And 3rd place goes to...

Brian likes to take pictures. A lot. A lot, he likes to take pictures, and take pictures a lot he does (I think we're up to around 27,000 pictures now). I am not the grammarian about whom your mother warned you!

So this is a cool picture that Brian took last November here on the Lake, and he won 3rd place in the "scenery" category in a photo contest here at school this spring! And I didn't even vote (the contest was a viewers choice/vote)! I thought about it, but I'm much to biased and I tend to be more interested in the subject of the picture and not the "photographic composition and quality" (I'm more likely to vote for a blurry picture that I like than a "perfect" one that I think is boring). The two photos that finished ahead of his were also just gorgeous and amazing...

Anyway, thought you all would enjoy seeing a little bit of our neck of the woods...

Bem Vindos!

Ola!
As you can see, we've been working on learning Portuguese...
We aren't anywhere close to being fluent, but I've really enjoyed being able to use some simple vocabulary I've learned. A muhler estao bebendo kafi! I'm not really sure how to put all the little accent marks on it though...

Every Tuesday night, our neighbors and us host "TNC" (Tuesday Night Coffee) at one of our houses. We had a bunch of icicle lights that we just couldn't justify keeping on our house in March, so we drilled a bunch of holes in a board that Brian found in the trash, poked the lights thru the holes and made ourselves a cool sign! "Bem Vindos" means "welcome" (plural) in Portuguese. Our house is on the left (with more lights around the window) and Shrift and Aaron live on the right.
There are some blessings that come with living in such close proximity to ones neighbors...like

• Always being able to borrow stuff (ie., chairs, vanilla, flour, coffee, music, etc...)
  
• Sharing one vaccuum cleaner
  
• Being able to enjoy each other's music (if we turn it up loud enough)
• Being aware of each other's health and well-being (when we can hear them sneeze next door and reply with "bless you")
• Co-hosting a mid-week, low key social event!
  

Anyways, come on over to our house for TNC. 8:00pm on the 400 row...

winter swim anyone?

Obviously in the winter time it gets very cold. Beyond all reason, here is Jocelyn getting ready to swing into the water at the swimming hole.


There is a slight problem here though. It seems like something is missing. Maybe....water?


Because the lake here powers an electric dam, they are continually draining the water to power the turbines. Most of the year, there is enough precipitation to keep it pretty full, but during the first couple months of the year it always gets really low before the spring rains hit us.

Here is what it looks like most of the time.


-Brian

Dear Reader,
Hello :) We are still working on this blog thing. I think what is a mental block (in the way) of me actually blogging, is that what I have to blog about might not be interesting to people who read our blog. Or maybe I be using bad grammar and not catch it and correct it. Oh well. Here goes anyway :)

Today is Saturday. I love Saturdays. Usually, it's a break from class and work and we can sleep in and goof off and spend time outside and time together. But last Saturday,we both worked the better part of the day. This Saturday, Brian is about 15 hours behind on homework as he's missed classes all week because he was sick. We still slept in :) He's feeling better every day-- not running at 100% yet, but so much better than this last week. Right now, he's working on his Phonology Mazateco problem (with 132 word problems in it-- here's one word example "kʰwɑtši`ne•" (it means "wisdom)). I just made coffee with my French Press and settled down at the computer listing out some things we need to be working on this next week.

Like

• Blogging :)
• Contacting friends we know who speak (or knows someone who speaks) Albanian, German, Flemmish, Greenlandic, Cantonese, Afrikaans, Korean, Thai, Pidgin, Taiwanese and Tagalog. Wow, we didn't know we knew such a diverse group of people (until we sat down and started listing who we knew and what language they knew-- and that doesn't even include people we know who speak Russian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Indonesian or Japanese. Or tribal languages. If only they would rub off on us... Why are we specifically contacting these people? Do you know a language that you think we'd like to know about? Check out lightinaction.org and click on "other languages"...
• Get together with some of our friends here who do know Portuguese (so that they can rub off on us), er so that they can teach us some basic Portuguese. Bom Dia!
• Find a good cinnamon roll recipe and make them! (if you've got one you love, send it to me!)
  
• Lots of e-mails
  
• Write our profile for the LIA website
• Order prayer cards and have them shipped to WA
• Etc, etc, etc....

Those would be some of the more interesting things. Not like "clean the bathroom" and "order formula". I promise, those aren't the only things for us to do this week :)

How was your week?

I got a beautiful orchid plant from Brian for valentines day :) When someone asked me what he got for me, I said "orchids" and they thought I said "four kids"!! Lol!!

Anyways...time to move on with my day...
Hope you have a lovely Saturday,
Love...peace...prayers...
Jocelyn<><

Young Life Leader Conference

This weekend I got to go to a Young Life leader conference which was hosted here in Roach, MO. There is a very nice christian conference center about 7 minutes from where we live. People from all over the country come to have retreats and gatherings of different sorts.

After being to the conference last year, I was really looking forward to the time away from the craziness of life to slow down. We were able to have some good time of prayer, fellowship and encouragement. The main speaker there was retired NFL tackle Grant Williams. He played for the New England Patriots in 2001 when they won the Super Bowl, so it was pretty cool to hear him speak. He talked to us about just making sure that we were taking advantage of the opportunities that we have all around us to minister to others and reach the lost. It was cool to hear his story and just how he was able to impact some of the players on his team during his career.

When we were not in sessions, we had some free time to hang out as a group and just talk and have fun. It was great. We were also able to start planning for this semester and I am really excited about all the things that we will be doing in Young Life n the next few months. Here are some pics:

Here we are getting ready to sing or something.

Most of the time the room was packed, but people were still coming in.

Grant Williams talking to us.

We got a photo with him at the end.

Back to school

FAQ #17
If we just graduated a few weeks in December, why are we still at school?

Sometimes Jocelyn and I wonder if we will ever be done with school. We have been through high school, Bible school and now down here at the Missionary Training Center. Finally, the end is in sight.

After graduation last month, we felt kind of weird coming back here for more classes, but at the same time we are very happy to be here. Jocelyn will have some extra time to start learning Portuguese (along with many other projects and work), and I will be able to take the Linguistics course (an intense, extra semester language program).

Today was the first day of the new semester. Slightly ironic as it is actually a holiday.... but school started anyway :) Here are a few pictures of today's events.

Here we are on our way to class.

Nathaniel Shrift and I wore cowboy hats for fun!

Here are all the students and some of the staff of the MTC.

This is at the class kickoff supper.

January Trip - Home to Washington

Greetings,

As you might know, traveling during the holiday season can be expensive. Jocelyn and I have found that tickets to travel a few days into the New Year are much less expensive than closer to Christmas or New Years. Because of this, we made the trip this year on Wed January 7th.

We had to leave for the airport at 3am to get to our early morning flight. We made it on time...just to find that our plane had mechanical issues and we would need to change our plans. It was not as simple as it might have been because we had a connection in Minneapolis, but they did finally figure it out. Apparently our connecting flight was mostly full, so somehow we got to ride in first class. Needless to say, it was a very enjoyable flight compared to being cramped in regular old coach class for 3 hours. When we arrived in Seattle, Jessica picked us up and we spent the night in Seattle.

Our meals on our first class flight.

Motorcycle
The next day we drove to Monroe and Jocelyn had plans to visit some of her friends while I hung out with her younger brothers at school. In the afternoon, I picked up Jocelyn and we went over to see if I could ride my motorcycle while we were there. We had left it at the Vogt's while we were in MO. When we got there, we saw that the garage that my motorcycle was in had collapsed. There had been a huge snow storm a couple weeks before we got there and the garage did not fare well. Thankfully, the motorcycle had been taken out a week before that, so it was undamaged. However, the helmets and riding gear and KEY were in the shed still, so it was not possible to ride it while we were there. Too bad. I am very thankful that my motorcycle we not in the shed, but there were lots of other things in there, so we should remember the Vogt's in prayer along with all those who were affected by the snow and floods.

Here is the garage that my motorcycle was supposed to be in.

Floods
Speaking of floods, while we were in Washington there was some major flooding going on from all the snow finally melting. We weren't sure that we would even be able to get to Jocelyn's parent's house because of the bridge being closed, but the water went down after we got there and it went down quickly in my opinion. Victor and I were able to get some fun pictures and he even jumped into the frigid water up to his waist.

Victor running in the flood water.

Visiting Joshua
On Friday night, Jocelyn and I took Victor and Schuyler to visit Joshua and see his house that he just bought in Bremerton. We got there around 11pm, but we stayed up till 2am watching a movie and talking. It was a good time. On Saturday, Jocelyn's grandparents came over for lunch, so it was nice to see them again. Victor, Schuyler and I went on a walk to see some of the sights around Bremerton. There is a Navy Shipyard there and we almost got to see the huge aircraft carrier, but it was too far away to walk to in time.

This is a ship that we saw while we were walking around Bremerton.

Jessica and Kenneth
Tuesday night we were able to go to Seattle and visit Jessica again and spend some time with her and her boyfriend. We went out to coffee and I had some really good drinking chocolate. Before we were able to get there though, our vehicle that we were borrowing broke down in Monroe. We were driving down the road from the Fryelands over to the library when steam started to come out behind the car. Just as we were pulling into the parking lot there, a police car pulled up behind us with his lights on and asked us what was wrong with the car. I was glad that there was no other reason for him to be pulling us over. Thankfully we were right next to the Ford dealership, so I took a picture of the broken part and they told me what it was. It was a small coolant valve which lets coolant into the heater core. The old one had broken completely and was very brittle. We had to go the the car parts place across town, but 2 hours later we were on the road again.

Here is our vehicle that needed to be fixed.

Visiting friends and family
The main reason we were in Washington was to visit with our friends and family. We were able to see almost everyone during our time there. Robert and Mae Young let us stay in their guest room and also let us use their car. Jocelyn and I spent some time with Victor and Schuyler at their school. We were glad to be able to go to Church and we were able to give an update on what things are going on with us and going to Brazil and everything. On Monday night we got to go to college group and then went to Denny's with everyone and hung out there, just like this summer. It was a good time.

Us and our friends Ben and Mandy.

Traveling Home
Jocelyn's mom took us to the airport on Wednesday night. Our flight left at 12:40am. The flying was uneventful, and unfortunately we were not in first class anymore, but we enjoyed our one flight of glory. :) Neither of us slept much on the way back, so when we finally got home at 12:30pm Thursday, we took a good long nap. All in all, the trip was a great success and we really enjoyed our time.

Here are some more pictures.

LIA 12/30/08 (E-mail)

Dear Friends,

So we asked ya’ll for prayer about a month ago regarding our decision about joining the LIA (Light in Action) team in Brazil. We have prayed, thought, prayed, asked, prayed, talked, prayed, e-mailed, prayed, read and prayed…. Thanks so much for your encouragement and prayers. We wanted to let you know that we have accepted the invitation to be part of LIA team in Brazil!! We would so love to call each one of you up and tell you about what God is doing with this project, and about our future co-workers Arlen and Cynthia and Joel and Stefanie that we went to Bible school with, and how they got to be working on this project, and…..! More on that later.

For now, here are some FAQ’s we have been asked… along with the FGA’s :)

Q: What is LIA?
A: Check out www.lightinaction.org and stay tuned for more info.

Q: What exactly are we going to be doing?
A: We are going to live in Brazil to help film and produce a video series taking the Word of God, teaching what God has said, and showing people His plan of redemption as He reveals it throughout history. Our jobs will vary (Brian—computers, cameras, CG, etc. Jocelyn—administration, communication, support work, etc…)

Q: When are we going to Brazil?
A: Working on that one…. Hopefully in about a year… We still have one semester left here at the MTC, then an extra 7 week practicum here in the fall, and we want to spend some time in Monroe this summer and after we finish the practicum in the fall.

Q: Where are you now? What are you doing?
A: We are in Missouri at NTM’s Missionary Training Center. We graduated on December 19th, but we are staying for Brian to be able to do the extra Linguistics semester.

Q: What about NTM? What about Tribal Missions? What about Africa?
A:

Q: What happened with the answer on the last question?
A: We’ll get back to you on that one. The project in Brazil is not a lifetime commitment. Probably only 3-4 more years to complete the episodes in the series. What will we be up to after then? One step at a time, one day at a time. We’ll let you know when we find out. :) We still think NTM is an awesome mission, and tribal missions is still a huge burden on our hearts…

Anywayz…
Please keep praying for us—we are going to be figuring out some

• Passport/visa stuffs
• Portuguese!
• Living accommodations
• Ways to be better communicators with you
• Normal everyday challenges in trusting the Lord
  

Love to you all…
Your co-laborers in Christ,
Brian & Jocelyn

Plans vs. Paths 12/9/08 (E-mail)

Dear Friends,
My aunt shared this quote with me some years ago—
“Better a short note sent than a long one intended”. Or in our case “better an e-mail sent than a newsletter intended”.

We come before you today with no pictures, no borders, no special fonts, no “in every issue” and no colorful layout. We have those things. We really do. We’ve had a newsletter in the works since August. Realistically, it should have been sent in September. Here we are in December with our newsletter still as a saved draft, and there you are with no newsletter from us.

So what do we have? A couple of things.

First, is an overdue apology. We want to apologize for being horrible communicators. We are sorry for leaving you out of what God has been teaching us and what has been going on in our lives. Please forgive us…
I have to say, apologies look very sterile and impersonal over e-mail. But please know, that we truly regret our laziness and uncommunicativeness… We are looking forward to a new year, a new semester, and a new start on communication.

Secondly, we have that ominous unfinished newsletter. Just last week I finished this whole section/article/page about Africa and our plans and Guinea and Ivory Coast and I have to say, it looks really nice :). The heading is our ever-relevant verse “A man plans his way, but the Lord directs his path” (Proverbs 16:9). We haven’t had very definite plans about what we’re doing when we’re done here with school. And then we “figured things out” and made some plans! The page talks all about our plans, what we plan to do, Africa plans, language plans, etc… You get the idea though. And none of those plans were made independent of God, but (again) the Lord is (re)directing our path… which makes that lovely chunk of our newsletter rather obsolete (at least temporarily).

Another thing we have is an e-mail we received just after Thanksgiving from some friends of ours in Brazil inviting us to be a part of their Light In Action team to work on a DVD project for the next couple of years. One of the guys on the team is a friend that Brian grew up with in Ivory Coast. Two of the girls are friends of Jocelyn’s from Bible school. Their ministry is something that we pray for almost every day. We have given thought to being a part of their team, but never pursued it or seriously considered it because #1. They didn’t need any help and #2. This wasn’t in our plans. Our plans = tribal church planting in Africa. But…now they have asked for our help with this project, and we are learning a lot about “plans”!

We have been praying (a lot!) about joining the LIA (Light in Action) team since we received the invitation… Yesterday, we just talked with leadership here about our options (both in Brazil now/later and NTM now/later) and want you to know what we are considering and where we think the Lord may be leading us.

Our hearts are thrilled with this possibility!! Again, e-mail is too impersonal to convey our excitement for what God has done with these people, this project and that we have been invited to be a part of it!

Please pray for us—

• That we would be led by the Lord, following His clear direction (and not just driven by our feelings in this decision).
• That we would carefully consider our original call to tribal church planting and where and when God wants us to be involved in it.
• That we would be flexible and willing to exchange our plans for His paths.
• That we would walk closer to Jesus.
• That God would be glorified!!
  

If you have any thoughts, questions, ideas, rebuttals or tomatoes, please let us know….
And if you have any prayers for us, we covet them…

On more of an “FYI” note, we are graduating with our class on December 19th! Inasmuch as we are included in our class, we won’t actually be done with school quite yet (and yes, we have passed all our classes so far : ). We are planning (there’s that word again!) to be here for the extra Linguistics program which starts up in January, and then finish up in May.

Also, we have tickets to fly home to Washington! And for a good price :) Our home dates are January 7th-14th. We are excited to see you soon, to be home at our church, and to share more with you about where God is leading us…

Much love,
Your co-laborers in Christ,
Brian & Jocelyn Richardson

Jungle Camp!

Hey guys,

For the last few weeks Jocelyn and I have been helping to build a little cabin out in the woods. I was able to do some digging to make an outhouse and we both got to use a chainsaw. The walls and most of all the wood used to make the cabin were cedar logs cut freehand with the chainsaw, but we were able to use a jig to make nice planks for the floor. Half of the floor is covered with flagstone and the other half is a raised floor.

We were very dusty after cutting the planks.

After the cabin was mostly finished, the two guys who started the project moved in and stayed there for a week. While they were out there, we set up the bucket shower system and built the outhouse. After they were done, Jocelyn and I stayed there for a week. We canoed to class every day and canoed up the stream to get wash water. It was a good experience for us. I thought it would be pretty easy, but we had to work together to get anything done. Here are some pictures.

Here is the outhouse all finished.


This is the cooking area.

Getting water from the stream.

The cabin after it was finished.

While we were building the cabin, a bird built it's nest in the rafters, and while Jocelyn and I were living there, the eggs hatched and we got to see the mom and dad bird come bringing food all day long. They work pretty hard!

Our little winged friend.

One night while we were out there, we were awakened by a strange chomping noise. Out in the dark, many things pop into one's mind about what it might be and that it might want to be chomping on you next, but it was just a hungry little possum eating our garbage. I got a shovel and shooed it out the door.

Eating our popcorn that didn't pop.

There are more pictures here.