NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

We have just left Benjamin and Missy and their kids to the airport.  They had a mountain of baggage, it seemed, which, unfortunately, they have to pick up in London to check in for their flight to Australia.

They will have a 12 hour flight followed by a 9 hour flight followed by a 12 hour layover followed by a 5 hour flight.

Pray for the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength and stamina for the journey.  Thanks!

Benjamin and Missy and their four kids leave the USA tomorrow, Monday 4 October for PNG.  It is quite incredible to think that Lisa and I left for PNG nearly 25 years ago with our four children who were about the same ages as their children are now.

We have the joy of spending the next nine days with them as they stop over in N. Ireland before going on to PNG.  It will be a chance for them to see our mothers who they haven’t seen for five years and haven’t seen Tiernan or Silas, so we are delighted about that.

Pray for them, for the parting, for the travel details and for the many, many adjustments that face them once they arrive in PNG.  For our part, we are thrilled to see God at work in their lives.

We had the joy of visiting the kids and grandkids in the States last month.  We visited Benjamin and Missy in Michigan where we were able to help them finish up packing their crates to send to PNG.  They have their tickets in hand and will be leaving for PNG 4 October, so do pray for them as they pack up the final things in their house and say their good byes.  We enjoyed time with Martha and I was able to do a few jobs for her around her apratment at the Bible School.  Hadn’t much time with her as school had started and she was busy but just great to have her pop into Benjamin and Missy’s for meals or a chat.

We were able to spend time with Christopher and Mandy in Ohio where I got to see our granddaughter, Maggie, for the first time.  It was quite an eventful week for Sadie, the oldest, as she started kindergarten and is loving it.  It was wonderful to see God provide for Christopher and Mandy in an unexpected way to be able to send her to Christian school.  Also, God provided all that was needed to get much needed repairs done to their van.

When in the States this summer, we had opportunity to visit supporters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Our son, Benjamin, has become an American citizen so had to study American history.  He became interested in it and introduced us to a DVD series on John Adams, the second president of the United States.  We learned how significant Philadelphia was in the founding days of the United States.

Since we had the last day in Philadelphia waiting on our flight home, we visited the Liberty Bell and the Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the American Constitution was signed.  We were glad to feel part of the history and had much to reflect on while we waited on our flight which was delayed for five hours

In February, Isaac was accepted by the Ben Gurion Medical School to train as a doctor specializing in medicine for developing countries.  He is in Israel with enough funds to get him through his first semester.  Pray that God would raise up the funds he needs to continue.  Pray also that God would help him find a good apartment with good mates at a good price.

He passed through North Cotes on the way and we enjoyed him for a week.

Our school year came to an end with the graduation of 25 students from our Biblical Studies course, 17 students from our Cross Cultural Communication Course and 3 students from our Applied Linguistics Course.  Of the 25 Biblical Studies students who graduated, 15 will be going on to further training with NTM, 13 here in the UK and 2 in the USA. Pray for those who have graduated from the CCC and AL courses as they enter a year of partnership development before heading to their fields of service.

We look ahead to the new year starting in September and are anticipating 30 students for the Biblical Studies course.  This is the case even though the school accreditation process wasn’t able to be completed in time to allow non-EU students to attend.  The last step is to have our courses accredited and this we trust will be done for the next school year starting in September 2011.

We are currently taking part in our mission’s refresher course, a time to get together with NTM missionaries from Europe at home on furlough or on home staff.  There are eight nationalities represented who work in four continents.  Pray that we will know times of refreshing that come from the presence of the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers for the course Lisa and I taught together last term.  We heard a number of comments from the students who said that it was helpful to them.

We are approaching our final term of the year.  I will be teaching 2 Corinthians and The Christian Life.  I would appreciate your prayers to teach with accuracy and passion.

Our CCC* students are in Mission Simulation at the moment, living in tents for five weeks with limited access to the outside world to simulate the isolation of working in a tribe.

Refresher Course is for any of our missionaries home on furlough.  It is to be held in August and I have been asked to speak.  Pray that God would give me something ‘refreshing’ to share.

*CCC = Cross Cultural Communication the name of the second phase of missionary training here at North Cotes.

Just last week, the Uriay people in PNG began to hear the message of the gospel for the first time in their own language.  ‘In the beginning God…’ are such familiar words to us and yet the beginning of a new world view for the Uriay.

Pray that God would deal with any distractions, give the missionaries good health and a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit and that they Uriay would be left in no doubt as to the choice they have to make when the teaching comes to a climax.

We have been enjoying the Easter break with Deborah, our daughter, over from N. Ireland and staying with us here at North Cotes. We have enjoyed trips to Scarborough, Whitby and to Chatsworth House.

When the students return, I will have three new courses to teach and would ask for your prayers for the preparation involved.  In Biblical Studies, I will be teaching 2 Corinthians and Christian Life which is an overview of what God has provided for our salvation – our justification, sanctification and glorification.  It will be a review of material that has been covered but brought together in one place before the students move on.  It promises to be an exciting course but need the Lord’s wisdom to pull it together.

Another exciting course coming up will be with our students in the Missionary Training Course.  It is called Emotional and Spiritual Health and will be devoted to teaching the students strategies so they will be able to maintain themselves emotionally and spiritually on the field.  This is important as some of them will find themselves in isolated situations with maybe only one or two other couples as co-workers.  The exciting thing is that Lisa and I get to team teach this course.  It is the first time we have ever done this and there is a certain apprehension as well as anticipation.  We have been praying that God would enable us to benefit from the material as well rather than simply prepare course notes that will gather dust.

We invite you to pray that God would be pleased to use us in the coming months as his channels of blessing as we teach these courses in dependence on the Holy Spirit our ultimate teacher and reminder.

These last two weekends we were able to attend two NTM conferences.  The first one was held in N. Irelands, the annual residential conference that is held in Newcastle by the Mountains of Mourne.  Lisa and I had opportunity to take part as did our daughter Martha who was able to report on her new ministry she was about to take up in the States at the NTM Bible Institute in Jackson, Michigan.

The second was held at North Cotes and was geared for young people.  We had just over 100 people register to come from the UK and Europe and had missionary reports, sharing from the Word and live links to missionaries on the field using Skype.  Several took applications for our summit program that is organizing trips to the Philippines, Brazil and Papua New Guinea this summer and to Thailand later on in the year.

Pray that God will raise up from among those who attend these conferences those who will want to enter training to prepare to take the gospel to tribal peoples around the world.