All posts by Kimberly

Home on the Range

Family, Travels

We just landed back in Texas after three wonderful weeks in Oregon. We enjoyed gorgeous weather, rivers, mountains, berries & best of all sweet fellowship with so many of you! It is so good to catch up on what is happening in your lives. If we missed meeting with you, drop us a note. We’d love to be praying for you more accurately.

For now, we are settling back into school routines. Praise God with us for safe travels & provision! Praise Him for providing a wonderful house & dog-sitter, Stephanie, while we were away!

Please pray specifically for James & Joel starting at a new school next week, for new friends, growing in wisdom, favor & stature. (Pray also we can find all their required supplies & uniforms by the time school starts next week.)

Pray for Anna & Kim beginning her first year of full-time homeschooling this year.

Pray for Kent’s research & work beginning in 10 days at the university.

Pray that we would all represent Christ well and glorify Him in our relationships and in our lives.

Blueberry Blue

Travels

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We are brown-eyed parents with blue-eyed kids. I’ve learned that no two sets of blue eyes are identical. I’ve always called Anna’s eyes “blueberry blue” because their particular shade of light gray/blue is like the white dust coating the first blueberries of the season. Here is our blueberry blue girl next to some of the ten pounds of blueberries we picked outside of Corvallis yesterday. The lightest berries are just about right, don’t you think?

Place

Travels

Thank you to those who prayed for provision of housing and transportation on our Oregon trip! Thank you also to the five households hosting us or having us housesit. We have wonderful transportation & housing for every bit of our trip! So far Oregon has been amazing to us. Grateful. So grateful.

Entitled

Travels

We resist buying into the lie that new is, by definition, better. We did not move from tenfootfamily to “A to Z” simply because the alarm clock on boring went off. We began tenfootfamily exactly 8 years ago with the primary purpose of sharing pictures and stories of our toddlers growing up as world travelers far away from grandparents and friends. We didn’t expect to have a website of our own back in those internet middle ages, but it is time.

In discussing possible names, ruling out full names for security reasons, we wanted something that represented the work we do. And one of the most significant things we do is develop the alphabet for unwritten languages. We found that “A to Z and back” can have three meanings that ring true for our ministry & life.

1. We work with peoples to develop their writing system from beginning to end, and then we start over at “A” with another unwritten language. It is cyclical.

2. We move between multiple home locations. In our first 15 years of marriage we moved 17 times. While we could not sustain that pace, we will always be traveling from “A to Z… and coming back” Lord willing. It is mobile.

3. Lastly, this work with alphabets is ongoing; we do not work from “A to Z” and finish. Since Kent’s primary focus is on African tone systems, which is a young and developing field in linguistics, there are going to be things to edit or revise. The goal is a writing system that is easy to read and embraced by the community, so that one day the translated Scriptures will be too. It is a process.

The five of us could not be part of this wild cyclical, mobile process without the partnership of many. Whether it is a timely prayer over us at 2am, or $13.35 in pocket change, we are humbled by the sacrificial support of our partners, which is a continuous reminder of God’s power and faithfulness. You are in this with us. But He will complete it.