NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

This has been a busy week as far as medical care goes. A lot of sick babies and then lots of stitching, too. I cut at least two people open this week. One was a Brazilian man that had this fleshy lump on the lower part of his right cheek. He insisted that it was a splinter that had been there for 3 years and could I please cut it out. I was pretty reluctant, but then gave in. When I cut it open, all this cheesy stuff from some kind of a cyst came out. So, I squeezed it all out (that type of thing always makes me real gaggy….I hate mucus and cheesy stuff!!) and then closed him back up again. I never found any splinters or any foreign object.

The other person was a kid that had stepped on something a few weeks ago that cut his foot open. It healed shut but was still tender to walk on and becoming more and more painful. He could feel something in there, and asked me to cut him open to take it out. I had to use three needles to inject the local anesthetic as he skin was so tough that the needle would separate from the syringe from the pressure of trying to push the medicine through. It would then all spray out without going into his foot. Finally, I was able to inject some medicine in. What I found was a little glass ball. Weird! Anyway, I couldn’t find anything else, so I closed him back up and told him to come back if it was still hurting.

-Rebecca

[In photo, Rebecca attending to some local Brazilians who have come for medical treatment.]

A couple of days ago there was a lot of drinking going on down the hill from us. I guess there was a verbal fight between an Ash man and his wife and the wife ended up “leaving.” Two little girls from that family were going around crying inconsolably for a good part of the morning. Brad actually saw this mother leaving…she was walking through the manioc field real close to our house here. She apparently took the youngest child with her and her husband’s documents. So, we were real sad about that and praying for her and her and the child that evening. Then, pretty late at night, we heard her husband walking around the houses here calling the little girl’s name while shining the flashlight into the manioc field. So we figured that the Ash didn’t believe that she went far and was actually hanging around close by. The next morning, we saw her over at the chief’s house and Brad learned that she had slept on our coworker’s (they are not here now) porch and had returned real early in the morning. Praise the Lord that both mother and child were fine!!

-Rebecca

Mary Jane and I were discussing how it does feel, little by little, that here in the village is home and we are beginning to feel more comfortable here. There are some days I am actually happy to live here and can enjoy the beauty around me. It is still hard in a lot of ways, but it is encouraging to see the progress and I expect to look forward to returning next summer after our year of home assignment.

Speaking of home assignment, we are really looking forward to our time in the USA and reconnecting with friends and family. I do rather dread the business of constantly moving (this is an area I have definitely changed in). We’re looking forward to having a car, a phone and easy access to the Internet. We also look forward to Koleman getting to know my side of the family, going to a zoo, going to church, and playing outside without worrying about poisonous snakes.

-Rebecca

Doesn’t seem like we’ve had much tribal news lately. Brad and I did get back into language study this past week. I do want to try and get out and about more, but the rain was discouraging much visiting most days, at least with the Ash. We’re getting visiting in with Kris and Mary Jane…it is just SO NICE to have them here to talk to and hear English spoken!

Oh, Marirentxo did finish Koleman’s cushma (tribal robe). He looks pretty cute in it and I got a decent photo of her with him in his new robe. It think it is the only photo of her that we have where she is actually looking at the camera, so I like it for that reason. Koleman is making a funny face.

-Rebecca

Well, this exciting week is now over and we are moving on to the next week. Time just keeps marching on. It is sometimes so strange to think about how it seems like time drags when you’re looking forward to something happening like co-workers returning and then once they’re here, the days fly by for a while with all that needs to be done. Kris and Mary Jane and the kids seem to be doing really well. It seems that the bugs are the biggest adjustment so far for them, but I’m sure that after a few more days there will be other things that surface that are hard, too.

Koleman has just LOVED having his cousins here and much of his day is spent with them either at our house or theirs. I think Brad and I are going through a little withdrawal of not having Koleman around all the time. We get to the end of the day and I feel like I have hardly seen him…but we are so glad for the playmates and entertainment.

-Rebecca

There is an Ash man who moved to our village this past year. It is noteworthy that he moved here because he does not have close family here. An Ash community is based on a family unit. If someone comes who is not from the family, they are often not helped or included in group work projects. This man has even been ridiculed and teased by the kids. We have asked ourselves, “Why, exactly, did he come?” “Why did he build such a big house just for himself?” He left his wife and family to come live here. Often, when he comes to our house for a visit or to practice writing his name, he tells Brad that he wants to hear teaching from God’s Word. We so look forward to the day when we can clearly communicate to this man as well as the other Ash here in our village God’s message of salvation! Please continue to pray that we would progress quickly in our understanding of the Ash culture and proficiency in the Ash language.

-Brad

*In the photo is our new friend who says he wants to hear teaching from God’s Word.

We’re into the throes of potty training now with Koleman. ONE TIME he started pulling his shorts down on his own and when I came to his rescue to finish pulling everything off, he did go potty in the potty. But that was it. I’m pretty good about keeping after his filling bladder, but the solid wastes are another thing!

He calls all the Ash kids his friends now and when they’re around, he loves playing with the younger ones, especially. He is our little helper boy and loves to be in the middle of whatever is going on.

We got such a kick out of him one morning where he got up on a chair and was making faces at us and so we started laughing at him and then the next thing he thought he would do for a laugh was pull up his shirt and show off his nice, round tummy. It just struck us as so funny. Then he says to us, “Funny guy?” I guess we’ve been calling him a funny guy? Anyway, he has a humorous side to him, at least at this point in his life. Right now, he is enjoying all the guava fruit we’re getting off our trees here in the yard. He always eats the whole thing, including all the little white worms around the seeds!

-Rebecca

*In the photo is Koleman with our dog, Little Ann, looking into our house through the screen door.

We got through the second lesson this week of the Ash grammar book we received from SIL in Peru. We’re going to have to pick up the pace to two lessons a week now if we want to get done in time for our culture/language evaluation in June. We also want to have some time before our home assignment back in the US to really focus on trying to get some literacy material put together. We have high hopes of having a program here that really works and helps the people to read well enough that they can read the Bible. At times, it feels overwhelming (like everything else out here) when the material that we can get our hands on is from the missionaries in Peru and based on their alphabet. The alphabet that we found that they supposedly use here in Brazil doesn’t represent all the sounds in Ash and includes a vowel that the grammar book doesn’t have? What’s up with that?!!

-Rebecca

Life continues on as usual around here. Rebecca is treating an Ash grandma these days that is here visiting. Everybody upriver in her little village has come down with bad colds, flu’s or something and a number of them arrived here yesterday hacking, spitting and carrying-on.

The grandma sounded really bad so Rebecca whipped out her new nebulizer machine and had Grandma inhaling some medicine that way. It seemed to work as Grandma seems to be breathing easier this morning.

We always take things a bit more seriously when it is an older Ash that is sick. We wish we were already at the point where we could explain the precious Gospel clearly in their language. We just don’t know how much longer some of these older Ash will be here with us on Earth. We continue to pray for wisdom how best to approach sharing God’s Good News with these older Ash that do not speak or understand very much Portuguese.

I am really trying to be good about taking people’s pictures and getting Ash names to go with the faces. I’m not that great with names so, hopefully, this will help in that department. It also can help us to continue to fit together the massive, tangled web of family relations between all these Ash that we meet going up and down this river. Anyhow, I was able to add some new faces and names to my picture folder this morning so praise the Lord for that.

-Brad

I did go out to Shishi’s field with her yesterday to help clear the weeds. It was pretty good exposure and I did get a new word for the new sprouts that shoot up close to a mother plant. It basically sounds like the Portuguese word for “fish”, so that was easy enough to remember. Koleman did pretty well in spite of it being pretty hot out there in the sun. He absolutely loves going on walks and just chatters away as he rides on my back down the trails.

The photo is of Shishi with a smoked spider monkey that her husband got.

-Rebecca