Missionary Craig Schafer shares a little perspective after time away from tribal life.
Craig Schafer writes that whenever he comes home to the USA, he always sees changes have taken place. Life in his former home area always looks a little different to him when he returns.
But not so with tribal life in the Kora village where his family serves, he says. When they return from an extended visit away from the village, Craig says they return to find the village and village life unchanged. In fact, Craig observes, “it is exactly the same as it was when we left.”
Upon their recent return to the village after over eight months in the USA, it took about a week to get their house cleaned out and back into shape before they could resume language study. He says the house actually fared quite well in their absence, aside from the mold which lurked in certain areas. “Most of our house is painted with an anti-mold paint, but not all of it,” Craig explains. “So we are still in the middle of slowly trying to get rid of all that mold and not sneeze ourselves to death.”
Craig says they have been back to working on the language for about two weeks. “Please keep praying for us as we get back into the language. It is not always easy to hear the people tell you how good you used to be and how horrible you now are at the language,” he adds.
Craig asks for prayers for their kids in the difficult adjustment back to village life. Since they play with the tribal children, the language barrier can be painful for them. “Please pray that they would really be able to pick up the language this term, which would make them feel much more comfortable playing with the tribal kids,” Craig says.
Pray for the Schafer family as they live with and minister to the Kora people. Pray that God will build their friendships and relationships with the village people. Pray that the culture and language pursuits of the Schafer family will be blessed by God and will be used by Him to prepare the hearts of the Kora people to hear His Good News and respond to Him.
