Our co-workers are face-to-face with unreached people groups. We help them communicate effectively.

Since the latest release of missionary blogs for New Tribes Mission members in mid-January missionaries have made well over 200 blog posts. New Tribes missionaries are making these posts from missionary training or partnership development scattered across North America and Europe to steaming cities in Africa or the jungles of Southeast Asia and Latin America.

This latest communication tool improvement started in October and the need for a major overhaul quickly became apparent. You might wonder, when a blog platform is working so well in 2009, why it would be such a huge project again by the end of 2011.

The internet and all its components are constantly changing. Software that runs web servers are having to be constantly updated to stop hackers from exploiting vulnerabilities. Internet browser software is being continually changed and upgraded to prevent the same vulnerabilities and improve features. User expectations are rapidly increasing, fueled by multi-billion dollar companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

All these factors means that a system that is working perfectly today will need adjustments within weeks, significant changes within months and a major overhaul within a couple years.

David has been working on a major overhaul of missionary blogs for New Tribes missionaries since October 2011, but has been working on this project almost non-stop since December 26. By January 13 he and a few co-workers were able to move all 500 blogs from a very outdated version of WordPress up to the latest version.

Almost all the customized features had to be rewritten or replaced. Since this involves a significant amount of programming David has been managing hired programmers to assist him with this project. This involves constant testing, writing technical descriptions and testing some more.

Yesterday the last major issues were resolved and David was able to create a dozen new blogs for missionaries who were requesting them and has been able to answer dozens of requests for support that were waiting since mid-January.

David’s next step is to write instructions and create a few tutorial videos for the new blog features and place them on the missionary blog help desk that he manages.

To see what New Tribes missionaries are posting in real time, visit: blogs.ntm.org

David overlooking rice terraces in the Philippines.

These are some things David’s co-workers have been saying about his ministry in the last few weeks. If you partner with us, then these notes of appreciation are for you too.

“Just wanted to say thanks to the team that works on keeping our blogs up and running and also not just running but improving and adding new features. Excited to see how the new version looks. I was just thinking the other day about the complexities of having photos on Facebook as well as our myMinistry blog, so I am looking forward to setting up that new [FB Photo Fetcher] feature. Anyhow, THANK YOU. You are a true blessing!” Jonathan and Jenny Roundy, missionaries in Senegal

“These updates are going to be sweet! Major wished for functionality is coming. I’ve been wishing for tools like this to close the gap between the great majority of people I know who follow me on Facebook and who I wish would utilize the [myMinistry] blog for more ministry-centric content! Great work and I know you’ve got a ton of work coming up as you migrate everyone.” Joel Potter, missionary serving with NTM Communications

“Thank you so much for your hard work in getting the blogs looking good, being user friendly and running smoothly!” Kim Field, missionary trainer at New Tribes Bible Institute

“I appreciate your quick reply and your help. It’s great having a support team! …Again, thanks for saving the day! …Thanks for being so quick with the replies – I’m sure you are very busy and I appreciate all your hard work!” Steve and Casey Cretsinger, missionary in Guinea

“Thanks so much – we REALLY appreciate your ministry!” Lance and Laura Ostman, church planters in the Philippines

“Thank you David for putting the blog up for us. Your work is appreciated. We look forward to using this for expanding the reach of the Gospel. May God continue to guide you in your work.” Yvon and Elisabeth Roméus, missionaries in training

“You’re doing good, important work, David. I appreciate having you as a teammate.” Ian Fallis, Managing Editor for NTM Communications

Thank you to all of you who make our ministry possible through your prayers and financial support!

A redfish caught while kayak fishing January 28, 2012.

I’m sure you’d like to see my Fishing photos, but the main purpose of making this post is to test a WordPress plugin we just added called FB Photo Fetcher that imports Facebook albums to blogs so New Tribes missionaries only have to upload their photos once in order to share them with their ministry partners.

“Here are a few of my fishing pictures. They don’t call Florida the fishing capital of the world for nothing.”

From Fishin’, posted by David Abbott on 5/04/2009 (42 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

Bara (left) with his Christmas camp group

Bara and I met a few years ago when the Yagaria Bible translation was being dedicated.  He subscribes to NTM email lists and is a friend of New Tribes Mission on Facebook.  Since then we have communicated through email and a few brief telephone calls. Bara and his family made a special effort to see Katrina when she was in Papua New Guinea for the Interface college-level missions course.

Over the Christmas holidays Bara was invited to travel back to his home area in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea to be the guest speaker at Christmas camp. He reports baptizing 38 believers upon the completion of teaching Firm Foundations Bible lessons.

If that wasn’t blessing enough, while Bara was away, his wife won 10,000 kina in a drawing at a shopping center.  Bara asks for prayer in locating a suitable family car.  Praise God with us for the lives that have been saved and the unexpected gift Bara and his family received.

We really didn’t have the money before, but God provided it through our generous ministry partners last month.

Praise God for good dental care and His provision to pay for it after the long wait!

David at his desk at the NTM Home Office.

David and the communications team have been working for several months to make changes to the myMinistry blogs powered by WordPress.

Some of those changes involve adding new features like being about to make a blog post and have it make a Facebook post at the same time.

This migration is happening today, and this post is a test of the Wordbooker plugin that makes posting on Facebook at the same time possible.  If you see this feel free to comment and pray for our team.

David working at the NTM home office.

David and his dwindling Communications team have three huge projects on their plates right now. He’s working with a company called WMtek to build a new intranet website for New Tribes Mission members.

This intranet website will enable New Tribes Mission leaders and departments to share important information with members including valuable church planting resources. Members will also be able to interact with each other and receive donor information in real time.

The other project with WMtek is to take our current public website design and move it to another content management system called Site Stacker. David was at a Site Stacker conference recently where he was able to meet the company owners and developers and hear their heart for serving mission organizations.

Last week David tested a major upgrade to the 500 missionary blogs he manages and met with a company called Purple Rock Scissors to make some adjustments before releasing the upgrade to NTM missionaries. The sites enable church planting missionaries around the world to post updates online even if their only connection is through email over an HF radio or satellite phone.

All these applied technology tools are for one purpose — to glorify the name of Jesus Christ among all nations. Please pray that God will enable us to continue serving as full-time missionaries with New Tribes Mission.

Because we understand that Jesus has called us to make disciples and not simply get people to “make decisions,” it is important to us that those we disciple not only come to biblical faith, but become obedient to start making disciples themselves.

The man David has been discipling for three years has made numerous attempts to study the Bible with family members and people in his neighborhood — all to no avail. He and David have studied from Genesis through Romans together and David has really felt this man needed to grow in the truths he has learned and apply them before further discipleship.

Last month Don started meeting weekly with another man, teaching him the Gospel beginning at Genesis. Don called David several times before and after the study got started and described the experience as either “as good as fishing” or “better than fishing.” You’d have to know Don to know either way — that means the discipleship experience is pretty good.

Due to all the interruptions that happen in a small group, it has taken a little over two years to teach Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ in that venue.

In the last month, two of the men who have participated in our small group have started teaching others. One is teaching his two teenage children. Another is discipling a young man and long-time friend.

As David was wrapping up his first Foundations: Creation to Christ class at CrossWay Church, Kristia was approached about whether or not she would be able to teach a lady who was not able to attend the class and needed more one-on-one time in understanding God’s Word.

Kristia is already teaching two ladies, so would really be stretched to take on another. It was such a personal blessing to be able to approach one of the ladies who participated in small group and in David’s Foundations class and ask her if she would be willing to disciple another lady.

It was not without some prayer and encouragement, but this lady we have taught has accepted this new opportunity to disciple another. She was already sensing God was wanting her to do something, but didn’t know what or where. God answered her prayers!

Please pray that God would continue to fan into flame what He has started in our local church and community and those we have discipled would be “set on fire” with a passion for God and His people.

David and Kristia are funded by individuals and churches who believe that disciples should be made of all nations. In recent months their funding has dropped several hundred dollars a month below their minimum expenses.

If you would like to be informed about David and Kristia’s financial needs, please update your profile from the link in their email or Subscribe Now.

Make a one-time tax-deductible donation to help David and Kristia continue in missions: www.ntm.org/dave-abbott/give

David wants the website to help more people get involved in planting churches among unreached people groups.

Just five months after releasing the new website for New Tribes Mission USA our communications team has decided to abandon the Expression Engine platform it is built on and move to Site Stacker.

Two major factors have led us to this decision. The first and most significant is that the Communications team no longer has a web programmer on our team.

We have been hiring programmers, but the progress is extremely slow and expensive. We are still thousands of dollars and many months away from completing the USA site or any of the international partner sites.

The other reason is that Expression Engine is not nearly as user friendly or easy to develop multiple sites on as we were led to believe. All of the work needed requires PHP programming and we do not see any end in sight to our ongoing programming needs.

In researching solutions for the NTM Members website we found a company that seems to understand the needs of non-profit organizations and has a website platform that will meet our needs much better than Expression Engine.

All of the design and content created for our current usa.ntm.org website has not been wasted. Our entire site should be able to be ported over onto the Site Stacker platform in just a couple months. The new company will maintain our site and continue with new development at about half the cost of Expression Engine developers.

Please pray for David and the other members of the communications team as they learn yet another content management system and work with the new company to make the New Tribes Mission website as helpful as it can be for those who wish to participate in planting tribal churches among unreached people groups.

Have you visited New Tribes Mission’s website recently? www.ntm.org