Update from the Tiemans

   
We want to start posting more regular updates so that you can keep up with what is going on here and so that you can pray more informed.
Most of our everyday life revolves around language school. We have 1.5 weeks of school left in this unit and then we get a 10 day break. It will be awesome to have a break from homework and class for a while! We are also thankful that we have been healthy for the last couple of months.

Please continue to pray with us for:
    - Language school
    - Continued health for all of us, especially Janelle and Baby.


Thanks again for praying,

                            Andrew, Janelle and Marcus

Porter Video

Thought you all might like this video. It was filmed at the end of training in the mountains of North Carolina. I am flying and the airplane is called the Pilatus Porter.  http://vimeo.com/72775519
You can find out more technical information on the airplane at www.pc-6.com.
Enjoy!

Latest prayer letter

 Check out our latest prayer letter here!!!

It's Been Awfully Quiet Around Here!

It's been awfully quiet around here but we sure haven't been without happenings! We've been quite busy actually! Moving, Intercultural Communication Class, Technical Orientation, and moving again. Andy completed his Technical Orientation at JAARS the end of June and we are now back in Wisconsin until December when we leave for Indonesia. To get the full scoop on where we've been and what we've been up to this year check out our "Newsletters" page where you will find all our newsletters from this year including our latest one.

This week we are helping work the JAARS tent at the Oshkosh airshow. It's been a fun week so far with quite a few good contacts made. Our prayer is that we will have been an encouragement to someone and a light for the Lord during the week.

The JAARS crew at Oshkosh

From now until we leave in December we will be preparing for our move overseas and doing some traveling to see friends and partners one more time. We will be sharing in a few churches along the way as well. 


Until next time!

It’s been almost three weeks now since we arrived at the JAARS center, settled amongst the beautiful foothills of the Appalachians. We are having a good time and are immensely enjoying the weather, especially when we hear that back home it’s getting cold already. Brrrr! But on the other hand, I am looking forward to fall. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, when the air gets crisp and fragrant with the smell of dampness, dying leaves, and moss. Somehow it becomes a time of reflection for me, thinking back over the year and all its happenings. I begin looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and my mind is filled with memories from the past and excited anticipation of new memories to be made. It’s going to be Marcus’ first Christmas, two days before his first birthday. It may be the last or one of the last Christmas’ with family for a while. Hmmm…and the thoughts keep going!

Crape Myrtle Tree

 Now back to the present for a little update on all that’s been going on here in southern North Carolina. As most of you know, we are here for approximately six weeks while Andy receives some pre-orientation training in preparation for field orientation in the spring. He’s been doing a great job and is picking things up rather quickly. He feels so privileged to have the opportunity to get this kind of training. It’s intense, yes, but the benefits of developing stronger flight discipline and an excellence in airmanship is well worth the effort. 

Andy has been putting in full 8 hour days most of the time, although it rained for several days which cancelled the flights scheduled. He was, however, able to do some ground school while waiting for the weather to clear. His instructor is very pleased and a little surprised with how well he’s doing.

Andy flying the Helio Courier

 Janelle has been keeping herself busy with homemaking and helping out in the MK Station (JAARS daycare) taking care of two year olds 1-2 mornings a week. Marcus is doing very well and makes friends quite easily with his charming smile and nose wrinkling!

 

We are enjoying learning to know some of the other families here as well. It has been wonderful to be able to sit down and share together about God's grace in our lives and all that He is teaching us. Being able to hear the stories and experiences of others is such an encouragement, not only from the "old timers" but us "youngsters" as well! We were even able to spend some time with one of the couples that was in our Equip class in Florida last year.

Thank-you to all who are praying for us. We sense your prayers and are so grateful!

The Red Sea Crossing

Here is an excerpt from Streams in the Desert that we found encouraging. We hope that it encourages you as well! 

It is not the great achievement of the Red Sea crossing by Moses and the Israelites that is so stupendous and miraculous. The awesomeness of the Wilderness Journey is the fact that approximately three million people were sustained for forty years in a small, dry, fruitless desert. Have you thought of what it must have been like to merely exist from day to day with every human means for survival out of reach?? Let us look at a few facts to see how impossible it would have been for Moses and his people to rely upon their own means of subsistence: "To get through the Red Sea in one night they had to have a space at least three miles wide, so they could walk 5000 abreast. If they walked double file it would have been 800 miles long and would have  taken them 35 days and nights to get through. At the end of each day of the journey they would have needed space 2/3 the size of the state of Rhode Island for them to camp. This would have been a total of 750 square miles. The ammount of food for consumption alone is absolutely astounding when you consider the fact that they were traveling in a country in which there was no natural abundance of food to be found. Just the amount needed to keep from starving would have added up to 1,500 tons a day. But to feed them the way that we would eat it would take at least 4,000 tons. Just to haul it would take two freight trains each a mile long. At today's prices it would cost $4 million a day. Then consider the amount of water required for the barest necessities of drinking and washing dishes each day. It has been calculated that they would need 11 million gallons each day. Think of the gigantic task of hauling water. It woulde have taken a freight train with tank cars 1,800 miles long.

Now Moses many or may not have had to do the figuring for managing the survival of his people, but God surely knew the cost! It may be more easily understood why Moses hesitated to be the great emancipator of God's enslaved people if he had any inkling as to what an immense chore that there was before him. We do know for a surety that he knew the land, its seasons and size. But God was the Provider, not Moses.

From Streams in the Desert for August 4th

Spring and Early Summer 2012

Marcus' first airplane ride! He actually did very well and seemed to enjoy it!

Hiking in the woods. This was a couple of months ago when it was still a little cool, thus the cap!

First time strawberry pickin'!

Yum!!

First bike ride. "I'm having fun"!

Feelin' on "top of the world"!