Long time no chat....but alot has been happening!

Facebook, my new "excuse" for not blogging. I feel like I blog every day, but then I forget, not everyone is on my Facebook friends list! Sorry to leave you so very long.

To catch up:

Our house on Fort Benning....wonderful! We have so enjoyed living within hearing of revely and taps, of rifle and machine gun fire on the ranges, and the early morning platoon runs by our house. This old house, built in the 1920's is a trooper! The thick and sturdy plaster walls and wooden floors make me think that "if walls could talk" there'd be much this old house would have to share! I have participated in Spanish classes both last Fall and just this Spring. My Spanish is not yet near fluent, but I expect that as I pursue the language in Guatemala surrounded by speakers, it will improve quickly.

Ministry: I have continued to be involved in the work of Wycliffe, although part-time. I work half-days every day from my remote office in our house. The website has been my primary job, but I have been asked to speak and to develop some personnel guidelines for child safety and to support my boss in her new job. Last year we finished with the development of our Goals and Strategies for NextGen and this year we've seen those strategies begun and get settled in a good rythm.

Youth group: Michael and I have involved ourselves in the life of the youth group at our local church, Christ Community Church in Columbus. We chose to attend and lead the high-school "dig deeper" night on Sunday nights. After a few weeks, the youth pastor asked me to lead the study and teach the lessons. I was more than glad to do so. My first ministry love is youth ministry, and not having been involved last year (our first year of marriage) I was SO eager to get involved again. My spiritual gift is Exhorter, and this kind of position in a youth group is exactly what I love to do. Over the course of the last many months, we've had some great discussions and lively interaction. [The picture is of a trip I went on with some of the girls to the Revolve tour in Atlanta!] I have also continued to stay in contact with those students you know from Wisconsin. One in particular came to visit us here at Benning twice! Facebook has been an invaluable tool to me (and others in youth ministry) in keeping up with our students all over the country.

The Next move: Michael and I are expecting a baby! if you didn't already know from Facebook, the little boy is due to arrive July 10, here at the Army hospital at Fort Benning (Lord willing). We had to put off our move to Guatemala in order to await his arrival. Once he arrives it will be a week or two of rest (well, at least being home) and then we'll get packed up and move out. Michael will depart for Guatemala to report to his next assignment and I will go to CT temporarily to wait out the necessary vaccinations, then join Michael in Guatemala sometime in September.

I think that catches you up on the whole lot of subjects. Of course I missed telling you all the details, when the dates came and went. This overview misses alot. Calvary baby shower, spanish friends, work parties for Spanish ladies for the Christmas holidays, youth group comings and goings......Thank your for checking in again. there will definitely be pictures of the baby Stone when he arrives, as well as a few other announcements in the next few months.

Blessings!!

Dagney

Working on the website (again) and a new house!

So, during the time since we arrived at Ft. Benning, GA, we have been living first in Army Post lodging and then at a Residence Inn in Columbus. Although this house in the picture is not "THE" house (its one from our neighborhood) it shows you what our house basically looks like. All the houses on our street are the same, with different locations (obviously!) so as of Monday we have an address!
304 Miller Loop, Ft. Benning, GA 31905

Also, this week I traveled to Orlando, FL to meet with a summer intern that is helping us make our online presence better and with our contact for the MarketingDept. I have only met these folks on phone calls, and it was a great advantage to work with them in person. I got to Orlando Tuesday night and returned Wednesday night to Columbus (well, Atlanta airport actually!)
We have set a schedule of changes to our website in order to improve it and we have plans to connect better to Facebook and to Twitter. We are trying to improve our visibility. If you are interested in looking around our site a bit better, we've opened up the whole site (as opposed to just the main page) to visitors. So there's more to see! www.WycliffeNextGen.com

Next week is our move-in week, and we will be having our first visitor! One of my Wisconsin girls is coming to visit, reason being for her to get out of town (she recently moved down South and lives in GA!) and to help me with our move-in. I don't really need the help, but its a good excuse for her and I to hang out and catch up and for Michael and I to be a testimony for Christ. She and I have been keeping up on Facebook, but this'll be our first time getting together for 3 years! Michael is excited to be involved in the life of a student I knew from before I knew him. I am looking forward to girl time and hang-out time and lots of talk time. She's staying for a week!!!
So pray for us, that the Lord would protect our attitudes during this time of transition, especially when we have another soul in our care.
See ya on the other side. Maybe with some good move-in pics!

Crossing the US for a new assignment

We started our move on June 24, as the moving truck arrived for the day 1 of 2, to get us packed and loaded. We prepared for them over the weekend, after going to Michaels cousins wedding in Santa Barbara on Saturday. On Tuesday of moving week, we held our last Bible study at our almost empty house. It was a bitter sweet time of visiting with our friends and enjoying pizza. For me, this group of people is particularly special because they knew Michael and I as we dated, got engaged and then married and as two of these couples also dated and got engaged and married last year. We all know each other as newlyweds. From now on, our new friends will not feel that same connection, having no idea of the newness of our life together. So there is something special with these CA friends.
After all the packing and cleaning, we headed out on Saturday June 29!
Our trip took us from Fresno, CA to Flagstaff, AZ; Sedona, AZ; Blanding, UT; Glenwood Springs, CO; Salina, KS; St.Louis, MO; Nashville, TN; and after a stop to see family in Oakridge, TN onto Columbus, GA where Fort Benning belongs.
For a few days, we stayed in Post lodging, but on Friday we moved to an extended stay hotel in Columbus where we will stay for a few weeks until our house is available on post at the end of the month.
Georgia is definitely hot and high humidity, but y'all know me!!! I like that! It is also very green and tree filled. It'll take me awhile to adjust to the culture shift. But I figure I'd better get used to that pretty quick, as Michael's job will require us to be good at culture shifts in the next many years!
I am now in the same timezone as my organizations headquarters, as well as my supervisor. Before I left CA, I attended the SouthWest recruiters retreat representing NextGen and gave an update on our activities, primarily giving them a tour of our new website. These were the colleagues that I spent time with in Temecula, so it was also a personally rewarding time for me being with them one more time.
Our organization is sending out three teams of students this summer to Guatemala, Papua New Guinea and Cameroon as well as internship participants to Ghana. Our website has been active and getting bigger. Please pray for our students traveling overseas this summer, that their health would hold up and their patience would be strong. Pray for their character, that they would learn to be flexible and open to new situations and new people. We are very excited to see the results of their time overseas! Thank you for your support of our ministry and thanks for continuing to check in with me!

So...What about March?

So, we got the website up and going as you know, and now we have over 100 members! I've been working with my boss Tracy on tweaking our little "issues" such as what to do about adult members and how to create more activity. We got a new "face" the week after we opened and it has our organizations "branding" for our age group. We love it! http://www.wycliffenextgen.com/

I have also been working on our Kenya missions trip, having a slow start of it in January setting dates and trying to get our team together. Unfortunately, because of lack of applications (we only had one) we had to cancel the trip and send that one student on another of our opportunities. She'll be going to Cameroon instead, which is cool! I am disappointed that we weren't able to make it fly, especially since it was a trial partnership with another organization, but so it is. I am a bit relieved as it free's my schedule up from complications as Michael and I move to Georgia.
So yeah, we are moving as of May 30th and taking the long drive East. We are due to the new job on June 8th.
In the meantime I'm leaving to see my brother and family in the Middle East, with my parents as of this Tuesday, returning April 26 to California. I've got a work conference to attend in Orlando May 9th-14 and then a couple days at the Southwest Regional recruiters retreat down in Southern California. Then it's one more weekend, attending a family wedding in Santa Barbara and then....leave Cayucos. I'll definitely miss the view, the West Coast culture and the constant growing season.
Last week Michael took me to Hawaii for a Christmas/early Anniversary present. We visited the island that I lived on 1987-1990, showing Michael my old house and my town and some of the activities I loved. We visited a ministry friend of his who now works and ministers to the military on Oahu and generally did the "Hawaii" tourist thing. It went so fast, Sunday to Friday. On Saturday we attended the wedding of a really good friend and youth ministry partner of mine in the Los Angeles area. It was really special to witness that event and I am so so happy for Doug. We both met our spouses on eHarmony!
I'll be away again for another few weeks, visiting my bro, but I ought to have some pretty cool pictures to show you when I get back!
Happy Easter!
Dagney

A partner organization of ours!

I was just introduced to "banners" while creating our student website! So here's my favorite so far. We are hoping to hear from the website called www.vision2025.org for a banner from them. It would create a countdown of Bible Translation right on our website www.wycliffenextgen.com Very cool!

Its about time!

www.WycliffeNextGen.com

Our new website is to be launched as of Monday morning! This site has been my "baby" for the last few months. It was a slow start but we slowly built momentum and I expect that it will only continue to improve. We decided to go ahead and announce the sites opening on February 28th. To do this we will send an email to the members of our current site and invite them to now join us "over here". On the new site we are able to give our members more options of video, chat and photo uploading. We have groups for them to join and events to be aware of. The benefit to this site over Facebook or our current site, is that we can allow our members to have their own pages but all unified under our own site. They can now post their own pictures, videos and start groups and discussion. We have the ability to post events and ask for RSVP. There are also a large number of other administrative benefits to this site as well as a good privacy control.
The video you see is the title video on our site and was produced by the folks at JAARS. JAARS is a partner organization and helps by enabling missionaries to get to their assignments, stay at the assignments, move around and get their work done faster!
Please click on the link above and check our main page. The look will be changing in the next month or so, to more closely tie us to our organization and give us a unique look. I'd ask that, unless you are a student please just enjoy our "Main" page and please don't ask to join. We are committed to keeping this site for students from 13-25 (ish) and not to have too many adults or "other" members. It allows for us to have better control of a safer environment for our students.
I am so excited that this almost done. Thanks for your prayers on our behalf!
The advant

NextGen retreat

To update you on all that's been happening here within NextGen, I'll start with the 2010 annual retreat. Held here in Cayucos, as you readers know, we had a regular 8 of us, and couple extra's a few days. Everyone loved being here at the Stone's house, the view for one is wonderful. We were able to rent a small place three streets away for sleeping quarters and the meetings happened here at the house, as well as most meals. By the end of the week, we felt like we knew where we were at as far as our strategies for this coming year, and we were moving forward in understanding each others jobs. We had discussed a marketing strategy and felt like we were finally all on board. We discussed the website I'm working on and everyone seemed to be ready and excited to use it.
We did a few fun things as well. We went canoeing in a large 12 person canoe and even did a little exploring in Morro Bay! Another evening after meetings we stopped to see "Gum Alley" in San Luis Obispo( a kind of gross alleyway covered in bubble gum) before heading our for our annual dinner "out" Overall, it was a successful and effective time as a team. We were able to accomplish discussions in person that, over the phone are either not possible or frustrating.
For the next week I was playing catchup and working on a few of the new ideas generated during the retreat. We're still working on the kinks for the new site, but the GetGlobal trips will begin to do their team planning and team meetings online there!
This week the challenge is the Kenya GG trip. We have hit a few snags as far as the trip dates, but we are also seeing the hand of God in it. My boss/friend Tracy will likely be able to make the new dates better than the old ones. We have seen God use the details of the trip and some new immovable barriers, as His way of making the details of the trip fit His plans. We see this particular trip as a "test trip" for our new partnership with Wycliffe Associates. We hope that this trip will help us work out the details so that next year and the coming years we will be able to facilitate more than one trip a summer and give student a broader range of opportunities to see the multitude of ways they can serve in Bible translation. My biggest concern personally is that I am to be the team leader, but also I will have been just moved to Georgia with Michaels new assignment. So, something to pray about. I really, really want to go to Africa with a team of students...but not sure if I "should" go. In the meantime, I'm the team coordinator...so if you know anyone interested in a summer trip to work alongside a community of people working on deaf translations in Kenya!??? Have 'em call me!

lots of web stuff

Hello from WET California! This week I've been working online on a website for our students that is not yet "live". Most of my week of Wycliffe work is something I can't show you....:-(...but soon! So I'll just include some links to things I've found that are fabulous!The first is a great video that we located on YouTube (hyper link there too, hard to see) that is quick and catchy. We've used it front and center on our new site. For example, a webzine that our partners JAARS has produced called Rev 7. (there's a link there on the words Rev7, it doesn't show up well) They produce this webzine quarterly, and this publication was about missions in Vernacular Media. How we work with new translations before the Word of God is actually published. It's considered non-written forms of translation. For example The Jesus Film. I got so excited when I saw this publication. I knew that it was in a format that students would enjoy. It has bright colors, short concise articles accompanied by fabulous photo's. The stories are written mostly from first hand accounts that give them so much credibility. Check it out, it's so interesting!
As for my family!
Michael and I spent this last weekend cleaning out his storage unit, where he placed just about all his belongings when he moved out here to care for his ailing mother. We need to sort out all of our now combined belongings in order to make our next move to Georgia in June. I got pictures the first day, but the second day it just downpoured and I didn't think about getting my camera out, while dodging rain drops and hustling back and forth to the nearby Goodwill.
We're doing well here. I'm keeping myself busy every morning (and usually into the afternoon, like today) with work stuff. The evenings are either Michael and I at home or like last night, attending Bible study with local friends.The next few months will be relatively quiet, until the months of travel and moving come. I'm soaking up (almost literally in this wet weather!) the time here in CA. The next adventure is almost on our doorstep!

is working on a computer , work?

"HI" from my keyboard!
Whew! this week has been very productive, as far as it looks on paper, or should I say on the internet? I've been spending my "half" days, working on our new website, communicating with students through chat and getting "stuff" done for our Kenya trip. All that to say, when I push my chair back from my desk and get ready for the rest of my day I don't seem to have done anything. Well, anything that I can see, that is. I'm sure you know the feeling. The intangible "things" that we all do everyday. Relational jobs are just like that. We chide youth pastors for not "producing results" when really the results of relational ministries like that, are....relationships. I know more people who work in offices and in cubicles than I know otherwise, so yeah you do probably get what I mean.
So, I'm learning to count successful, a day of relationship building and a day full of communication, even if it is online.
Our website has taken most of my time, and I'm finding some really cool stuff to rouse the interest of students. First was a link to an article describing how Avatar the movie displays some of the technology we in Bible translation are preparing to use for the translation of sign languages! check it out! "Avatar and Bible Translation?"
Another really fun tool I just found today is a site that allows you to find Bibles and non-written resources in 3,000 languages of the world!

I also learned that a partner of ours JAARS, has a great resource called Rev 7, that is published quarterly, to highlight areas of ministry within the Wycliffe partnerships. The recent one was about the work of "Vernacular Media" or "non-written" communications. Fabulous! This is stuff that students can get excited about!

So, working from my computer.....I'm learning a lot and getting even more excited about the work of Wycliffe. Who'da known!
Dagney

Going Overseas this summer!

We getting ready to go to Kenya! I'm helping get a team together to take students to Kenya in partnership with another organization to assist the ministry of DOOR, a ministry to the deaf in Kenya.
We'll be sending the team from Dallas after training to Nairobi, where the will spend 2 weeks working on a school building project where deaf students will go to school using the local sign language in order to learn.
July 14-Aug3...if you know any students interested they can contact us at getglobal_usa@wycliffe.org and get an application.
I've also been updating and preparing our new website for activation. We wanted a site that would allow students to interact more, post pictures and join groups. A bit bigger that what is available on Facebook and a bit more interactive than our current wynet site. the address is www.nextgen.ning.com but it does require member to join to see it. We're hoping it will be a fairly secure place for students to interact on the subject of missions.
So far that's been my latest activity. Next month I'll be hosting our whole team, here in Cayucos for our annual retreat. Looking forward to "going" to a retreat that leaves me in my own bed at night! what a treat! Besides, we're gonna take advantage of such a lovely situation here in the Central Coast where the weather is at it's best in Jan-Mar!
I've been able to keep in contact with students from my previous residences and have been enjoying the interaction and conversations. Many of those talks have been about important things.
Thank you for your interest in this ministry! Thanks for checking in!
Dagney

What's been happening on the Central Coast?

Yup, married life has a whole new schedule. But I have been working right along with my organization, and we'll start with an update a few months back!
In October I went back down to Southern CA to attend a couple days of the Southwest regional recruiters retreat. There I presented the new outline of the future of NextGen and answer questions from the recruiters. It was a really good opportunity to solidify in my mind what my job really is supposed to be, by making a presentation. The powerpoint went well and I'm confident that our message was communicated to these busy people who will hopefully pass on some leads for our summer trips, GetGlobal!
Next, I attended the Missions weekend at Calvary church. I was really glad to be there this year especially, in order to re-emphasize the fact that I'm still involved. I was able to set up a nice display booth, provided through the recruitment department and had quite a busy weekend with friends and church members. I followed that trip up with a bit of family time as well.
After coming home, I attended another conference, this time to represent our organization at a youth convention of Assemblies of God Spanish churches. I had a great table display provided in part through my recruitment colleagues in Hemet. What a place that was, to hold a youth convention. Never in all my time as a youth leader have I seen such a place for youth. But I was able to chat with some teens, talk about the number of languages in the world that have no scripture AT ALL, and was pleasantly surprised to see such a compassionate response. I was also able to promote our newest available Get Global trip to Kenya in 2010. There seemed to be a high interest in that particular trip next July.
This coming December my team will be represented by my boss Tracy at the Urbana Conference, a huge gathering of college students to raise interest in missions. This being Michael and my first Christmas, and the first without Diane Stone, I decided that leaving on Christmas Day to get to the conference, wasn't the best idea for us. But Tracy will represent us very well!
In February we will be holding our annual NextGen retreat, and I am so excited to be hosting it here at our house in Cayucos! It will be a pleasure to use our house for ministry and I don't even have to leave Michael! woohoo!
The next year will already be bringing alot of changes for my new little family. We are to be stationed in Georgia starting in June, so we'll be packing up the house and preparing it for sale as well as saying goodbye to this lovely ocean I have become so fond of. We are looking forward to a bit more of "normal" after the last tumultuous year for Michael and his family. We'll even get to pick a new church home together for the first time! I also hope that I may be able to attend the Get Global trip to Kenya that I helping to organize, and my Mom and I are trying to fit in a trip to see my brother "over there" in April.
If you know of anyone interested in a work/translation exposure trip to Kenya in July 2010 who also may be interested in sign language work....give them my email address! dagney_stone@wycliffe.org
I hope that you have a Merry Christmas and enjoy time with those you love. Appreciate them for all you're worth!

Dagney

A long time and alot to tell you!

I've got a lot of time to catch up on. I've been learning to be a wife and care for two instead of just me. We've had a number of visitors to our home in Cayucos. Michael finished one year of CalPoly ROTC and we're on the verge of beginning another. Mom Stone passed away in June and that ended up canceling Michaels temporary duty to Seattle and we stayed home instead. I've been painting and cleaning up and sorting and decorating in between visitors and events. (oh, yeah and burying dead seals on our beach...stinky!)
Recently I've started up my prayer email list again. I got off track on that for awhile (wow, its amazing how a wedding throws all schedule to the four winds!) but hopefully will be maintaining that again.
I've been up to Vision Camp as I said in the last post and since then had my coworkers, Tracy and Justin here in Cayucos for work meetings. In those meetings it was decided that Justin will be staying on for another year and will run Get Global trips as Director and I'll be helping him by coordinating one of the trips. I don't know which one yet. At the same time I'm to be assisting the trips by getting some more advertising and marketing out. Prayer would be helpful on that score.....
This Fall I'll be going to Connecticut for the Missions Conference weekend and updating everyone at home about what I'll be doing this year. I've scaled down to part-time, so my support has been scaled down as well. So for now I'm at 75% , but that is probably not completely accurate.
The seasons here have changed, from cloudy and strong marine layers to beautiful and sparkly. It'll start raining here soon, and the pelicans and dolphins will go away but...it's still beautiful. I'm learning to surf! The waves are free and the boards at Costco are perfect for beginners! Thanks for checking in!
Dagney

Africa??

Again, it's Thursday and this time, I've got a new picture. Well actually, it's two weeks old. This is the group of "us" from Southwest Region who went up to the Julian area and held two sessions about Bible Translation during the Youth for Truth's Vision Camp. I was the moderator, did the opening and closing and just introduced the others when it was their turns to speak and kept us on time. Well, they all did that by sticking to their timeframes, but I had the watch! haha! Truly though, we had Jr. High before lunch and Sr. High after lunch. We seemed to have held the students attention, even though the poor Sr.Highers had to endure a session AFTER lunch (always my worst time in college). We had a number of them show interest in getting involved right away and even some of the staff took interest in our short term programs for next year! We gave out a number of praying for the Bibleless people groups, prayer cards and the students really seemed genuinely interested!
It was a unique time for me, a time of memories from some emotional upheaveal I was going through last year at the same camp and it was refreshing to see how God had changed my path and brought me to where I am today. It was also fun to be again, working with my colleagues down in Southern CA doing what we all love to do.
I will officially be taking the helm of the high school short term program in NextGen as of September. I have also been asked to possibly co-lead one of the trips to Africa next summer. Oh my! would I!!! I am discussing it with my new husband, as he's been invited to lead as well, and we are considering it and the possiblility of us arranging a household move around the same time. My boss and friend, Tracy and I have been talking about co-leading a trip to Africa for a few years. This would be fabulous. You would think I was doing "youthbuilders" all over again! May be!!!! Where's Gordy and Bear?? :-)
Prayer requests would include the decision about going to Africa and also, that I would be able to seemlessly take the responsibility for the short term program from those that are doing such a good job now!
thanks for checking in again.
Dagney

Back from wedding and travels and...

I walked down the isle May 16, 2009 to become Major Michael Stone's wife. Our whole family had a great time. We worshiped God, enjoyed the day, partied and had a genuinely good time. The reception at Double Diamond hangar Oxford Airport was a dream. After we rested on Sunday, Michael took me to the Turks and Caicos for our honeymoon. The following week we returned to California for Michael to return to work at CalPoly's ROTC unit. We were continuing the celebration by planning our California reception in Paso Robles at Stacked Stone Cellars as we surrounded ourselves with Michaels California (and nearby) friends and relatives. My parents traveled to CA for the celebration and we were able to hold a vow exchange in Diane Stone's room as she continues to suffer from brain cancer.
To update you about my job. I am continuing with my organization. In fact we met in April to discuss the direction we want to take and to figure out who is doing what jobs. As of July or August the man who has been leading our short term trips will be moving to another position within the organization. My boss Tracy has asked me to take the job temporarily until we are able to fill that position with a full time employee. This means that I will begin to follow and support the short term trips that we are planning, for 2010. Sound familiar? It will be very similar to what i did with YouthBuilders! For now this is only temporary. I am not yet sure how this very busy position will affect my new position as Army wife, but for now I should well be able to maintain it. I am officially doing "part - time" with the organization but we don't yet know how that all works itself out. Next week I will be attending a camp called Vision Camp in Southern CA with my Southwest regional recruiter friends as moderator for the group. We will be presenting what our work is all about and hopefully encouraging and inspiring some youth to consider this work for themselves!
I have not yet found a church youth group home, although Michaels church, the Calvary Chapel of San Luis Obispo where he attends has a youth group. I told the pastor that I'd be checking it out but as of right now, the wedding planning and finding my place here at home have taken alot of time.
Also, would you pray with us (the Stone's) over Michaels Mom's health? She had a succession of seizures last week, of which I was in attendance for the 2nd - 7th. It was very dramatic and caused her son Jeff in Spain and Michael who had just left for Washington and a temporary duty station to return home to CA to be at her bedside. She has not been able to eat or drink on her own and was just taken off the IV. We do not know what to expect but at most it's a matter of weeks. It's a very draining time for the family.
Also with my organization.....NextGen is taking a new direction and we hope to roll out our new theme this year.
I'll post some more pictures of our wedding events, primarily the CA reception in my next update.
Dagney

Wedding planning firsts

What I've got to report this week is just all wedding stuff! The first picture is Carolyn my invitation creator/producer. She and I have been working on the design and creation of these darn things for months. She did a great job and printed them last week. She was a great lady to work with!
Next was Michael and my first wedding/shower gift. It arrived sometime last week and Michael waited for me and we got to open our first gift together. Kinda fun, as you can see!
And finally while staying at a neighbors house and working during the day at Michael's house, I've been working on just about one main thing this week. Invitations. Amazing how much detail goes into these things! whew! So here's me sitting at Michael's house assembling invitations and writing address's. Can't wait to get them IN THE MAIL!
Finally, we also got to see our engagment photo's this week for the first time! you can see them at http://www.robertandkathleen.com/blog/ .
I got to attend Michael's church bible study and we had some really good fellowship there last night.
Next week after Jury duty on Monday (hopefully that's all) I have a few days at home and then head out to Connecticut for wedding planning stuff. Michael will join me out there too and will get to meet more of my CT group! See many of you in the next week or so!