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 By January 13 he and a few co-workers were able to move all 500 blogs from a very outdated version of WordPress up to the latest version.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!

The plan was to meet Katrina as she rode south from Wisconsin and we drove north from Florida. The last mile we pulled in behind a vehicle that didn’t look local. We ended up in the driveway of Kristia’s parents home at the exact same time as Katrina and the girls she was riding with.

That’s kind of how our holidays went. Things went wrong but nothing happened that God did not already know about and provide for. …Like the engine on our van that started missing very badly right after arriving in North Carolina.

It was a repair that involved taking the top of the engine apart, but God provided a special gift to cover the expenses. We started out the trip with four engine code warnings and this resolved two of them.

Back in Florida on David’s commute to the NTM offices the engine on his truck suddenly went silent. The electrical was still on but the engine was completely dead. It was the coldest morning of the winter up to that point — nearly freezing.

Within minutes David’s Dad was able to pick him up. A co-worker got the keys and towed the truck to a repair shop so David could continue with his work for the day.

The timing belt had broken after 152,000 miles, but no other damage had occurred. It was a four hour, labor intensive job, but again God had provided some unexpected gifts that covered the rather expensive repairs.

David had been putting off an inevitable trip to the dentist for a cracked molar for at least too years. We just never seemed to have the money and chewing on the left side was still working.

With generous gifts over Christmas we were finally able to start taking care of this need also. Within two hours of his check-up the cracked tooth broke, but the solution was the same and a follow-up appointment was already scheduled.

Praise God with us for His provision and the gift of being able to join Him in seeing people redeemed from every tribe, kindred, tongue and nation.

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!

Her teachers would like to have a better idea what might be causing the inconsistent performance.

Please pray that the results of the testing Savannah has today will help Savannah and her teachers be more successful.

We fixed the post-by-email feature over the weekend and hope to have the photo galleries working properly today. We’d also like to get started on fixing the new blog creation process.

Kristia is at BSF this morning and Caleb and Savannah are both doing their school work. Kristia will pick them up today because David has a meeting until 9:00 pm.

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.