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

Quick Update

Wow, it's been a busy month. Our friends Jeff & April Rotunda, Pastor Jim & Susi Pegan, & Ana Post came all the way from NY to visit us. It was a great time and we were so happy to see them.

On a sad note, Marshall's grandfather passed away and we were not able to make it back to N.Y. for the funeral.

We are through with our first quarter & had our first Bible exam. I think it went well for us, but we haven't gotten our results back yet. We will also have our first evaluation soon.

We were blessed to spend Thanksgiving with family in Waynesville, N.C. It was a first for us to spend Thanksgiving with my North Carolina family, so it was a special time.
Soon we will be traveling back north to visit with friends and family in N.Y. and Ohio. Our plans are to arrive in N.Y. on Dec. 20th and spend Christmas there and then travel to Ohio for a few days before we head back to TMM.

I uploaded a lot of new pictures be sure to click on the OUR PICTURES link and check them out.

Bush Driving

Last week we had bush driving which was a fun experience. Dan took the men out one day, then it was the ladies turn. As Dan was taking us out to the path we were to drive on, us girls were thinking we were already on the path, which we thought was quite rough. Little did we know what was ahead. There were ditches down the middle of the path and rocks and boulders. And we each were to take a turn driving this path. We all survived and it turned out to be a lot of fun. The next day, the guys had to take this poor old Blazer out and get it stuck. The first attempt at getting it unstuck was too easy for them, so they decided it would be better to just drive it off the road. I posted a few pictures, which don't do the real thing justice. The first picture is of the first time they got it stuck.

Dan ( our teacher ) was used as traction :)

The guys had to take the truck out and get it stuck. The first attempt wasn't a big enough challenge, so they drove it off the road.
Believe it or not, it didn't take them that long to get it out.

These are the brave fools :) that drove it off the road.

Us girls having our turn bush driving.

Clover the Cow Clan Club

Maddison, Allison, Cameron, Devin, Kaiden & Preston
Yes! That's Marshall milking a cow! Her name is Clover.

The Clover Clan Club :-) (that's what we call ourselves)

Jeff, Gena, Preston, Madi, & Ali Cole, Heidi Brompton & us Dixon's

It's been a busy week here at TMM. We got our milk cow Clover last Sat. She is a sweet little girl and has been very good with us all learning to milk her. Heidi is the expert though. She comes from Colorado where her and her family have a farm. She has been milking by hand since she was 8yrs old. So she has been a huge blessing to us. We have been getting about 2 gals of milk each milking. We have also been making our own butter using the cream.

Another exciting thing that happened this week is that we had a film crew here working on the new Master's Mission video. They were here for two days and we had a lot of fun with that. The kids were even crazy enough to get in the water for filming. Marshall was filmed welding and I was filmed playing paintball. Seems like it should have been the other way around.

In my women's class, we have been learning the do's and don'ts of writing a prayer/news letter.

We have been enjoying meeting some of the families on furlough. Right now Jon & Becky Woodworth is here. They have been serving the Lord in Kenya for almost 10yrs. The have 5 children. 3 girls and 2 boys. Ofcourse our kids have been enjoying theirs. Devin keeps asking if we can go to Africa now instead of Ecuador. :) We just tell her, we'll go where ever the Lord needs us. We have really been thinking of home lately. Especially with our church's missionary conference this week. We will REALLY miss being there. We have the schedule and you all are in our prayers. God moved in our hearts last year during conference and I pray He will do the same for someone else this year.

We love and miss you all!