Mission: Urban

Tara’s Posts

Since becoming a parent, I have learned how impatient I am and with that impatience comes a lack of self-control.  God has been teaching me extra doses of His Grace in these two areas.  They go hand in hand with parenting and also language learning.  These two things take up all of my day, so [...]

This past weekend we celebrated communion with Rich, Jil and Emerson and another family, Ken, Angela, Sam, Georgia, and Ty.  Ken and Angela started studying at the Institute the same time as us.  They have become good friends and we are sad to see them go.  It’s just a reminder that this time of study [...]

I love the city. I love meeting new people and seeing how people live.  It’s easy to get on public transportation and get anywhere you need to and well, there’s lots of stores to find what you need.
I grew up in rural southern Maryland (now it resembles more of suburbia as compared to 25 years [...]

Thought I’d share some fun moments in our household with you today.

Is is so refreshing when one of these pops into the week.  It’s probably been one of the best days I’ve had in this country.  I talked to five different people today….all in spanish,  the length in time ranged from a half hour to 2 hours.  Right now I am not exhausted and I haven’t [...]

We had a fun day playing outside in the little pool.  We’re having a party on Saturday with some friends.  So, tonight there was no birthday cake, but some yummy pastries.

My kid’s are persistent….all three of them.  And sometimes all three of them can be persistent at the same time, and well that can be very overwhelming to me.  I am often annoyed and short-tempered with them when they just don’t quit.  Sometimes I give in because their persistence is……well….so persistent that it just breaks [...]

Learning another language is so difficult, but to put it into perspective it isn’t nearly as difficult as teaching 34 hormone raging inner-city kids. But nevertheless, it is difficult. I have good days and I have bad days. Good days include me actually communicating (stumbling and bumbling word order and verb conjugation) [...]

During our training in November and December at Mission Training International, we were taught about living in paradox as we move cross-culturally. Whatever was taught to the adults about living cross-culturally was also taught to the kid’s on their level. They were taught about the “yeah” duck and the “yuck” duck….a pair [...]

Last week began our second trimester of studying Spanish. Our family needed a change. The last few months have been really tough. For those who may not have known, we were at school from 7:30 until 12:10 each day. All three boys were in childcare(I previously stayed home with them) [...]