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Olson
Family Update |
George & Ginny Olson |
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For the first
time in my life, I could feel the inside of my nose and
mouth turning more and more to ice with each breath. The cold front that came through last
night brought the temperature down to 20 below zero (F). The sun yesterday
melted some of the snow sitting on the roofs of houses up here, making
icicles sometimes up to 6 feet long!
It is a pretty spectacular sight! It seems that we are
in the habit of extreme living these days. Extreme dry heat in New Mexico,
extreme cold and snow in Wisconsin, and more extreme cold and snow in Oregon.
This is all part of our training to minister to an underdeveloped tribe in a
tropical country! |
<click
on picture to enlarge> |
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I fully intended
to put out this newsletter before Christmas, but unfortunately I caught the
dreaded flu. You know, that same flu that you heard about on the news that
was all over the country? We had it - all of us except Ginny. Isaac and I had
it the worst. Thankfully it never became life-threatening. From
correspondence, I found out that many of you had it as well. So a tropical
country is not the only place you can catch a life threatening illness. |
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We have had many in
our family tell us they were concerned for our safety when we go overseas. We
appreciate this, because it comes from love and concern for us. Nevertheless,
we are pressing on. I am not very much afraid for our safety (though I am
sure I will be if we ever come into real danger). It is far scarier to
imagine growing old somewhere at home, knowing that I never really had enough
faith to trust God with my life in service to Him. |
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For us, service to Him
means taking the gospel to those who have not heard,
and never even have a chance to hear. Many in America do not hear, but do
have a chance to hear. There are still more in America who have heard the
gospel, yet reject it. How the Lord's words ring true: "And this is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be
reproved." (John 3:19-20) |
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Imagine those people,
who have no hope for a better life, to never hear about the glorious grace
and kindness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is compelling, but it
is not enough. Far more compelling is the desire of our God to reach these
people with His message of grace. |
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One thing that has
been emphasized here is the need to be doing this out of
our relationship with God. There are several misunderstood notions about
missions. We do not believe we are earning any extra favors with God by
giving our lives in service to Him. Nor do we believe we are securing our
salvation. Nor are we going out of our own compassion for the downtrodden of
the world. We are not super special Christians. We are quite ordinary
Christians, only seeking to live our lives in a daily relationship with our
Heavenly Father. |
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Our Jungle Camp
Team!
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This past semester the
primary emphasis of our course work was on walking in this relationship with
God, and in developing relationships with others. We studied Animism (the
primary belief system of tribal people), Cross Culture Communications,
anthropological culture study methods, teaching the scriptures
chronologically, and other related courses. We started our Jungle Camp
construction, which we will finish in the spring, and we have been involved
in teaching chronologically through the scriptures to different church groups
in this area. We are also conducting research on a group of tribal people
called the Toraja in Indonesia, for the purpose of understanding their
culture and developing a strategy for church planting among their culture. |
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We have one semester
left of training here, and then we are finally out of the cold country! This summer we will be doing a missions
internship/partnership with a church in Temple, Texas, and following that we will
be in Missouri for 2 semesters of linguistics training. |
Kid's
First Day of School! |
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We wish you all a happy new year! Please keep the letters and emails
coming! I will do my best to respond in
a timely manner! God's blessings on
you all! Love, George & Ginny |
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