The beginning of a new life in Jackson, Michigan

Tomorrow is my first day of classes here at New Tribes Bible Institute (NTBI)! I must say that I am EXTREMELY excited about the classes here! I can't wait to learn all that the staff will share with me from God's Word. But we should really go back to how this all started; so here we go!

I was challenged at Teen Leadership Retreat over this past Christmas Break by the speaker, Brad Buser, who shared his life as a missionary. He grew up in southern California and was not raised in a Christian family. He was invited by one of his close surfing buddies (he was actually on his school's surf team which is a HUGE thing in a southern California beach city) to youth group at a local church. The youth pastor there spoke the truth straight to their hearts and even though most of the kids who came didn't really like him they still came because what he talked about really caught their attention. Anyways, long story short: Brad ended up putting his faith in Jesus and was challenged by his youth pastor to pursue missionary work as a lifelong work. Therefore, Brad headed to NTBI, went through the training, (got married) and left for Papua New Guinea where he spent numerous years with a tribe that had NEVER heard of anything from the Bible. He learned the language, lived with the tribe, and eventually translated all of the New Testament and parts of the Old Testament into the tribe's language. Did I mention that he first had to learn the language and THEN make a written language for their solely oral language so that they could read the Bible?

There was a lot more that he shared with us, but I don't really have the time to share his whole story with you. He really challenged me to be willing to give up EVERYTHING in the work of sharing the gospel. I therefore started to pursue going to NTBI the next fall. Even though the road that brought me here to Jackson, Michigan has not been easy, I have certainly had the clearest view of what God wants me to do. After a month of work at Camp Pinewood as a counselor, my small savings account, and incredibly generous gifts given me by my family and my church I am now able to be here at NTBI.

I want to thank everyone who has helped support me; whether it was finances, discipleship, prayer, MORE prayer, friendship, or just plain ol' love for this sinful guy named David Duron. You cannot possibly know how much your support has meant to me and how it has helped me to be where I am today. I wish that I could name everyone who has supported me in these many ways, but there are way too many for me to remember and I would probably forget numerous people and then hurt your feelings. So I'm just gonna say THANK YOU! again to everyone who has been a part of my life.

Through these past four days that I have been here I have already experienced the love of God in profound ways. But being here is also a brand new phase of my life where I must begin providing for myself. This is, truthfully, really scary for me. I have always been dependant on my parents to provide for me which they have lovingly done for 18 years. My parents also believe that I shouldn't have to get a job in high school because school should be my job and I wasn't yet an adult. Well, now I'm an adult and need to figure out how I'm going to pay for my needs in this "adult" world. Fortunately I am not totally independent yet; my family and church have paid a huge part in helping me with the finances needed to go to NTBI. But I do feel that I need to get a job so that I can pay for college. I've been praying about this and today during a break in orientation I talked to the head of the business office and asked him, real quickly, if I could talk to him later about help in getting a job. About three seconds after I walked out of the auditorium, a guy started to ask if anyone needed a job so I instantly said "YES." He then told me about his job that he was quitting but wanted to find someone else who could take his position since he was leaving. This seemed like a total answer to prayer so I have been talking more to him about this job. Later on I talked to the head of the business office for about 15 minutes about how I should approach getting the finances I need. He helped me quite a bit by giving me pointers on how to make it more likely for me to get a job and even showed me about how much money I would need to make in order to pay for the rest of the semester.

This is what is going on in my life right now and I pray that you will pray for me as I go out seeking for a job. I know that God will provide, but I also know that I might not fully comprehend what that means until I KNOW that I can't provide for myself and He provides for my needs.