NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

We just spent the last 6 months with friends and family in the U.S. and Germany. We were very much refreshed and had a great time. But, all good things must come to an end, and since the end of November, we are back at it in Africa.

Our first 3 weeks back in the village were full of activity. Between setting up the house and greeting the villagers, the first week went by fast. The kids were especially glad to see us…

first day back

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Then, we got back into Glaro learning… We were glad to find that, after about a week, our language ability was back up to where we had left off 6 months ago. Not only that, it sometimes seemed to be better! Amazing what a brain rest can do for you!

We are now in Monrovia, picking up the vehicle we bought and shipped while in the States. We were able to pick it up exactly on Christmas Eve – what a nice Christmas gift!

We were quite busy the last few days with renewing our Liberian residency, getting drivers licenses, vehicle tags, and an Ivory Coast visa as well. And yet, it has been amazing all that we have been able to get done during the holiday weeks! We have really sensed that God has gone before us and paved the way and given us favor with various employees in the right offices!

We will be returning to the village in the first week of January. Once there, we will be out of reach of internet for a while till we get our internet account in Ivory Coast set up again.

In January 2011, we moved from a village in Ivory Coast, West Africa to a smaller village in Liberia, West Africa. The main reason for this move is that there is a higher concentration of Glaro people living in Liberia, and this is vital to our further understanding of their language and culture, and to eventually being able to teach them the Bible clearly in their own language. Here is a little glimpse into life in our new village…

Above: Aerial views of the village

Below: This is where we get our shower and flushing water.
Drinking water comes from a hand pump well in the village…

A young man in our village killed this 8-9 foot crocodile in the local river. We have been having second thoughts about swimming there ever since.

This was our pet chameleon of one day until it ran away…

We eventually did manage to rent a new moving truck. So, on Tuesday, January 11th, we began our move to our new village in Liberia. After several hours on the road, we arrived as close to the river as we could get, unloaded and hauled the luggage the rest of the way, crossed it over in a canoe, and finally arrived in Liberia! Three hours more of hiking and we were in our new village. However, through some unexpected circumstances, we had an immediate 3 week detour in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. We just got back last week and were finally able to set up our new home. Unfortunately, Aaron’s brother’s (who is here visiting us) camera was stolen in Monrovia and most of the pictures from our move went with it! However, we did take a few with our camera, so here they are… Just after crossing the river we met the immigrations officer. So we took a break and discussed our situation before hauling our baggage up the hill to store it in a house in the nearby village for the time being.

A new friend flew us closer to our village in his chopper, making our trip from Monrovia back to the village considerably shorter.

We bought a motorcycle to be more flexible with traveling. However, riding it on the “roads” here feels at times quite like walking on a tightrope, with big mud holes on either side or even a creek underneath.

After several hours on our new motorcycle, we finally arrived in our new village.

Our new home needed some “small home repair.” This young man spontaneously helped us and finished closing up the roof.

Ruben painted the dirt walls in our bathroom, making it the nicest room in the house…

Aaron patched up some holes in the dirt walls…

Amy transferred our luggage from where it was being stored to our new house, with the help of some of the village kids…

There is plenty of bamboo growing next to the village, so Aaron and Ruben rigged up a counter for washing dishes, a bench, a doorstep, and an antenna pole all out bamboo.

Recently we scheduled a date for finally relocating to our new village in Liberia. We talked to a Truck owner who assured us that he was going to come and pick us up the next morning to move our stuff the 35 miles down the road to the river front.

From there we had planned to unload and “ship” the items with a dug out canoe to the other side, where some villagers were supposed to meet us to carry our luggage the rest of the way (3 hours by foot) to the new village.

After waiting for the truck for a couple hours in the morning, we decided to call him. We then found out that he had some cocoa still loaded on his truck, that he said he was going to unload before coming. Still a couple of hours later, we called again, only to find out that he was on his way to another village to empty his load. Finally we called the move off.

Well, unfortunately here in Africa people will often tell you “Yes” because they don’t want to disappoint you in front of you, even though they really mean “No”. That is just what had happened to us. The owner never really intended to send his truck but he just did not want to disappoint us while we were talking to him. (Possibly also the bad road conditions played a role in him not wanting to come)

In reality, this made our disappointment even bigger, realizing that we had to unpack again and start looking for another vehicle. Now we are trying to move again next week (mid January), as we found another truck who is willing to take us.

Last week, Aaron spotted this snake crawling into the house from the attic, right above our pantry. Thankfully, he was able to kill it before it had the time to hide in the pantry!
It seems that it looks bigger than it is, or so we have been told. It was about 3 feet long and as big around as Aaron’s middle finger. In any case, it was too big to stay in the house!

We have been living almost 4 months now in a Glaro village. Life is getting more into a routine, and even the “strange” things are starting to get more normal. For example, a Scorpion found his last day on our little front porch last week. And having some alligator meat in the sauce that our neighbor sent us does not surprise us anymore either.

But why moving again? Well, from the beginning we were not sure if we would stay in this village. The Glaro population has become far outnumbered here, and this makes it more difficult to learn Glaro. While just a few miles, across the river that marks the border to Liberia, lives a bigger Glaro community where all villages speak almost only Glaro.
Well, since last week it is settled – we will move over there. The Glaro villages there are far more isolated and the nearest shop will be about a half day of travel away, making “life” a bit more difficult; however, this will be the better place to learn Glaro and we believe this is where God would have us to continue the work among them.

Our efforts on learning the Glaro language will continue over there. For now we are still trying to get our ears tuned to the 90 vowels of the Glaro Language. I guess you can imagine that having so many vowels, some of them really sound alike to us, while to them they are very distinct!!!! At times this is quite frustrating, but we have noticed that we have started to distinguish some of those vowels by now.

Thank you very much for all your prayers, Aaron and Amy

About six weeks ago we moved into a Glaro village. We set up our little solar system, hooked up our Gas stove to a bottle and arranged some things in our new house.
We are able to use one of the houses the Mission had built back when the first missionaries moved there to work among the Glaro people. This has been a huge help even though during the civil war, shelves, furniture and everything else had been taken out. So we have to improvise some. Aaron recently cut a bamboo pole in the “backyard”, to hang it from the bedroom ceiling. That now serves as a “closet” where we can hang our clothes…

We now have started to learn the Glaro language. For now, this task looks like a “Mount Everest” but with God’s help we climb it step by step.

Well, this is just a short update, that I am able to write while out in a bigger village for a couple of days. I, Aaron, am meeting our Field Leader that is coming from Senegal today with another Missionary. Together we will head out tomorrow morning to go to Liberia. there we will do a survey trip for the Glaro work.

Well, I got to go for now, but we hope to get some more news to you soon, Aaron

We are on the road right now, moving some of our things in our new home. Well, I dont know if we can call it a home yet. However, we will be arriving tomorrow in a Glaro village, and arranging our few things. It will be rough for the first few months, till we have to chance to upgrade our place little by little. At first we won’t have any sinks, running water, or electricity. Well, the electricity is the smallest problem. I wont take us but a few hours to set up our pre-fabricated solar system. But the missing furniture will be a bigger challenge. Without a matrass on the floor and a small plastic table that will have to function as kitchen counter space, dining room table, and office…

But we are also excited to finally being able to move into a Glaro village and start learning the Glaro language. I am really not in writing mode, as I am also tired from packing up and running our last errands before we left Abidjan this morning. Yet, I wanted to put this short post on here, as we wont have internet access while in the village. We will catch up with you the next time we are out in a town with Internet possibilities.

Aaron

After a recent meeting with the our field leaders, we decided that we will be moving on soon. That is to say, we will be winding down our french study here in Abidjan and be moving into a remote Glaro village to begin our language study in Glaro.
We have been in Ivory Coast a little bit over a year now and adjusted well to the local customs and cultre. Even though some things, like spicey hot peppers in the food, were hard to get used to…

Now moving on, that means for us that we have to say goodbye to running water, unlimited electricity and internet. Also we wont have any supermarket nor taxis anymore close by.
But fortunately we will have a roof over our heads and with some solar panels we will still be able to use a computer and some lights possibly. Allowing us to work and process all our new language recordings also in the evening. (year round the sun comes up at 6am and sets at 6pm over here)

Well, there will be many other changes waiting for us and we will write some more as we find the time.

Aaron for both of us.