Bart and Emily Allen Tribal Church Planters in Papua New Guinea
NTM Church Planting Timeline
For those of you who have been following our ministry or who heard us share in your church, this timeline hopefully looks familiar! The Lord faithfully led us through the New Tribes training as well as through our time of partnership development (a.k.a. support raising). We arrived here in Papua New Guinea in December 2009.
We are excited to be able to share with you that we have now completed our field orientation as well!! (more…)
Ready to fly out of the tribe
For the past 7 years our family has been heading in the direction of church planting among unreached tribal people. We completed 2 years of Bible school, then 2½ more years of specialized missions training. After that we spent almost 2 years sharing this burden with churches and individuals as we saw the Lord raise our needed support. Throughout this time, we were sharing (with many of you!) that our goal was to live in a tribe in Papua New Guinea, learn the language and culture of the people and eventually translate and teach them the Truth of God’s Word. However, we had never actually experienced living and working in a tribe!! We were just walking by faith down the path which God seemed to be leading us. (more…)
You’re going where? For how long? And what will you be doing there?
In just a few days our family will be getting on a little Cessna 206 and landing for the first time on a jungle airstrip in a remote tribe in the mountains of the PNG Highlands for bush orientation!
So, what exactly is Bush Orientation? Well, let me recap a little first. We have been here in PNG for almost 4 months now! That’s hard to believe, but it’s true. After having some time to get settled and feel more at home here, we began the task of studying the trade language (Melanesian Pidgin) and the culture of the people around us. Eventually, our goal in the future is to locate our family among a tribal group that has never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. As we celebrated His death, burial and resurrection today, we couldn’t help but think of the hundreds of people groups in this country that are still living in spiritual darkness! But before we can go and live among a tribal group, we first have to complete our national language and culture learning.
That’s where bush orientation comes in. For 6 weeks we will be living in a tribe where a church has already been planted to help us get a taste of what living in the bush is really like. We will continue our Pidgin and culture study and hope to make great progress over these next weeks. While many of the people most likely speak only their tribal language, there are some who speak Pidgin as well. We will be able to see an example of the goal that is before us – a mature, growing church that is reaching out to the people surrounding them. We are also looking forward to all that we will be able to learn from the experienced missionary family that has served in this tribe for many years.
There will be many new things in the days ahead. Our electricity will come from solar panels on the roof. We will go from living on a mission center to living very close to the tribal people. Our minds will probably be swirling as we are daily bombarded not only with Pidgin but the tribal language as well. After the near constant heat and humidity of the coast, our bodies will have to adjust to the cooler temperatures found at 5,000 ft. elevation. (We’re looking forward to that change!!) The boys will have a new homeschooling classroom for a few weeks. And there are sure to be many other changes as well.
A few weeks ago we had most of our food and supplies flown in. We won’t be going to the grocery store for 6 weeks so I sure hope we sent in enough toilet paper!! We’ve never had to buy supplies for this long of a time so it will be interesting to see how well we calculated. Someday we might be buying groceries for 3 months at a time, though, so this is good practice!
Please pray for us in these next weeks - 1. That we will make good progress in our language study. 2. That God would continue to direct us regarding future ministry. 3. That we would get a good understanding of what bush living is like.
We will fly back out of the tribe on May 17 and then have a few days to debrief with our regional leadership before heading back to the mission center here. We will not have internet access while in the tribe, but we are experimenting with some different ways to keep people updated. (This post is one of those experiments!) If we aren’t able to send updates and photos here to our blog, then we will catch you up on the news when we get back.
Many of you know that a few weeks ago Bart was part of a team helping two families move into a new tribal work. They had tried back in January to move into the tribe but the weather conditions made it too dangerous for the helicopter to land so they had to delay their move until the beginning of March.
We just wanted to let you know that the two families are now moved in to the tribe and are getting adjusted to life there. Bart even had the chance to go into the tribe for a few days to help with some building projects in their houses! To see more photos, visit our recently updated photo page.
First visit to a tribe
Thanks for praying! Through your prayers, you have a part in the spread of the Gospel to unreached tribal people!
I’ll start off by putting your mind at ease. We haven’t had to eat any plump, juicy grubs – yet!! That time may come and we’ll be sure to tell you about it!!
We really eat pretty normal stuff here. The main difference is that it usually just takes longer to make. Here are a few examples: (more…)
By far, the most common way to get around here in PNG is to walk. We don’t know any statistics, but privately owned vehicles are a rarity as far as we can tell. The road to town is lined with people walking. And they are often carrying heavy loads.
Here’s another peek into what life is like for us. Doing laundry is a little more time consuming now and we thought you might be interested in how the process works!
Our washer – called a twin tub washer – is in the storage room underneath our house. We do not have a dryer – other than the sun and wind.
The twin tub washer
What is life like for us here in PNG? We’re glad you asked!!
These first few days and probably the next week or so we are spending most of our time getting settled into our house. When we arrived, our house was furnished with things here from the center that are available for new families. Just yesterday we finished bringing over our things that we shipped many months ago in the container. They had been stored in the shop and are now in a storage room under our house. Slowly but surely we are going through the trunks and putting things where they belong. As we get out our own things, we will return the borrowed items that were here in the house.
Our storage room
However, many of the things that we shipped are for the next few years so those items need to be sorted out and packed back up again – tools, extra clothes, bigger clothes for the boys…
Bart getting some help unloading our things
Along with getting our house in order, we have taken several trips into town for groceries and supplies. Town is about 25-30 minutes away. Each evening we have had dinner with a different missionary family here on the center. It has been a great time of getting to know our new friends and co-workers.
The boys are doing great. There is tons of room for them to play and explore. There are interesting bugs and large toads to catch. There are also plenty of mosquitos and other biting insects, however we have been told that the malaria mosquitos only come out after dusk. Most days are sunny, hot and humid, but there is often a nice breeze blowing that makes it seem cooler. We are all sleeping well and haven’t really had any jet lag issues.
As time goes on we plan to share more detailed descriptions of different areas of our life here. So, stay tuned!! (In this, and hopefully other posts, you should be able to click on the pictures to make them bigger.)
We made it to Papua New Guinea! Our trip, although quite long, went very smoothly and the boys did great! After 6 flights, we are pretty sure we could give the safety demonstration perfectly if we ever needed to. We saw the Lord provide many little blessings along the way. Here are just a few: (more…)
December 14 – 20
- Time to unpack all those things that we shipped over in the container!
- For endurance as we set up our house
- For the adjustment of going to a church where a different language is spoken
- For the boys as they make new friends
- For us to find a good schedule for homeschooling
- For ears to quickly adjust to the sounds of a new language and for alert minds to be able to begin studying full time
