NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

I unloaded the plane and loaded the truck for the last time this term. We plan to return next August and pick up where we've left off.

These last few months have been stressful to say the least. We’ve had a lot on our plate and had to adapt our schedule around several changes that we couldn’t have seen coming. This has meant that I have had to fly a lot closer to our departure for the States than we’d planned. In the end we were delayed enough that Brian was unable to finish Joel’s checkout so he shifted his attention to working with Garry, our chief pilot. The task was to fly with him and make sure he was current in all the airstrips so that he could take over checking Joel out on the last two airstrips. (more…)

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I love Apple's simple language and how they make the complex seem so easy and simple. This is the symbol I was given when the iMac died instead of the normal Apple logo. Simple enough, "Don't enter. Time to move on with your life". It says so much with so little.

It was tragic to hear this week about the death of Steve Jobs. What an amazing inventor, businessman and communicator. He really made a lot of advances in the world today and many of his inventions are helping us in our ministry to work more efficiently and with less time staring at blue screens and syntax errors. One could even say he helped advance the Gospel, though he never believed it himself.

We use two Apple computers, an iMac and a MacBook. Neither are new, but both are vital parts of our ministry. We use them to communicate with supporters, write email, bookkeeping, flight scheduling, publishing safety data, presentations, inspections, research, networking, Skype, photos, videos editing, weather, etc etc… In other words, we really depend on our computers.

That is, until a couple weeks ago. I remember distinctly when it all started. After returning from a long trip to Luzon we found our iMac unable to boot up. Through the display’s backlight I could see fog and knew that our computer was in trouble in the tropics. After leaving the computer on for 24 hours in “boot up mode” it finally warmed up enough to dry out. It booted up but has never been the same. It would often crash without warning and without any discernible pattern. These crashes became more and more frequent until finally it wouldn’t boot any longer. (more…)

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It's been a real challenge to keep up with all the normal flying in addition to teaching Joel how to do it. Thankfully we're getting a little bit of a breather this week as we wait for Joel's check ride.

It feels like I’ve only just begun flying here in the Philippines, but by the time we head to the States for home assignment in November I’ll have flown almost 300 hours, nearly 1,000 landings and 600 flight legs. It doesn’t sound like much, but under these conditions and on these short flights, that is a lot of flying and loading and unloading! We’re now working with Joel and Missy Davis to hand responsibilities off so that they can run things by themselves while we’re gone. It is also important that Joel and I be able to fill in for each other when we are both working together after we return from the States. (more…)

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Watch video: The helicopter lands in the Isnag tribe right behind the missionaries' houses.

When we first arrived here in the Philippines I hiked with a couple of other NTMA guys into the Isnag tribe to do some repairs on the solar panels and other odds and ends. It was a couple years ago but if I remember right we drove a car for 8 hours, rode a bus for 6 and slept 2 hours in a gross hotel. Keep in mind this wasn’t freeway driving, but crazy Philippine 2-lane provincial highway driving through the mountains. We then rode a van on a dirt mountain road for 5 hours before hiring a 4×4 for 4 hours – the 4×4 overheated prematurely so we started hiking. Then we hiked roughly 8-10 hours crossing the river about 37 times in flood stage. Once we arrived, I was dehydrated and hadn’t slept since we left Manila – the hotel was too gross to sleep! The next morning we had to get to work right away because our time there was limited. (more…)

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Was it my sin nature, or just being "one of the guys" that made me do it? I don't know, and we'll never know.

Yesterday I learned that I am known in the Banwaon tribe as the “Mischievous One.” Dumbfounded, I asked, “how did they come up with that?” Of course what I was wondering was, “how did they know, I can’t even speak their language?!” I had forgotten all about a little something that happened a few months ago that had earned me that name. (more…)

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Once the crate made it to the airplane it was time to unpack it and try to get it installed before the rain came.

We have been without an airplane since August and it has had a drastic affect on everyone in our region. Every tribal team that we serve with the airplane is currently in a bind waiting to see when the airplane will be able to fly again. They all had plans for translation checks, deadlines, furloughs, construction projects and moves in mind when the plane was grounded and all of those have come to a screeching halt. Not a day goes by that we don’t feel the burden of these folks who are stranded without a good line of transportation to and from their tribal homes. (more…)

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