NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Hi Friends

Hope you are all doing great! In these days I  started to share from 1 Corinthians and me and the teachers specifically discussed Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 1 which says:

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, : so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

(1Co 1:26- 29)

As we discussed Gods Word the teachers looked at each other and said, “Paul is speaking about us, because just look at us, we are not wise, or powerful or of noble birth, to tell you the truth we look like fools in the worlds eyes” Brus then said, ‘Yes me and Alex were very bad people, we stole all the missionaries stuff, and worshipped our ancestors furthermore I do not have many gardens or any pigs’. Eddie then said, ‘Yes and I was a thief and wife beater’. Kamalus said, ‘And look I can’t even read properly.’ They then pointed to me and reminded me of who I was, a rebel, drunkard and drug addict who tried to commit suicide twice before the Lord saved me.

I then showed them that this is exactly the kind of people that God are looking for to use. People who know that they are nothing more than saved sinners.  After this we all just became silent and struggled to talk, because who would ever think that the Creator of this World is looking for people like us to save, restore and use in His Kingdom.

Thanks for helping us and making it possible for us to share Gods Word with the Mengen people.  And know you are making a major difference.

Blessings

Lourens for the Mengen church

Hi Friends

Recently I traveled back from our support center to our bush location. We usually take a 35 minute flight with the mission plane but lately NTM has not been able to help us with flights due to a shortage of both pilots and fuel. So I had to take the grueling hike back to our village.

 At first I had to wait for a PMV (people moving vehicleJ) just outside our mission centre. I waited for about an hour and then one picked me up and squeezed me in. They can carry anything from 15 to 30 people and this particular day it was closer to 30.

After many stops we at last ended up at the town where I was suppose to take another PMV.

Here I waited about an hour, and then at last got one to pick me up and we headed out for the ¾ hour ride toward the next town. I got squeezed in between a relatively large lady breastfeeding her new born baby without shame and another large male who smelled as if he was needing a bath. So after about 3 hours in one position not being able to move much my legs and behind was sleeping. You know that feeling when it all goes numb? Luckily we had a beetle nut stop which gives everyone who likes the opportunity to exit the vehicle and chew some beetle nut. This gave us all a chance to stretch our legs but I could scarcely get out of the vehicle due to the numbness. I was a real site for everyone and we all had a good laugh.

 After arriving at the next village the tarred road was done. PNG has about a total of 9,300 km of roads and about 3000 km of that is paved/tarred, and these aren’t in any great condition either. So from this village I traveled by truck to another village about 2 hours drive. This was a very very shaky ride. There were a Mengen lady whom I knew and she marked herself as my official interpreter. Even though I can speak the national language fluently she insisted I speak in Mengen and then translated to all the others into the national language.

After arriving at the plantation village I decided to spend the night due to both legs and behind being very numb. When we arrive in these village there is always place to sleep. We call these houses ‘house boys’ and it is only for men to sleep in. There is always people willing to share their food with you and there is always a stick bed available or some space close to the fire in the centre of the house. The problem would be the sand flies and flees. Also when they see a white skins sleeping in a houseboy then many people pack the house full like sardines to listen how I speak in their language, many actually believe I am a spirit from the dead.

Finally the next day I could start the long hike from the plantation village to our village in the jungle. If you are very lucky you might get a ride from one of the plantation workers but this is very scarce. So if you do not get a ride then you basically hike for a day into the jungle over a serious river and at last into our village. If you think about hiking you might think about back packing in some local park or nature reserve? There they have paths and rest points etc etc. But this is nothing like that, you constantly walk in mud, you climb some serious hills and often fall down and slide back and start again. This particular day it rained all the way and even though it’s raining its hot and humid as well. But eventually we made it to our village in the jungle.

In times like these we learn to appreciate the flight program and our pilots. Please pray for us and for our pilots, that God would continue to provide finances so that we could afford to fly rather hike and that there would be pilots, planes and fuel available to help us minister effectively

 Thanks for your prayers and support

Lourens

The longer we stay among the Mengen people the less we can hide who we truly are. It is tough to be subjected to constant scrutiny and we are watched day and night all days of the week. Here are some of the things the Mengen people say and think about us.

-          Will these white skins eat taro and how much do they eat? Taro is a very tough root vegetable and is not easy to swallow when cooked on the fire. They know very well what we eat, and ask each other whether we will ever be able to eat their food such as taro that’s baked in the ashes. That is actually how they will also measure the worth of a man, i.e. how much taro does he eat that’s baked in ashes. Furthermore they know if we eat their food or throw it away behind their backs, which is a terrible sin in their eyes, and they will never forget it if you do. They also measure the amounts of food we eat as that is an indication of how we accept their hospitality. They will often compare us white people with each other and say this one eats all his food, and that one does not, or this one eats taro but that one does not. Sometimes I will even come to other villages I have never been at and hear of people saying that they heard so and so eats taro and so and so does not.  

-          Something else that they often ask, is why are we so pale? For them the white, pale colour of our skins does not look good, and it actually looks as if we are sick. I am lucky that I have a darker colour skin and they sometimes call me a ‘mixed race’ but Marie on the other hand is white and thus not healthy, some would think. Many Mengen people believe we are spirits returned from the dead because of the colour of our skins.

-          Another question they would ask is why are some white skins so fat and why do they try to lose weight? A constant point of discussion is our physical size and shape and they often speak of us as being fat. They actually admire us in this sense, and look at skinny people as being sick.  Sometimes when they see a person who is not fat, they will ask me if he or she is sick. Other times in the good old days when I lost some weight and Marie did also they asked us if we are sick. They cannot understand how come we would like to lose weight.  

-          They often ask why we struggle to walk? They say that we are not strong and actually are lame, because we cannot walk on gravel, or in the bush without shoes, or we always fall down. And if we do, then we complain and limp along. They say I am young but walk like an old man, because I need a walking stick.

-          Something that they discuss far more than our physical features are our characters. They have a nick name for us all that depicts something in our character; your nickname more than often points directly to the greatest flaw in your character and is often the way they perceive you as a person. For example

o   ‘Gendeng’ – Is a bird that steals from other birds and would mean that you are stingy.

o   ‘Taliliua Maro’ – Is a bird with a tail that bounces constantly from side to side. And would mean that you constantly change your mind and cannot be trusted.

o   ‘Basale’ – Would mean to take your time and not know when to leave.

o   ‘Merengi’ –Is a tall bird, but one that has spurts of diarrhea when chased around. So it would refer to cowards.

-          Another question they would ask about us is does he have sense of humour? They use the phrase ‘para igu’ which means to pierce a person’s nose, which is the equivalent of our speaking of pulling a person’s leg. If you can do this well and with wisdom, then you will have a good name, and if you can also take it well, then you will even have a better name.

The best of all is that they have answers for all the above questions and they know us better than what we will ever know them. They can remind us of words, phrases and gestures we use that we are not even aware of. Sometimes I catch them imitating me or a co worker and then actually also imitating our favourite phrases, gestures, accents and even grammatical errors we make. It just struck me again that I am being watched and I need to be sure to become a picture of Christ inside this culture.  

May God help us this year to become more a picture of Christ and that through all our differences and intricacies that people will be able to see Christ in us.

Blessings

Lourens for the Mengen Church

Hi friends

Hope you guys are having a great 2013 up to now☺ Here on our side the wheel is rolling full steam again, and we are looking forward to what the Lord might have in store for us this coming year.

Generally things are going well with our family. Our kids are fine even though Marlou has jst had another bout of malaria, and Madeleen is recuperating from a serious tropical ulcer that had her bedridden for about a week. Those ulcers are nasty stuff! Except for battling the usual viruses, infections and stings our home schooling year has started again and is actually running very smoothly (for 5 days now☺). Since last year we have made some changes in the curriculum and have worked hard in order to get a schedule that’s working for us all. Madeleen, who has been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome last year, is doing very well and we have seen some great progress being made since we started to work with her. We are very satisfied with how she is progressing and can only praise the Lord for what he is doing in her life.

The Mengen church is also moving on well. We have started working through the Book of Corinthians, and we are now having our teachers preparing and teaching these lessons. This year we hope to see the church growing and maturing more and especially the teachers taking more responsibility in shepherding the church. We thank the Lord for the translation of the Book of Romans that has been checked.  Now we will work towards the final check of Ephesians and also 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy.  

Thanks so much for your continual support and prayers throughout these years! We are privileged to be part of this team and we hope and pray that God will reach more Mengen people during this year through your efforts!

Blessings

Lourens

Hi Friends

Hope you are all doing great! I had a very interesting time these last few weeks and would like to share some of what happened. We as a young church have been hearing from both Romans and Ephesians that God has changed our condition from lost sinners to saved saints and this is all due to Christ’s work in our stead, but now we have also learned that God is wanting to even go ahead and help us change so that we are holy vessels that He could use. This is something he does through the working of His Spirit daily in and through our lives as we submit to Him and look to Him through faith.

With this in mind, I had some friends visiting me and sharing that they are realizing that there is still sin in their lives that they have not dealt with. They shared that they feel in their hearts that they are hiding sins in their lives and that they feel that God cannot use them as long as they hide these things. This all came about after certain lessons from Ephesians as well as lessons from the old Testament about Jonah. So as we visited together they shared about how they have been lying to me at times, and stealing from my office. Some of them have been gossiping about us missionaries and have been allowing some negative thoughts to control their thinking. Not only did they share some of this with me but also some other secrets such as that they have recently killed pigs without telling their owners and that they stole food from other people’s gardens.  They said that for long time now they have felt that these sins have been hidden and they can feel God’s hand pressuring them to confess these! Wow that was an amazing evening, of fellowship and prayer and rejoicing.

Then a couple of days later I visited  Brus and spoke with him about some debts that he had allowed in his life. He told me then that he was pressured by non-believers to allow these debts. But later that same day he came to visit me and confessed that he had lied to me and that he actually made those debts in order to buy some food for his family. He then shared that he just can’t go on sinning and hiding his sin like this.

As you know, we also had some others falling into sin and even turning against the church, yet they also came and apologized and prayed together.

It seems that there is a more sincere attitude among many believers to start walking with the Lord. Please pray that God will continue to touch people’s hearts so that they truly give themselves as holy living sacrifices!

Thanks for standing behind us!

Lourens

Bobo‘s story

I would like to share a short story about one of our believers named Bobo.

Bobo is about 16 years of age. His father died when he was still a baby. Unbelievers today say that his father was killed by an “aborou”, which is a person with the ability to perform black magic. Soon after this mother, overcome by sorrow, committed suicide. It was a very sad day when they found both him and his older sister in the same room his mother committed suicide in. Up to recently it was very common for Mengen people to commit suicide when they experienced extreme sorrow or shame. After this, in accordance with Mengen culture, his extended family raised him and cared for him. He basically stayed with his grandmother and uncles.

Because of these circumstances, Bobo grew up to be a difficult boy, who was even regarded according to Mengen culture as being bad mannered, a thief and trouble maker. On the first day that we arrived in our village , he was one of our carriers and stole some of our foodstuffs. Not long after that he broke into our house and stole some sugar and yeast to make some home brew to get drunk. Regularly after this he gave us trouble, sometimes even threatening to hurt our coworkers. The picture on the left is a picture of Bobo when we arrived here a couple of years ago.

As you know, in the last few years we started to teach the Mengen people through the Old Testament up to the life and death of Christ. What was amazing though was that throughout all of this time he attended all 70 of these lessons, and also the next 40 lessons covering the book of Acts and eventually into the lessons covering the Book of Romans as well. Even though in this time he continued with his trouble and rebellion, the seeds of God’s truth were being sown into his life and so it happened that the Holy Spirit somewhere along the line convicted him of his sin and showed him his need for salvation. And so this orphan boy was adopted into the family of Christ with God himself as His father.

The picture on the right was taken when we first taught the Gospel message and Bobo heard the truth. When we work with these people we experience such great joy at times that we cannot but praise the Lord with our tears. Just think, here was a little boy in the jungle living in these harsh conditions and growing up in the midst of sin and animistic ancestral worship. Everything around him modelled Satan and his ways., yet God had chosen him before creation to be holy and set apart for him. God has done a remarkable work in this young man’s life. He joined the literacy class and learned to read and write and now he is even being trained as a literacy teacher. He is also in the beginning stages of being evaluated to become a teacher trainee in church. God has truly turned his life around. On the left is a picture of Bobo today.

We hope and trust that Bobo will become a great teacher amongst his own people.

Please be in prayer with us for this young man that he will continue on this road and be sanctified so much that he would become an instrument set apart for special use here among the Mengen people!

Remember that you are making an eternal difference by supporting us and we appreciate each one of you guys very very much. We cannot reach people like Bobo without your support.

Lourens

Hi Friends

Hope you are all doing great today! It has been a busy week with preparing lessons for [cid:part1.01090600.09030108@ntm.org] Ephesians 3 and also doing the final check for the translation of the book of Ephesians. I only played a small part in the process but it’s been really great to see how this book developed from its first draft up to where we can now use it as a teachers’ draft and some of our teachers are gaining great reward from reading from Ephesians in their own language. Thanks for supporting us and making it possible for the Mengens to have this GREAT GREAT blessing of God’s message in their mother tongue.

In these days my friend Alex came to me again and shared with me the difficulties he is having with his wife. Her name is Monde and she is an unbeliever and has been holding on very strongly to the deception of her ancestral worship. Alex has often come to me for prayer and advice, and often he even gets sad. I thus added a picture for you guys and ask that you would pray with us for Alex and his wife and that the Lord would make a difference in her life.

Eddie and I hiked to a neighbouring village about 2 hours from us just to go and visit. [cid:part2.09050207.07010607@ntm.org] (Picture on right.) It was extremely sad for me to meet some of these people. They have never had a Bible in their hands. Just imagine that! I asked them how will they ever get to know the message that God has intended for them in His Word, and they were very puzzled and could not answer me! They said that a local school teacher sometimes teaches them from a book but it’s not the Bible. Even though I have been working amongst these people for many years, I was once again shocked and saddened by the state of these people. The people from this little village have no chance in eternity until we go to them and teach them. My prayer is that they will see the need and welcome us to go to them and settle amongst them and teach them God’s truth.

Keep on praying for us as we reach out to the unreached and thanks so much that we can partner with you guys! Please remember that you guys are playing a vital part in this process and know that we are thanking God for you guys for we know that we are only but a link in this chain!

Blessings

Lourens