Gordon and Janet Wohlgemut

What language do you teach there?

Gordon and Janet Wohlgemut — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:42:42 +0000

When I (Janet) say that I teach language and culture learning at the Missionary Training Center, I’m often asked what languages I teach. It’s probably hard to realize that we don’t teach one particular language here. We basically show people how to learn a previously unwritten language (and any other language, for that matter.) So it’s interesting. In the process, though, the students DO get some practice learning a couple languages, depending on who’s available that speaks another language fluently. This year my small class of 4 worked on Korean for 14 class periods. Again, our purpose wasn’t to learn Korean, but to learn what’s currently believed to be the best way to learn another language. It was tough because of the pronunciation and the grammar (it’s supposedly one of the hardest languages for an English speaker to learn!) But I was really proud of my students…they did great! And I believe they all realize that they can, in fact, learn another language (or two or three!). Click on the link below this paragraph if you’d like to hear how to make tea (in Korean). It’s still almost unbelievable to me that after only about 10 hours of practice, they can understand what she’s saying! It works! �

How to make tea, Korean style

Anyway, it’s a great way to end the semester. Now we have a month-long Christmas break, then we’ll come back and start right off with some pretty tough classes. The first two months of their next semester is intense, to say the least. Please pray for them and for us teachers that we’ll do the best we can to get the concepts across. We do all this to help get the Gospel out to where it’s never been taught. Click around this website to see how you can be involved.

THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 04:00:00 +0000

Rustling noises in the bushes unsettled the villagers.

The next morning, a village woman went to draw water and saw the source of the noises: a lion.

The village was almost trembling with fear, and the chief called a meeting. He told them he would take care of it, and soon performed a ceremony. Everyone went back to life as normal.

Everyone but missionaries Anthony and Jennie Chee, that is. For the Chees, this was an opportunity to learn more about the people among whom they minister, the Yaos of Mozambique.

They soon learned that to the Yaos, the lion was not an animal that posed a physical danger, nor did this require a physical answer such as a hunter. The lion was the spirit of an ancestor who had come back to frighten the villagers. To them, this was a spiritual problem, requiring the correct ceremony.

Understanding the culture of the Yao people — the way they think and interact with their world — is crucial to clearly presenting God’s Word to them. That’s why New Tribes Mission’s specialized training includes a study of God’s Word and methods for translating and teaching it, as well as instruction on deciphering and dealing with culture.

Classes begin August 20th at the Missionary Training Center in Missouri. 55 students are to return for their second year of missionary training, and 105 new students are expected to begin the two-year course. Please pray that nothing hinders any of these students from coming. Pray for the instructors and others responsible for curriculum. The first semester courses are being revised, and the third semester courses — which will be taught for the first time — are near completion.

Thank God with us that just enough housing has been completed for all these students. Thank Him for His provision for materials and His provision of volunteers to finish this work.

The biggest need now is for a new classroom facility. This education center will provide more space with larger classrooms and more modern wiring and design for today’s technology. Please pray with us for the funds and preparations to begin work in Spring 2008.

Tribal Church Planting Class

Sat, 12 May 2007 04:00:00 +0000

Recently I’ve been teaching a group of students about Tribal Church Planting. It is much more difficult than church planting in our own culture. One of our students gave a presentation on the obstacles to overcome in reaching an animistic culture (ie.the Quechua tribe) and he did such a good job that I asked if I could use it as an illustration. Here is a summary of his presentation:

"Imagine yourself dedicated to going overseas as a missionary to work with tribal people that have never heard the Gospel…Where do you start. …. hop on a plane, and fly down…But then what? Nobody speaks English. Suppose you took Spanish in High School… Great! That means we can buy bananas, describe living room furniture, or get directions to the mall…So we have to either learn Spanish better or hire an interpreter to live with us… Then we have to do the same thing with the Quechua language.

Suppose that we get over the language barrier. . .then what. . .?
We find some Quechua folks and start talking. . .
Where do you start? Give them the Four Spiritual Laws or read John 3:16? Show the Jesus film?

If you walk up to a traditional Quechua and read him John 3:16 out of the blue, this is what would probably be going through his head:
Inti (the sun god) loved Pachamama (Mother Earth) so much that he sent his son, (Manco Capac, the first Inca), to rule the earth. His descendants were worshipped as deity.

It makes complete sense to a Quechua (but it’s not what’s taught in God’s Word).

Most, if not all tribal societies in the world have a belief system is that is classified as animistic.

That just means that they believe that spirits (good, bad, or indifferent) possess objects and people and control the daily affairs of life. The people, therefore have to manipulate the spirits so they will be good to them.

They will do whatever it takes to gain the favor of the spirits. Before planting a field, they make a sacrifice to the earth. . .Quechua farmers often make sacrifices of a llama fetus and coca leaves and pour alcohol on the ground, among other things. Miners are even more reverent, often making offerings to statues of demons deep under ground several times a day. Even bus drivers and truckers made offerings of alcohol and coca, often partaking of each, before making a run.

How do you go about teaching about the One, True God of Scripture in this context? Unless presented accurately, they will merely add Him to their list of spirits and try to manipulate Him the same way they do the other spirits.

That is just what has happened with some religious groups in Bolivia. They do their sacrifices and go to Mass, Confession, etc. (Pachamama, Mother earth, has been connected to Mary.)

We did an in-depth study of Animism at the beginning of the training to help us understand the spiritual perspective of tribal people and avoid these types of problems.

The most important area to come to grips with is the spiritual world around us. Here in American churches we often pay lip service to the fact that there is a spirit realm and there is an unseen war being fought. Yet we don’t see evidence of it in our daily lives.

Animists live in fear of the spirit world every day. Everything that occurs in life is based on some act of the spirits. When someone gets sick, it’s because he broke a taboo, or someone worked sorcery, sending a spirit to make him ill. If a baby dies, it may be because the ancestors were unhappy about the way something was done, so they took the child to be with them. In each case, the spirits must be appeased or it will happen again and again. They typically use a shaman or witchdoctor to communicate with the spirit world so that they can manipulate the spirit responsible. Each practice varies from tribe to tribe, but each shares the same dark worldview characterized by fear and spirit-manipulation.

To give tribal people an accurate picture of the God of Scripture, we must present the Gospel in a way that goes head-to-head with the animistic beliefs.

One thing that I really appreciate about our classes is that many of the things we are learning can be applied to matter where we go." (Both here at home and also in the tribe.)

Pops and clicks

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:00:00 +0000

Check out this link to an example of amazing language skills!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxkiXALQjU

You’re Grandparents (Sort of…)

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 05:00:00 +0000

Hark The Heavenly Angels Sing!
Yes the angels are again rejoicing, but this time it is over the many new believers that have just come to faith in Christ over the last few days in the Abau tribe in Papua New Guinea. Some of you may remember about the Abau people from our prayer letters while we were still in PNG. During our final years in PNG we were involved in training and orientating new missionaries for tribal mission work. You may remember us talking about the Abau people who had been constantly sending us letters begging us to send them missionaries to work in their tribe. In fact, they have been waiting over twenty years to hear this good news, but we were finally able to put a team of missionaries into the Abau tribe. You may remember the above picture of us sitting with some of the members of the new Abau team as it was being formed, and planning their future work there. Those were exciting days, but lots of hard work has gone on since then. They had to transport materials and build their houses in their new jungle location. They spent years of language and culture study to prepare for teaching the Abau people. They spent months preparing literacy and lesson material and doing foundation teaching. And now after all this hard work and planting spiritual seeds, God has raised up a harvest of souls among the Abau people! Here are some translated quotes of the new Abau Christians:
(quotes taken from an email by Kelly and Sien Luyendyk)

-Fifty year old Weima shook my hand saying to me, "I know that Jesus is standing in my place for my bad things. I do not have to think about the place of fire but when I die I can sit down good with God."
-Twenty year old Kalasia believes that Jesus is her only road to make God happy.
-Yafeno, standing there holding his little boy, testified, "I know that I will go to be with God when I die." I asked him why he thought that. He said quietly, "Because God’s son Jesus has paid for my bad ways. His blood ran out and paid for my bad ways."
-Dominic held his dirty shirt behind his back and stated that in the same way, Jesus covers all things he has done wrong.
-Grandmother Nanso evidences understanding of God’s gracious provision on her behalf.
-Matin says he is tired of the sorcery talk that he has heard since a child. He realizes that because of what Jesus has done on the cross, he is now in God’s hand and protection.
-Plinla recognizes Jesus as her "manakway posuey e lw", her deliverer.
-Powi, a perennially self-righteous man, said this, "I don’t have to work my way to make God happy with me. I am believing that Jesus is my way to God."

We praise God for this wonderful work of grace among the Abau people and we want to thank YOU also for your part in helping these people being reached with the gospel! Yes, in God’s eyes you are very much a part of this team that reached the Abau people with the gospel. As Christ’s body (the Church) we each have our part, and you…through your prayers and support–have been very much a part of our ministry and those whom we have helped also. And so, whether you realize it or not, you are sort of "spiritual grandparents" to those new babes in Christ there among the Abau!

Thank you again for being a part of our team and the Abau team in helping see the Abau people reached with the gospel. Continue to pray for these new babes in Christ.
Gordon and Janet Wohlgemut

Christmas in the tropics

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 05:00:00 +0000

This is our 4th Christmas in North America after having spent half of our life (and Christmases) in PNG.) And I still miss our PNG Christmases! Perhaps if you’ve never lived overseas and not had any of the trappings we’ve grown used to, you may not realize how close you can get to your coworkers and how much fun we can have!

There were no great stores to shop in, no traveling to be done, rarely any Christmas plays or programs or practices, etc. We just had each other. In the Sepik town where we lived there were usually 3 or 4 missionary families nearby at the orientation center.

After only one or two years there, we realized that it’s just TOO HOT for a big Christmas dinner at noon. So we began eating our dinner on Christmas Eve and then had leftovers on Christmas day. That left plenty of time for going to the river (when the boys were small–it’s a pretty shallow river) or walking to the lake or playing volleyball or coming up with numerous other fun games.

We always had fun. No snowboarding of course, but no snow to shovel or drive through either!! We never had a lot of presents and I know the boys missed those some years, but I think we all agree we still had a lot of fun.

But we’re happy we can see our families now. What a blessing that is. At any rate, it’s about HIM anyway, isn’t it?

Please pray for the many people around the world who don’t know Him yet. And pray for these missionaries in training wanting to go and spread the good news!

Phonetics Class

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 05:00:00 +0000

Janet says that when she started homeschooling our boys she finally figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up–a teacher. She did get to teach them for a total of 10 years. She also taught Bible studies, Sunday School and literacy classes in the village, a Consumer Math class at the MK school, etc. Now she’s getting to try her hand at teaching phonetics. This involves teaching how to make and write many of the ‘odd’ sounds that are made in other languages. As you may imagine, English letters just aren’t sufficient to write Chinese, Portuguese or a remote tribal language. And we certainly can’t make all those strange sounds without a little coaching!

She has a small, interactive class of 9 students, all of whom want to go to a foreign country to either reach a tribe with the gospel, or support missionaries by piloting the planes that take them to their place of service. She’ll change classrooms every 2 weeks (for a total of 5 ‘blocks’) so she’s happy to get to know most of the students better. (I’ll start teaching a class in a couple weeks–more on that later…)

Please pray for the students–this is quite stretching for some of them.

Praise the Lord with us for opportunities we’ve had to encourage the students here and there. It’s been fun to be able to share some of our PNG experiences with them and see their excitement about getting to the field.

Photography opportunities in Ministry

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 05:00:00 +0000

Gordon has had many opportunities to use his skills in Photography to minister to the needs of both staff and students. It seems there is always someone in the training getting engaged or married and so Gordon has been asked many times if he would do the pictures for the weddings etc. He also shoots many special events here at the training center and helps many families with portraits for their prayer cards. His photography is also an open door into the lives of many folks in the community, both to serve and to be a witness. Of course he really enjoys taking his 2 sons Josh and Alan along to help with the pictures or one of the students. You can see some of their work online. The website is: agapefocus.com