brother I was counseling? He has not contacted me about having another session but tells me that he is doing well when I see him at church.  He will soon immigrate to Canada.

We bought a vehicle over the past month! Weird to be back in a min-van.

Biblical Counseling

I had my first opportunity to counsel someone in Arabic two weeks ago. It was challenging, to say the least! He is a 30-year old Syrian believer from Christian background. He has been a refugee in Jordan for about a year, along with his mother. His situation is much better that most. He lives with his sister and her Jordanian husband. He came seeking advice. He is supposed to leave for a western country in less than 2 months. However, that embassy learned that while his parents have been separated for more than 5 yrs, they are not officially divorced. So they want his father, who is still in Syria, to go with them. My friend cannot see how God might possibly be using these circumstances to reunite his parents. He only sees how it could postpone his travel, causing him frustration. We looked together at Romans 8:28-29. I assigned homework for him which he had only halfway completed when we met the second time last week. In the second session, this brother was able to express openly how frustrating it has been for him to be a refugee. As I sat there listening to him, I thought to myself, "Wow, how many Syrian and Iraqi refugees have no one to confide in and help them understand their situation from a biblical perspective." Please ask God to give this brother the diligence to complete the homework that I gave him, and that God would use it to help him overcome fear through deeper trust in Him. Please ask God to help me and my family be able to understand what Arabs are saying and be able to express ourselves in appropriate ways. Would you also listen to this teaching from David Platt about how we as believers should respond to the refugee crisis?

I'm excited to see who God will bring together next month for a day of training in biblical counseling at another evangelical church here. I asked one of the leaders in our Arabic church if I might be able to train some believers in biblical counseling by co-counseling with them. I see training laymen in biblical counseling as one aspect of promoting biblical parenting here. Would you ask God to give many Arab believers a desire to learn and serve in biblical counseling?

School in Jordan

This week Nehemiah (6), Henry (8), and Petra (10) began public school here in Jordan so that they can learn Arabic. Imagine being their age and attending a school where most of the kids are staring at you, crowding around you asking you questions in Arabic, and most of the teachers do not speak English but speak Arabic very loudly! However, we saw God's grace through a friend who helped them enroll, a special ed teacher who will give them individual attention to learn Arabic, and an English-speaking 8 yr old Jordanian girl who helped Petra overcome all the stares and attention during the first day. Plus, the school is a 10-minute walk from our home and is only 4 hrs each weekday. They will continue some homeschooling in English. Please as God to help them be secure in Him, make friends, and learn Arabic well.

Thank you for praying for our residency permit, which we received last week. Also, thanks for praying for my wife and me as we have been attending marriage counseling. It has been really good for us. We've learned some things about ourselves and each other that will help us to trust God more as we parent our kids.

Remember the Arab boy with the chair on his head in the photo of last month's e-newslettter? He is doing much better. He even wrote a note to Henry and Nehemiah telling them that he loves them! Thanks for praying.

Community Center

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"Mom" says..... The children and I have had the privilege of teaching at a small community center for Iraqi refugee children the past few weeks.  Many of them are from Christian background families from Mosel. Most of them have not been to school for a year or have no access to school currently. We have been teaching them the Bible and English since most of them will be living in an English speaking country in the future. We are thankful that the Lord has provided our family an opportunity to serve together and to share His Word. Please pray for the children and their families. Also, pray that we would continue to have good relationships with the other teachers in the community center.  We all attend the same church.

"Dad" says... By God's grace, things are going well. We enjoy living in our small community outside of the capital. Yesterday we went hiking with an Arab family and found 2 turtles and a scorpion :-\ The kids are making a lot of friends. Our older kids recently attended a dance at a Christian school. A few of us joined a local gym. I'm having some great conversations with leaders here about biblical parenting. I'm learning which resources in Arabic should be promoted and how to best serve Christian families here. My residency permit should be finished next week, which will allow us to get a driver's license, which will allow us to get a vehicle! Please pray for both the permit and the right vehicle. Also, ask God to continue to give us more clarity regarding language learning for all of us. There are many Arabic-learning options here and each member of our family has his/her own unique language needs.

Fuheis, Jordan

This is a photo from the roof of the rented home we have settled into over the past week. We love it! It is located in a primarily Catholic and Orthodox community just outside of Amman called Fuheis. It is not the same home owned by the Jordanian Christian family that we requested prayer for in our previous e-newsletter. It is bigger and less expensive! It is also within walking distance of the Arab church we have been attending. Our church has been reaching out to many Iraqi and Syrian refugee families who have come to Jordan over the past year to flee the persecution of ISIS. At our New Year's Eve party, I sat back and watched all of these families enjoying fellowship, even though most of them have not known each other for more than 12 months and many of them are still grieving the loss of their former lives in their home countries. There are many needs. There are many opportunities for us as a family to be involved. Please pray that God would give us wisdom to choose that which will bring Him the most glory. Also, pray that we would have discernment regarding how much Arabic language study each member of our family needs.

We have begun the process of applying for a residence permit through the Jordan Baptist Convention. Please pray for God's will to be done through this process.

Please also pray for my wife and I as we meet Tuesday with a biblical counselor. When she and I conflict, 90% of the time it is related to parenting, probably because 8 children means lots of decisions to be made! Perhaps our most recent struggles are not only the stress of living cross-culturally and being unsettled but also spiritual attack, since we came here to promote biblical parenting in the Arab church. We are asking God to use our time in counseling to build greater unity, consistency, and grace in our marriage and parenting. Would you pray with us?