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Posted on June 16, 2021
by Nathan
Bible First Reprint
It's hard to believe that it's been a year since I reported on our plans to reprint the English Bible First lessons, but this time as a single book. The project has been simmering on the back burner, but things are finally picking up steam. I recently finished the job of correcting various typos and incorporating various suggestions that have come in since the last printing. We are working with a designer to finalize the styles for the book, and we've got someone lined up to do the layout once we are done. Hopefully we will be ready to go to press soon!
Carpathian Mountain Outreach
Thanks to Covid, there will be no Carpathian Mountain Outreach this year, but thanks to several CMO alumni, there will be a Rocky Mountain Outreach! In fact, it's going on right now! It's exciting to see how others have taken the baton and run with it!
Family
Our biggest family news is that we are expecting a new baby!
Looks like someone is blowing bubbles in there!
The due date for the little one is sometime in late November, and so far the reports from the doctor have been mostly positive. The one thing we are keeping an eye on is the placenta. It is currently a bit low, and we are hoping and praying that it will move up and away from the cervix (as it normally does over the course of a pregnancy). At this point, all the kids are rooting for a boy!
Family picture on my birthday. I am blessed to have all these people in my life!
Posted on May 13, 2021
by Nathan
Bible First Online
Over the past month, we've had a few more people finish Bible First from our Pioneers group. The next step is to release BFO for use in the wild. Right now, the main thing standing in our way is that the legal side of BFO needs to be shored up. (We need terms of service, a privacy policy, and the like.) We are working with a lawyer on the issue, and should be hearing back from him sometime in the next week.
In the meantime, I've been working on filling out the support documentation that the Pioneers and other future BFO coaches will need when using the application. It's not a glamorous job, but someone's got to do it!
Translation
Now that Josh is back in Ukraine, we are making good progress on our latest translation project: By Divine Design. We are almost finished proofing Chapter 5, and then we will have the translator move on to the next couple chapters. There are 12 chapters in all, so we are nearing the halfway point!
Family
May has finally arrived and brought its flowers with it! We have all been enjoying the warm weather, and some of us even have sunburns to prove it! Ukrainian Easter was the 2nd of May, and the kids had fun coloring eggs and baking Ukrainian Easter breads. They then gave most of the bread away to friends and neighbors, along with a few copies of Good and Evil.
Speaking of baking, the girls baked some treats (without recipes!) and organized this tea party.
Posted on April 12, 2021
by Nathan
A New Milestone
When Katelin first arrived in Ukraine, she studied the language just like everyone else on our team, and as a result, she is very conversational. However, fluency is something that has always eluded her. As a result, one of the things Katelin has never done is public speaking in Ukrainian. But as of last week, that has changed.
Lately, Katelin has been doubling down on her language skills, and when she was asked to give a 20-minute talk on child training, she agreed. Not being quite comfortable with speaking from notes, she wrote down what she wanted to say in English, and I translated it. A friend proofed it, and then Katelin practiced reading it until she was comfortable.
The big day finally arrived, and Katelin went to her ladies' Bible study and delivered her talk without a hitch! Although what I consider to be a much bigger accomplishment, was that Katelin was able to take part in the two hours' worth of discussion on child training that followed! It's one thing to put together a presentation, it's totally another to take part in an unscripted discussion where anything is fair game.
Katelin didn't get any pictures of her talk, but here's a picture of a different ladies' meeting that she attended. :)
The Steele Family
Now that the health of Joshua Steele's parents has stabilized, he is back on the Ukrainian side of the Atlantic. Jet lag really did a number on him this last trip, but he is now back in the saddle.
Registration
Katelin and I recently received our renewed residency cards and we are good to go for another year! Technically, there is one final formality to the registration process, but that is on hold until the current Covid lockdown is over.
Family
Spring has finally arrived, and we are loving it! It's so nice to be able to pack up the snow pants and winter coats, and actually have things be warm for a change! Granted, there is a decent bit of rain in the forecast, but hey, how else are we going to get our May flowers?
First balcony picnic of the season!
Posted on March 19, 2021
by Nathan
Carpathian Mountain Outreach
Unfortunately, CMO has once again fallen victim to the coronavirus. However, if you had your heart set on coming to CMO, there is good news! CMO alumni Elliot Shupe and Ben Sargent are once again organizing a mini-CMO in Colorado. (To avoid acronym confusion, instead of being called Colorado Mountain Outreach, it's being called Rocky Mountain Outreach, or RMO for short.) If you are interested in going, get your application in soon, as space is limited and filling up fast!
Passing out tracts during RMO 2020.
The Steele Family
Joshua Steele is currently in the States for the second time this year. For the past few months, his parents have faced health challenge after health challenge. While things are looking up at the moment, his parents are not out of the woods yet. More information is available on the Steeles' blog.
Bible First Online
As a result of Josh's travels, progress on Bible First Online has been a bit slower. The next step is to sit down with an attorney and put together some terms of service for BFO and make sure that things are watertight from a legal perspective. While we'd like to just charge ahead and release BFO to the world, in this age of lawsuits and such, we feel like discretion is the better part of valor.
Registration
Our family is in the middle of the process to renew our residency permits. Thankfully, we have an excellent attorney that helps us through the whole process. I still have to spend a decent amount of time running around town to gather all the necessary documents with all the appropriate stamps, but thanks to our attorney, I always know exactly what I need.
Family
Snow, snow, and more snow! Okay, on the one hand, we haven't gotten that much snow over the past month. On the other hand, there are still piles of snow sitting around from the snowstorms we had over a month ago!
Despite the snow, Katelin and the kids have been able to get together with a lot of friends lately. In addition, Katelin has recently plugged in to a ladies Bible study, and has really been enjoying it!
There's so much snow, you can barely see the cars!
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