NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Thank you so much for all your prayers for us this past weekend. Adonai did great while we were gone. She is already asking when we are going away again.

We had a great time at this Member Care conference we went to in the capital city. It has often been our prayer that we can be an encouragement to those around us. This weekend was a very profitable for us as we feel like we are better equipped to better serve those around us. Many times we are often in a situation where we see someone in need and do not really know how we can best help them. This conference gave us many practical tools to sharpen our interpersonal skills that will help benefit us when we have opportunities to be involved with others who may need our help.

You are a vital part of our ministry and together we can encourage and strengthen each other and those around us. Thank you so much for your continual prayer & support.

It has been a week now since all the students have left.

This weekend we have been asked by NTM leadership to be representatives for ITF at a conference. At this conference there will be about 60 other missionaries representing their various regions or centers from around Papua New Guinea."

We are very honored & humbled to be chosen and also a little bit anxious as we will have to leave Addie behind with a friend for the weekend. This will be the first time we have left her with anyone other than Grandpa & Grandma for a long amount of time. So if you think of it would you mind praying for us.

We so appreciate all your love, prayers and the many notes of encouragement you have sent our way. You play a huge and very important role in our ministry. We would not be here if it was not for the team of people standing behind us constantly lifting us up before the Lord. Thank you!

If you are like us it is hard to believe that it is already 2008. Since our last update we have been very busy getting ready for & hosting a work team from America as well as our January Interface team. This has been our biggest January team since 2000. We have students from Australia, America, Canada, Philippines, and Germany. Even though they are quite diverse, they are eager to learn more about missions and where they can fit into God’s picture for world evangelism.

Many have asked how have we been adjusting back to life in Papua New Guinea (PNG). In some aspects it seems as though we have never left. We have been able to pick up right where we left off. Addie considers PNG home so she is glad to be back. The hardest thing for her to grasp right now is how come we can not go see Grandpa & Grandma anytime we wanted to. I guess to kids concept of time and distance have no boundaries.

We just finished up hosting a two week Team Translation Workshop. It is a workshop where 8 missionary teams & their language helpers come out of the tribe & go through this workshop to help them better translate the Bible in the native language of the tribe in which they are ministering too. By us hosting this workshop they say it really helps speed up the Bible translation process by years.

In the middle of this workshop was the American Thanksgiving holiday. Since it is an American Holiday they do not celebrate Thanksgiving over here in Papua New Guinea. But since most of us here at Interface (ITF) & a lot of the missionaries that came to the workshop are American we celebrated it anyways. Tammy was able to help cook a lot of meals in the conference kitchen so she knows quite a bit of what it takes to cook for 100 people. So what does a Thanksgiving meal for 100 people look like? We cooked up 33 pounds of sweat potatoes, 31 pounds of mashed potatoes, 15.5 pounds of green bean casserole, 33 pounds of bread for stuffing, 130 dinner rolls, 4 hotel pans (15"x24") of pumpkin pie & 2 hotel pans or apple cake, & 21 chickens (Turkeys are hard to find here. If you can get one it is quite expensive because they are imported from Australia). O’ did we forget to mention that all this food is prepared from scratch.

Thank you for all the prayers that you send up on our behalf. This last conference has been a lot of hard work & we are pretty tired but it has been fun & encouraging being have to serve out fellow missionaries. We have played a small part in helping them to focused on translating the Bible into the native tongue of the tribe which they are living. We are looking forward t this next month when things are a bit quieter around here just before we go full steam ahead again in January for our January 2008 ITF Program.

It is hard to believe we have been here almost a month already. In some aspects it seems like we have never left. We have been able to pick up right where we lift off. Danny has been busy trying to get all of our buildings ready so he can convert them to 240 power, which is up to the countries code for power. It is a big job and Danny is enjoying the challenge.

It has been encouraging how much of the language we have remembered as we communicate with our PNG friends. Even Addie is starting to remember some of language & tries to communicate which usually ends up with all the other children laughing at her. She does not seem to mind that too much & she continues to enjoy playing with the other kids.

We want to thank you for keeping us in your prayers throughout our travels & our time of adjustment back here into PNG. Through the hard times its comforting to know people are praying for us. We would not be here if it was not for the team of people standing behind us constantly lifting us up to before our Lord. Thank you also for your financial gifts you sent us this past month. We greatly appreciate your generosity. 

No we are not playing a game of Hide and Seek, we are heading to Papua New Guinea (PNG). We have been making a list and checking it twice, and even thrice.

As we look around we find ourselves surrounded by God’s faithfulness and how He has prepared the way for us to go back to PNG. We are very humbled & thankful for how the Lord has chosen to use many of you to help us with our physical needs.

• Our airline tickets are purchases and paid for. Our Departure date for PNG is September 11th.
• A wonderful computer to help us better communicate with others while we are overseas
• Much needed girls clothing for Addie for the next 4 years

We are often reminded that we have much to be thankful for and to praise God for His Goodness in the mist of what may seem overwhelming. As September draws nearer and we are getting our bags packed we find ourselves struggling with mixed emotions. On one hand we are excited and anxious to get involved in our ministry again. And on the other hand we find ourselves overwhelmed by all the things that need to happen between now & them.

Right now our partners are gearing up for back to back summer programs that we have each year.

What is INTERFACE (ITF)?

Interface is a college level course in missions for people of all ages who are eager to know more about missions.
The teams get to experience what it takes to do tribal church planting as they learned from seasoned missionaries.

It takes a lot of work for a program to run successfully and our partners would greatly appreciate you praying with us for them & the team members as well.

For more information visit:

www.ntm.org/missiontrips

We can’t believe that it is already April! It seems like it was just yesterday when we arrived home from PNG and greeted a handful of family with tears in their eyes & smiles on their faces. Good-byes are never fun, but being able to catch up with family and friends has been a wonderful season in life we have greatly enjoyed this past year.

When we came back from Papua New Guinea (PNG) 11 months ago we had three main goals in mind that we wanted to accomplish while we where on our one year home assignment.

Goal # 1 Increase our support to 100%

We are happy to report that our support level has increased from 49% to 60%.

Goal #2: Danny pursuing education vital to our ministry
Since August Danny has been taking welding classes at a Community College where we have been living. Danny has
really enjoyed most of the classes and is very anxious to take what he is learning back to PNG & apply it to his ministry, as there are many welding opportunities and a lack of people who know how to weld. In May, Danny will be receiving a degree in welding. 

Goal #3: Have another baby

We are still praying and waiting for a baby but God’s timing is not always our timing. We have asked our leadership for an extension on our time home which would allow us more time to see doctors & specialists in that area. We are praying & hoping that God will allow Tammy to become pregnant before we leave for PNG. In PNG, the mission doctors highly recommend anyone having a baby to fly to either Australia or their home country, due to the poor medical facilities in PNG.

September

We are very thankful for our leadership for allowing us extra time. We have been given until September to focus on our #1 goal of reaching 100% of our recommended financial support before heading back to PNG and our other #1 goal of having a baby. In the event that we do get pregnant we will then plan our departure back to PNG after the baby is born. As of now our target date to return to PNG is September.

Have you ever noticed how God likes to show himself strong in what we deem as impossible situations. A few months back we were facing several situations in which we had no idea what was going to happen or how God would provide. But He did provide again & again.

Before we left Papua New Guinea God provided enough money through many generous & loving people, for us to completely pay off our air line tickets.

Another huge obstacle we faced upon our arrival home was we only had $500 in our pocket to buy a car. We only had 10 days to do this in, as we were suppose to start a road trip across the USA.

Four days before we were suppose to start our trip we were able  to buy a 2001 Chevy Malibu, with 65,000 miles on it from some friends who where very generous towards us & allowed us to make payments to them.

One of our prayers this summer, was that we could have the car completely paid off by the end of the summer.   And before August we were able to do that.

Isn’t God Great!

We saw God provide for us time & time again. While traveling this summer God always gave us just enough money to get from one destination to another. We did not have a surplus of money, but we did not lack anything.

 We are truly blessed!

Isn’t it funny how we take the little things for granted? Sometimes we do not even realize what wonderful privileges we have until they are no longer there. These past few months Adonai has been able to experience many firsts.

The first time…

* Going fishing
* Eating Grapes, peaches, plums, apricots…
* Going to a Pizza fun place
* Seeing a Train
* Going to a park to play                                        

These are just the first of many more wonderful things that Addie will get to explore in life’s great adventure.