December Update

It’s past time for an update from Longview. This is the time of year that everything seems to run together in a frenzy of activity. For me being gone 20 out of the 30 days of November didn’t help. Our trip to Wyoming to represent InterAct at Frontier went well, other than the girls and Joel got sick, I guess I had my share in October. The last ten days of the month the girls and I (Amanda) took a train back east to surprise my Dad with an early birthday party and take advantage of Thanksgiving get togethers to connect with family. We are so very thankful for this opportunity. We did a lot in a short amount of time, lacking sleep, and overdoing on junk food. Overall it was great, and I would recommend the train as a great way to travel (and very cost effective). December finds us trying to get back in the groove and get ready for Christmas. Soon we will

be welcoming in 2010. Life is full of challenges and I tend to get overwhelmed by them quickly, I’m so thankful that I was reminded tonight where the battle lies and where the Victory is. God’s Great Grace and Mercy are truly amazing! Can you imagine what it was like for God to leave the splendor of Heaven and come to this wretched earth as a tiny helpless infant...I get chills just thinking about it. Let’s Praise Him this Christmas season, giving Him the honor and glory He alone deserves!!! Just a little hello from this corner of the world. Merry Christmas from our house to yours!!!

Amanda-

November Video

We thought we'd share a bit of a video (with a song from one of our new favorite artist), some slides of what has been happening. Enjoy!

So we continue on...

October 2009 is now just a part of our memories, and November is ticking away. I went into October with big plans; I was going to master my schedule, make many leaps in language learning, and get many of my projects done as well. Instead I spent the entire month fighting a cold that still isn’t gone completely, which resulted in my schedule often going by the wayside. This of course affects my language learning goals and the time I had to work on various projects. All of this left me feeling somewhat discouraged at times. I still don’t understand sometimes why God allows certain things into our lives that seem to just make life harder. I was tempted to think that perhaps it’s not God’s plan for me to learn this language, but that thought didn’t last long. Instead I think He want to teach me how to better rely on Him, and not myself. This is a hard lesson for me to learn, it seems like I often find myself walking along in my own strength instead of letting Him do all that He wants to do in me. I’m so thankful for His patient grace that continues to teach me what I need to learn, and enables me to walk in victory. What an truly amazing God we serve. One of the blessings I have seen is that Joel and the girls stayed fairly healthy through all of this. Also Joel has been able to make some good steps in language learning. He has an above average skill in mimicry, and often gets comments on how well he is doing. So we are still moving forward...trusting God to lead us in each step. Language learning is often full of funny stories, the other evening my friend was telling me a word for “everything”, for some reason it reminded me of another word I knew, and without really thinking I blurted it out. I knew the word, but couldn’t remember what it meant. My friend looked at me and laughed and said, yeah that’s potato. I laughed too. Just think how funny it would sound if you told someone who didn’t speak English well, a word like pot, and their reply was to proclaim potato. Sure they start out with similar sounds but they aren’t really related. Little victories are there in the battle for language learning, we attended a feast the other day and as people were cleaning up, I understood when someone asked , “Where is the mop?” It’s a small phrase, but to hear and understand is a big blessing. Our girls are also getting in on the language learning. The other day Ruth asked me, “how do you say this in.....? She likes to say “umbawasthitch” (this means good day) at random times as well.

One other little update, last month our community did loose a young man, he was living in Calgary at the time, but had much connection to the community. We had the privilege of knowing this young man, who had visited our home a few times, He is greatly missed, but the good news is that he had proclaimed to be trusting in Christ. The hope if heaven is such a beautiful thing.

We now find ourselves on the road again. InterAct has asked us to represent the mission at Frontier School of the Bible (where Joel graduated from). We are traveling down to Wyoming now and will spend next week participating in their fall mission’s conference. Thanks for your continued prayers and encouragement, we will be sharing next Tuesday and Wednesday, if you think of us during those days, pray that students can be challenged to serve cross-culturally. We will keep you posted on how things go! Enjoy your day in Him-Amanda For The Sewell’s

Fall... what fall?

After a September full of summer weather, October brought winter on with a vengeance. The last week we have had temps below freezing and a dusting of snow covers the ground. That type of drastic change can make it hard to adjust, but we keep hoping for “Indian Summer” yet this fall. Two weeks ago we had the privilege of attending a seminar on Chronological Bible Teaching, put on by Worldview Resource Group in Lac La Biche, Alberta. For those of you who have seen the movie EE-Taow, story of the Mouk People, our teacher was Mark Zook, who is the missionary who God used in this powerful story. As usual it is hard to sum up in a paragraph what took 5 days of lectures to learn, but I will give it a try. Chronological Bible Teaching is not just teaching through the Bible chronologically, it’s goes deeper than that. It is understanding your audience, and how they view reality, in such a way that you can teach the key stories of the Bible, so that the Truth of Scripture is laid down line upon line, precept upon precept knocking out untruth as you go. Then when the message of who Jesus is and what he did on the cross is presented, it is understood within a framework already built by Biblical Truth, not muddled with old belief systems. This makes a clearer, better understanding of what the gospel message really means to mankind. As we sat in class, I often found myself thinking this is way over my head, it sounds so good in

theory, but the practical working it out, what will that look like. So as we settle back into routine, we pick up with what we know to do next. For us, in our context, we are still just trying to understand our audience. We must do this well, in order to best teach God’s story in an understandable and worldview changing way. Learning another language is a lot of work and yet there is joy in the little steps made along the way. Thank you for praying with us and supporting what God is doing here in Alberta. We face discouragement sometimes multiple times a day, yet God is so faithful and we praise Him for His goodness to our family. Today is Thanksgiving here in Canada, to be honest it still sort of sneaks up on us Americans. But of all the holidays to celebrate twice I guess this is the one. We do have so much to be thankful for and yet to much of the time I get bogged down in the battles of daily living. I continue to ask the Lord to be my strength, and to teach me how to live the way He really intended. There is much work to be done, may each one of us be found faithful!

Thanks again, with love from the Sewell’s-Amanda

PS If you haven’t yet watched the movie EE-Taow..we would highly recommend it, you can find it on-line, or click the link.

A quick check-up

How can someone who currently lives in Colorado, come here to Alberta and check our language learning ability when they have never heard the language spoken before? We are so thankful to glean from the consultant guided program New Tribes Mission has set in place all over the world. George and Harriet Walker came to our home last week to check progress in both our language use and the daily use of our time. We had done some ground work ahead of time by filling out questionnaires etc. Our first day we spent a lot of time just sharing what we do each day, how things are progressing and where we sense problems. The second day we had a native speaker in our home and we would simply say words after him, which allowed George to hear if our pronunciation is accurate. There are a couple sounds in the language that we don’t make as English speakers, so we need to step up our practice of these particular sounds. There are also about three nasalized vowel sounds, which means you need to push air through your nose as you say them, this can often sound like a “n” sound to our ears, but it’s not, and needs to be said correctly. As a wrap up George and Harriet were full of practical ideas to keep us on track in our culture and language acquisition, (aka, CLA). Our main focus is language at this point, since culture is best understood in the Native tongue. One of the big area’s we are tweaking after this consult is our planning, we need to be much more intentional about what areas of language we are going to try to learn. We will be isolating simple parts of speech to keep things at a basic level. For example we will learn how to take a simple statement like “I am picking up the cup” and from there learn how to say “ pick up the cup” and “do not pick up the cup.” To make sure we are covering all the bases we need to cover at this first stage we need to really plan each time we visit the reserve. Of course as we seek to gain understanding of language, we will also continue to cultivate our current relationships, seek new ones, and stay aware of the unique culture as well. We will be making some other adjustments to our days as well. We also discussed

that in order to keep making strong progress in CLA we need consistency and fewer “interruptions”. This is an area we covet your prayers in as many “good” opportunities come our way, but these at times keep us from the work. It’s hard to explain all that took place in the intense 2 and 1/2 day consult, but we come away from the time feeling much more equipped for the task at hand. One thought I’m chewing on is that, as the organizer of our home I need to find more ways to bring the language learning into our home, since my amount of time with people is limited. Abigail and Ruth need to be more a part of this process as well, since this is the life God has called our family to, not just Joel and I, but all of us. This consultant check is usually done at about six weeks after the type of consult we had in February. Due to scheduling and other time commitments it was put of till now. The next months will be full of hard work and faithful study and we hope to pass our basic or level one check sometime early next spring. One final thought that keep us pressing on toward our goals in our situation, loving people means learning their language, it might not always feel like “love” but thats what it is love. In God’s grace we labor on, thanks for walking with us!

A busy labor day weekend...

In wanting to strive for more frequent updates, I was hoping to make it sooner than three weeks, but at least it hasn’t been a whole month. There are so many stories I would love to share with you, it’s hard to know what is best to write about. Our family has had some awesome opportunities to spend time with a family from the reserve, one night we had a cookout together and spent time just sharing life and learning. I had a few rejuvenating evenings with my “girls night” girlfriends, one who is back for the school year, and the other who was in town for a few weeks. Relationships are often a lot of hard work, but there are times when the reward of connecting with someone is a sweet savor. Labour Day weekend we found ourselves heading in two opposite directions, literally. After much planning and packing, we headed north (friday afternoon) to attend a Pow-Wow (see pictures). We had made arrangements to stay the night in nearby Cochrane at the Southern Baptist mission house/conference center, so we went and got settled in first and then drove to the

event around seven in the evening. It was held in an indoor arena, and we sat in the bleacher area, the floor below was covered in a green turf and at one end of the arena two teepee’s framed the entrance. Around the outside of the turf in an oval shape were lots of chairs and various drums. The drums are leather stretched over frames. For a while the building was somewhat quiet, with an announcer calling for various people to come to the entrance area and at times making jokes. All around the arena, dancers were getting into beaded outfits, hair was being braided, and we even saw someone burn sweetgrass around their head-dress. The drum groups (around 18) were also preparing. Each drum has about 10 people sitting around it who drum and sing together, (some people just sing). Finally the grand entry began, the host drum group began to sing and drum (see video on bottom-"Drumming"), and the arena filled with the sound, it seemed at times the seats were vibrating. The procession started with poles full of feathers being carried in, then came various flags, and elders from the community were also honored. Next the various types of dancers came in according to their category, the whole arena floor was full of color and movement and in many ways it was beautiful, and mesmerizing (see video on bottom-"Pow-wow Dancing"). After the ceremony was complete, the floor cleared somewhat and individual groups began the competition. We are not sure how long things lasted that evening, at about 10:30 our girls were in much need of sleep so we went back to our room. The next morning we packed up our things and drove to a local historical sight. It is an old Methodist church that was once used

by the people of the area. We then went back to the pow wow, this day started out the same way as the night before with only minor differences. There were a few people we knew and made connections with, but there were also many from all over Canada and the states. One of the winners I remember was from South Dakota. We won’t pretend to understand what all was going on at this event, we have much to learn and understand.

Though the event would last till late Sunday evening, we left Saturday afternoon to head the other direction.

We drove back down to Longview, watered some friends horses, picked up some more things, and kept driving south. Our destination was Camp Gladstone, for the final event of the summer activities, family camp. The evening session was in progress when we arrived, and with night quickly approaching I got our family settled into our cabin, while Joel stepped into help with the horses since someone had been injured while trail-riding (another story). After all my family was tucked into bed, I enjoyed some late-night fellowship around the camp-fire with the other night owls. Sunday we had breakfast, fellowship, and then a very encouraging time of hearing from the Word, followed by a potluck meal, then clean-up. Some of us ladies had time for a game, Joel went riding, the girls played in the dirt, (of course-it’s camp). The evening was spent in a great time of sharing testimony

and song. Night time, found me back at the campfire trying to prove I was still a night owl, but bed time did come a bit sooner that night. Monday we packed up and headed to Longview, to finish Labour Day at home. This last week has been life as usual, with a focus on preparing for our upcoming language check. Please keep us in your prayers this week, that we could get further direction and clarity in our language study. Trusting this finds you doing well, we love to hear how you are doing even if we don’t always respond immediately. Oh,and happy fall! Though the temps have stayed warm and the sun is still shinning, the wind lately has been singing the song of autumn, which means winter is not far away!

What (and how) we are doing...

I was so determined to update this blog sooner, but according to the date on the last entry, almost a month has gone by again. So once again I will try to give a quick run down on the last few weeks.

• We celebrated Ruth’s second birthday the Saturday before her big day. We decided to just hang out as a family for the evening and she received a tricycle that she really enjoys. It hasn’t made it outside yet, so both girls “enjoy” it in the living room for now.
• On Sunday the 26th, after attending a baby shower for twin boys (who live next door) we set once again for Camp Gladstone. We had a full, busy week. Ruth turned two on the 27th, which was the first day of camp. The campers left Friday, and we stayed on till Saturday to help clean up and to fellowship with the other camp staff for the final time this summer. More about this week can be read in our upcoming September newsletter.
• When we arrived home on Saturday, our house guests were here to welcome us home. We were very thankful to have Bill and Gail Marietta, the pastor and his wife from our sending church in Hawk Springs, WY spend a few days with us. We had a great time, hampered only by the rain that made getting out a bit difficult.
• On Wednesday the fifth of August, our family and our dear friends Roy, Laura, Karina and Eden went to the Calgary Zoo, to celebrate Karina’s birthday. The girls have a lot of fun together and we are so thankful they can have friends like this.
• Friday, the seventh, Abigail and Ruth stayed with a friend of our family here in Longview, and Joel and I had an awesome opportunity to go to town with some friends, a couple from Eden Valley that we are building friendship with. It was such an encouraging day, and we are very thankful for their friendship..
• August 10-13, we went back to Gladstone Mountain Gathering Grounds for InterAct’s Canadian Field Conference. It was a time of refreshing, both emotionally and spiritually. We had sessions with a speaker, and also times of sharing with our InterAct family. We also talked “business” and of course we had a lot of fun. We had our second annual (that we know of, since this only our second conference) marshmallow fight, and many other good laughs. The girls had their own class, and made a book on creation. I enjoyed a hike one day and the girls had a chance to ride the horses. We are so thankful for our mission and the great job they do of keeping us connected.

So now we are back home for a few “normal” weeks. I have been blessed lately by friends blogs where they take time to share their heart. Since this is blog is usually a bit of an update on what we are doing, I thought I would change things a bit and talk about how we are doing, or mostly how I am doing.

As you can see we were very busy over the summer, making it almost impossible for me to continue with my Language Studies. (Joel has done great and is really gaining ground..both in language learning and meeting friends.) I have struggled a lot with this, frustrated by needing to spend so much time on boring everyday chores, when I wanted to be in the midst of relationships, and discoveries. I have lamented b/c we live in one community, while trying to be a part of another. I have been discouraged and at times apathetic. Through it all God has been a faithful, patient teacher. Reminding me of what’s important, reminding me to serve Him the way He desires, not in the way I desire. As I wrestled with all of this, the theme that kept showing up, was faithfulness. God would show me I needed to be faithful with what He has put before me, to trust that He knows best and rest in that. He also showed me that I could improve on my time management, an area I struggle greatly with. I made a statement to some company in late June that “I am the most unscheduled person they will ever meet.” Though this probably wasn’t true I in and of myself would wish it so. I could tell you my whole reasonings and thoughts on why I don’t like to live by the clock, but the bottom line is because in my heart of hearts I want people to be more important,

I am driven relationally not by task. Finally, it occurred to me that instead of it being an issue of task vs. people, it could rather be viewed as because of the relationship I will strive to be scheduled. So for the good of our family and because I am committed to learning Stoney to understand my friends at Eden Valley I am giving my best shot at being scheduled. Week one ends today and I didn’t have a day work perfectly yet, but by God’s grace I will keep striving. The real test comes in a month or two, can I keep it up?

Well, now this has turned into a very long entry, I’m sure some of you didn’t make it all the way through, but I know I have a few kindred spirits out there who enjoyed all my detail. Thanks for keeping up with our happenings. Here’s to more frequent, but shorter, easier to read updates!! I try again next time. With Gratefulness, Amanda For The Sewell’s

A big wonderful blur...

Thats about how summer has felt so far. In an attempt to update you on the happenings in our lives, I will try to include the highlights of the last two months.

On June second Abigail turned four years old. We had a party the night before with most of her favorite local people in attendance. On her actual birthday we did special things as a family. She now says four is her favorite number! This is the first time in her life Abigail hasn’t celebrated her birthday while we were on the road. I guess that just shows how much we have traveled the past few years!!

I (Amanda) got the awesome opportunity to attend a Native Ladies Retreat at the end of June. It was very refreshing and relaxing, though it took me the first night to settle down and enjoy myself. This time away deepen some friendship in a good way, and I came home with bright colored nails!

The other big event in June was a fun-filled, action packed visit from two families who live in Pinedale, WY. Each family had an camper parked in our driveway, total people eating most meals at our house was thirteen. Six adults and seven kids, five under four! Everything went very smooth, and we were blessed to share a little bit of what life is like for our family here in Alberta with them (there just might be more to this story in an upcoming newsletter).

We are also thankful for some really great opportunities we had to participate in community events at Eden Valley (this time it wasn’t funerals). One night we attended an birthday party for an elder till 1 in the morning, the girls did great, joining in on the fun. We soaked up the sun at a volleyball tournament/picnic put on by the life skills class, and the girls and I got to go along on a field trip to a local amusement park with the day care group. While these might not seem like any big deal to you, the reader, we are so grateful for these chances just to get to know people and

learn. I am especially thankful for things we can attend as a family since my “day to day” contact has been rather limited.

We were blessed to have some meetings via phone the first week in July that helped keep us on track in terms of what we are doing now, what we can be doing better, and what the next step looks like. We are so grateful for the people who are willing to share what they have learned from their ministries, and work to equip us for the job at hand.

The first full week of July found us near Pincher Creek, Alberta at Camp Gladstone. This is a camp run by various people from various organizations for Native young people mainly from southern Alberta. We had two young men from Eden Valley ride down with us, and it was a lot of fun. This first week of camp is for teenagers. Joel spent most of his time working with the horses; feeding, saddling, and teaching the kids. I spent my time in the kitchen, well it’s actually a pavilion with walls on one

end and part way down the sides. It is a great place to cook, and the kids can all play outside while the woman work in the kitchen. The girls spent their time in the dirt...they play hard for hours in the sand etc. with all the other “camp kids” (the kids whose parents run the camp). Every night they are tired and filthy, but they love it. It was a bit chilly this week and rained almost every day, but everyone had a great time anyway. We are thankful everyone was safe on the horses, and for the chance to connect with the two guys from Eden Valley. Camp continued on for week two and three without us, and we returned home for more business.

On July 12th, Doug and Sheryl Sewell arrived for a week long visit to the grandchildren (and their parents of course). We were able to take some time for family fun while they were here, and also participated fully in Longview’s own Stampede. It is a great even for children and the girls had a wonderful time. (Also through the rodeo and a young man riding steers, Joel was able

to spend some “connecting” time with a family from Eden Valley.) It is always such a treat to have family visit when you live far away and we are sure thankful when those occasions happen. So this past week was spent trying to recover from the previous three and regroup for the next, all while trying to have a normal routine. Sunday the 26th we head back to camp for the final week, this one requires a bit more preparation as we our co-leading a the work crew (which is kids from the team camp age, coming to “work” for the younger camp). The emphasis is more on discipleship than work, and we are partially in charge of the devotions etc. for them. Please keep all this as a matter of prayer! Monday the 27th, Ruth celebrates birthday number two, so the fun continues. Well, this has gotten long, though I feel like there is more to say, this has been the highlights, please feel free to ask us for more details on anything we share. Thanks for your interest and I will try to update you with all the latest news from camp when we return!

More to catch you up

There have been three funerals at Eden Valley during the last few weeks, Joel spent four days at an Native Youth Conference (see the upcoming newsletter for more details), and we were blessed with some overnight guests, one couple traveling back from Alaska, and one man heading to Alaska. With the long days and sunshine it is easy to go, go, go and never stop for a break. Joel and I have been experiencing various people’s deaths lately, from those at Eden Valley, to a young friend and supporter who died of cancer, to loosing Amanda’s mom’s brother to a sudden heart attack. It has brought some tears and grieving, and yet what a blessed hope we have when we know Jesus. Two of the deaths at Eden Valley were people we hadn’t ever met and to our knowledge weren’t trusting Christ (we attended the funerals b/c we knew at least one family member of the deceased, and to observe cultural practices). However, one of the three woman who died, was a solid Christian, who loved and served her community. The funeral was a beautiful celebration of her life on earth, and her future in heaven. There is such a contrast in how one views death depending on if they know Jesus or not. It is a good reminder of what Christ has done for us

on the cross, and the eternal perspective we need to walk through this life with.

We have been enjoying warm weather, lots of spring rain, and the “green up”. We will soon need to mow our lawn, and friends are putting in gardens. It’s branding season, and we have been able to attend a few of those as well. It seems with all the activities of summer it makes it even more difficult to stay focused on our goals for language and culture study. Please pray that we can have wisdom on our daily activities and remain true to our course. We sense more and more how much we need the Lord’s strength for all that is to be done, and we are so thankful for the role each of you play in keeping us here. We would love to hear from you, and please be patient when it takes us a while to get a personal note back to you. It is hard to find time to write the old-fashion way, but we do wish to stay connected with you in this way! Enjoy Summer; Amanda, for the Sewell Family

some shots from Native Youth Conference..

Missions Conference & Recruiting

As mentioned in our last blog, we traveled south to Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota during the last two weeks in April.  

Overall our trip was very encouraging and we really enjoyed all the fellowship. The girls just had a ball playing with friends and experiencing “new” environments.  Our first stop was in Wilsall, Montana at the Shields Valley Bible Church.  We were privileged to take part in their mission conference, and were very blessed by our friends in this part of the country. I enjoyed connecting with an old friend, and Joel got to shoot some prairie dogs,(which he tells me is good therapy).  We get a bit spoiled there with a very nice cabin, at the edge of the mountains, to call home during our stay.  

After a brief stop in Douglas, Wyoming, to spend some “QT” with more dear friends, then we moved on to LaGrange. In many ways it felt like coming home.  We spent a very packed full six days, visiting with students about missions, and InterAct’s fields of service, as well as connecting a bit with the many people who live in that area and support the work here in Canada.  

Seeing what God is doing in students lives at Frontier  School of the Bible is both challenging and encouraging, we are thankful for this opportunity to represent InterAct and look forward to further connections.  

Several students seemed particularly interested in what God was doing in the North Pacific Crescent (Western Canada, Alaska, Siberia), so time will tell how the Lord will direct those individuals.

When our time was complete at FSB, we headed back north (and east) to Mound City, South Dakota, to visit Amanda’s sister, brother-in-law and brand new baby niece, Adriana Joy. We were joined by Amanda’s parents as well, and spent several days working around their place (they had recently moved). 

The Sewell family parted ways for a few days, with the girls and myself traveling back to Longview with my parents, and Joel heading out on his own, with a planned stop in Miles City, Montana.  My parents, the girls and I made the trip home in one long day, with a few exciting pit stops along the 

way.  We went to a branding in the middle of a friends pasture in Miles City, and then traveled at least 20 some miles on a back country road in the middle on Montana to visit some friends and stop for lunch.  It was a memory making trip for all.  Joel didn’t get home when planned due to our car loosing the transmission, when all the options were weighed out we decided to not fix the car and with the help of a friend and my dad, Joel was able to get home.  We thank God for His provision of that car.

My parents visited for total of five full days, and we had a wonderful time.  They left for home the morning of 

May 8th, which is also Joel’s birthday.  There is always something that keeps us depending on the Lord, and we are so thankful for His great provision for our family.  For those of you we got to see on our trip, thanks for the memories.  For those we missed this time around, we hope to connect next trip.  Thanks to you all! 

Amanda

Springtime in Alberta

Just like Springtime in Alberta, warm, sunny days and the skies are blue, then without a warning another winter storm comes raising through.” This quote from an Ian Tyson song describes perfectly what happened to us a few weeks ago. It was Saturday morning and the warmest day yet, we took a walk as a family and I made plans to hang the sheets on the line. 

By three o’clock I finally had the sheets ready to go, but the sky was gray and the wind had picked up. Joel told me that the weather forecast called for three inches of snow overnight, we got at least that! Then this past Saturday night, we got our biggest snow storm yet with well over a foot of snow, that drifted to three feet in some places. The good news in all this snow, is that Abigail finally got to build her snowman, we had somehow not yet gotten that done this winter and she was pretty worried about making it happen! We are all ready for the snow to be gone and warmer weather. About every day this week, Ruth has looked out the window and pointed at the park, and said “Yaddy.” My interpretation is that she wants her daddy to take her to the park, the answer is always, “when the snow is bye-bye.” Even Abigail tells her now!

Well, enough about the weather!

One of the most exciting things about the last few weeks, at least to me, is God’s provision of some girl friends my own age, and allowing us to have some “girl time” Both girls are believers from the reserve, one has lived there all her life, and the other is a teacher working at the reserve school.   They have been coming over for supper once a week and we hang out as a family.  After the girls are in bed, the three of us have a chance to connect about life, our relationship with the Lord, and what is happening on the reserve.  It has been a blessing to me, 

and hopefully an encouragement to them as well.  Joel is also gaining ground in the area of relationships, there are several men who seem very open to Joel spending time with them, the hard part lately seems to be catching people at home!  One man on reserve owns some cattle and Joel spent most of one Saturday at a horse sale with him, and is going to help gather in some of his cows, if the snow ever melts!  We are thankful for all that God is allowing us to be a part of.  We continue to gain ground in learning language, our computer program is a huge part of that, and we are so thankful for those eight weeks in Missouri (fall of ’08). It is a lot of fun to learn, tonight when the girls and I were making cookies I was seeing how many ingredients/utensils I used that I could say in Stoney! One of our biggest hurdles is opportunities to use the language with real people in real life settings! We are seeking the Lord daily for His direction in this area. The end of April brings a change of pace for us, as we will spend some time in another aspect of our ministry. We are excited to join the Shields Valley Bible Church, (Wilsall, Montana) at their mission conference the 17th-19th, and then travel on down to La Grange, Wyoming to share about InterAct at Frontier School of the Bible (and recruit more laborers). This means we will be seeing some of you in person again, which is always such a blessing! As always we appreciate you, your faithful prayers, and ongoing encouragement! May you delight anew in God’s grace this Easter Season. Amanda... for the Sewell”s

Birthday update

I’m sitting here with a sleeping Ruth on my lap, she woke up from her nap crying, and wanted to go back to sleep. I don’t think our house has been this quiet for this long during daylight hours since..well I don’t know when. I thought I would just blog about our last week, including my birthday. I actually had two parties last weekend, with two chocolate cakes. (I’m spoiled I know) I didn’t know about either of them till a few hours before. Joel likes to keep me guessing. I don’t really feel any older, but it must be happening because I now experience being really tired at the end of the day, but unable to relax and fall asleep because my mind won’t shut down. I’ve always thought people were being ridiculous when they told me about that.

We spent a few family days in Coleman Alberta (a holiday),

and a nice little house of rest for people in ministry. We didn’t do much accept relax! I read a few books, and the girls got to watch videos. Abigail likes Dora, and Silly Songs (Veggie Tales) the best. Ruth’s vocabulary is expanding, she now says “nana” which is banana, “nack” which is snack (she loves to eat almost anytime) and I’m pretty sure she said Adriana, once when looking a picture of her new cousin. Both girls are changing their looks, one day I looked at Abigail and I didn’t recognize her anymore.

We are continuing to study language and file culture (our language session was canceled twice this week, because our language helper was working with the Bible translators). There is so much to be done, it’s often overwhelming. I think God is trying to teach us how to live with the

pressure, because it is a reality of life. We are seeing His hand at work in relationships; Joel’s and mine, our family as a whole, and the many people we call friends. My heart is filled with GRATITUDE to the Lord, when I see how He provides time and time again. We are very blessed and much of that blessing comes through you. Thanks to those who sent birthday greetings, it is nice to be remembered, thanks to those of you who pray for us, we will never know this side of heaven the impact of our prayers. We love you! Greetings from cold and sunny Alberta!!!~Amanda

Where did the time go?

With all my good intentions to update our blog more often, it seems that once a month is all I manage. The days continue to go by one by one, and life has it’s highs and lows. We are so very thankful for God’s grace and goodness to our family in allowing us to serve Him here in Alberta, and work among a precious people group to make His Name known.

 I want to give an update on what we have been doing the last month or so! January kept us busy with various appointments. We had the opportunity to share about our ministry at the Longview Bible Fellowship, which is where we attend services on Sunday here in Longview. It was a experience and it forced us to create a new presentation to explain who we are and what God is calling us to do. Another highlight of our month was spending a few days with Roy and Laura Thiessen, who just moved to Cardston, AB (two hours south) to work with the Blackfoot. They are also with InterAct and have two young daughters. The girls have already really enjoyed having playmates their own age at various functions. We are so thankful for another young family relatively close by. We also attended a meeting in regards to Camp Gladstone, a camp for Native youth that runs most of July. We know we will be involved to some degree as it provides a great opportunity to build relationships with young people from Eden Valley. Joel and I took an evening out on January 24th, leaving the girls

with a friend. It was a fun evening to just enjoy being together, we didn’t talk about “ministry” or “family” but focused on just cultivating our relationship.

February found us frantically preparing our house for company, which included some projects we needed to wrap up, grocery shopping, and general cleaning (that along with “regular” ministry). We were also privileged to meet with some fellow missionaries for a morning of prayer, something we hope to continue about every month. We focused our time praying for the many First Nations youth who are walking with the Lord, or at one time showed an interest in following Him. It was both encouraging and overwhelming to see the list of names on the board of of those who could use a mentor/friend to walk through life with them.

On Saturday the seventh our first guests arrived about nine in the evening. From then till the morning of the sixteenth our house was full of activity. On average we had at least four other people spend the night at our house and fed at least six people supper. 

This was caused by the Animism workshop held in Okotoks, (30 minutes from our place) on February 9-13, and a consult led by WRG for the work at Eden Valley, (the 14th and 15th). We will be giving more details on both of these events in our March newsletter. As tired as we were Monday morning, we throughly enjoyed all our company and the fellowship we had. The girls held up pretty well, considering all the activity and we are thankful things went smooth.

The other big excitement during that week was the arrival of Adrianna Joy on February 8th. She is the daughter of Brad and April Ruckert, (Amanda’s sister) (see picture below) and we are already in love with her across the miles. It’s so hard to be far away for moments like this, but we are very thankful for pictures and telephones and computers to keep us connected. Abigail and Ruth both seem inthralled at the pictures they have seen (so keep then coming).

We have had several friends lately that are facing unexpected trails in

 their lives, and though we ache with them, we also marvel at how God’s grace is apparent in their testimonies. We are here in Alberta because of His working in our lives, and we are excited by the tools God has given us to move forward in the work He has called us to do. 

We greatly appreciate your love and care for our family, please let us know how we can pray for your needs and what God is doing in your lives. Amanda (for the 4 of us)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year (a little belated)! Somehow I intended to post a blog right after Christmas, and it didn’t happen. I was trying to figure out earlier today how many weeks it had been since Christmas. I think it’s almost three. So I will try to give a bit of an update of what we did the last few weeks.

The weeks leading up to Christmas weren’t very busy for us, at least in terms of holiday hustle. We did attend a few Christmas party’s/events, and really enjoyed them. We had some real cold temps that kept us house bound for a few weeks. During that time Joel was able to build and make usable the office space downstairs. It has been a huge help for him to have a work space!!! We still need some finishing touches, but it’s great to have it completed this much. We also spent some time as a family making goodies to enjoy and pass out to friends/neighbours. I counted 106 “usable” Christmas cookies, and I’m sure well over twice that in bon-bons. Looking back it 

was well worth the work! We didn’t get our Christmas tree till the Monday before Christmas and it didn’t get decorated till Christmas Eve. We went to the mountains with another family and hiked a bit off the road for the tree. Abigail was not fond of the deep snow, and cried most of the time we were trudging around, she did enjoy spotting the Big Horned Sheep out the window of the truck, and is very excited about hunting one with her daddy some day (She will have to change her opinion on hiking if she is going to accomplish that.) Christmas day we spent home as a family. We had brunch together, opened presents, and connected with family via phone and skype. It was a very restful and relaxing Christmas. After being home so much, we decided we needed a change of pace, and spent New Years Eve in Calgary, we attended a party there, and then stayed the night at friends to avoid driving back that night. Both our girls were still going strong when we welcomed 2009! We all had a great time with fellow believers, for me it gave the holidays a more familiar feel.

In reflecting a bit on the season, I want to share one of the things that I enjoy most is receiving cards, pictures and updates from those whom I love. I still have our cards strung on a string by

our window, and I plan to post the pictures we received on our fridge. Just today we received several cards and letters, maybe these mean more to me now that I am farther away from most of you, or maybe my priorities are changing. I want to say thanks for all of you who sent a greeting, and tell you how you blessed my heart!!!

So now we are in week number two real life and routine. Joel continues to use mornings as study time; entering culture information, doing language review, and other tasks. In the afternoon and early evening he will usually visit the reserve and focus on building relationships, and sharpening his language skills (pray for this). Typical days for the girls and I are to be at home, taking the morning to start our day, prepare for the noon meal, (which is our main meal) and we are trying to work a little “school” 

time in as well. The girls still nap in the afternoons, which gives me (in theory) time to get things done. This is all very flexible since “relationships” rarely fit into the boxes we like to put them in. We are still waiting for God to open more doors for me to enter into the community at the reserve, we see several opportunities, but aren’t sure how they are going to work out.

We anticipate the year ahead. We hope to get more deeply connected with people here, and desire God to continue to work His grace in our lives. May 2009 draw all of us closer to Our Creator and Savior.