Friday Field Notes

Newsroom

January 24, 2025

Check out the latest updates from our missionaries!

HOPE WITH LOSS – Michael and Naomi Ersland

Jesus is born! What joy and excitement we experienced this year with our children—it was the 1st Christmas in the US with our toddler and the 1st Christmas for our baby! There was joy as we celebrated with parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, and church family. It brought new experiences for our children including going to Advent services, driving at night to see Christmas lights and being reminded that Jesus is the light of the world, seeing Christmas trees that remind us Jesus gives us life, and sharing the good news of His birth through caroling. We missed being with family the last few years!

We also feel a sense of loss over what we left behind in Ghana. We miss the way Christmas is celebrated in Komba land: the 4 hour service, the dancing, Christmas convention, visiting our friends’ homes, and eating together. The feeling of loss reminds us of this imperfect world and our yearning for the day that we will be together in heaven with Jesus where there will be no more loss. As we process and mourn our goodbyes, Christmas tastes all the sweeter. Since Jesus was born, we have hope!

We returned to Ghana in October after a short trip to the US for medical check-ups for our children. Michael met with the translators to do some checks of the manuscript before sending it back to the printers and to set up the team to check the deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Bible. Michael also worked on his MA thesis in applied linguistics and passed his defense. We packed up our home and said goodbye to churches and individuals. It was a full six weeks!

We arrived in the US at the beginning of December. We have been catching up on many things that we put on hold while we were in Ghana. This includes post-thesis defense work, sabbatical prep, assessments for a program we will attend in January, expense reports, this newsletter, sending out thank you notes, and seeing family. It’s been a very full season for us, and we are tired. We are thankful that Lutheran Bible Translators recommended a transition program for us and a time for sabbatical.

ersland PRAYER LETTER

GLOBAL MEMBER CARE NETWORK CONFERENCE – Paul and Ali Federwitz

The chance to gather with like-minded people in the world of member care is a rare one and not to be missed. Therefore, away she went to Kenya at the end of November. This gathering was full of over 350 participants from 48 nations! What a gift to be in a room with such a mix of people and languages. The majority of sessions were led by people from Africa, Asia and South America. This is especially important at a time when missionaries are now being sent in large number from these areas and not just from the West. Models and structures for member care that have been developed for US cross-cultural workers don’t meet the needs of those in other countries. One example of this is the family structure in some countries in which adult children are responsible for the care of their parents. What then happens to the extended family when a child becomes a missionary and doesn’t receive a salary? This was one of many topics addressed.

Ali was encouraged by the flourishing programs focused on caring for children of missionaries and recognizing the unique experiences they have as third-culture kids. Added bonuses included spending time with friend Britt Odemba, who serves with LCMS in Kenya, and Vivian Ochoa, a former teammate when Ali served on the Mobile Member Care Team West Africa.

federwitz PRAYER LETTER

THE START OF THE SCHOOL YEAR – Deanne Gochanour

Bingham started school on August 15th, but many students and some staff were still in their home countries. This is a unique situation that we experience as an international mission school. Students return to Bingham after the first days of the school year because families must take extended home assignments, have businesses in other countries that need extended attention, or this year we had many families stay with their oldest child who was transitioning to college. It’s challenging as a teacher to have new students entering a class after the year has begun. Expectations are constantly re-taught, and I must be prepared to give all the class materials to new students at any point through the school year.

This year, along with my duties as Deputy Athletics Director, I teach grade 8 PSSHE and grade 10 IGCSE Phy. Ed.. PSSHE is our Bible class, but it also encompasses Physical Spiritual Social and Health Education. I absolutely love teaching this class! I love combining all the “secular” topics with our Biblical topics. Most students are surprised to learn all the secular things have a connection. One of my favorite units to teach is mental health, because I get to show students that God has emotions such as love and anger just like us sinful humans. I get to teach students to throw their anxiety and worries on Christ, and that He can handle all our problems. This year my PSSHE class has 2 Muslim students and many denominations of Christian.

Because I assist in running our athletics department, I also teach our highest level of PE which is like sports science. I organize games for our student-athletes, maintain equipment and our facilities, organize internal events for our staff and students to compete against each other, and many other tasks as an athletics director.