Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

We have been doing a lot of visiting lately and it has been great. It has been amazing to finally meet people who have been praying for us and sending us support in our efforts to get to Ecuador. I have to tell a little story because it has been such an encouragement us. When we were training at The Master’s Mission we received support from a church we had never heard of before. I even wrote to them asking if perhaps someone made a mistake and it was supposed to go to someone else. I did not hear back from them but we continued to receive support. The second Sunday we were back in N.Y. the pastor from that church was visiting our church and the mystery was solved. We decided to visit this church recently. It was like a postcard, a little church way out in the country all by itself, nestled in the rolling hills. We went inside and sat down. It was the smallest church I have ever been in. Our prayer card & newsletter was on a little bulletin board in the sanctuary. There were maybe 15 people there, including us. To know that God has placed us on their hearts and they are being faithful to Him to pray for us and send us financial support is the most humbling thing I have ever experienced. It reminded me of the widow’s offering in Mark 12. They were so happy to see us and finally meet us in person too. It was a great day! We plan to visit more of you soon. We want to meet you and thank you personally from the bottom of our hearts for the blessing you are to us!

Our goal is to be in Ecuador by March of 2011 and things are going at a nice steady pace. I believe we are now at about 28% of our monthly income needed, which is up 10% since our last newsletter! We have applied for our passports so that is another thing to check off our list of things to do. We have finally finished our detailed outfitting list as well and can have that available for anyone interested in seeing it. Just let us know. Maybe I can figure out how to put up a link on our blog.

In April we took a trip back down to The Master’s Mission. It was nice to meet the families and individuals that are going through the training this year and to hear where they are in their future plans. It was also helpful to get some more detailed direction on where we need to be in our planning. We also stopped in Ohio to visit the Craig family who have become our missionary mentors during this time of preparation. The Craigs served in Kenya through TMM for 20+ years. They visited us in NY this spring and helped us with our prayer cards and spoke with our friends at Findley Lake UMC about how they can help in our preparations for Ecuador.

Once again we can not thank you enough for your prayers and support in this journey we are on. It means everything to us!

Love & Blessings!

Tracy (writing for) Marshall, Tracy, Devin, Cameron, & Kaiden Dixon

Spring Update

We have a lot to share with you in this update. For starters the board members of The Master’s Mission met in Jan. and accepted us to serve as missionaries through TMM. We are still hoping to serve in Ecuador. At this time we are in the process of raising support with the goal of being sent to Ecuador by March 2011. We are at about 18% of our monthly income and 5% of our outfitting expense. If you would like a detailed list of our outfitting needs we can send one to you. We are excited by the progress we are already making.

The Clymer Hope Houses Project is complete! Here are some exciting *details: Project began late Oct. finished Feb.17. Approx 47 people helped with the project from 9 different churches and 5 denominations. The goal of Hope Houses is to help the “working poor” obtain a house, help put the house into “move in” condition, connect them with a local church, mentor them in finances, home maintenance and repairs, parenting, marriage, as well as help them meet other physical and spiritual needs to help them be successful in our communities. A convenient payback plan will be put into place for the family that will not be burdensome, but help assure a feeling of ownership and also assure that there will be finances for the next project. (*taken from Charlie Hodges report on the project)

The Findley Lake UMC’s praise bands (one of which I (Tracy) am a part of) put on a concert to benefit Bert and Roberta Anderson, who are not only friends of the Findley Lake UMC but local missionaries stationed in Haiti. The mission guest house which can house up to 40 people was destroyed. The medical clinic/hospital that the Anderson’s direct and live above and the orphanage sustained structural damage and have already been repaired as well as part of the security wall that surrounds the clinic. The plan is to build a new orphanage and turn the existing orphanage into the new mission guest house. Work teams will continue to be sent until the project is complete. It is very encouraging to hear stories from the Andersons of God moving in the hearts of the Haitian people despite the devastation.

Marshall continues to teach the kids, while I assist, on Sunday mornings. Small group on Saturday night continues to be a blessing. I have been meeting with a couple of my friends on Monday afternoons to lead a bible study. It has been a great opportunity for me to continue to learn and grow. Monday evenings our home is filled with friends for dinner. We were using this night as a make up time for the adult Sunday School class but since the lessons have ended we have continued to get together and plan to continue some type of learning.

The kids enjoy their pets. Not only do we have a house full of Great Danes, but we have Lionhead rabbits. Devin spends hours at the sewing machine to make them outfits and Cameron sets up photo shoots. They even had a rabbit wedding, complete with bride, groom and bridesmaids. We now have baby bunnies as a result!

My original plan for our dogs was to train them as therapy dogs. I have been taking care of an elderly stroke patient who also suffers from dementia. One of her struggles is that she had a dog she dearly loved and misses. I have been able to help fill that void by bringing one of my dogs with me when I take care of her. Although not certified, I feel like I finally have my therapy dogs.

Cameron has been attending Bright Lights meetings with a friend and Devin has been working afternoons at a nearby farm feeding calves. Kaiden continues to be a help to Marshall on the many work projects he is involved in.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support! We are truly blessed!

(Tracy writing for) Marshall, Tracy, Devin, Cameron and Kaiden Dixon

  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Last year at this time our family was training at The Master’s Mission. This year we are home in NY awaiting acceptance to serve as missionaries through TMM. Hopefully we will serve with the Dieterings in Ecuador in the near future. Marshall is busy working and the kids and I have been busy with home school. Life seems normal and we are enjoying our time here with friends and family and enjoying being a part of our community again.

If you have been able to read our blog, you may remember reading about Marshall heading up a work team to help a single dad in Ripley with three little girls whose home was destroyed by flooding. Now he and many others have the opportunity to help a new family in Clymer. They are calling the project Hope House and plan to continue to bless families in need. If you would like to learn more about Hope House or would like to help in any way, feel free to contact us.

Marshall & I have been working with the children in our church. I have mostly been helping Marshall in whatever way he needs me, seeing how all of our students at this time are boys. They have really enjoyed having Marshall as their Sunday School teacher.

Every other Saturday evening our home is filled with Christian friends that want to learn more about the Lord. Jeff Rotunda along with Marshall put together a study. Right now we are watching a series of videos from Answers in Genesis about Life, the Flood, Creation, Heaven & Earth & more.

Another thing most of you may know about is that we had a litter of Great Dane puppies the week after we moved back home. I’m happy to say that we have found wonderful homes for them, which is a real blessing. I didn’t think it would be an easy task to find 10 homes that met my standards at such short notice, but God provided. We decided to keep one of the puppies. His name is Breech, for obvious reasons. He is the puppy on the left. Cain (the dad) is pictured on the right. We will not be having more puppies, as Leda was spayed.

We now have a teenager in our house! Devin turned 13 last month. She is such a joy to us. Kaiden will turn 4 on Christmas day & is VERY excited this year for his birthday. Cameron will be 12 in March. She continues to have a lot of the same interests as me, medicine & music. Strange combination!

Please continue to pray for us. Pray for the Hope House project and for future projects. Pray as we minister to the children. Pray for our future, whatever the Lord has for us. Pray for the work in Ecuador.

Most importantly thank you for all you do for us!

Love & Blessings!

(Tracy writing for) Marshall, Tracy, Devin, Cameron & Kaiden Dixon

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