NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

“Don’t judge me!”

“I am a sinner.”

“I’ve been a part of this group for years, and God hasn’t punished me!”

“God’s Word is not in me. I’ve been thinking wrong on these things.”

“These prophecies will come true, if I believe strong in them. We will have the ‘good life’ on this earth.”

“How can a bad tree produce good fruit? How can we leave our sins?”

     As you can see from these quotes, since we started teaching in October, and especially in the last several weeks, there have been 2 lines of thinking at work among the Tobo people here.

     At the close of 2006 and outset of 2007, we are beginning to see the lines being drawn more clearly between those who are interested in hearing the teaching of God’s Word, and those who are interested in how ‘God’ can give them cargo. The latter group has mostly dropped out of the daily group that comes to hear the teaching as we move on into the life of Christ. Sad to say, it appears that although the prophecies expected were not fulfilled on either the 24th or the 30th of December, many of these people are still looking to this year ‘sometime’ for the long-awaited cargo to appear. We continue to pray that they would be disillusioned with the lies and false hope, and choose instead to believe God and His Word. 

     As for those in the first group, those who continue to come faithfully to the teaching to hear God’s Word, we have been encouraged by some of them, who have begun to take a look at some basic questions, such as how we as sinners can be made righteous before God. Jason used a great illustration recently adapted from John’s talk to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 3 about the trees that bear bad fruit. He asked, “What would we do with a coffee tree that produces bad fruit? Can we pick all of its fruit off and hope for better fruit next time, or maybe we could chop off all its branches and wait for new ones with better fruit? Or perhaps it can change its own fruit?” They all laughed knowingly, and said, “No way, it’s only good to be chopped down and burned, because the ‘mother’ tree itself is bad.” They did not laugh when they saw how this related to themselves and their sinful condition. Our neighbor Alis asked, “Then how can we bear good fruit if we are bad trees?” We answered, “This is what Jesus came to do for us. Keep listening to learn how we can be forgiven of our sin and be clean in God’s eyes and able to bear good fruit.”

     We are looking forward to very soon revealing more of the answer to this question of Alis’, as we move further into the life of Jesus leading up to the culmination of the gospel message. It does appear that at least a few of the group may be close to understanding the truth. We’ve already begun to introduce the parallel of the ram which took Isaac’s place as well as the blood on the doorposts at Passover to that of Christ, as we read the story of how John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! We are showing them that Christ Himself is God in the flesh, and that He is the Deliverer God promised back in Eden who would crush Satan’s head, saving us from his power. Please pray that these people would understand the truth soon!!

     Finally, please pray for those people who seem to be torn between the 2 groups. They are feeling the pull of those who hope for the cargo and ‘better life’ by ‘using’ God rather than seeking to understand Him through His own clearly revealed Word to them, and on the other hand they are feeling the emptiness and futility of a life without the personal knowledge of our Savior. God loves these Tobo people, and desires for them to enter into a personal relationship with Him.

     Thanks so much for praying! We are hopeful that in this new year, we will see new birth among the Tobo!

Chad, Janeene & Elijah

This week, the following lessons will be taught and we ask that you would specifically pray for us these days that these lessons will be communicated clearly:

January 1st (already taught today): ( Matthew 4) Jesus used God’s Word to thwart Satan in his attempts to tempt Him in the wilderness

January 2nd : ( Mark chs. 1, 3) Jesus began His ministry of teaching, healing and casting out demons- Since only God has power over sickness and demons, Jesus is God

January 3rd : ( John 3) Jesus tells Nicodemus that we must be born again-only Jesus can save us from sin and death, and only He can give us new life (being born again). “For God so loved the world,..”

January 4th : ( Mark 2) Jesus has the power to forgive sins, as he forgave the sins of the paralytic and then healed him (the one who ‘dropped in’ on Jesus)

January 5th : ( Mark 4) Jesus told and then explained the parable of the sower and the wheat seed—Theme question this lesson—“Is God’s Word taking root in your hearts? Evaluate yourself as to what type of ground you are.” (should be a great lesson for this agricultural society!)

This week, we have begun to see the spiritual battle here intensify. The enemy is flexing his muscles and leading these people away from the truth! He is enticing them with supposed money and riches, in the form of the cargo cult, that will just spew from the mountain. Please pray for this battle here!!!

This area is a hotbed for the cult, which holds secret meetings and is consumed with the goal of getting cargo and enjoying “the good life” which the white man enjoys. They believe that in the far past, God left them and went over to the white man, where he blessed us with material wealth and an easy life (meaning ‘no work’). Over the decades, people here have tried all kinds of ways to get the secret to that life. Meeting, being in agreement that they will get it, performing various rituals, prophesying, building houses to store the coming cargo in, all to no avail. Failure has always been blamed on some excuse or another, and the cycle goes on and on…

Just as we are arriving at the point in our teaching of the Bible where we are to present some prophecies of the coming Deliverer, there are other prophecies being proclaimed by the cargo cult here in our village and in our tribal area which have nothing to do with the gospel message. These prophecies include such things as 3 days and nights of darkness and the promise of rice and other material goods that will ‘magically’ appear on the ground on December 24th. Even as we continued teaching this week, many of the men who have sat and listened have also been going to these secret cargo cult meetings to plan to ‘bless’ their cargo house. (Many villages have built these cargo houses to store the stuff that will ‘spew forth from the mountains’ and they have even stopped working in their gardens just waiting for the food to show up.)

Sad to say, one of our friends and language helpers here who has helped both Jason and myself in checking Bible lessons and portions is one of the men most actively involved in this cult. He had been going to the teaching faithfully and we were hopeful that he was beginning to see the truth of God’s Word. However, as the days began to draw closer to the supposed fulfillment of these events, he stopped coming to the teaching, and instead is devoting his energies to getting things ready for the cargo to come, and from what we’ve heard, is even trying to encourage others not to come to the teaching, claiming that we are lying and do not want them to get the real secret. So in essence, according to him and others in this cult, we are leaving out the most important part of the message-how to get a better life here on earth!

Our first believer Tingon has been approached by 2 of the cult leaders in the past few weeks asking him to join. When he told them, "No, I have everything I have ever wanted or needed because Jesus washed my sins away," their response was to scorn him. They told him, "You are not thinking about your future." How ironic is that statement?

We refused to stop the teaching in spite of their desire to hold meetings and prepare for this coming event. Jason shared this with our group, "No we will not stop the teaching. You will have to make a choice as to what is more important in your lives. Satan wants you to go. He is promising things to you just like he promised Eve if she would eat the fruit. But he is a liar. The cargo cult has never given you anything, and it can not give you eternal life."

We went up to the teaching on Friday and no one talked to us or shook our hands because they were all hiding the fact that they were meeting that very morning about the cargo. Noticeable was the absence of almost all of the young guys, whom they had sent to get pigs for the cargo house blessing the next day! When we asked those who did show up why they came to the teaching, one or two said that they wanted to hear God’s Word, and a few actually said they wanted the cargo that “God” will give us. The majority, many whom we know to be a part of the cult, did not say anything. So we didn’t teach. We told them that they were not understanding God’s Word, and we had just gone over the Law and the 1st commandment that there are to be no other gods but the one True God, the One they have been learning about since October. We told them in no uncertain terms that in following this cult and its false promises of cargo and an easy life, that they are making cargo their god and thus breaking the first commandment. We then left to let them think it over and discuss this among themselves, as they would say nothing to us.

On Saturday, Jason and I went up to the village. As we entered the village, we were able to ask a few friends about what was said after we’d left. What we learned was that rather than being concerned about sinning and breaking God’s commands, they were trying to find out what they had done wrong previously that would make us stop teaching them that day. They decided that it must have been because they went to other villages for other events (not cargo cult-related) those 2 days that we took off of teaching, and that the third offense was that they had sent off the young guys. They said, “We should have first all stayed and listened to God’s Talk, then we could get ready for tomorrow’s house blessing. That would have been the right thing to do!” So this revealed to us the depth of their desire for cargo rather than a true understanding of sin and internalizing the truth they’d been hearing so far.

We then stood back to observe as almost everyone in the village participated in the ceremony to ‘bless’ the cargo house. This involved people dressed in traditional loincloths and skirts, singing some chants, and every family contributing an offering of money—all in the hopes that if done right, the cargo will come to the house on the 24th!

We need your prayers. At this point, we are looking at reviewing some key themes from previous lessons, and showing them again from God’s Word that they have broken God’s law and are truly sinners in need of a Savior. Please pray that God would convict their hearts of sin.

Thank you for being our fellow warriors in the battle,

Chad, Janeene & Elijah

PS- We were very saddened on Thursday by the death of an older lady who had not come to the teaching. Her death only underscores the urgency of the battle we are in!

     We would like you to pray as we are teaching God’s Word (starting in Genesis on Oct. 16) to the Tobos for the very first time in their own language. What a privilege it is to be here, an extension of you all, the body of Christ, sharing the His Good News to these people in the uttermost parts of the earth!!

     Please pray for open hearts and minds and understanding, and that people will continue to come every day, week after week. As we have seen the importance of laying a careful Biblical foundation before presenting the Gospel, this will be a marathon of teaching, 5 days a week for the next 3 ½ to 4 months, with the Gospel presented sometime in January.

This coming week of teaching, we ask that you would specifically pray for us these days that we’ll communicate clearly:

October 23rd: God created Adam (the ancestor of us all, not just white people). And as our rightful creator and owner, He gave man dominion over the earth, animals, etc.

October 24th: Day 7: God rested. God made the garden of Eden and put Adam there.

October 25th: God said not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

October 26th: God made Eve, the first woman

October 27th: Lucifer rebelled against God and became His enemy

Review of first 10 lessons

Thanks for the support you are to us!

Chad, Janeene and Elijah