Greetings from the Sunshine State!
It’s vacillated a lot here lately between blue skies and cloudy ones. At times the weather makes us feel like God has brought us back to Togo’s rainy season! But then we go outside and nobody yells “Batoulé!” at us; the dirt our children play in is white and sandy instead of red; and we buy our carrots bagged from Aldi instead of fresh from a bowl atop a market lady’s head. While it still feels strange to be settling into life on this side of the ocean, we know we are right where God wants us right now.
We are almost six weeks in to a new job and new routines. It’s been challenging at times, but mostly good.
Jonathan is enjoying having specific projects and goals to accomplish each day. This is something he really missed during his medical leave. The ITEC team is very patient and understanding as he adjusts to his role. He is able to take a brief “sieste” each day right after lunch, and this helps him immensely in making it through the rest of the day. To quote Bethany, “Since we’ve been here, he is more like himself than he has been in a long time.”
Bethany, Caleb, and Sélah have had some adjustments too — we miss having Papa at home with us! But now that we’re mostly past the initial move period and the fussiness and sleep regressions that went with all those changes, we are doing much better (or we were until the time changed! 😉 ) and settling into our new routines, making good friends, exploring the area’s parks, stores, libraries, etc. We’ve had many kind people here help to make our transition go more smoothly and make us feel at home.
We are also excited that we may have found our new church home. We’ve visited about three times, and are looking forward to getting more involved there and getting to know the members better. This has been one of our big prayer requests since before moving, and we are excited to see God answering!
It seems we did not communicate very well about our employment status with ITEC. We hope we can clear up the confusion some of you have expressed. Jonathan is a full-time employee there, but because they are a non-profit organization, we still need to raise half of our salary. We are thankful to already have partners committed to 23% of that. If you, after prayerful consideration, would like to partner with our family in reaching the nations with the good news of God’s lovingkindness from here in Dunnellon, FL, please visit www.itecusa.org/donate and be sure to type “Jonathan & Bethany Edwards” in the memo box. (Mailing instructions included at the end.)
Some of you have also asked for more details about what exactly ITEC is and what we do. ITEC was started by Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint. You may have heard the story of how in 1956 five men — Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian — were speared to death by the Waodani, a tribe they had been attempting to reach with the gospel. This tragedy opened the door for members of the Saint and Elliot families to show unconditional love to the Waodani and share Christ with them. Steve Saint spent part of his childhood in Ecuador among this tribe, and when he returned as an adult, they asked him to train them in the skills westerners did for them on short-term trips. They did not want to be always dependent on other people’s timelines and trips and technical skills to help their own people. They wanted to have the skills themselves: medicine, dentistry, aviation, mechanics, etc. and use those avenues to share the gospel themselves. This request led to the start of ITEC.
ITEC organizes short-term trips for the purpose of training indigenous people in the above skills. We also work together to come up with solutions to issues encountered during these trainings. For example, in 2002 they invented a lightweight portable dentist chair that can be easily carried into rural areas. ITEC works in partnership with churches and believers globally. Their mission is to “inspire great commission participation.”
“ITEC develops tools and training programs, trains indigenous Christ-followers, and equips others to do the same both domestically and abroad. Our goal is to eliminate the potential for dependency by partnering with, training alongside, and learning from the indigenous churches. We call this interdependency, a concept found in passages throughout the Bible, and clearly in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31.”
If you have other specific questions about ITEC and what we do, please do not hesitate to ask us. We are excited about what God is doing through this organization, and thankful we get to be part of it! This is another answer to prayer — to still be able to be directly involved in missions even though we can’t go ourselves long-term anymore.
Here is an interview with Steve Saint, the founder, about how ITEC got started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qbr370WUfc&t=118s
And here is another video overviewing ITEC’s motives and some of the ways we carry those out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7ZXxlE4Blo
Thank you all for your prayers and for continuing to keep up with our family through this change.
Serving Him together,
Jonathan, Bethany, Caleb & Sélah
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9
To give online, visit www.itecusa.org/donate
To donate by mail, send check or money orders payable to ITEC.
Be sure to the memo says “Jonathan & Bethany Edwards”
ITEC
10575 SW 147th Circle
Dunnellon, FL 34432
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