NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

I wrote the following paragraph to my family two weeks ago…

Well, today was a really nice Sunday morning as it was real quiet…I thought all the partying was done, but apparently it moved across the river to Piri’s house. We were able to have a nice little church service here with no interruptions. I made a chicken dish with pineapple for lunch that I thought was pretty yummy. Then, after we ate, Koleman took a good nap and I was able to read on my Kindle and Brad left to go hunting for a couple of hours.

Well, later in the afternoon just as Koleman woke up from his nap, a local, Brazilian farmer, Chico, came by to sell milk and wanted some medicine for a pain in his chest. Just as we were heading over to the clinic, I was stopped by the chief’s wife to tell me that someone was cut with a machete across the river. So, I gave Chico his medicine after a quick exam and then Kris went with me across the river as the party was over there and practically everyone was drunk. Apparently, this visiting Ash guy was sleeping in the house when the lady of the house noticed he was bleeding from his leg. Someone had chopped his leg through the skin and some muscle and he didn’t even notice! Long story short, we had a big Brazilian guy who was partying here carry the Ash man across the river and up the hill to the clinic. I even had the Brazilian fellow wash his hands and put on some gloves as I needed someone to pull back layers while I tried to pull his muscle back together. He was actually a huge help and was also good about asking people to leave as I declared that no one besides him was allowed in there. EVERYONE (except the missionaries) was at least a little drunk. Kris was left behind trying to calm a situation down at the river where according to Brad, Kris almost got shot…not sure of all the details there. Needless to say, there was a lot of fighting and “talk.”

Finally, Brad got back from hunting and came to help in the clinic as well. We’ll see how the Ash man does. He was extremely drunk which helped some as I had limited local anesthetic and used it all up on him. He did move his leg around quite a bit and it was really slow going, but finally, I finished and got him wrapped up. Now, we’ll see if he takes it easy and lets it heal or if he tries to use it too soon and rips the stitches all out.

Yesterday, I saw the man who was cut again. He came back after traveling to get a certain vine that they chew with their coca leaves. Unfortunately, he was not good about keeping the area of his stitches clean. I had to wash off sand that was caked on to his now infected wound. Even though it has been 2 weeks since I put the stitches in, I only took a few of them out. I restarted him on antibiotics so we’ll see if we can get him well enough in the next two weeks. We plan to leave the village for our year-long home assignment time on July 11th.

-Rebecca

I did want to say that the other week I had alligator for the first time. I really liked it as I prepared it the way that Brad always remembers Mom Howe making it, fried like chicken nuggets. What I found rather weird about the meat was how wiggly it was. I was cutting what I thought at first were tendons, but then quickly realized were nerves as I was making the meat jump and jiggle. Even after I had cut through all the nerves, just cutting the meat would make it quiver and shake. It was the oddest feeling to be cutting it up to eat and it felt so alive like I should be trying to put it back together rather than cutting it into bite size pieces! At least we knew it was nice and fresh. Is all alligator meat so jumpy?

-Rebecca

Koleman continues to amaze us with the words he knows and how he can put longer and longer sentences together now, too. We have to work on our comprehension though as his pronunciation is tough to understand still for some things, especially if it’s the first time we hear him saying something. It is a lot of fun though to hear his thoughts on things.

He is also getting to the point more where he wants to try and put his shorts and underwear on himself. He’s just getting to be such a big boy!

I was a little surprised this week when I tried to cut his hair with the clippers after doing Brad’s head, he wouldn’t even come outside to the chair. When we carried him out, he screamed and fussed so much that we decided to wait on the haircut. I had talked to him a head of time about getting a haircut, so I thought he was mentally ready, but it seemed more that it just gave him enough time to work up some anxiety about those clippers. He has had a haircut with scissors and that has always gone okay.

The other thing was that when Grampy and Reece arrived, he was still laying down for his nap. He soon woke up, though, and I heard him swinging in his hammock for a while. After a little I went in to see if he was ready to go outside to see them (again, we had been talking earlier in the day about Grampy and Reece and Tio Jose coming on the boat), but he got all upset again and was grabbing door jams as we went by. He just screamed for the first couple of minutes and wouldn’t even open his eyes to look at the new people. Finally, he calmed down some and we even convinced him to take the lollipop that Grampy had brought him. That was a first and after he was willing to try it, he found out what a wonderful thing lollipops are. By the next day, he had pretty much warmed up to everyone, but it got me thinking about this coming home assignment and all the change and all the new people he will have to meet. This could be a very trying year ahead of us!

-Rebecca

“It didn’t work out,” my very inebriated Ash friend, John, told me as I tried to understand his slurred, broken Portuguese. “I talked to Pawa (the Ash name for God) and asked Him to help me do what is right but now look. I don’t like to fight. Why didn’t God help me not fight? It just didn’t work out.”

My brother Kris and I had just broken up a drunken brawl that had started when one man broke another man’s radio during a “pyaarentssi” or manioc beer party. This party happened to be in the house next to us so there wasn’t too much that we didn’t hear and see from our house. Once the fighting calmed down I sat and listened to my Ash friend speak of his efforts to please Pawa, though always coming up short. I told John that there is no way he can please Pawa in his own strength or with his own efforts, only God Himself can give him the power to do what is right. John listened but with so little background to the spiritual truths that I was trying to share with him, I could tell that he was understanding very little of what I was trying to communicate. “Someday, John, we will be able to explain God’s Word to you in your own language. Then you will learn about the things of God,” I told him.

This is just one, little glimpse into the our lives and conversations with the Ash people this past week. Please pray for John and his family. John is my most consistent language helper and has been a huge help to us these first two years in the village.

-Brad

*photo is John with his son on his shoulders

Koleman gave us some excitement this week. Early in the week I was at the clinic and Brad went out to water the garden. He had Koleman outside with him. At one point, Koleman disappeared around our big water tank. After a little bit, Brad called his name but there was no response. Usually Koleman is pretty good about coming when we call…we try to pound it into his head that we want to SEE him at all times. Okay, so Brad went looking for him, and there was NO KOLEMAN! Brad walked all the way over to the clinic and I hadn’t seen him so he went back to the house thinking Koleman had gone into our house. On the way to the clinic, Kashawe did say that she had seen him there at the chief’s house briefly. Right away, she thought that he had headed down to the river where Kris and Mary Jane were with their kids. Well, I joined in the search calling his name and telling him to say “Mommy” so we could hear where he was. Nothing for about 10 minutes! Paskowari and several of the Ash kids were helping us look. Finally, Brad had the idea to look in Kris and Mary Jane’s house and sure enough, all by himself on their floor, sat Koleman playing with a toy. He obviously would have been able to hear some of our calling, so he was being naughty and “hiding out.” Oh my! That led to quite a bit of discussion then and I found it rather amazing how quickly the Ash were worried about him being missing. Paskowari even said something about a jaguar getting him.

-Rebecca

*photo of Koleman with Dino, an Ash boy that lives next to us

These last several days we have been blessed to have an Ash man by the name of Herbert staying here in the village with us. Herbert is from Peru and speaks a different dialect of the Ash language than those in our village. He is a trained dental tech and has given Rebecca valuable instruction in pulling decayed teeth.

We enjoyed listening to Herbert tell us some of his life experiences, including some brushes with death in his earlier years. After telling us one of these accounts, we asked him if he was ready to die. Since then we have been able to share the Gospel with Herbert and he seems very open to spiritual truth. He does keep telling us that he thinks he is too bad of a person for God to be able to forgive and refers to when he was a young man and a real party-er. He does know a Pastor Tito that we know who lives in Peru so we’ve been encouraging him to talk to Tito about getting a Spanish Bible that he can read. Just this morning he asked me if Christ’s death on the cross was payment for only the sins of the people who lived before Christ or for everyone. So he seems to be thinking these things over some. Pray for Herbert, the Ash dentist.

-Brad

*photo is of Herbert

Yes, well the past couple of days I have had some intense training in applying local anesthesia and pulling teeth. What made it more “intense” was that it was all in Spanish, but I definitely learned quite a bit and feel much more confident in being able to pull teeth now.

It does seem ironic that my training was from an Ash man! He is pretty educated and Brad said that talking to him is like talking to an encyclopedia. He is trained as a trauma technician and a dental technician. He served in his country’s armed forces for 8 years. He tried to become a monk with the Franciscan order. He also knows a lot about farming and raising different breeds of chickens.

We really wish he lived here so he could help us out and we could help him out on his spiritual journey. We had some really good talks about what salvation is and the importance of reading the Bible. He seemed to have a lot of honest questions and was surprised with some of our answers. Brad was telling me about a conversation he had with Kris where Kris was talking about how we are born sinners. Brad said Herbert was quiet for a little while and then said, “That is really sad, isn’t it?” Wow, I got teary hearing about it as it is SO TRUE. Herbert’s spiritually lost and unless he decides to trust in what Jesus did for him, he will be eternally separated from God in hell…yes, that is really sad!

-Rebecca

*photo of Rebecca working with Herbert pulling teeth

Now that we’re back to the village, it’s back to the challenges of village life! We are all laying low today as yesterday there was quite the party at the Ash house behind ours…lots of drunkenness. There were quite a few fights or at least people verbally arguing with each other. I did see two young men getting into a shoving match. Anyway, it was a sad day and a real reminder of how spiritually lost these people are and how destructive sin is. Like with many indigenous peoples, the Ash are in bondage to alcohol. Drunken parties are a big part of their culture. Only Christ can bring them freedom!

-Rebecca

It is good to be back! We spent about 16 hours in a boat the last couple of days. Good to be back on firm ground again. Thanks so much for your prayers for us as we traveled back to the village.

-Brad

We are at the end of our short break out in town and today we begin our travels back to the village. This time around it will be a 7-8 hour speedboat trip to another town upriver. We will spend the night there and then have another 7-8 hour boat trip up to our village the next day. Thank you for praying for us as we travel over these next couple of days.

-Brad