Theron & Nicola +1

Our Support Team

theronandnicola — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:08:57 +0000

The ‘Our Support Team’ tab above has been updated with the following message. Please pray for us as we try to raise more support in the next few months through emails, facebook, phone calls and in person where we can. We can’t do this without help and are praying for some financial miracles in 2012!

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January 2012: It’s been nearly 2 years since we tried to raise more financial support. After a few people had to stop their giving in 2011, which happens, it’s ok, we are back in a position where we must try to make up the loss and increase our income again by $300 monthly.

As you probably know, being YWAM missionaries means that we live on monthly support from others instead of receiving any kind of salary or compensation. The heart behind this way of doing things is so that the whole body of Christ can be involved in missions, either directly or indirectly. In our case both happen; Directly when we, the Olsen’s, do what we’re doing now, which is be on outreach reaching out to people ourselves. And then indirectly when we train missionaries at our home base in Montana who then go out after their training.

The small contribution of one person can make a big difference, especially when there are lots of those people! So this time our strategy is to find 30 or more $10 or $20 a month supporters.

We would feel blessed if you would consider praying about joining our financial support team.

Thank You!

With love from Thailand

Thailand

theronandnicola — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:37:31 +0000

We’ve been in Thailand for nearly 5 weeks. The team is doing well and we are doing well as a family. 3.5 weeks to go before we say goodbye to our SOW students and head to the Philippines to visit Nicola’s parents for nearly 3 weeks.

Here we lead a worship time for a total of 6 hours during the week which local missionaries come to if they want to. It’s been a very encouraging and refreshing time for them and us. We also lead worship, pray, and teach in other locations throughout the week.

Vienna is doing great and despite living in one room together she hasn’t had trouble napping or sleeping through the night! The Thai people LOVE her… their faces literally change when they see her coming, even tough security guys turn to mush. It’s really funny. She doesn’t seem to mind the attention. although she also just stares them down which is pretty funny.

Here are some pictures:

Our team standing on top of a building in Thailand but everything behind us is Myanmar/Burma

Vienna watching Theron practice for a worship time

Yummy Thai food

Christmas Newsletter

theronandnicola — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 07:42:34 +0000

Wow, sorry it’s been a while since we last posted! December has been really busy as you can imagine, with graduating the SOW lecture phase and packing for 11 weeks in Asia.

Here’s our December newsletter: Olsen Newsletter 12-11

Merry Christmas to you all! We are so blessed to know you and thank God for His son Jesus who came to save the world.

Thanksgiving

theronandnicola — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 06:23:36 +0000

We had a great Thanksgiving last week! We fed 14 adults plus leftovers the next day. All 3 football games played on tv and we played games and had a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving 2011 - watching football

We had a ton of snow but eventually it has almost all melted. Although it’s getting colder as I type and there is more on the way, of course!

Our back yard last week

Vienna is 15 months old today, saying a new word every day, sometimes two! It’s amazing how fast she’s learning.

"I've discovered my belly button!"

The lecture phase finishes up at the end of next week and we are now turning our focus towards Thailand. We leave in 10 days with 7 of our students. Exciting times!

Snow!

theronandnicola — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 03:31:35 +0000

Winter has arrived in full force with 8-10 inches of snow and a very low temperature! Vienna loves it… today we walked by the play ground she used to swing at during the summer and she insisted to walk over to the swing, through the snow! So I brushed off the snow and we swung for a while. She wasn’t happy when it was time to head home, funny girl.

We leave for Thailand in 3 short weeks! A lot to get done before then though, including Thanksgiving this week!!!!! We’re hosting again this year – cooking dinner for 14 adults – the YWAM campus provides the food, in fact the turkey is already defrosting in the bath tub! We have most of our students and all our SOW staff joining us, plus a couple others. It’s going to be del-i-cious… my mouth is already watering.

Washington

theronandnicola — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 06:18:52 +0000

Our quick weekend trip to Washington is over already! We had a good time seeing family but sadly we were both sick (thankfully Vienna was fine). Because we don’t have a car right now we flew to Seattle, a 90 min flight, then Theron’s mom picked us up and we drove the remaining 3 hours to Theron’s hometown.

It was really good seeing everyone – we’ll be back in the Spring!

Vienna did awesome on the flights and loved the play area in Seattle's airport!

Half Way!

theronandnicola — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:18:10 +0000

Wow, we are half way through the lecture phase!! 6 weeks down, 6 to go before we leave for Thailand. This week the topic is ‘History of Worship’ where our speaker, Jeff Ling (a pastor from Virginia), is taking us through the history of how ‘worship’ has been used in the church the last 2000 years – from bible reading to the introduction of hymns, to instruments, to what we experience today. Fascinating.

Some of our students and staff at Glacier National Park

And last night was Halloween – we took Vienna door to door on campus and she had a lot of fun putting candy in her bucket.

A very cute ladybug!

Loved carrying the bucket

So grown up!

A fun night

This coming weekend we are taking a short 3-night trip to Washington to see Theron’s family before outreach (if we leave it until after outreach it would have been a whole year between visits!) Vienna will be the star attraction of course but we are looking forward to spending time with the grandparents and great-grandparents!

Week 5

theronandnicola — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:51:13 +0000

This is the end of week 5 in the School of Worship! Can’t believe we are nearly half way through the lecture phase. Our 8 students are all doing fantastic and our guest speakers have been amazing.

Dressed up for 'Welcome to Montana Night'

A couple of weeks ago we had a Spiritual Retreat – the students and staff stayed at a camp for 2 nights and our guest speaker lead them through 36 hrs of silence and processing afterwards what God had said to each person during that time. It was an amazing time for everyone and will be a highlight of the school.

In other news, Vienna is walking and a complete chatterbox! She is always babbling and making noise. We love it! She is nearly 14 months old and getting really big – she’s coming out of that baby stage for sure.

Walking around with her bucket of hair clips!

Pie

theronandnicola — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:25:19 +0000

Yesterday I (Nicola) made an apple pie from scratch all by myself for the first time! It’s Theron’s family’s recipe and it turned out perfectly. So happy to add something new to my resume… ‘apple-pie-maker-extraordinaire’!!

Pumpkins

theronandnicola — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:04:23 +0000

For the first time I (Nicola) carved pumpkins! It was very fun and I want to do more!!! Here’s what we came up with for this year:

Olsen Pumpkins 2011