Details on donations, budget, and travel plans

Budget Stuff:
We are still working out our PNG budget with Word Made Flesh.
Right now, we are looking at raising approximately $3,200 a month - this will cover all of our expenses for travel, living, utilities/supplies, medical, retirement, etc. as well as the costs for starting up or participating in the various projects that we hope to put together in country.
If any of you are interested in seeing our budget/giving us feedback (much appreciated) please email me and let me know.
WMF would like us to have %100 of this budget pledged plus two months of actual income. This would be in addition to having our initial airfare to and from PNG covered (something we will probably put together out of pocket).
In addition to our PNG budget, we need to put aside a separate fund for our time training in Romania.
It looks like we will be spending less time there than we originally thought. The field director in Romania has suggested about 3 weeks.
Travel Plans: 
We are looking at going to Romania in the 2nd week of February, and would appreciate your prayers and advice regarding this decision. The trip should cost about $3,500 (covering living in country + airfare).
It's cheaper to fly to and from Romania and then fly to PNG from the states than it is to fly to PNG from Romania, so y'all will see us for a brief visit before we head to PNG. We are looking at about 9 months to a year for our first stay in country. The majority of that time will be dedicated to language learning and relationship building. We will also be assessing what kinds of tools, resources, etc. we might need to bring in when we return.
Donation Details:
Just a heads up, the organization takes out a 13% processing and administration fee, so part of our estimated $3,000 a month includes that as well as tithing (our choice).
There are three ways to donate to us through Word Made Flesh:

• Automatic Withdrawal from Checking - Print off and fill out the from in this link, and mail it with a voided check to P.O. Box 70, Wilmore, KY 40390. Alternatively you can scan and email the form and voided check to ken.dean@wordmadeflesh.com. 
• Check - made payable to Word Made Flesh and sent to P.O. Box 70, Wilmore, KY 40390. Include a note designating who you are donating it to
• Credit Card - you can click on this link to make a one time or recurring donation. Please don't click on the 'pay by check' option on this page. 

These donation options are listed in order of most preferable to least. As I said, WMF takes out a 13% processing and administration fee. If you donate by Credit Card the processing account Pure Charity takes out 7% so WMF only takes 6%. In short, more money goes directly to helping Word Made Flesh run the organization if they process one transaction (an automatic withdrawal form) directly through their own organization. But, by all means do what makes the most sense to you. One way or another, God provides for us and for this organization. :)

Finally, if you haven't had a chance to see it, here is our Word Made Flesh web page. Photo courtesy of my last trip to the Sepik Region of PNG in 2008.

As always, we covet your prayers, appreciate your feedback, and would love to hear from you regarding questions, prayer requests, concerns, advice, etc. We both have email accounts with Word Made Flesh if you would like to email us: benjamin.grimm@wordmadeflesh.com and mary.grimm@wordmadeflesh.com.

Thank you all for your continued love and prayers!
Love,
The Grimm Crowd

July Update

Hello everybody,
A lot has been happening in the last few months. Once again, I am behind on updating y'all. I won't bore you with all the little chance encounters, awesome conversations with random missionary people, and details of getting instated with Word Made Flesh.
News:
The two biggest things that have happened are that:
       We are officially members of Oikos Fellowship and have been enjoying getting to know our new  Church family.
       We are officially staff with Word Made Flesh. We have a webpage now!
For those of you who are hoping to support us in our mission, that means that you can donate through WMF now. I'll put info on that in a separate post. We're still working on the best way to get newsletters and prayer updates to everyone.
On the home front: we have been growing green things in our garden (no crop yield yet, since we started late); Ben has been going a little nuts with pickling all the things I am bringing home from working at the bamboo/organic food farm; the berry harvest is in full swing, so Ben's been blessed with plentiful hours - working 12 hour days, 6 days a week; and the Grimmling is growing strong and very squirmy!
Thanks: 
We are thankful for all of your prayers for us as a couple (now family) and for our path into the mission field. We have been so blessed to see God at work in our relationship and to see His provision for our spiritual growth and direction through fellowship with a number of beautiful Church communities.
Prayer Needs: 
Moving forward, we could use your prayers as we navigate fundraising. Neither of us is good at this aspect of support raising. Ben would also like prayer for possibly being able to learn from/model an organization that has done some incredible work in sustainable agriculture and community development in South America. 
I also ask for your prayers for my dear friends the Scotts as they mourn the loss of their son and brother. In a season otherwise so overflowing with blessing for our family, this has been a very difficult reality to wrap my head and heart around. It is an ache of grief that doesn't go away but ebbs and flows throughout the days. I know that my friend is truly ALIVE and well, but that doesn't erase the gaping hole he has left behind. It is hard to stomach how briskly life keeps moving, how the responsibilities and needs keep pressing in, but they do. 

Thank you all again for your love and support. We are so blessed to know each of you.
May God bless and keep you.
Love,
The Grimms

Turn My Mourning Into Dancing

The month of June is well over but it is still lingering with me.
The days were too long, passing too quickly.
On the morning of the 8th one of my closest friends called to tell me her brother was gone.
He died suddenly in an accident in Yellowstone, June 7th. He was 23 years old.
Even now, my mind and heart rebel at the words. It is too unreal, too bizarre, too cruel.
In all my memories, he is very much alive, an integral part of his family, his community, this world.

I have wished a hundred times over that there was a way to bypass the stilted inadequacy of words and even presence in such a time of grief. Ones own body and mind are inadequate to the task of grief. The mind surges with pain and then ebbs in forgetfulness. At times the body simply refuses to produce more tears or register the ache. What can one offer as comfort out of this state?
My heart breaks for Colin's mother, his father, and his siblings - my friends.
I have nothing to give them that can temper the jagged trauma of his loss or shorten the long days that will stretch into years of grief and longing.

In the depths of grief there is a place where none can follow or approach.
Christ alone waits there.
Yet even He does not close up the gaping hole that is left in this world in the wake of such a life.
Colin lived wholeheartedly, generously, boldly.
He left a mark everywhere he went, and now there are so many broken threads.
I am still in shock.
I have trudged through anger and suspicion towards God and been given not an answer but an assurance that Colin is truly and gloriously well.
God gives no answers, no reasons. When we stand before Him at last, the terrible beautiful truth is that we will not even ask Him for a reckoning.
Death has truly lost its sting... for the one who dies, the one who passes from death into glorious life.
For the rest of us, the wait is lengthened by the longing.

Three makes a crowd

First things first.
We are happy to blog-officially announce the pending October arrival of the third Grimm addition to this adventure! Meet the Grimmling (gender as yet unknown):




I am four months along and doing well. We are happy, healthy, and very excited; even though, as you can imagine, this will change up our plans a little.








Cementing our partnership with Word Made Flesh is still in progress. We were thankful and blessed to meet with a few of the staff this last weekend, including their newest project manager. It was very nice to ask questions, hear stories, and pray together in-person.



Since the baby is due in October, our four months training with Word Made Flesh will probably be bumped over to January 2017.

Patience. Sigh.

Our current tasks are to propose a budget (email me if you want to see the first draft - mowen10@georgefox.edu - your feedback and advice would be very much appreciated), rally our prayer network (that's you), and wait patiently.
Pastor Clemence has informed us that Baku village in Papua New Guinea has begun building on our house. More than ever, we wish we could book a ticket for tomorrow and just go!

In other news this month:
We had a wonderful time in Portland announcing our pregnancy to family and friends and getting an ultrasound checkup.
We celebrated our second anniversary (May the fourth be with you) with a romp on Mt. Rainier. We climbed up to Muir Hut for a fantastic view at 10,000+ feet.
We were very blessed and encouraged by our visits to two Churches that have been partnering with us in prayer.
We are still working on the Bamboo farm (though not for much longer as the season winds down) and stashing away as much as we can into emergency savings. Ben already has work lined up for the rest of the summer, but I am job hunting.
We are pursuing membership with a Church community in Bellingham, WA called Oikos Fellowship. Finding this community has been a surprise and a great blessing to us.

Prayer and Praise:
We praise God for our village in Baku, for our friend and mentor, Pastor Clemence Komnapi, and for the many that have been praying with us, advising, encouraging, and supporting us.
Please pray that God would guide us in making good use of our time left in the States, that He would provide for our health and financial preparation both for the baby and for travel overseas, and that He would help us to be discerning and patient while we wait for things to unfold.

Thank you all for your prayers and love. As ever, we are blessed to be a part of your lives and to be engaged in this grand adventure.

The view from Muir Hut

May God bless and keep you.
Love,
The Grimm Crowd

Checking In

It's funny how nothing seems to be going on in life until you set out to give a monthly update.
My initial summary of this month is that we handled a lot of bamboo while we waited for everything to be processed with Word Made Flesh (still waiting). While this is true, we also had many wonderful opportunities to spend time with family and friends, make new friends, and learn some good lessons about communication and prayer.

I had the opportunity to visit my dear friends in Colorado at the beginning of the month and returned with some borrowed books and a lot to think about.

The next weekend Ben and I were down in the Portland area, catching up with old friends, receiving some much needed counsel, and making new friends at the Church we had the privilege of visiting.

Back home, we celebrated Ben's birthday with a climbing gym membership and dinner with some good friends.

My parents and little brother came up for spring break the following weekend. It was a treat to introduce them to our dear brother in Christ who was visiting from the Middle East and to take them to Church with us. It was an eventful Sunday since the transformer down the street blew up and started burning. The guest pastor gave half his sermon in the dark.

My brother stayed for the week, and we put him to work playing music for us and working at the bamboo farm.

Easter weekend, our car started going haywire about 40 minutes into the drive down to Portland. We turned around, went home, switched all of our gear into a second vehicle recently gifted to us by a friend (more of a blessing than we realized), registered that car, and finally made it down around midnight. God is good. 

Easter is always a time of remembering the goodness of God in my own story and the very real Truth of His resurrection. He is Alive! We are walking miracles, raised from death into His life.

I love these lines from the song "In Christ Alone":
"There in the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave He rose again! And as He stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am His and He is mine, bought by the precious blood of Christ!"

Now March is almost over, and we are back to cutting and packaging bamboo. There are many stories and good conversations that linger with me as I work. Each dear friend and family member forms a part of the pattern, a beautiful image of God's intricate weaving. Words and memories circle in my mind.

"There comes a season in every Christian's walk where God asks, 'do you love me, or do you love my stuff?'"

"I told God I had nothing left to give and then He asked me 'So are you going to let me carry you?'"

Stories. Laughter. Abandonment. Blessing. Poetry. Painting.

"There is a healing balm in Gilead." 

A blessing in Hebrew. A prayer in Arabic. 

"God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." 

Threaded through it all is the joyful, conspiratory light I see in the eyes of the person across from me as they pour out their passion and hope and share the glimpses of something so beautiful only God could have dreamed it up. That same light hovers around those who, in the midst of pain, cannot shake the deep rooted knowledge of His goodness. His plans are not our plans. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
He simply Is.
He is Good.
And it is good to know and serve Him.

Year in Review (with pictures)

I am a month late for "Year in Review" and "New Years Resolutions"...but who cares? Lets do it anyway! I thought some pictures would say a thousand words, something old, something new, something...blue...eh, I forget that saying. Moving on.

Here is our year in review, praise God who has better adventure plans than we do!

January: Mary Got a Haircut to try something different...and hugged a tree in Newberg.

April: We went to a friends' wedding in Grants Pass. Ben wore a bow tie. Smiles were had by all.

May 4: Remember THIS mountain?!? Yeah. We did that. Happy Anniversary to us. One year of life together and we are both better and different than we could have imagined.


 
May 11: So there we were...five days later we are standing on top of Mt Adams. On a snowy and sunny day. Without sunscreen. See those hats? Useless. I'm going to burn them one day. Really. If you will kindly direct your attention to the slope picture that was par for the course. It's an "easy" mountain. Heh.



May 13: Saw friends off to Alaska with poofy lips and peeling faces. We miss you, Adam and Lauren! And the three of us finally coerced (yes, coerced) Mary into wearing shoes! Hold your heart attacks until the end...


June: Took the host family kiddos on an adventure to the Mount Baker Wilderness unprepared and totally joyful.



September: Took a date weekend to Deception Pass and sat for hours just listening to the water and staring at the waves. This was pretty joyful! Also, God gave us a home. Seriously awesome. Found the place unadvertised through a professor's wife at Trinity Western, within the price range, out of town(quiet), in a cedar grove(gravy for Ben), Christian landlord, and wonderful neighbors.


October: Our good friend Jahnathan and new friend Carilyn got married. After we threw Jahnathan off a bridge. No really...that picture is ON the bridge!


November: Went to see Ben's Momma and took a trip to Astoria's Tower for the first time. This was the first time in something like seven years that Astoria had a clear sky and it lasted for three whole hours! Woot! (hideous exaggeration mine)



 
November: This is a really really big root ball from a bamboo row; with the roots it weighs a bit less but you are looking at around #150. I put my glove down for size comparison. This job has been a blessing so very many times over I am stunned. It paid more than all other jobs I've had while in Bellingham. It allowed me to see Mary much more. Being an introvert, I get to spend most of the day by myself and working at my own pace (effective but completely without pattern). It's outside, which is fantastic in good weather and desireable even in bad weather. I got a raise! And in December, when we were praying about what Mary should do for work, the owner offered Mary a job!

December: Christmas with the families! A wonderfully raucous day with the Owen clan and we got Dominion from Mary's sister and her husband! Awesome points were liberally awarded and we immediately broke it in. Then a pleasant quiet day with the Stapleton crew. Sigh! Best of both worlds. We have very very good family.


February: Now with the weather improving, Ben has been in a frenzy of DIY, homesteader projects. Among the successes: Pickles (Mary likes this one), Chocolate made with coconut oil (we both REALLY like this one), pickled kale, beet greens, bell pepper, and onion. The bowl of unidentifiable goo is soured Quaker oatmeal to act as a starter and for meals. It's kind of fun to keep adding to it; kind of neglect combined with tasty treat payoffs. The antique hand grinder we got from Ben's step-dad works great and we use it as often as we make coffee. It's quite effective and only takes a few minutes to grind up a full batch for the french press. One of those little adjustments to learning how to live without electricity...
In the hopper: Beet cider! More as that one ferments.

We also have access to a metric ton of bamboo our boss can't use and Ben is playing with different joining techniques to put together wind chimes, a bookshelf, a step ladder, a turning barrel compost bin, and a structure to hold the barrel-ponics project.

In seeking a sending body: Word Made Flesh is in the final steps of our application process. These guys are big on long term relationships and Christ-centered community development. In January, Mary chatted with one of their recruiters and we had a very positive "That's exactly what we do! You should work with us!" So after a great phone conversation a week later between the three of us, here we are! We are praying for God's direction and would appreciate your prayers.

We started attending a new church in Bellingham and fell in love when we had a chance to serve the community the first Sunday. Every component we wanted to be present was there in spades and after praying before going into the service we had confirmation that said loud and clear: "Go here." Praise God for talking loud.

Otherwise, we are putting together a hand tool kit for PNG. Ben is wanting the professional grade stuff for tree felling, auto repair, and carpentry. This guideline is subject to change, but since we aren't taking a generator: no power tools. Suggestions and donations are appreciated here, thank you!
May and June will be school time for Ben when he will attend classes in Permaculture Design and Medical Missions Intensive (focus on tropical disease). August will be the capstone for Ben when he attends Remote Medical International's Remote EMT course in the Okanogan National Forest.
In the meantime, we are trying to keep our little hands busy getting ready for what amounts to homesteading. Questions for you, our friends: What should we be practicing? Laundry by hand? Construction? Home school curriculum? Let 'er rip, brothers and sisters!

Finally, remember we love you all and pray for you daily. Let us know what needs you have so we can intercede for you and more importantly, keep us updated! It is always a blessing to hear answers no matter what they are.

In His Grace,

Benjamin and Mary

Happy 2016, friends!
I am officially finished with my Masters in Linguistics; Ben and I are debt free; we are in our own little place with a wonderful landlord; and, tomorrow, I will be starting full time work at the bamboo farm where Ben is already working.
We are so deeply thankful for God's abundant provision for us and for the prayers and support of friends and family.

What happens next?

A friend and I were talking about awkward seasons in life when we stand ready to jump at the next thing God wants us to do, but that next thing is not quite apparent yet. It feels unstable, full of possibilities and maybes but no concrete plan to present with certainty.
I am having to learn that it is no shame to present the community of Faith with the maybes and by so doing receive prayer and guidance.

This is where Ben and I are now.
We are eager to be on our way, to come to our new home in Papua New Guinea and join in the work of Bible Translation and community building that we have been invited into. But between us and that destination there is an ocean of unknowns. Who will we partner with? Who will send us? Are we sufficiently equipped? Are we ready spiritually?
At least we know the right next step. There are some things that are clear: God has provided Ben with opportunities to become more equipped for his work in our mission, including a workshops on sustainable agriculture and wilderness medical aid; we have been counseled to put together a faith statement and letter of intent to share with those who are interested in partnering with us; and we have been provided an opportunity to save and set aside a sum of money during this next season. That's a good place to start.

Thank you for praying for us and for your patience as we fumble our way through this adventure. We are currently praying about sometime in August as a departure date for our initial stay in Papua New Guinea. God has been faithful, and we know He will continue to direct us and provide for us as we seek His will.

We pray that your new year has begun with joy, and that God will bless you abundantly as you seek after Him in obedience.
With love,
The Grimms