The Dyrud's Great Adventure

New beginnings

2012-02-03T12:59:00.005-05:00

Well, as many of you know by now, we returned from Africa on December 18th. It was decided that it would be best for our family if we came back to the States to finish our first term at MAF's Headquarters in Idaho. So, we were able to spend Christmas with our families in California and now we're getting settled in a home here in Idaho for the next year and a half.

Rodney has started work at the hangar and is enjoying all the new experiences working on different planes and engines.

I (Tammi) am at home with the kids and I'm always trying to think of new things to keep Justice occupied :-)

Jaycee started crawling a few days ago and Justice enjoys reading her stories and sharing his toys.

We were privileged to be able to meet with surgeons while we were in California regarding the lipoma in Jaycee's cheek. It looks like we will be doing some liposuction some time this year to try and remove the extra fatty tissue.

I guess that's all for now; keep your eyes out for a newsletter coming your way in a few weeks!

Love, Rodney, Tammi, Justice and Jaycee

A new opportunity

2011-11-11T12:30:00.001-05:00

For anyone who does not receive our periodic updates via e-mail, here is the latest news.

Dear Prayer Team,

As you know, life always brings about new opportunities whether we live in the United States or somewhere overseas, whether we work in an office or on an airplane. Recently, we have been given another opportunity from the Lord to serve with our team here in Africa in the role of an aircraft mechanic  By the way, most of you know that MAF stands for Mission Aviation Fellowship, but the staff have coined an additional phrase that fits our ever changing lives……. Move Again Friend. God likes to keep us on our toes as He moves us to the best places and molds us into the best people that He wants us to be. All this to say, Rodney will be taking a break from flying and we will be moving to Uganda so that Rodney can complete his maintenance field check out with our Maintenance Specialist there. After 6 months in Uganda, we will return to our US Headquarters in Nampa, Idaho where we will complete our first term and decide what will be the best course for our continued service with MAF.

Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement; we are so blessed to have such a wonderful support team. We would ask special prayers going forward as we pack up our things and prepare to move to Uganda by the beginning of December (3 weeks). We would also ask prayer for our family; Justice and Tammi specifically have been plagued by terrible nightmares as of late. Please ask the Prince of Peace to cover our hearts and our home and to keep the Evil One from attacking as we continue in our service for the King. Thank you!

Love,

Rodney, Tammi, Justice and Jaycee Dyrud

A 3 year old and more

2011-10-08T13:59:00.004-04:00

Justice....... 3 years old!

Smiles from Jaycee

I don't feel old enough to have a 3 year old, but it has happened! Justice turned 3 last week and he's finally starting to play by himself which is nice when I'm messing with Jaycee :-) Justice also likes to 'play Chargers' (kick the football around in the backyard) and he enjoys playing a lot with Chad Lincoln, another MAF kid who is Justice's age.

Jaycee just learned how to roll from her tummy to her back so now I have two (almost) mobile children.

Rodney is continuing his flight check out with our instructor pilots and has plenty of stories to share every day after his flights. We are also awaiting the arrival of Jonathan Blomberg (another pilot) in early November. The other three families who are on furlough at the moment are slated to be back by mid-January and then we'll have a total of 7 pilots and 1 maintenance specialist here to help to lighten the workload :-)

For more news, look for our upcoming newsletter next month!

Love, Tammi, Rodney, Justice and Jaycee

The kids

2011-09-25T06:11:00.000-04:00

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Congo Missionary Funnies from our friend

2011-09-14T03:05:00.002-04:00

The following is taken from our friend's blog. Chris Konop has a wonderful way of sharing about life here in Congo.

This first story is fictitious and could never have happened to a real missionary:

"My alarm goes off at 6am and I am delirious. I roll out of bed, half falling into a hole on my side because a queen size mattress doesn't quite fit on a king size frame. As I roll, I hear a tearing sound, and realize I just ripped the mosquito net down. In my morning fogginess, I forget for a millisecond that I live in Africa and stick my toothbrush under the tap. Only half way thru brushing my teeth do I realize my critical error...all you can do is wait. And to think, it's not even 6:30am yet. I wonder what the day will hold!"

At 2am, I'm paying for my earlier mistake, sitting on the throne, when it starts to sway back and forth. At first I think it's just because I'm up at 2am, but I quickly realize we're having an earthquake. I think to myself, "Great, I travel all the way to the middle of Africa just to contract giardia and get buried under a pile of bricks!

You also learn a lot of things about creepy crawlies and rodents. Like cockroaches can hiss, make you scream, and even fly. Or how rats only need a 1/2 inch gap to get in and will eat an unbelievable amount of concrete and still survive. They are expert climbers and poop on everything.

One day I was exploring our new garage and decided to open the front doors. The first opened easily, but the second wouldn't budge. I pulled for 30 minutes before realizing it was holding up the concrete roof.

I walk into a Subway back in the US and the guy behind the counter asks what kind of cheese I'd like, american, cheddar, or provolone. I instinctively reply, "Goma cheese, please." (since that is the only kind available to us here in Congo)

Just wanted to share a little different perspective on life here in Africa :-) Thanks Chris!

For anyone who needs a smile today.......

2011-09-11T15:33:00.001-04:00

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Pictures and videos

2011-09-02T13:49:00.001-04:00

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Back in Bunia

2011-08-08T13:38:00.004-04:00

Well, it's been a while since I've written so I thought I'd update you on what we've been doing. We got back to Bunia on the 8th of July, had a week to get re-settled and then we went back to Uganda with our whole team for a few days of Family Conference (see pictures). It was a very refreshing time both physically and spiritually; we were very blessed by Gregg and Mike who came from California to be with us for those days. They brought us yummy treats (like candy bars and a kit to make s'mores). After conference, we came back to Bunia and Rodney has been working on his flight check out. He is working 45-50 hours a week and we are glad that he is home on weekends :-) Justice, Jaycee and I have been keeping busy at home, playing outside in the grass with Justice's trucks and tractors and playing inside with Play-Doh and puzzles when it's raining.We are continuing to get settled in, unpack and might work on getting some furniture made eventually! Thank you all for your love and prayers; we hope you are having a wonderful summer.

Love, Tammi for Rodney, Justice and Jaycee too

TIme in Uganda

2011-07-07T09:13:00.001-04:00

Since we're heading back to Bunia on Friday morning I wanted to share some pictures from our time here in Uganda.

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The kids at a local club in Kampala

2011-06-28T16:49:00.000-04:00

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Update on Jaycee

2011-06-17T04:30:00.001-04:00

Hello family and friends. We wanted to give you an update on Jaycee as some of you have been asking us about her. When she was first born, we noticed that her right cheek was swollen and much larger than her left cheek. We had an ultrasound done, which we took to a plastic surgeon here in Uganda. Dr. Andrew is world renowned for his work with children who have cleft palates and other facial abnormalities and he is working at a hospital here in Uganda. After looking at the ultrasound, Dr. Andrew (and several other doctors as well) determined that Jaycee has a benign lipoma in her cheek. It is NOT cancerous, for which we praise the Lord! This is not currently affecting her eye sight or eating or breathing and should not do so as she continues to grow. For now, the best course of treatment is to wait and watch to see if the lipoma grows as she gets bigger. The mass will probably stop growing at some point and we'll decide at a later date when to have it removed. We are so grateful that this is nothing to worry about and that the Lord provided us with such wonderful doctors here in Uganda who deal specifically with these kinds of cases!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our family :-)

Love, Tammi for Rodney, Justice and Jaycee too

Better late than never :-)

2011-06-08T14:46:00.003-04:00

Jaycee Lynne Dyrud

The four of us!

For anyone who has not yet heard, our daughter Jaycee Lynne Dyrud was born on Friday, May 27th, 2011 at 4:05pm in Kampala, Uganda. She weighed 7lbs 9 oz. and was 19 inches long. Tammi's mom Terri had arrived the night before from California, so we think Jaycee was waiting for Nana to get here before she made her appearance :-)

We are slowly getting adjusted to being a family of four; Justice is a great big brother and it has been a wonderful blessing to have Nana here helping out!

Love, Rodney, Tammi, Justice and Jaycee

Any day now

2011-05-17T09:44:00.002-04:00

Here I am at 40 weeks; yes, I made it to full term (my due date was May 16th) and now we're waiting to see when Baby wants to make her arrival. With Justice arriving 6 days before his due date I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It looks like we got an early one and a late one :-)

Rodney is working hard to finish up the final pieces on one of our Cessna 206s that has been in Uganda for a major 1,000 hour inspection. The plane has been here in the shop since the first week of April so it will be good to have it return to flight service at the end of this week.

Justice continues to grow and make friends wherever we are. He loves to introduce himself to people (" Name, Justice!") and he's starting to pray understandable prayers at the dinner table :-)

Lord willing, our next post will have some baby news and pictures! Thank you all for your encouragement and prayers. We are so blessed to call you our family and friends.

Love, Tammi for the 4 of us

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T09:09:00.001-04:00

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Enjoying our time in Uganda

2011-04-14T09:58:00.003-04:00

Justice at the pool with Brooke and Chad Lincoln, two of our program manager's kids

Almost time :-)

Hello all. We made it to Uganda last week and Rodney has been busy at the hanger doing lots of maintenance work. We will be here most likely until the end of June; Rodney will be working in the hanger helping with a lot of inspections on all three of our planes that will be coming over from Bunia at various times in the next few months.

Justice and I have been taking advantage of the warm days here to swim and play at the playground of a local recreation club. It is within walking distance from the house where we are staying and it is a nice place to relax and let Justice get out some of his boundless energy :-)

We are excited to meet our daughter in just a few weeks (34 days and counting) and we are thankful for this time of change and rest ahead of the birth. Thank you for praying for us!

Love, Tammi for the 4 of us

A few changes

2011-03-29T13:03:00.000-04:00

Hello family and friends! We wanted to share with you a few changes for the next three months. As many of you have read in previous e-mails, I have been feeling stressed and overwhelmed (Tammi too) with all of the challenges and changes of adapting to a new culture and lifestyle. This has been affecting my (Rodney) ability to stay ahead of the airplane. The program manager has been looking for a way to help me succeed and also fill a few needs that the program has for the next few months. So I am going to take a break from flying and help with the 1,000 hour inspection on our Cessna 206. Since we are going to Uganda for the birth of our baby and this is where all of our plane maintenance is done, it is a good time to make this transition as well as the fact that life in Uganda is much less stressful. The maintenance specialist in Uganda is leaving to go on furlough in May so I will be filling a need there for part of the time he is gone. We plan on leaving next week and anticipate being in Kampala until the end of June. After that we will come back where I will transition back into the cockpit.

Recent happenings

2011-03-23T08:42:00.000-04:00

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A look at our house in Bunia

2011-03-05T12:11:00.000-05:00

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How has your day been?

2011-03-04T07:51:00.002-05:00

Rodney was gone all day on Monday from 6:30am until 6:00pm doing flight training with another pilot. Then he got a call Monday night saying that he was going to Kampala, Uganda to do maintenance on our Cessna 206 airplane from Tuesday am until Thursday afternoon. He got home yesterday and was supposed to have today (Friday) off. We were having lunch and his cell phone rang; the program manager wanted him to be to the airport in 20 minutes to go on the afternoon flight. So he quickly finished his lunch, changed into his work clothes and left. About 10 minutes later, my house helper was frantically calling me from the kitchen. I went in and the water nozzle for the facet had broken off and water was spewing all over the kitchen! Our day guard had gone to lunch, so Mbadusi and I were bailing water into buckets like crazy. We were low on water anyway and had just had a storm that gave us a little bit of rain water which we are totally dependent upon for our water source. Fortunately, our day guard returned at that moment, showed me where the water shut off was and I called one of our MAF guys who was not flying to come over and see if he could figure out what went wrong with the facet so that we didn't have to leave the water off all day, not knowing when Rodney will get home this evening. While all this was going on, Justice was sitting in the dining room throwing his PB&J sandwich all over the floor, along with the peanuts he was snacking on. Never a dull moment around here! So, how has your day been? :-)

Tammi

Counting my blessings

2011-02-23T06:38:00.006-05:00

Daddy and Justice getting ready to play in the rain

A pretty blue lizard; one of the more 'exotic' animals we've seen around our place.

Another exotic animal here...... oh wait, it's only Justice and one of our fellow missionaries kitties :-)

It's been great to have Rodney home for several weeks as we are still getting settled in to our house here in Bunia. Next week, he leaves on Tuesday morning for Uganda where he and another pilot will complete an inspection on our Cessna 206 airplane. He will return to Bunia on Thursday afternoon, Lord willing. This is one of the many reasons why I am blessed to have a great team of friends here as I am still working on figuring out how to cook from scratch, run our generator, keep tabs on our batteries that run our house, pump rain water from our bottom tank to our top tank when it rains, etc. (They didn't tell the wives that we needed an electrical course before we arrived). I am also blessed to have a husband who can do all of the aforementioned items, install shower curtain rods, hang mosquito nets over the beds, keep tabs on our water and power situation..... (none of this is as easy as it sounds here in Africa). I am blessed to have the wonderful encouragement of prayers and notes from family and friends back home in the States. And I am blessed to have two children, the second of whom we look forward to meeting in May. Count your blessings today :-)

Tammi

Our life in Bunia

2011-02-18T07:06:00.000-05:00

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Getting settled in

2011-02-04T14:28:00.005-05:00

Our new house in Bunia!

Already feeling big and hot at 25 weeks.... still have a ways to go ;-)

Justice enjoying his new room.

Rodney helping with a medical emergency flight on his first day!

Well, we've been in Bunia since the 3rd week of January and we are still getting settled in to our house and making lots of cultural adjustments. It's great that we have a wonderful team here who is helping us to go shopping, figure out where to get furniture made (one piece at a time) and recommending people who can help us with gardening and house work.
Rodney has started flying already and many of his 'training days' have turned into full work days so he's jumping in with both feet! There never seems to be a dull moment here :-)
Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement; they mean so much!

Love, Tammi for the 4 of us

Our first week in Africa

2011-01-18T09:51:00.001-05:00

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Our first post from Africa!

2011-01-14T08:19:00.004-05:00

Justice playing with Daddy and the 2 German Shepherds at Stan and Pam Lincoln's house

Justice seems to be enjoying his new life here.

Some pretty flowers in the Lincoln's backyard. They also have an avocado tree!

Well, we arrived in Uganda on Tuesday night after 20+ hours of flying. We even arrived with all of our luggage! There have been several days of culture shock, getting over jet lag and being sick with colds. But we are grateful that the Lord has brought us here safely. Our shipment, which left my (Tammi) parent's house last Sunday is expected to arrive in Bunia this coming Monday and we are slated to arrive there on Thursday. For now, we are staying with Stan and Pam Lincoln, the Maintainence Specialist and his wife. Pam is taking us shopping and showing us the sights of Kampala. Next week before we leave I (Tammi) will have an appointment with the midwife and doctor to meet them and take a tour of the hospital where our baby will be born in May. We are excited to finally be in Africa and appreciate your continued prayers as we get adjusted to our new life and culture in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Love, Tammi for Rodney, Justice and Baby girl Dyrud

Flight schedule

2011-01-08T22:49:00.000-05:00

For those of you praying for us, I thought I'd give you our flight itinerary so you knew where we would be and how long our flights are.

Leave San Diego at 6:30am on Tuesday the 11th, arriving in Minneapolis at 12:20pm. Leave Minneapolis at 3:10pm, arrive in Holland at 6:40am on Wednesday, January 12th. Leave Holland at 10:15am and arrive in Uganda at 8:15pm.

That's 3 hours 45 minutes from San Diego to Minneapolis, 8 hours 30 minutes from Minneapolis to Holland and 8 hours from Holland to Uganda.

Hopefully we don't have any problems especially with snow or bad weather in Minneapolis. Can hardly believe that our departure time is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Tammi, Rodney, Justice and Baby girl

Fun in the midst of mayhem

2011-01-03T14:40:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-XzVAJwXDY

We hope you enjoy our little bit of humor :-)

Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T22:56:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! We are blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family members who support us in numerous ways. All we can say is THANK YOU! You are a great gift. Take a moment and remember the true reason we celebrate Christmas; Jesus coming to earth to be our Savior and Lord. This is the greatest gift of all :-)

Love, Tammi for the 4 of us

A post about my non-kid

2010-12-17T11:22:00.003-05:00

I bet many of you didn't know that I have a non-kid :-) Her name is Laelia Wesley and I took care of her while I was pregnant with Justice. She was born with a condition called arthrogryposis which means that there were complications with her connective tissues during Alexis' (her mom's) pregnancy and Laelia's limbs were not formed properly. This picture was taken hours after her birth.
Well, Laelia is 3 years old now and she has been having surgeries to straighten her legs and hips in the hopes that she can walk someday. A few days ago, she stood in her casts for the first time!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is so tremendous after knowing what she has been through since her birth and all that her family has gone through. I am tearful with joy to see the progress that she is making and to know that these surgeries are helping. I am so thankful for this Christmas miracle for Charles, Alexis, Laelia and their extended family. Merry Christmas everyone; thanks for rejoicing with me about my non-kid :-)

Life

2010-11-27T13:01:00.002-05:00

We hope you all enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving with family and friends on Thursday. We had a wonderful time with Tammi's family and now we're continuing on full steam ahead with the packing, ordering and shopping process. Justice is growing up fast and Tammi's pregnancy is going well too. We will be spending time between San Diego and Santa Ana so hopefully we can see many of you at church on Sundays when we are in town. Thank you for praying for us during this stressful time :-)

Love, The Dyrud Family

Lots going on

2010-10-17T12:32:00.002-04:00

For those who may not have heard the news yet, we're having another baby! Baby Dyrud #2 is due May 16th and will most likely be born in Kenya, Africa :-) We feel blessed that God has given us another child and we pray that we will continue to be good parents for both of our children.

Rodney's parents and one of his sisters, Pamela have been staying with us for the last 10 days here in Idaho. We have had a nice time together, going to the zoo, a corn maze and a pumpkin patch. They left for California this morning and we enjoyed having them come to visit.

Rodney and I have another week of classes left here at MAF and then Rodney flies to Kansas for a 2 week maintenance course for the Cessna 208 Caravan, another plane that he will be working on once we get to Africa. We have reached 100% of our target ministry support and are in the process of buying place tickets for the middle of January to leave for the DRC!

Life is going full steam ahead and we are looking forward to coming back to California soon to see family and friends and to start packing our shipment for Africa. Have a blessed week!

Love, Tammi for the 4 of us :-)

What we have been up to lately in Idaho

2010-09-22T00:04:00.000-04:00

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Fun, fun, fun

2010-09-16T11:16:00.002-04:00

Rodney passed the maintenance portion of his training yesterday and was recommended for field service. Today he started on the flight portion of the training which will end on October 7th. Justice and I recently spent 6 days in Washington State visiting my aunt and uncle and cousins; we had a marvelous time! I am getting ready to go on a weekend Ladies Retreat with the MAF gals and we are gearing up for Justice's 2nd birthday on the 28th of this month. Time is flying by and we're having fun :-)

Fun days

2010-08-30T14:58:00.004-04:00

Justice trying on Daddy's new helmet.

Now he's official :-)

We went to the Western Idaho Fair this weekend and had a good time seeing the tractors and animals. Rodney has recovered from his sickness and he finished his second week of ground school last week. For the next few weeks he will be working in the MAF hanger getting hands-on maintenance experience on the 206 and a few other planes that are here.
Justice and I continue to enjoy our time together, playing, going shopping, going to the park, etc.

Here are two short videos for you :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaNKieXQBow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ2__wbflfo

Safe arrival

2010-08-18T15:21:00.004-04:00

Justice 'flying' Daddy and Mommy around the world at Adventure City theme park

I cut 1 foot of my hair off for a new look :)

We made it safely to Nampa last Saturday after quite the airplane trip. We had delays and layovers and ended up flying from San Diego to Las Vegas to Salt Lake City to Boise. Rodney picked up a virus on one of our many planes so he has been dealing with that during this first week of class. Fortunately he doesn't start flying for another few weeks so that will give his body time to get rid of the sickness.
Justice and I have been enjoying our Mommy and Buddy time; it's been a hard adjustment for Justice to have Rodney gone at work all day........... Rodney leaves before Justice wakes up, comes home for a half hour lunch break, goes back to class until 4:30 or 5:00, comes home for an hour dinner break and then goes back to the hanger to study until 9pm and comes home before Justice goes to bed. We are taking advantage of the summer hours and playing outside until it gets dark around 9:30pm :)

Here is a video of Justice driving a fire truck at Adventure City, a theme park designed just for kids ages 2 to 10! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PES7NXnM2gM

Busy and fun

2010-08-07T21:15:00.005-04:00

Hello friends! Well, we arrived back in California in July and we've been busy working and playing.
We've celebrated Justice's birthday twice already with family in San Diego and Santa Ana. Rodney and I went to Disneyland to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary and we have enjoyed spending time with family in various places here in California.
We will be leaving next Saturday, August 14th to spend 3 months training in Idaho.

Our support levels are doing very well; we have 100% of our outgoing ministry support and 97% of our monthly ministry support :) We thank God for His provision for our family and for you, our prayer and financial supporters!!

We hope to see people again when we get back to California in November.

Love, Tammi (for Rodney and Justice too)

Here are pic of our trip across the country

2010-07-13T16:50:00.000-04:00

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Coming home

2010-06-25T21:10:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow (Saturday) we will pack up a U-Haul trailer, attach it to the back of our car and start our drive back to California. We graduated on Wednesday morning and both received high grades on our final conversation exams! It will take us 15 days to drive from Canada to California, but we are excited that we can stop and see many friends and family along the way. We also plan to stop at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Our summer is already filling up as we plan to see as many people as possible while we are in California. Thanks for supporting us on our journey; we are so grateful to have a wonderful, encouraging group of people like you who pray for us. We really couldn't do this without you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dj-5NJKLck

Leaving Canada

2010-06-18T18:33:00.004-04:00

Our last field trip to the Coaticook Gorge

Hello everyone. Well, our time here is almost done and we will be leaving to start our trip back to California next Saturday. We have a regular day of class on Monday, an exam on Tuesday, graduation on Wednesday morning and then another exam after graduation on Wednesday. After that, we'll spend Thursday and Friday packing and we'll leave Saturday afternoon. Our time here in Quebec has passed quickly and we're glad that we can actually speak and understand French now! We still have a long way to go, but this time has given us a good foundation for Africa. See you soon :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0P1hL_8_0k

Love, Tammi, Rodney and Justice

Spring/summer has arrived!

2010-05-24T10:31:00.002-04:00

My first drink out of a big boy cup at almost 20 months old
My first goatee..................... well, more like chocolate ice cream :)

Today is our last holiday before the end of school. It has been in the 80s this weekend so we've started (finally!) putting away our scarves and hats and mittens and pulling out our shorts and tank tops. On Friday we went on a field trip to downtown Sherbrooke. We did a scavenger hunt where we had to ask people on the street (in French of course) to give us directions to certain buildings in the city. We were in five different teams and each team had different questions. Then we all got together at the end of the morning and shared our results; it was fun :-) We are also in the process of planning our trip back across the US at the end of June. We hope to see many family members and friends on our way back to California.

A day at the park

2010-05-18T16:32:00.000-04:00

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The latest happenings

2010-05-15T13:22:00.003-04:00

Sliding with Daddy at a local park
Justice likes to help vacuum!

Well, we have been busy these last few weeks working on our May newsletter. Rodney has also been in the process of renewing his Certified Flight Instructor License on-line. The on-line course took about 18 hours to complete and because we are out of the country, we had to find a notary here in Sherbrooke to notarize all of his paperwork :) But, we have finished both of these tasks and so life is a little less stressful at the moment.
This Friday, we will be doing a scavenger hunt in downtown Sherbrooke for our field trip. That should be fun! We have six weeks of class left and we have started to plan our trip back across the United States. Our time here has flown by and we are excited to see many of our family and friends in a few short weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob_39-Iei7k

This is a video from a while ago, but Rodney thought it was cute :)

Our recent trip to Niagara Falls

2010-04-30T17:10:00.000-04:00

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Almost done

2010-04-16T16:39:00.003-04:00

We are almost done with our second semester and we're in the process of taking our final exams. After we finish exams on Wednesday, we're taking a family vacation to Niagara Falls for four days! Then we will start the Conversation Course on the 26th of this month. The Conversation Course will really improve our French and we are looking forward to that!
In other news, we are at 85% of our monthly ministry support and 94% of our outgoing ministry support! Have a great weekend everybody :)

Here are two videos for your enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diWIb1Jguf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2xeLEWQvLI

Easter Vacation

2010-04-06T21:52:00.001-04:00

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Happy Easter

2010-04-01T22:10:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone! We are glad to have a short break for Easter with no classes on Friday or Monday. My (Tammi) parents are here visiting for our break and we are excited to spend this time with them. We are going to spend some time here in Sherbrooke and we are also going to Quebec City which is about 2 hours away. It is the oldest city in North America and everyone has told us that we have to go to Quebec City while we are here.
We have three weeks of the Intermediate Class left and then our Conversation Course starts at the end of the month. We have a lot of exams and papers coming up and we will also be sharing our ministry with MAF during the weekly chapel service at school. We will be speaking entirely in French for our presentation on the 14th of April and we are excited to share with the students and faculty about how God has called us to the ministry of MAF. Have a blessed Easter; HE IS RISEN!!!

Here is a video; enjoy :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXowCMuiAVY

Les cabanes à sucre

2010-03-26T15:25:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone. Last Friday we went on our field trip to the Sugar Shack. We got to take a walk in the forest and see where they harvest the maple syrup from the maple trees. Then we got to eat pure maple syrup mixed with fresh snow. It was quite the Quebecois experience! The weather is still trying to make up it's mind as to whether it is winter or spring. On Wednesday morning, it was snowing when we woke up and on Thursday it was 60 degrees F and we played outside for the afternoon in the sunshine. Easter break is just around the corner and my (Tammi) parents are coming out to visit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8b201a3rc8

What we've been up to......

2010-03-07T22:02:00.002-05:00

Tammi and Justice made a short visit to San Diego during Spring Break from school. Justice and Grandpa had a great time at the go-cart track watching the go carts and driving the pretend ones :)
Nana and Justice (and Mommy) enjoyed a day at the beach, complete with chasing seagulls and watching a Bobcat shovel sand on the beach.
We also spent a day at the zoo where we saw all kinds of animals.
At the end of February, Rodney and I went to a banquet hosted by the school. It was a good time of food, fun and fellowship with friends.

We start back to school tomorrow and have a lot to do before we finish our courses in June. It was nice to have a break and the weather in Canada was beautiful when we returned :)

Here is a video that I took at the zoo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEvOpWJNT8E

Life

2010-02-17T18:53:00.002-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzhHS6wuJ2E

Hello family and friends. We are doing well here in Canada; we took our first set of exams last week and we've had this week full of more exams, oral projects and a field trip. The snow is still falling every once in a while and we are looking forward to our week-long spring break that starts the first week of March. Justice is growing by leaps and bounds and eating us out of house and home...... I can't image what it will be like when he's 14! Thanks for keeping up with us; we sure appreciate the prayers and encouragement :)

Update

2010-02-05T16:56:00.003-05:00

Daddy, your shoes are big!

Hello family and friends. Life here in Canada is marching along and we have our first set of written and oral exams coming up on Monday and Tuesday. Our French is improving (we can actually have conversations with people now!) and it hasn't snowed in a little while, although it is still cold :) In two weeks we are going on a field trip to a Sugar Factory..... I'm not sure what that will be like but we'll probably post some pictures later. Have a great week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfweauX4TFY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjq6hOd8DZM

Spaghetti and snow

2010-01-26T15:52:00.002-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrF9IWkZgLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob9pAehvN4k

We are learning a lot of new concepts in class right now and I (Tammi) am hoping that they will all sink in eventually :) It has started snowing again after a few *warm* days of 40+ degrees and rain. The Bible school is hosting weekend winter camps for the next three weeks, so they are asking us to pray for LOTS of snow....... I said that I'd think about it :)

Winter fun

2010-01-22T12:41:00.002-05:00

This is Elizabeth, Justice's new babysitter. She comes to our house every day and watches Justice while we are in class. She only speaks French, so we use our French every day to communicate with her.
These are our French reading partners. Next to Tammi is Christelle Whitney and on the other side is Jean-Michele Major. They are students at the Bible College that is on the same campus as the Language School. They have become wonderful friends and they are a great help to us in our French studies.

We have posted two videos of what we did last weekend. The school has a tube run, so we took Justice over on Saturday and had some fun :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSgR3ur9Ztk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KraprnFN-c

A Smilebox show :)

2010-01-03T13:36:00.000-05:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Back to snow country

2009-12-30T17:49:00.003-05:00

After enjoying a three week break from school and a good time with friends and family in California, we are leaving at 11:30pm on the 30th to fly from LA to Vermont with a layover in New York. Here is a look back at our year of blessings:

January 2009
Accepted by MAF with assignment to the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa

February-July 2009
Ministry Partnership (raising our support team)

August-December 2009
Move to Quebec, Canada for a year of French Language School
Monthly ministry support: 85%
Outgoing ministry support: 78%
Faithful prayer partners: several hundred!

Happy New Year; may you look for and receive God's blessings in 2010.

Videos

2009-12-08T07:53:00.004-05:00

Justice the air-traffic controller :)

Just wanted to share two videos with you; we've heard that CA is getting hit with rain and wind and we're getting hit with snow. We are praying that the snow won't be too bad in Canada and Vermont so that we can fly out on Saturday afternoon and also that we won't get stuck in Detroit during our layover before we arrive in LA. I'm glad that we know Who is in control of the weather :) And Justice has two more teeth coming in too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY8LsLeNmZM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kG-lrKLKLs

The Olympic Torch

2009-12-05T21:14:00.004-05:00

This is Terry Warder, one of the Olympic Torch Bearers who brought the flame from Saint George.
Daddy, when is it going to come? I'm cold :)
Daddy and Justice on their way to see the Olympic Torch run through Sherbrooke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iToR0kKorS4

Tonight we went and saw the Olympic Torch being passed from torch bearer to torch bearer in Sherbrooke, Quebec. The Torch is on its way to Vancover for the Olympic Games in February of 2010 and it was great to watch this event in person since we are here in Canada! We took a video and it's kind of blurry; if the link doesn't work just copy and paste the link into your web browser. If that doesn't work, I'll try and re-post it another time. We have our week of exams coming up with tests on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Then we leave Saturday to fly home to California! See you all soon :)

Winter has finally arrived!

2009-11-28T08:09:00.003-05:00

Daddy and Justice watching the Chargers SMEAR the Denver Broncos last weekend.
Mommy and Justice doing the dishes together
Justice outside this morning looking at the snow that had fallen last night.

Winter has finally arrived here in Canada! The snow that fell last night was still on the ground when we got up this morning and the first thing Justice wanted to do was go outside and look :)

We have one more week of regular class and then a full week of exams before we come to California on the 12th. Our week of exams is going to be VERY busy...... we have a 2 hour written exam, a 1 hour oral exam, a comprehensive oral vocabulary test for Chapters 1-6, a Bible vocabulary test, two written Bible verses, two oral Bible verses and a 100 word phonetics test. We would appreciate your prayers as we gear up for exam week and also that the weather would be nice enough for us to fly out of Burlington, Vermont when we come home for Christmas. We'll see you soon!

Justice's new achievement

2009-11-17T18:12:00.005-05:00

We love to spend time with Justice, especially when we have days off from school and can have some quality family time.
Most times Justice sits in our lap, but sometimes we get to sit in his lap :)

Here is a video of Justice's latest achievement.

Halloween and other things

2009-11-06T21:23:00.005-05:00

Emily Faith McCluskey 15 months
Justice Kent Dyrud 13 months
Travis Don McCluskey 2 weeks

Right now in Sherbrooke it is currently 33 degrees and we are expecting our first big snow this weekend! The high has been in the 40s this week and we are slowly getting used to the colder weather (if you can get used to it being from San Diego!) We have 5 weeks of class left before we come to California for a short break during our Christmas vacation from school. We will be at Rolling Hills Covenant Church in Rolling Hills, CA on Sunday, Dec. 13th, Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, CA on Sunday, December 20th and on Sunday morning December 27th we will be at Calvary Church of Santa Ana in Santa Ana, CA and that evening we will be at Warner Avenue Baptist Church in Huntington Beach, CA. We hope to see many of you at these various churches while we are home!

Back to school

2009-10-30T14:03:00.006-04:00

We enjoyed a nice break from school and we spent most of it playing with Justice :)

Our little ham!

Sometimes when Justice gets lonely, Daddy sits in his crib and they have a "man to man" chat.

We went back to school this week and our French learning is really increasing. Our teacher is now speaking in French about 90% of the time during class and for homework, we have to have at least 2 petite (small) conversations with Francophones (people who speak French). The students and teachers at the school are very patient as we struggle to conjugate verbs and remember where to place our nouns and adjectives; at this point, it takes us 5 mintues just to say a few sentences but it's great to have people who are willing to listen and lovingly correct your pronunciation and sentence structure :)

Prayer request

2009-10-23T08:46:00.003-04:00

Back in 2008 when Rodney returned to MAF for his flight re-evaluation, he spent two weeks prior to that in Tennessee with a man named Ron Royce. Ron was the retired chief flight instructor for Moody Bible Institute and he helped Rodney get up to speed with flight time in a Cessna 206 before Rodney re-took his test. We received word this morning that Ron was killed in an airplane accident yesterday. We would appreciate your prayers for his wife Loretta and their family. We are grateful that Ron is with the Lord and that we will see him again someday. We are thankful for his work with Rodney; Ron played a vital part in Rodney's success.

You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done. Chuck Yeager

Mid-term break :)

2009-10-19T10:07:00.004-04:00

Justice enjoys helping Mommy in the kitchen; he loves to see what is cooking and wants to help mix whatever is in the bowl :)
Justice also loves when Daddy gives him piggy-back rides around the apartment!Introducing our new nephew, Travis Don McCluskey. He was born to my sister Shannon and her husband Rodney last Wednesday, October 14th. He weighed 11 lb and was 22 inches long. He spent 2 1/2 days in the NICU with low blood sugar, but he was discharged on Saturday night and they are all doing well. I'm sure Emily will be excited to meet her new brother and we are excited to meet Travis in December. Congratulations!

Thanks to those who have been praying for Rodney; the medications seem to be working and he is on the mend. We are grateful to have this week off from school so that he can make a full recovery and return to classes next Monday.

Here is a short video that we hope you enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URaxNP-8y6o

Bonne Actions de Grace

2009-10-13T15:06:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, October 12th was Canadian Thanksgiving. All of the Language School students got together (about 40 of us) and had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner complete with pumpkin pie :) Thanksgiving is celebrated early in Canada because it starts snowing soon afterwards.

When we woke up this morning, the snow was falling :) It only lasted for about an hour and it didn't stay on the ground, but this was the official introduction of winter in Canada! We would appreciate your continued prayers for Rodney; he went to the doctor again today and the doctor said he has some kind of a skin infection. They have given Rodney a topical antibiotic ointment to put on his face along with oral antibiotics that he will be taking. His headaches have decreased and his energy is returning, so we are grateful for that.

Here is a video of Justice dancing :) If you can't view it on your e-mail, go to www.dyrudadventure.blogspot.com and view it from the blog. Enjoy!

The Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Beauvoir

2009-10-09T15:14:00.001-04:00

Sanctuaire du Sacre-Coeur de Beauvoir
Jésus a crucifié Jesus crucified (John 19:18)

Jésus dans le jardin de Gethsemane Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-39)
Jésus et le femme samaritain Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4:7)
Le bon berger The Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14)
La route à Emmaus The Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13)

The Apple Orchard

2009-10-04T16:09:00.000-04:00

Spending time with Justice
This is the front of our apartment complex; Justice enjoys playing in the leaves.
On our field trip to the apple orchard we saw small apples (that tasted bitter)
and large Spartan apples that were good in pies
We also had fresh squeezed apple juice and we were able to pick apples off the trees in the orchard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flHJPHIzmPA

Sorry!

2009-10-01T20:41:00.000-04:00

Sorry everyone. I tried a new way to post the videos and apparently I didn't get it quite right. Go to www.dyrudadventure.blogspot.com to see the videos that I posted. I'll have to try something else next time :)

Vistors in Canada

2009-10-01T16:14:00.001-04:00

Justice enjoys having fun at Dave and Brenda's house while Rodney and I are in class and they take great pictures for us :) Today we enjoyed a visit from Dr. Gary and Donna Coombs. Dr. Coombs is the Mission's Pastor at Shadow Mountain Community Church (the church we attend in San Diego). The Coombs' are on the East Coast for a vacation and they drove up to Sherbrooke to spend a few hours with us after class.

Here are a few videos of Justice for those who are interested in watching.

Justice turns 1

2009-09-28T20:43:00.000-04:00

Today was Justice's 1st birthday! Even though we celebrated early in San Diego before we left, he still got lots of cards from grandparents and great-grandparents (as well as phone calls and singing and hugs and kisses). He also received some "Cars" sweats from Grandpa and Nana Pharr.

When we got to his babysitters house this morning, they had a birthday hat (Bonne Fete is how you say "Happy Birthday" in French) and a little cake for Justice and streamers all over the house :) He enjoyed smearing the frosting everywhere and squishing the cake between his hands. We'll try and get the pictures that Dave and Brenda took and we'll post them another time. We are enjoying the fall weather here and we're looking forward to our first class field trip to an apple orchard on Friday.

Our trip to the park

2009-09-22T15:24:00.000-04:00

We found a beautiful park about half an hour from our apartment in Sherbrooke.

It had a little bit of everything from woods to a lake.

For those of us from Southern California, we don't get to see the leaves change with the seasons.

We had a wonderful afternoon enjoying God's creation before the snow comes :)

This is our third full week of class and we are conjugating verbs and starting to make our own sentences; at least we get to practice in class before we go to the grocery store and the checker doesn't understand what we're trying to say :) At least most people here speak English and they have all been helpful once they understand that we are students who are trying to learn French.

The school here is called Parole de vie Bethel, which means Word of Life Bethel. It is a Word of Life school that has a French Bible School and a French Language School on the same campus. One of the neat things that the school does is to pair a Bible School student with a Language School student; we spend 15 mintues each day reading a Bible passage (in French) and the Bible School student helps to correct our pronunciation and helps us to understand what we are reading. We are also attending a local French church on Sunday mornings and we have chapel (in French) with the Bible School students every Wednesday. Hopefully with all this French immersion, we will know enough French to get around in Africa when we arrive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uxMTee4drA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ1q46G2ENU

Life goes on

2009-09-15T14:10:00.000-04:00

Justice is very excited that the Chargers won the game yesterday! Go Chargers!

Well, I (Tammi) have been in bed since Thursday with strep throat, but I'm on antibiotics and I'm feeling much better, so I thought I would send out an update. The fall is coming and going here in Sherbrooke. The leaves are changing and many are already falling off the trees. We just finished two weeks of phonetics in class and now we are starting to learn about the definite and indefinite articles.

Today, while we were in class, Brenda and Tabitha took Justice to an apple orchard. They said he had a wonderful time and he even came back with a pumpkin :) I was expecting him to come home with an apple......

Justice has made many new friends here and these friends are giving him all kinds of toys. Today he added Jeffery the Toys-R-Us Giraffe and a toy tractor to his very full toy basket. It is certainly a blessing to have wonderful friends here while we are away from family and friends back home.

Click on the link to see Justice doing his "He-Man" impression and saying his new favorite word. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F06qBMcNJ4k

Pictures

2009-09-08T21:33:00.001-04:00

This is Fran Derocher. He is the Regional Director of Africa for MAF-US. He was in the States for some meetings, so he came up to Sherbrooke for a day to visit us and the two other MAF families who are here learning French before we all head to Africa :)

This was Justice before Daddy cut his hair.......

This is Justice after Daddy cut his hair..... he doesn't look like a little boy anymore :(

We had Labor Day off from school so we took Justice for a walk and found a nice little flower/vegetable garden. Justice enjoyed looking at tall, yellow sunflowers, red tomatoes, orange pumpkins and tall stalks of corn :)

Here is a link to a video that we took to show you our new apartment. It's about 2 min and 30 sec. Hope you enjoy :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LztMiQnQK1w

A new shopping adventure!

2009-09-07T12:18:00.001-04:00

Hello family and friends. We wanted to make you aware of a new program that we are now a part of.
Attention Internet Shoppers: We are now listed at www.SendThemForHim.com where you can do your routine online purchasing and we will receive a donation for each purchase toward our ministry support. They have over 600 major merchants like eBay, Priceline, Office Depot, Walmart, Target, Amazon, ToysRUs, Dick's Sporting Goods, Bass Pro Shops, Blockbuster, Overstock, Petco, Circuit City, Cabela's, Staples, Expedia, Kohls, iTunes and many more. Just start any online shopping at this website and shop as usual, book travel, order services, etc. directly from the merchant websites. There is no markup and they do not ask you for any personal information. Just about anything you can buy on the internet, we can receive a donation. This is a year-round opportunity to support our ministry for free and you don't have to pay or do anything extra. Next time you need to make a purchase or book a trip, give it a try and see how easy it is. Also, please share this with any of your friends who do online shopping that you think would like to support our ministry. As always, thank you for your prayers and support."

We hope that this will work out well for those of you who do on-line shopping already. Just go to this website before you begin shopping and find our name (Dyrud, Rodney and Tammi). Click on our name then choose the store or department you wish to shop in from our website. This will ensure that we receive a partial donation from your shopping. It does not cost you anything extra :) Thank you for using this new avenue to help send us to Africa!

French class

2009-09-03T19:46:00.000-04:00

This is the new, beardless Rodney. The school requires that men not have beards and Rodney tried a moustache, but he looks like a British Captain from WW II so he's better clean shaven if he can't have a beard.

This was Rodney as I have known him for the last 5 years at least (with a nice full beard)

This is one of my (Tammi) favorite pictures of Justice :)

Bonjour. Comment ce va (how are you)? We are doing fine up here in Sherbrooke. Learning French is very exhausting, but our instructor is wonderful and he is still speaking to us in English sometimes, so that's helpful :) Today we received the shipment that had been mailed up to us from the US, so our house is complete. It's amazing how the arrival of a few pictures and some kitchen items can make it feel like Christmas. We are still learning our way around town and getting used to some of the differences between Quebec and the US. For example, it is against the law to spank your children and milk is sold in bags instead of plastic bottles. Maybe this weekend we will post a video of our place so that you can see our new apartment. A plus tard (Good-bye)!

Justice walking

2009-08-28T15:52:00.000-04:00

Meet David, Brenda and Tabitha Marsh. David is a language school student and a Registered Nurse. Their family will be going to the Congo Republic with Global Outreach in January of 2010, but for now, Brenda will be babysitting Justice while Rodney and I are in class.

Here is Justice hiding in one of the cupboards that hasn't been filled with stuff yet :)

This is Justice enjoying his new room and toy bin.

Just being a cute, exploring boy :)

We arrived in Sherbrooke, Quebec on Monday afternoon and we've spent the week getting our apartment set up before we start school next Wednesday. I've included a link to a video of Justice walking in our apartment (I guess he decided to walk after sitting in his car seat for 8 days) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zCHx4M3XmM I can't believe that he is already 11 months old today and that next month he'll be 1 year old!

Days 4-7

2009-08-23T22:42:00.000-04:00

On Thursday night, we stayed in Creston, Nebraska with Rodney's uncle, aunt and grandma. We really enjoyed our time there and wish that it could have been longer :)

Friday morning on our way out of Nebraska, we stopped to visit Jeremy and Lauren Spain and their daughter, Ellie. They are friends from San Diego who have moved to Nebraska (Jeremy is MP).

On Saturday, we drove through Illinois and we stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel! For those who have never had Cracker Barrel, it is good, homestyle, Southern cookin'!! Yummy :)

We also passed through Indiana on Saturday and were hoping to visit one of Rodney's cousins along the way, but she and her husband had the flu, so we had to bypass them and we'll try to see the Cardin's on our way back home next June.

Saturday night saw us stopping in Flint, Michigan and Justice wanted to help Daddy drive the car :) He took the wheel in one hand and the keys in the other and we were off! ...... no, Daddy said Justice was too little to drive the big car with all the stuff in it and the big bag on the roof :)

Sunday morning it was raining as we crossed into Ontario, Canada. We got our Canadian study visas without any problems and tonight we are in Kingston, Ontario. Tomorrow we will arrive at our destination in Sherbrooke, Quebec!

Day 3

2009-08-20T01:34:00.000-04:00

Our travels today took us through Colorado, a beautiful state with many different types of flora and fauna. We left Grand Junction around 10:30am and arrived in Julesburg around 9pm local time. Tomorrow (Thursday) we are headed to Creston, Nebraska where we are spending the evening with Rodney's uncle and aunt (Carlyle and Wanette Gwin) and Rodney's grandma (Marjory Smith). After our arrival in Julesburg, we had a brief thunderstorm with lightning :) Off to bed!

Day 2

2009-08-19T01:16:00.000-04:00

Well, we made it safe and sound to Grand Junction, Colorado. We travelled through Nevada, Arizona and Colorado today and tomorrow we'll end up in Julesburg, Colorado. I (Tammi) have just received word that the people at Bethel have found a babysitter for Justice who lives on school campus! We are going to contact her in the morning to find out what the situation is, but we are so grateful that we have a name and contact number since the first two didn't work out. That's all for now :)

Our travels

2009-08-18T10:42:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone! We left San Diego at 11:15am yesterday morning with our San Diego Hillbilly mobile loaded down :) We arrived in Mesquite, Nevada last night around 8pm (it's right on the border of Nevada, Arizona and Utah). Today, we'll drive through Utah and spend the night in Grand Junction, Colorado. It was 102 degrees when we stopped in Las Vegas yesterday at a rest stop! Thank goodness we have a working air conditioner. Justice is getting tired of being in his car seat, but he loves to look at all of the big trucks that drive by.

Here is a fun fact: during our travels yesterday, we saw a sign that said Zzyzyx Road. Pronunciation anyone? :)

Justice takes LOTS of steps!

2009-08-14T12:30:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfrHZ1fQp3U

Hello everyone. Some of you may have received this already, but for those who have not, here is a video of Justice walking at 10 1/2 months :)

Almost done

2009-08-06T01:39:00.001-04:00

Hello all. Our first big news is that Justice took his first independent steps last Saturday (he's a little over 10 months old!) We have been packing like crazy this week in preparation to move out of our apartment on Saturday morning beginning at 8am. Justice has been staying with a different person for the last several days and I (Tammi) miss him when I don't see him at all during the day. It's going to be harder than I thought to go to school in September and drop him off at a babysitter's house for the day. We are still planning to leave San Diego on Monday, August 17th to begin our drive across the country. Thanks for your prayers :)

Home

2009-07-31T23:22:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone and thanks for your prayers. We made it through our safety training and Justice has gotten over his cold; he was able to have a personal babysitter and was not in a daycare situation after all so that was great. We are up in Santa Ana for the weekend, visiting with family and having a send-off celebration at Calvary Church tomorrow afternoon from 3-6pm. Then we'll be back in San Diego on Monday to pack all week so that we can move out of our apartment on Saturday. I can't believe we're actually leaving for Canada in two weeks! There is still a lot to do before then :)

Safe arrival

2009-07-26T10:36:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone. We made it to Idaho safe and sound, but Justice is getting a cold. He has a fever and a stuffy nose and a cough/sneezing. He might be in a day care situation with multiple kids while we're in training this week, so please pray that he gets better soon and that he won't infect the other kids. Thanks!

Our life :)

2009-07-21T12:29:00.001-04:00

This was Justice's birthday cake that Great Grandma Gloria made for him. The letters and the elephant were on my (Tammi) first birthday cake some 26 years ago! Grandma saved them in the freezer and put them on Justice's cake :)

Justice clapping for himself as we sang him "Happy Birthday". Nana Terri found him a Disney birthday hat :)

Emily's 1st birthday is today, July 21st. We celebrated on Sunday.

She got a creature for her birthday and it seemed to be a cross between a sock monkey and an octopus so we decided it should either be called a socktopus or an octomonkey.

We had a wonderful time of vacation with our good friends, the Crawfords! We spent three days up at Shaver Lake and went for boat rides and made s'mores around the camp fire and played with the basset hounds :)

Here is what the rest of our time looks like: this week, we are packing like crazy. Next week, we are going to Idaho for some more training. The first week of August, we move out of our apartment and the second week of August we say good-bye to family and friends before we leave for Canada on August 17th.

Camping!

2009-07-13T10:45:00.001-04:00

This week we are up in Fresno going camping with our good friends, the Crawfords :) We'll hopefully post some pictures when we get back. It's hard to believe that we're leaving next month to begin our drive to Canada. We are also going back to Idaho the last week of July for another week of training. Thanks for keeping up with us!

The latest happenings

2009-07-01T14:54:00.000-04:00

I apologize for being delinquent on the updates as of late. We have been busy packing and celebrating birthdays and anniversaries.

We went to Sea World with Nana, Nannie, Aunt Shannon and Cousin Emily

On Sunday, June 28th we went to Disneyland to celebrate Rodney's 30th birthday!

We also made it a combined anniversary celebration ( 2 years on June 22nd)

We are currently at 76% of our monthly ministry support and 52% of our outgoing fund. We are preparing to leave for Canada the second week of August. Happy 4th of July!

New website

2009-06-22T01:46:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone. For some of you, this is old news but we wanted to pass along a link to our new website! www.dyrudadventure.com Check it out when you get a minute; this was done by a friend of ours who did a fantastic job :)

Update on life

2009-06-12T12:40:00.000-04:00

Here is Justice having fun at the beach!

Hello everyone. We have been very busy since we decided to leave for language school in August :) We are starting to get some packing done in addition to speaking in churches, Sunday school classes, homeschool groups and one-on-one with individuals. This weekend, we will be back in Santa Ana sharing in the DiscipleMaker's Class at 10:45 on Sunday morinng at Calvary Church.

Justice keeps growing and he now has 6 teeth! He has officially learned how to crawl and he loves to pull himself up on the furniture. He's starting to look more like a little boy and less like a baby :)

Have a great weekend!

2009-05-30T23:59:00.000-04:00

On Memorial Day, we took the day off and went to the park with John, Megan and Joshua Circo. We put the kids in the swings and they had a great time!

I took this picture to prove that Justice's hair doesn't alway stand straight up :) Although I think it's pretty cute that it does stand up most of the time.

For those who have not yet heard, we officially made a decision to go to language school in September! Rodney and I both have a peace about this decision and now we are starting to think about what to sell, what to pack for Canada and Africa and what to leave in the States while we're gone. It's going to be a lot of work to keep working on raising ministry funds and getting our apartment packed up, but we're just taking things a little bit at a time.

A busy life

2009-05-22T19:33:00.001-04:00

A lot has happened in the last two weeks, so I thought I'd update you on our busy lives.

We celebrated Mother's Day with my (Tammi) family and had a great time with the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Rodney and I went to Magic Mountain for two days to celebrate our wedding anniversary early. I got motion sickness both days so I didn't do very many rides, but we had fun being together and it was great knowing that Justice was being well taken care of by my parents.

We had a speaking engagement for a womens luncheon up in Redlands on the 15th and then on the 19th we went to my grandparents house for lunch and Justice had his first experience in the swimming pool (which he loved!)

This is Justice at the end of a long day of swimming; all tired out :)

We also made our decision about language school; some of you know that we were looking into the possibility of going to Canada for French language school in August 2009 instead of January 2010, but after much prayer and wise counsel from family and friends, we felt that the best decision for our family would be to stick with the original plan (so we are here until December).

Just in case you are interested, I have posted links on our blog site to the weather in Bunia, DRC where we are going in Africa and also in Sherbrooke, Quebec where we will be for language school. Have a super Memorial Day weekend!

A random hodgepodge of happenings

2009-05-08T15:29:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a while since we sent out an update, so here's the latest. Rodney's aunt Wanette and Grandma Marjory came out to visit from Nebraska for a few days. Rodney was sick while they were here, but we still had a good time together. Justice is getting close to crawling and he has his first top tooth coming in. I (Tammi) got some early Mother's Day flowers from my guys and we are excited to spend Sunday with my family. For those of you who have not seen our 20 minute MAF presentation, we have it posted on You-Tube. I've included the links, since the presenation is broken into two parts. Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwPuFg_4SHg Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLiOHIuXrwQ Part 2

Home

2009-04-26T21:11:00.000-04:00

Well, we finished our last membership class at Calvary Church of Santa Ana last weekend and it was nice to be back in San Diego speaking at Shadow Mountain on Sunday. Our friend, Suzanne took some wonderful family pictures for us a while back at Lake Murray, so we thought we'd share some on our blog. We are enjoying getting back into the swing of things in El Cajon and seeing friends and family.

Half way there

2009-04-18T13:06:00.000-04:00

Hello family and friends. We invite you to praise the Lord with us as we are at 50% of our monthly ministry support goal with MAF in only 11 weeks! God has truly blessed us and we are so grateful for your prayers and support of our ministry. Our family is excited to see how God is providing for us as we continue to seek financial and prayer partners. We are glad to be doing God's work and are thrilled that all of you get to share in this work with us.
We have posted a short video of Rodney and Justice playing peek-a-boo; it's pretty cute :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KqKenKzOig

An Easter adventure

2009-04-13T12:10:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone! Rodney got back yesterday from his four day trip in the Grand Canyon. He had a great time and took wonderful pictures (some of which you will see above). Justice and I had a good time with my sister and niece, parents and grandparents while Rodney was away; Justice is teething again, so he's had a fever and a stuffy nose, but hopefully it won't turn into a cold.

I wanted to update everyone on our life with MAF :) We are currently at 48% of our monthly ministry support and 31% of our outgoing funds! It is exciting to watch how God is providing for our family and we are so thankful to many of you who are supporting us financially and praying for us on a regular basis. We are gearing up for a busy week of sharing with friends and we will be going back to Santa Ana on Saturday for our last membership class at Calvary Church.

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter, remembering the love and sacrifice of Christ and His resurrection from the dead. We serve a Living Savior! Hallelujah!

6 months old :)

2009-03-28T11:01:00.001-04:00

Justice is 6 months old today! He is learning to sit by himself and he has his two bottom teeth in. He is becoming very aware of the world around him and loves to smile and laugh at people. He also loves to put things into his mouth.

We are in Santa Ana again this weekend with more speaking engagements and friends to re-connect with. Hopefully, Rodney and I are going to spend the day at the beach today :)

Life

2009-03-20T02:19:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone, Tammi here. I realize it's been a while since I updated our blog, so here goes. We have had a crazy schedule, getting together with family and friends, speaking in chapels at our former high schools, speaking in various Sunday school classes and Bible studies.... it's all been great and we've enjoyed making new friends and re-connecting with old ones. This week we had to slow down a little since Justice has had a bad cold since Monday. Poor baby! He is doing much better now, but he is still stuffed up and coughing. I call him my little love bug because he likes to snuggle and rest his head on my chest while he's napping. We will resume traveling on Saturday as we will be going up to Santa Ana for the next 5 weekends to take a membership class at the church where Rodney grew up. Our family appreciates your prayers for continued health as we start again with our busy lives, while doing our best to not stretch ourselves too thin.

Family happenings

2009-03-10T12:11:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to share what we did over the weekend. On Sunday, I realized that Justice had his FIRST TOOTH poking up :) Then, we went up to Torrance to visit Greg and Roxane Fields(Rodney's sister and brother-in-law) and our new niece, Misty Brooke. We spent the evening together and it was fun to see their new little family. We are coming back to San Diego tomorrow to prepare for the meetings that we have going on for the rest of the week. Thanks for keeping up with us!

What's next?

2009-03-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

Thank you for your prayers; we had a fruitful time in Fresno doing the video shoot and we are excited to see and share the finished product! Today, we are heading up to Santa Ana for a week; we are speaking in Rodney's high school chapel tomorrow morning and then having home meetings in the evenings until we come home next Wednesday. Next Wednesday evening, we speak in an Awana Club in Spring Valley and then that Thursday we are speaking in a home Bible study group. Our deputation schedule is staring to pick up pace. The Lord is truly blessing our family as we prepare to go and serve Him in Africa. We currently have 30% of our monthly support and 7% of our outgoing support raised. We also have many faithful prayer supporters who are praying for us daily. Thank you for your active participation in reaching the people of the DRC with God's love!

Project complete

2009-02-27T11:16:00.000-05:00

Hello! We have spent the last two days up in Fresno completing our video project. Our friends Donivan and Justin have made a very professional video that will be a tool to help us as we continue deputation (Justin used to work for Disney). Rodney and I are so thankful for this opportunity to make this video and to spend time with Donivan, Cherri and Caleb. We are heading home this morning and appreciate your prayers. Rodney is feeling better and we are glad that we were able to make it up to Fresno this weekend.

Justice gets tickled

2009-02-21T00:17:00.001-05:00

Justice gets tickled! We love to have fun with our son :) Our deputation schedule is picking up and we are excited to have many chances to share the ministry of MAF in the coming weeks.

As some of you know, this upcoming week, we will be traveling to Fresno where some friends will help us make a personalized video that we can use in churches and Sunday school classes/small group Bible studies. The hope is that we could send the video to the pastor or group leader a week or so ahead of when we will be sharing so that once we get there to speak, the people will have a little background about our lives and a small glimpse into the ministry of MAF. We would appreciate your prayers for safety, good weather and God's Hand to be on this entire project. Also, before leaving to head up to Fresno on Tuesday morning, we have the opportunity to share in a chapel at Tammi's former high school (Christian High School in El Cajon). We will have about 10 mintues to share with the students and faculty and we are praying that the Lord will touch the hearts of these young people and possibly be preparing some of them to serve Him overseas. Thank you for your involvement in our lives. We could not accomplish this on our own and we appreciate your diligence in praying, supporting and encouraging us!

An update

2009-02-18T16:05:00.000-05:00

Dear family and friends, prayer warriors and partners,
Greetings! We are so excited to have you along for this journey that the Lord is taking us on. Our family is thankful to be healthy and we are enjoying the beautiful San Diego sunshine (as opposed to the beautiful Idaho snow!).
As we begin our third week of deputation, we wanted to share how God is already blessing and preparing us to go to Africa. We currently have 27.5% of our monthly support and 3.3% of our outgoing support raised! What a tremendous encouragement! We have also had the opportunity to see some of you and speak in a few Sunday school classes. We look forward to continuing this in the weeks and months ahead.

We would like to finish this short letter with some praises and prayer requests.
Praises
· We had a safe trip home from Idaho
· We are healthy
· We had a safe trip up to Santa Ana, Claremont and San Pedro to visit some of Rodney’s family
· God is opening doors for us in ways we never imagined! i.e. one couple we didn’t know from church is supporting us

Prayer Requests
· We will be driving up to Clovis February 24-27 to work with some friends who are going to shoot a video for us. This will allow us to send a personalized video about our involvement with MAF to churches and Sunday school classes before we come to speak.
· For Rodney and I to have good time management and balance as we seek to separate work from the rest of our lives, since work is now at home.
· That we will make time to spend with the Lord, each other, Justice, our family and friends.

Thank you for your part in the work that God is doing in Africa and around the world. We are so privileged to partner with you and count it a blessing to have such faithful friends and family in our lives.
With love and thanksgiving, Rodney, Tammi and Justice Dyrud

Safe arrival report

2009-02-03T14:41:00.000-05:00

Hello family and friends! We made it safely back to San Diego on Saturday afternoon and now we are busy settling in. MAF is giving us this first week back at home to organize our "office" and find a place to put our 3 Fed-Ex boxes of material that just arrived :) Rodney and I were so pleased to see many of you at church on Sunday; we enjoyed catching up and look forward to seeing more people in the days ahead. God is faithful and we are blessed to have 11% of our monthly support raised in the first two days back home!! For anyone who would like to get our prayer letter updates, please send us an e-mail and we can have you set up to receive those. Everyone who is currently on our list will be receiving our first prayer letter some time this week. Thanks for your continued prayers and support of what God is doing through us in MAF!