Fall, Friends, Family & Puppy Love

We have been home for almost two months now. It has been great spending time with family & friends.

What have we been up to? Well to start, the week after we got home we had a litter of 10 Great Dane puppies. They are now almost 7 weeks old and have kept me quite busy. I love every one of them and to me it's worth it! God knows my heart is to find the best homes I possibly can for them and He certainly has been helping in that area.

Another thing that happened the week after we got home is that our church got a call to help a single dad with 3 little girls whose house was badly damaged by flooding. Our Pastor called Marshall to see if he would come with him to assess the damage. The carpet throughout the house was destroyed, as well as the kitchen tile & all the walls. Funds came in & Marshall was able to lead a crew of volunteers to put this man's house back in order & make it livable again. The project was just finished last weekend. They had to tear out all the walls, from the floor to 3 feet up, let them dry out, put in insulation, put up drywall, mud, sand, & repaint. They also were able to get new carpet and put that in as well.

Aug. 13th-16th we were blessed to have 7 guest in our home. Every year our church hosts a trip to Niagara Falls for the international students from the University of West Virginia. We feel that this is such an important ministry. If we can reach these people for Christ while they are in America, they can go back to their own countries and share "the good news". Most of them have never experienced staying in an American home, let alone a Christian home. What a testimony it can be. We had an incident where Kaiden got his legs stuck in the bars of the bunk bed. I came out to the kitchen to ask Marshall for his help, of course everyone got up and followed him to the bedroom. Kaiden was crying & Marshall told him to calm down, which he did. Then Marshall explained to him what he needed to do to get his legs out himself. After Kaiden was free, Sanket, a man from India was very impressed by how the situation was handled. He said in his country everyone pampers children and he feels it's not good. He was also impressed by how helpful our girls were. It was very humbling, yet rewarding to know that although we are so imperfect, God helps us to raise our children when we lean on Him for guidance.

Another very exciting thing that is happening right now is that Pastor Mario is here all the way from Pedro Betancourt, Cuba! It is a true miracle that he is able to be here. He is the Pastor of our sister church in Cuba. The Findley Lake UMC has been to Cuba many times over the past 5 years and have built a very special bond with the people there. We look forward to the next several days to spend time with Pastor Mario.

We are excited to hear about what is happening in Ecuador. Kevin Deitering just spent several days in a jungle village that has it arms wide open for possibilities. Please be in prayer about this. This is very exciting news! http://deiteringecuador.blogspot.com/2009/09/ishkinambi.html If you would like to read about how the Lord is bringing this about & to see pictures of Kevin's journey through the jungle. Our hearts are still being lead to Ecuador. Please pray with us that the Lord will lead others to Ecuador as well.

Our Last Week at TMM

Things are wrapping up here, but they certainly are not slowing down. Marshall has been working on his final drafting project late into the night. Last week we had a great week of VBS at Little Snowbird Church. The kids had a great time and I think us adults had an even greater time yesterday as we finished out the week with an obstacle course that the kids had to work through while we all tortured them with water balloons and buckets of water.

We had a wedding here today. Brody Stevens & Rachel Kinniburgh, who are fellow candidates, tied the knot today. What a blessing it has been to see the Lord bring these two together.

The rest of this week will be busy with finishing up packing. The guys drafting project is due Weds morning. The Deiterings will be coming in on Weds as well. And our final Bible exam is Thursday. Please keep us in prayer for Thurs! Our company comes in on Friday and graduation is Sunday! Wow, it's almost over. I can't believe it. It went by so fast. Our time is going to be busy when we get back to NY as well. The week after we come home we are expecting an unexpected litter of Great Dane puppies. It's a well welcomed unexpected surprise though. It's ok Janice, we still love you very much! Marshall will be going to Ohio for a week or two to help out the Craigs. And we are looking forward to the international students coming in for their annual trip to Niagara Falls. Oh yeah & sometime in there we have to unpack. We are very excited to be coming home and being with everyone again. We will see you soon!

5 weeks left!

I can't believe we have only 5 weeks left in our training here at TMM.
This past month has flown by. We have had friends and family visit us this past month. We had two wonderful weeks of Biblical Counseling. We took a field trip to The Creation Museum and Marshall broke his leg!

No, he didn't break his leg at the museum. He actually broke it 3 weeks ago playing soccer with the kids at church. But even though his whole foot swelled and turned purple from his toes to his calf, he swore it was just a bad sprain. The good news is he was using crutches for the first two weeks before he finally did go to the doctor and the doctor said that for as bad as it is, it looks good and was healing nicely. So right now he is still on crutches with a walking boot cast for another 3 weeks or so. Perfect timing eh?

Update Finally

Sorry about not keeping up with our blog. I'm not going to give excuses, I'm just going to apologize.

Time here is flying by with only two months left in our training. We are learning so much! We are learning everything from raising bees, to outfitting for the mission field, to eschatology. I'm really excited for the middle two weeks of June. We will be in Biblical Counseling class 4 hrs a day for the two weeks. It will be a lot of time in the class room but what we will learn will be invaluable.

A lot has been going on here. Marshall and I joined a co-ed softball team in Robbinsville with some friends here at the Mission. That's been fun and it's nice to get to know more people in the community. Devin & Cameron ran a 5k in Cherokee. They did really well and we had a lot of fun that day. I had been to Cherokee as a kid and it brought back great memories. Last weekend there was a Cherokee Indian festival held at Little Snowbird called Fading Voices. It was another great way to spend time with people in our community and learn about their traditions. There was traditional Cherokee foods, crafts, games, dancing, stories and more. Also last weekend there was some joy and sorrow. Clover our milk cow had her calf. She had a little bull. Madi & Ali Cole named him Carmel. Kaiden and I were there for the whole event. But on Sunday Clover died. Heidi found Clover down early Sunday morning with milk fever. She was treated immediately with Calcium. She perked up but didn't fully recover and died that afternoon. It was very sad.

On a happier note. The Deitering family that serves in Ecuador through TMM will be on furlough for a couple months and we are excited to meet them. We have been in contact with them through email and have been following their blog for almost two years now. So it will be nice to finally meet them. Here's their blog if you would like to know more about them. http://deiteringecuador.blogspot.com/

Also, I added lots of pictures today.

Tracy

The Dixon’s @ The Master’s Mission PO Box 547 Robbinsville, NC 28771 Jan/Feb 2009

It was cold this morning. As I walked by moonlight to the barn, the grass crunched under my feet. It wasn’t until I was finished milking and the sun was rising that I noticed the beauty surrounding me. It was as if the trees and grass had knit for themselves little sweaters of icicles to keep warm.Winter is finally here in the mountains of North Carolina.

Our vacation last month was great. We had a wonderful time with friends and family. We enjoyed seeing everyone and spending time just catching up with one another. I wish it could have lasted longer. It was especially fun getting involved in the Christmas Eve service at our home church in Findley Lake, NY. Marshall was able to fill in as Joseph when Chris Hooks suddenly became ill. Thankfully Marshall didn’t fill in for Chris on the songs he was to sing!
We spent part of our vacation in Ohio visiting family. It was fun to finally play the guitar with my step dad Steve, who loaned us one of his guitars years ago because I told him I wanted to learn to play. Of course, it wasn’t until we moved to the Master’s Mission that I made it a priority to learn to play and I am so happy I finally can. After visiting with family in the northern part of Ohio, we headed to southern Ohio to visit with the Craig family for a few days. What a blessing that was. The Craigs have been missionaries for 20 + years. It was a great encouragement to us to spend time with them and learn from their experiences.


As part of the Women’s Technical, all canidates were required to shop for 3 months of supplies. Marshall and I found the nearest Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart and drove 2 hours to get there. Jill Craig told me that when they were in Kenya, they had a 2 day’s drive to get food and supplies. You wouldn’t want to forget an item if you had to drive 2 days to get it! Two hours didn’t seem too bad but by time we got home, sorted through everything, and repackaged all of our items to freeze, then drove them to our freezer, it was quite late and made for a long day.

Marshall has been busy in Men’s Technical. He is learning auto mechanics. Right now his class is overhauling an engine. The knowledge he is gaining has already come in handy.
Bible class is going well and is such a blessing. We just began 1 Kings. We are still amazed at all we are learning.
At Little Snowbird Church, we continue to help with the kids program on Wednesday nights.
Please continue to pray for us as we minister to the kids and as we learn and grow in our faith and knowledge of the scriptures. Pray we would be a good example to those around us, especially to the kids. Not only to the kids in the community and at church, but to our own as well. Pray that we would retain the knowledge we are learning here everyday. Thank you for all you do for us!
Love & Blessings, Tracy (writing for) Marshall, Tracy, Devin, Cameron & Kaiden