Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Lofstrom Update #1

Greetings and welcome to the Lofstrom Blog

I hope to keep this as current as Possible. I would like to go back and update, but I will do that as I go throughout my posts. I hope you enjoy our updates.
My point to this blog is to give you details I don't put in our support letters. My plan is to keep our letters short to the point and with lots of pictures. :-) I know how much I love looking at pictures, and Chris is good at takeing pictures.

To get to what has been going on lately.

School
We just started our 2nd quarter of Mission classes they are great. I love what we are learning. It all is so practical and I can't wait to not only use it but pass it on to others.

I'll explain how a school day works. We start at 8am with Worship. Then we go to class when that's done (around 8:20). We have an hour of teaching then have a 10 minute break followed by another hour of teaching. We then have a 20 minute break (long break) in between classes. The second classes starts and it's the same as the first (1 hour teaching 10 minute break 1 hour teaching). Makes for a long morning sometimes, but it's good teaching always.

This quarter's classes include:
Monday - Funding Your Ministry 2 with Greg Ford and Chapel where different missionaries come and speak. Funding Your ministry is teaching us the scriptural side of asking for money, and how it's not wrong to let people know that you need help making our calling happen. It's a really good class and I always leave really excited. :-)
Chapels are fun although I always want to hop in the missionary's suitcase and go home with them back to their country. I am getting lots of ideas of trips to send other people on.

Tuesday - Christian Teaching Fundamentals with Jill Stafford and Issues in Living in Another Culture with Steve and Rita Andrews. I'll talk more about the rest of the classes as they happen

Wednesday
- Multi Media with Christie Patrick and Prayer for the Nations with Linda Turner

Thursday
- Internship with Reba Altizer and then Spanish (this class Chris and I have two different teachers.) I am in beginner's Spanish and Chris is in Advanced.

Friday
- Leadership and Local Outreach with Janka Kozicova



Home
Outside of school we do get to a little besides go to school and to work. We lately have had a test on our faith with our car. While we were down in Little Rock, Arkansas the timing belt on our car had to be fixed. It didn't break or anything, but it had to be fixed in order to get home. Praise God we were not on the road when it started acting funny. While we there we took it to Firestone and it took them all of Monday to fix it. We got on the road around 4pm. After getting back to Tulsa we noticed it still wasn't acting normal. We took it back into Firestone and they had it for over a week. That week was a long week. We took it in Monday and they didn't even look at it till Friday. Friday they broke the timing belt cover so they said they would have it done on monday. Monday came, they ordered a wrong part so we waited till tuesday. Tuesday came they called and asked if our AC worked before we brought it in, we said yes, and they replied saying they would have to fix that also. Wednesday they were said they would have it done by 4:30 Chris called around 5pm and I don't remember what all they said was wrong, but they had to take it out for a test drive to make sure it was working properly. Thursday came around 5pm we finally got our car back. Friday we took it to our mechanic is Broken Arrow.



Ministry
On a lighter note I though I'd share about some of the things we are getting to do here at Victory as far as ministry. As part of our Leadership and Local Outreach class we lead a sidewalk truck. What a sidewalk truck is, is an old UPS truck or FEDEX or something like that. One side of the truck is converted into a fold out stage. Each truck has it's own sound system. We have our site that we go to each week.
It has been a stretching experience for both of us. Our site is in Northern Tulsa (about a mile and 1/2 North of the dividing line of North and South). This part of Tulsa is the poorer part of Tulsa and our site is mostly black people. Not to be racist, but it is. It's heart breaking to see how many hopeless people are there. Praise God we have good news.
The hardest part for me though is relating to them. Little while girl that has been raised in Little white people's church doesn't fit in well in a very black community. We have to make sure that we are prepared not only in our lesson plan, but by being prayed up as well. We more than anything have to do a spiritual war before we can go in. It is so dark there if we are not prayed up it is almost depressing just going in to the community.
I also have quickly caught on the same songs I learned in sunday school are of little or no interest to them. Actions or no actions it doesn't matter to them. I finally gave up and just went ahead and had a time of worship and Chris and I just praised and worshiped. Some entered in, but most didn't.

Even though we have had a hard time with sidewalk trucks here I am looking forward to starting them in Hays.

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