James and Nicky Poarch Follow our journey
Right now, our co-workers are living in their new house. They have moved out of our house (a good thing, since we are ready to move back to Asia-Pacific and move back into our own house). There is still a lot of work to be done on their house, but it is livable.
Everything in (or on)!
Over the summer, we traveled to a lot of interesting places. Washington DC, the White House, the Creation Museum, the Grand Canyon, and many other exciting places.
Our kids have recently started school and are loving it!
Thank you for your loyal participation in our lives and in our ministry.
Tribal man at his house
As far as the Punan people of Asia-Pacific are concerned, a rainbow only contains red and green.
“Punan [language] has only four colors,” wrote missionary Rachel Searcy. “Everything is either black, white, red or green. So green and blue have the same name. So does red and yellow.”
Therefore, instead of a rainbow having red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, a Punan rainbow could only be described as red, red, green, green, green, skipping orange and violet which don’t seem to exist.
Rachel is discovering many such unique oddities as she strives to master the Punan language. And the time-consuming, diligent study will be worth it all someday as she teaches and helps with translation work.
She shared some other interesting words which have caught her attention lately:
Cangluke: furiously digging with one’s hands, as a dog does.
Muke: gently digging with one’s hands, as a monkey does.
Ngabo: scratch or dig but the dirt is generally used for something, not discarded, as a chicken does.
Kari: dig with a tool like a shovel or stick, as for a grave.
“As you can see, so many things are best defined by a visible, [physical] example,” wrote Rachel. “Thinking about these things made me even more thankful our Savior came to earth to live. It’s no wonder then that He asks that we go as living ambassadors to tell the world of his love and grace.”
“Please continue to pray that Christ’s love will shine in this small corner of the world,” Rachel wrote. “Also pray for perseverance and wisdom as I continue to learn culture and language.”
On the boat headed upriver
Hello Everyone,
YES, missionary work is hard at times – being away from family, not having all things available at hand, etc. but I, James, am going to tell you now that I just got back from a trip doing EXACTLY what I love – off-roading with a 4×4 truck & traveling by boat! My first trip took me to an area where we have a missionary family that I went to help. I was gone 5 days.
I went to help them drive in a 4 wheel drive vehicle and to help set up their solar electric system (we took a solar/battery/dc powered refrigerator in with us in the truck). We first took a boat all night and then we drove for many hours into their tribe. The roads were quite “jelek” (ugly) as they say in Asia-Pacific.
My second trip took me back to the place I grew up, the Da’an tribe (pronounced like “cotton” just with a “d” instead of a “c”) in a different area of the country. For this trip I was gone 7 days. We had a total of 5 men ordained, 3 men (with their wives) were ordained as elders in the church, and 2 men (with their wives) were ordained as deacons. Their names are: the elders: Juman with his wife Bungkat, Anton with his wife Marta, Dulah with his wife Siti; the deacons: Dakun with his wife Siroh, and Lujung with his wife Eun. Please be praying for these men and their families as they are challenged in many new ways with leading this new tribal church. Please pray also for the translation of the Bible into the Da’an language as that is a real need still. Most of the men ordained had direct involvement with my father, Marvin Poarch, as he taught and discipled them when he was there. It was an AWESOME experience to be involved in. The church in this tribe has not been very active in the past, but recently has done an “about face”. They have been very active in outreach and discipleship. We rode a bus for 16 hours and then a boat for 4 hours to get to this tribe.
Nicky was the real trooper, though, she stayed home and watched the kids and kept the supply buying ministry going smoothly. They say that the hardest part of missionary work falls on the wives. And Nicky does find it hard to “stay behind” but this time she said it wasn’t as hard and she kept the kids all going and scheduled some fun activities for them.
So that wraps up our 2+ weeks of excitement here in Asia-Pacific!
Thanks for praying for us!
Till All Have Heard,
James, Nicky, Emily, Luke, & Samantha