David teaching Firm Foundations at CrossWay Church.

David has started teaching a third Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ class at CrossWay Church in Central Florida.  We’re calling the class Foundations 101.

You never know how many are going to show up for a new class, especially when it has been offered a few times before.  God seems to be continuing to draw people to CrossWay Church who have a limited understanding of the full Story of God.

Others take the class because they have children or grandchildren and are starting to understand their responsibility before God to shepherd them spiritually instead of only providing for their physical needs.

One thing David did differently this time in addition to announcements in services and on CrossWay Church social media channels was to advertise on Facebook.  This last Sunday at least a few people mentioned that they had come based on the Facebook Ads.

Praise God for at least 29 who participated in the first class on May 6.  There were many there who David had never seen before. And there were others who had said they were coming and did not make it for the first class.

Please pray that many would continue in the class, understand and believe the Story of God and be equipped to tell others.

Baptism photos following the last Firm Foundations class >>

Like Firm Foundations on Facebook >>

Katrina with one of her many friends at the Senior Banquet.

I am finally down to my last few weeks of classes at New Tribes Bible Institute. I can hardly believe that I have been here for almost two years. The time has really flown by!

People have started asking me what some of the biggest things are that God has been teaching me over my time here at school.

I would say a few of the biggest things God has brought to my understanding are my source in Christ, the area of abiding and the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. John 15:4 talks how we cannot bear fruit outside of abiding in Christ.

I have started understanding how much my new identity is sourced in Christ. Just as a branch cannot bear any fruit outside of its vine so I cannot bear any good works without having Christ as my source of strength and enablement. The more I understand how much I need Christ for every situation, opportunity and trial the more I learn to rely on Him through His Word and through prayer.

As I think about almost being done with classes I am not as sad about it as I thought I would be. As I look back over the last few years I know that God taught me a lot through classes, but I also feel like I have learned a lot more through the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit. He has been so faithful to teach me through different situations and through various trials. I am confident that He will continue that work as I finish classes.

As for future plans, I have been accepted for the position of intern in the Childcare program next year. I will be working with the young children of the married students while they are in classes. I am excited to spend more time with the staff as I work alongside them, continue to build relationships with people at the church and continue to look for opportunities to serve God.

You can be praying for me about the friendship I have with Amy. She expressed the desire to go through the Bible with me, but when I asked about a time to start teaching she wasn’t very clear. Over the last few weeks I have brought up the area of studying a few times and she has made excuses every time. Satan certainly doesn’t want her hearing and understanding God’s Word. I still meet with her every once and a while just to talk, but she has not expressed the desire to study together again. I know God will continue to work in her and pursue her, but it’s hard not knowing how I can help her.

Also be praying for me and my plans for the summer. I am heading to a retreat after graduation and then will be flying home and spending the rest of my summer with my family, with my church and working. I want my summer to be used for the opportunities God has for me. I don’t want to miss out on what He wants to accomplish through my summer.

Thank you so much for praying for me and for being interested in what God is doing with my life.

——————–

Katrina graduates from New Tribes Bible Institute on May 19.  If you’d like to mail a card to her, you could send it to:

Katrina Abbott
915 North Hartwell Ave
Waukesha, WI 53186-5099

NTM-USA website powered by Site Stacker

Duplicate content is an issue on the Site Stacker content management system by WMtek.

Pray for David and the NTM Communications team as they process this issue and make decisions about how to approach it.

For example, the Mission News content “Now It’s Time To Teach” can be accessed by the following URLs:

From HOME: http://usa.ntm.org/content/home/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Mission News: http://usa.ntm.org/content/mission-news/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Current News: http://usa.ntm.org/content/current-news/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Prayer: http://usa.ntm.org/content/prayer/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Asia-Pacific: http://usa.ntm.org/content/asia-pacific/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Papua New Guinea: http://usa.ntm.org/content/papua-new-guinea/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

From Mengen People: http://usa.ntm.org/content/mengen-people-group/40686/now_it_s_time_to_teach

Under Google Quality Guidelines they state: “Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.”

Under Google Duplicate Content Webmaster Tools they state, “Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.”

In an article by SEOmoz titled “Duplication Content – SEO Best Practices” they list three of the biggest issues with duplicate content:

1.  Search engines don’t know which version(s) to include/exclude.
2. Search engines don’t know whether to direct the link metrics (trust, authority, anchor text, link juice, etc.) to one page, or keep it separated between multiple versions.
3. Search engines don’t know which version(s) to rank for query results.

From a social sharing and commenting perspective, it takes all the interaction with site visitors and spreads it out among seven pages so even an article with significant visitor interaction is likely to show very little user engagement per page view.

Please pray for wisdom for David and the other members of the NTM Communications team as they work through this issue and similar issues on a daily basis.

References:

Problems with providing duplicate content and ways to fix it:

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/duplicate-content

Google on duplicate content

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66359

Google information about canonization

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139066

Google Webmaster Guidelines

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Katrina with friends at NTBI

This semester has been so good. God has been teaching me so much both in class and outside. I’m also making plans for next year.

Through Revelation class God taught me who Christ is to believers and unbelievers. In His first coming He came as a servant and loving Savior, but in His second coming He will come as a Judge, Warrior and Mighty King.

Revelation 1:12-17 gives us a description of Christ. Even though He is the mighty and sovereign judge to those who have rejected Him, He is still the loving, kind Husband to those who have accepted Him.

I’ve really been enjoying working with kids at Foxriver Church twice a week. I am teaching them through Paul’s first missionary journey and we are having good discussions during the teaching time.

I recently started praying that if God wanted me to work with more than just kids that He would provide the opportunity for me to do so. Last week I was walking up from class when one of my friends ran up to me and started off by saying, “Katrina I have an opportunity for you!” He told me about a lady that lives a few blocks away.

Amy really wants to go through the Bible with someone and he asked me if I would be willing to teach her. I still get so excited when I think of how cool it is that God answers prayers according to His will for our lives. I got to meet Amy last week and will hopefully be able to start teaching her through Firm Foundations next week.

I am hoping to intern at New Tribes Bible Institute in childcare next year and then wanted to go to the Missionary Training Center in Missouri. We had a Missions Emphasis Day this week and some of the students from the Missionary Training Center in Canada came to speak.

God really burdened my heart to go to the Missionary Training Center in Canada instead of the one in Missouri. They teach the same classes; how to learn culture, language, how to teach, phonetics etc., but instead of big classes this campus is pretty small with only 12 or so people in a class. I think the smaller campus would help with building relationships with both students and staff and would provide good opportunities for discipleship as well.

Thank you so much for praying for me while I am at New Tribes Bible Institute. God is so good and faithful. I go through hard times still, but God is faithfully carrying me through. His consistency and grace in my life has taught me to trust Him so much more.

Please be praying that the teaching time with Amy will go really well and that she will come to an understanding of who God is and the sacrifice Christ made for her. Also be praying as God continues to direct me in the plans He has next for me after Bible School.

A look at the New Tribes Missionary Training Center in Missouri

Kristia has been teaching two different ladies. With one of the ladies, Kristia taught from Creation through the Crucifixion, carefully talking through the significance of each event. While verbally agreeing, this lady has not shown signs of appropriating the Gospel and is pursuing friendship without further teaching.

Today Kristia will be meeting another lady she has taught from Creation to the beginning ministry of Jesus Christ. The second lady is much more interested and is showing signs of understanding the Gospel.

Please pray for both of these ladies to respond to the Gospel in repentance and faith.

Since beginning to serve as an elder/pastor of CrossWay Church a year ago, David has pulled back from regular one-on-one discipleship and focused more on shepherding. Revising the membership handbook, membership process and guidelines for working with children have been some of the recent elder team projects.

Membership renewal and other shepherding tasks frequently involve meeting with people days, evenings and before and after services. Please pray for wisdom for David as he helps people understand biblical faith and grow in maturity.

For nearly 50 consecutive Sundays David has been teaching a Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ class. The other class being offered twice a year is Basic Doctrines of the Christian Faith based on Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

As David draws close to completing this second round of Firm Foundations in one year, he is excited to be meeting with two participants this week who have asked to share their testimonies with him as part of the CrossWay membership process.

Please pray for us as we seek to make disciples who make disciples in our local church and community while continuing to serve full-time with New Tribes Mission in the global mission of planting mature churches among unreached people groups.

Katrina at the beach in Florida on Christmas break.

My junior semester at New Tribes Bible Institute was pretty difficult. I struggled with heavy depression among other things. I found it difficult to think, but I was very sure of the goodness and closeness of my great God who in Hebrews 13:5 promises to never leave us or forsake us.

Even with my trust in God through my hard situations and trials, I was very thankful for Christmas break. I enjoyed fellowship with my wonderful family and friends. God used my break to teach me more about Himself as well, reminding me yet again that He is holding me tight and will never let me go.

As I head into my last semester at Bible School I have a stronger hope and trust in my faithful God. He desires a deeper relationship with me and He will pull all hindrances out of my grasp until I look to Him alone for my strength and guidance.

I have learned that every hurt, struggle, pain and trial is a sweet reminder that this world is not our home. Philippians 3:20 reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven and Colossians 3:1-3 reminds us to fix our minds on things above and not on things of this earth.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and encouragement. It means so much to me.

• Please be praying with me that my last semester at school can be used to serve and encourage others and to glorify God.
• Also please be praying with me as I try to decide where God wants me for the year after I graduate.

I am either going to intern at New Tribes Bible Institute in the childcare or I will go home for a year and work before going through the rest of the New Tribes missionary training in Missouri.

Thank you again for all your prayers and support in where God has me now.

(Katrina will be graduating from New Tribes Bible Institute on May 19, 2012.)

See Christmas break photos

See a video about New Tribes missionary training

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.

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.