earthsedge

Bonjour!

Well, actually it’s “hello” now…we’re back in the United States after a wonderful six months in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Last time we sent out a newsletter, it was, well…it was a long time ago! We had just returned from Amsterdam after our visa problems and we had decided to take a break from YWAM to focus on some courses we needed to finish. Here’s an update about how that went, and our latest mission project….

Switzerland

The reason why we went to Switzerland was so that Chris could finish two final courses for his BA in Intercultural Studies. The courses were great, and we enjoyed the new experience of living in a French-speaking region. Switzerland is a stunningly beautiful country and the people are wonderful. It’s also a very expensive country, but fortunately the chocolate is cheap! Aidan has really thrived over the last six months. We lived in a rural part of the country outside of Geneva, and Aidan loved his daily encounters with tractors and cows. He is talking up a storm these days and can even say a few words in French. It was a very busy, rewarding six months. With these two courses behind him, Chris is hoping to write his final thesis sometime in the next four months and then he will be done with his degree. Becka has one final ESL (English as a Second Language) practicum and she will be done with hers. It’s been a long, rewarding journey, and it’s a relief for both of us to have the end in sight! Neither one of us really planned things to work out this way, but as we reflect on all our experiences over the past five years, it’s amazing to see how God has brought things together.

As some of you may remember, earlier in the year we had decided to step away from our responsibilities with Youth with a Mission (YWAM) while we focused on finishing our studies. We also felt strongly to discontinue our support base since we would be focusing exclusively on studying.

However, there have been a few people who have graciously continued to support us through this season by financial gifts and loans, and we are extremely grateful to you for this unexpected kindness! We have also appreciated the emails, prayers, and even visits of our friends and family. It’s been amazing for us to feel so connected to you, even as we are worlds apart.

Amsterdam

So what’s next, for the nomadic Warners? Well, we’ve decided to give Amsterdam another go. We are planning to return in January. Our main reason for returning is to reconnect with our team at YWAM Amsterdam (the Intercultural Resource Center) and resume one of the projects that we’ve been planning for some time. We’ll be helping to facilitate a six-month intercultural training program called Foundations in Intercultural Studies (FIS). It’s a program that we were closely involved with planning when we were in Amsterdam previously, and something that we believe can make a significant impact in the city and beyond.

Of course, we have mixed feelings about returning to Amsterdam. We are looking forward to working with ICRC again, catching up with friends, dusting off our Dutch, and eating more stroopwaffles than should be legally allowed! On the other hand, there are some significant challenges waiting for us. The difficult housing situation hasn’t changed, and another uncertain visa process is looming. We’ve accepted that these challenges make it difficult to plan on how long we will be able to stay once our tourist visa expires. Even though we are craving some more stability and a longer-term commitment, we are trusting that our Father will still be with us-even if we can’t see over the next hill. We are still passionate about seeing the nations come to know the love of Christ.

Autumn to Winter

Would you consider praying for us as we prepare to return to Amsterdam? The next few months will be a very busy time as Chris is writing his thesis and we are working toward raising the necessary support to live in Amsterdam. We need to raise at least 3000 USD per month, which admittedly seems like a daunting figure. (To be honest, support raising has never been our strong point.) We’ve been able to live on far less than this in the past, but this is the minimum requirement for a residency visa. We would also appreciate your prayers that some suitable housing would open up before we arrive, and for a smooth transition as we prepare and travel from Illinois to California in the next few months.

If you’re interested, you can continue to follow our journey at our website, www.earthsedge.org. It’s kind of been dormant amidst the busyness of the summer, but we’ll be posting more regularly in the coming months. We try and post some videos or pictures of Aidan every so often-you will be surprised at how much he has changed! You can also find more information about the Foundations in Intercultural Studies course that we will be running, and all of our financial support information is available there as well.

We are looking forward to seeing many of you in the coming months! If we haven’t heard from you in a while, please drop us a line and let us know how your summer went!

Love,

Chris, Becka, and Aidan

My mom and our friend Jeana visited us last week! It was a whirlwind trip (especially for them), but it was so good to have them here. Aidan had the time of his life. He spent the weeks leading up to the visit talking about the “up” (his word for airplanes) that would bring “mamaw” (grandma). He also picked up a lot of new words while they were here (like “tunnel”-one of his new favorites), and got plenty of opportunities to play in fountains and other bodies of water (one of his favorite pastimes). Some highlights of the time were trips to Zermatt, Lausanne, Gruyere, and Yvoire, France. You can check out the pics on flickr; some of our favorites are below.

Playing in a fountain at the Nestle chocolate factory

The Matterhorn

Castle gardens in Gruyere

Jeana and Zoe

Yvoire, France

Gruyere, Switzerland

Zoe and Aidan in Lausanne

My lecturer this week is Dr. David Aikman. He’s giving a seminar on “State of the World” -should be interesting. He was sitting at our table this morning for brunch. He had a nice cheese and tomato sandwich. Aidan was in his high chair, right next to Dr. Aikman.  Aidan thought it was nice sandwich too. So he grabbed it!  He sneaked his hand over and put his fingers on the cheese….but Dr. Aikman has some mighty fine reflexes. He slid his plate away, and Aidan took it a little personally. He cried- a lot.

Must have been a good sandwich.

For my last birthday, I decided to get a flip video camera. I don’t aspire to be much of a movie maker, but we wanted something for family videos (something better than our ancient digital camera) and maybe for the occasional touristy thing.  I didn’t really want to drop a lot on a high camcorder, and even if I did, the issue for us is portability. So when I heard about an insanely good deal on the flip at amazon (I think I got it for about $60), I went for it. I did some research before, and most of the reviews were overwhelming positive. My verdict? It’s been perfect for us. It’s small, incredibly easy to use, and the quality is fine for us. I’m not sure I would have paid full price for it, but for $60, it’s amazing (I’ve noticed Amazon has runs the same special from time to time). Sometimes I’ll just carry it around in my pocket and video Aidan throughout the day, and I know we’ll enjoy these videos later down the road.

Of course, what I don’t like is managing all these videos. My project this weekend is to sort through the all the files that have accumulated on our computer, and then upload the keepers to flickr. I’ll probably delete everything but the best of the best, and save the editing for another day. Here’s a few that I just looked at:

Aidan gets a “new tractor.” Almost as good as the first one!

I like this next one because it catches a few things that Aidan does. Like randomly saying “pop” (even though he understands the question and knows what he should say-he does this a lot, and sometimes he cracks himself up), hearing the car outside and immediately saying “car”-he hears the traffic outside our window and he can tell by the noise whether it is a car, tractor, motorcycle, or bus. But I especially like the “bye bye” at the end:

Dancing:

It’s the last week of my communications course! I turned in my research paper on Friday, and I give the oral report tomorrow. Just for fun I put the whole text into wordle, and this was the result: