Working on getting photos...

I left my camera hooked up to the computer all night, so the battery is completely drained. Believe it or not, I didn't leave it out of pure forgetfulness. Josh, Lydia and I all decided to have a big nerf war last night right after I finished on the computer. It was a pretty epic war, with me and Josh teaming up against Lydia. We were bumping Hawk Nelson the whole time! After about an hour of that, Josh and I went outside and shot at pop cans and bird feeders with airsoft and BB guns.

I got a chance to practice driving stick yesterday with Kyle and pastor Dan. I practiced with Kyle for like 10 minutes, and then he took over and drove to the church. Then I drove pastor Dan over to his house and picked up his wiper blades. He's hilarious, and he was really good at instructing me in driving stick.

I got a chance to hammer out some Gospel Tour stuff yesterday, and I also planned out what I want to start studying with my Inductive Study Bible. I'm going to start working on 1 Peter, which I'm pretty excited about.

I just got back from driving Kyle to the job site where I'll be working. I got a chance to meet some of the guys that I'll be working with. The carpenter who I'm going to be working with seems pretty cool. I'm looking forward to working hard and getting into somewhat of a routine.

After lunch I think I'm going to practice driving, and maybe send out an e-mail update. I haven't done that for awhile, and there is a lot of stuff that has happened since I e-mailed from Brisbane, Australia.

I Shall Begin!

After more than 6 months of not posting on this blog, I've decided to begin again. It will probably be a little different flavor than what I've done before, seeing as I've grown a lot in the past 6 months. I spent 3 of those in Papua New Guinea, which drew me a lot closer to God. My goal is to have some fun documenting my daily life for everybody, with a focus on glorifying God by showing how He is growing me closer to Himself. I'm not quite as crazy as I once was...but I'm still pretty crazy!

I just moved up to La Crosse, WI about an hour and a half ago. I'm living with Kyle Danielson, the pastor/ex-carpenter who went to New Guinea with me for 5 weeks. We took like 6 hours to drive up here because we stopped for pizza and a shopping. No worries though, I just slept and listened to my iPod. I still have yet to listen to all of the solid Christian rap Irian gave me. I listened to some tonight though, which was very uplifting.

I actually just got back from a week-long trip in upstate New York last night, so things have been kind of busy. I had a great time with the Case family and their friends up there. We did a bunch of planning for the American Gospel Tour. I'm really excited to see how God is going to use us on that tour, and I'm also very excited to have the privilege to serve Him in that capacity. I brought Mike along with me since he's interested in going on this tour, plus it was fun to have one last adventure before I moved to Wisconsin.

Ok, my head is starting to gravitate toward the computer desk! I think it's time to get some sleep!

Out to lunch

Going to get some lunch, be back at 11:30 or so. Maybe you'll even get a real post then...

Hmmmm...

A bit of news...

Hey Everybody!

I’ve made some decisions regarding college and other future stuff recently, and I wanted to fill you in on those. God’s been doing some pretty cool things in 2009!

To start off, let me tell you a bit about what I wanted to do as far as missions before I went down to Texas this February. This part is very simple to explain, because I had no idea what I wanted to do! To back up a bit, I felt God leading me to full-time missions in February 2008. This meant that I was changing my whole life plan, because at that point I was planning on starting my own small-business with exotic animals. This would have involved getting a small business management degree online. After a lot of re-arranging of priorities according to God’s standards, not my own, I realized that I could never be satisfied unless I was serving Him in full-time ministry. It was really a time of re-dedicating my entire life to Him. I had really shut God out of certain parts of my life, and I realized that’s not how I wanted to live. I want God to govern each and every area of my life, and I want to follow hard after Him in everything I do.

Anyway, I started looking at different options for getting schooling for full-time ministry. I really had no idea what I would actually do in full-time ministry so I just started looking at getting Bible training. I was basically planning on getting a biblical studies degree and then going down to David Sitton’s missionary training school. The only real change to this plan was deciding to go to Covenant College instead of Kuyper College to get the biblical studies degree. This plan didn’t really change at all between February ‘08 and February ‘09, although I was still very curious where God was going to use me in ministry.

Then I went down to David’s school which is called the Center for Pioneer Church Planting (CPCP). I was able to sit in on a bunch of the classes there, both for Bible and missiology. I was very impressed with the solid, reformed teaching. I also found out that the school was going to be changing to a 2-year school instead of just a 1 year school. I had a chance to talk through my plan with David, and he gave me his advice and wisdom about that plan. We also discussed my gifts and talents. The main ones we discussed were these: I’m very hands-on, although I do enjoy learning by reading. I enjoy talking at churches overseas and sharing the gospel, but I don’t know that I want to be teaching full-time. Finally, I really like working with my hands and working hard.

Then we went on the trip to Papua New Guinea. I had many opportunities to discuss ideas and opportunities with David. I actually went down thinking that I would really enjoy the trip, but that I wouldn’t end up there permanently. As David and I got to know each other better, and he realized that I like challenges, working hard, and adventure, he told me about these missionary houses that New Tribes builds. These houses are built with lots of bush materials, but also incorporate things such as electricity through solar power, plywood floors, fans and lights, screens, and e-mail through shortwave radio among other things. These houses enable the missionaries to live quite comfortably in the harsh environment of Papua New Guinea.

I had a chance to see one of these houses when I was in Gavimas. One of the New Tribes missionaries gave me a complete tour of all the different aspects of the house. At this point, I was very interested in what I was seeing. After I got back from seeing this house I sat down and had a long talk with David over dinner. We talked over what my job description could be if I decided to be a missionary with To Every Tribe Ministries (TETM). (They do not yet have anybody to build houses for their missionaries, yet they have missionaries that are going to be graduated and heading to Papua New Guinea in January 2010). I was very fascinated with this missionary house-building idea, so I began discussing scenarios with David. If I decided to go with TETM, I could be their house-builder, and then when I’m not building houses I could be researching new areas. These new areas would be potential places for planting churches similar to what we did in Gavimas. These places could be 6 hours away by canoe, or 3-4 days hike through the mountain-that sort of thing. As you can probably imagine, this idea got me pretty excited, besides the fact that I was already excited about the house-building idea. To sum this part of the story up, I began doing some serious praying and thinking about building these missionary houses.

David has been going to Chambri Island for 20 years now. Because of this, the people have started building a center for TETM. This center has 3 rooms: 1 for guys to sleep in, 1 for girls to sleep in, and 1 big room for cooking, eating, and such. David would like to make a sort-of hybrid house; a hybrid between bush house and missionary house.

David presented me with the opportunity of coming back to Chambri and helping finish the construction of this center as part of a path towards becoming TETM’s house-builder. This was pretty fascinating to me, so I told him I would do some thinking and praying about it.

At this point I was very excited about these new ideas and opportunities that were in front of me. I told David and the Chambri people that I wanted to wait to make a decision until I got back to the States. We still had a week or so before our trip ended, so I kept learning more and more about these opportunities, while still keeping an open mind. I got back home and talked to my parents about these ideas, along with discussing it with other people who would come from different viewpoints as far as college. I listened to wisdom from my parents, my relatives, David Sitton, admissions counselors, and various other people. I also wanted to put some time in between my trip and making a decision because I realized that I’d be on a “mission trip high” for a couple weeks. I spent a lot of time thinking and praying during this time period, asking God to give me wisdom in this area.

After examining the various paths and opportunities I have in front of me, listening to wisdom from those who are older than me and know me well, and doing lots of hard thinking and praying, I made a decision about a week ago.

Of course, I don’t have every single detail worked out, but I do have the main goals hammered out. Here is my plan:

I’m going to be using this next school year to work on an accelerated bachelor’s program. I will be getting a bachelor’s degree from this program, probably in construction. I’ll also be learning to install the specialized parts of a missionary house in New Guinea, such as solar power systems and water supplies. I will also be going back to Papua New Guinea in July or August of this year. I’ll be staying there for 3 months with a partner. We will be finishing up this TETM Center.

Fall of 2010 I will be going down to David’s missionary school. For the next 2 years I’ll be down there getting missionary training. I’ll also be working on my bachelor’s degree online during these 2 years (mostly over the summers).

By the time all is said and done I’ll have my bachelor’s degree, I’ll be fully competent to construct a missionary house, and I’ll have received missionary training from the Center for Pioneer Church Planting. At that point I will be commissioned by To Every Tribe as one of their missionaries, I’ll be raising support, and then I’ll be going back to PNG for good.

I really feel God leading me in this direction, and I am very excited about it! My dad & mom are also excited about these opportunities that God has brought about. I am discovering how fulfilling and rewarding it is to follow hard after God and allow Him to govern every area of my life. Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord. I hope this letter finds you serving Christ with your life! I’d love to hear your thoughts about what God is doing in my life!


In Christ,


-Kelly Bryant

E-mail: kellyandhogs@yahoo.com

Open the floodgates!

This morning began with mom waking Mike and I up around 9. I rolled over and didn’t end up getting out of bed until like 9:45 or so. During that 45 minute period I fell back asleep and had a dream about regretting my college path and wanting to go to Covenant instead. That was definitely weird. To start off the day I made a nice big list of all the stuff I want to accomplish this week. Then I made some breakfast and headed downstairs to make a playlist of music and sermons this week to throw on my iPod. Somehow I managed to get 12 cups of water into the coffee maker instead of 6. Yeah, that’s definitely way too weak! I had 1 cup from that pot and then poured the rest out. I think I was concentrating on this Irish dude that was preaching on the under-the-counter radio. Aye, it was good stuff.

I knocked out my last Biology test and then corrected almost all of my Spanish class stuff. I took a nap for like an hour around 3. Now, I don’t normally take naps, but today is one of my runny-nose days. I seem to have like two or three days a year that I drain like ALL DAY LONG! It’s probably some sort of allergies. By 3 o’ clock I was sick and tired of blowing my nose, so I just went to bed.

I arose from my time of slumber and hacked away at my Spanish stuff. After about an hour and a half of that I hopped on my bike and headed out to Round Lake Library. I saw a coyote on my way out of the neighborhood, which was pretty awesome. I’ve wanted to see one up close when I’m out riding. I wanted to get a few minutes on the internet, but there was so many people there that I would have had to wait. Since I was already going to be racing to get home in time to eat the pizza that dad was bringing home, I decided to just turn around and take my 10 miles. I was pretty happy with the pace that I was keeping on the bike that Mike and I fixed up. I was probably able to keep it between 14-18 mph, which is awesome for this early in the season.

I ate my pizza downstairs on the couch and watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Spice paks from Little Caeser’s are the bomb. I’m not even lying, they are! After I watched that I cleaned up and finished up my schoolwork for the night. I spent some time lifting weights after my schoolwork was done. Mike’s been lifting weights, so I figured I better start too so I stay stronger than him. Ian has been lifting for awhile too. He said that maybe this time around he’ll be able to beat me in arm-wrestling. I listened to a bunch of Flame’s stuff today, and there was this awesome song about Jesus being God and man at the same time. It talked about how different religions view Christ, and one of the lines was pretty funny. It talked about how Satan roamed the earth and found the lady who founded the Church of the Scientist. That was pretty awesome. I listened to one of R.C. Sproul’s sermons on Acts tonight as I was organizing some pictures. I’m about to head to bed to do some reading, cause it’s like 12:07 am. Gotta get some shut eye!

Caged...or Fire

I’ve spent almost the whole day doing school. This is the time of year when I begin to feel like a caged animal. At least tomorrow is Friday. If we don’t have Josh over on Saturday I’m probably going to do some riding and then hang out at the library and do some research. We’ll see how it goes. I had 3 mug-full’s of hot chocolate tonight. Somehow it seems odd to be chugging hot chocolate in April, but hey, it’s chilly. I took a break this morning for lunch and typed up some more of my PNG journal. I also took a break in the afternoon. On this break I was feeling particularly restless, so I decided to go outside. I ended up making a video of myself doing a flamethrower with WD-40 & my adjustable lighter. I gotta be more careful where I do this stuff; one of the neighborhood boys saw me do it and was begging me to do it again! Whoops. I need to get some sleep so that I can finish up Week 2 tomorrow. I want to have the weekend completely off.

School. All day long.

I did nothing but school all day long. I worked on typing up my journal during little breaks, while jamming out to some rockin' music. While I was doing my school I downloaded like 30 sermon jams and probably 15 sermons. I got a bunch of Piper, Sproul, Harris, and I even got a few of David Sitton's sermons! That'll give me something to listen to on our drive back tomorrow. We had pizza tonight for dinner, which was quite tasty. I pretty much just ran right back upstairs to work on school after dinner. I spent the last hour and a half or so just hanging out with the older Sundt kids. I spent about a half hour doing a bit of research on renewable energy and water pumps. That started adding fuel to the excitement fire. The weekend is here! I only have 1 & 1/2 books to finish over the weekend, so all is going well!