Jason and Angie Bechtel Bringing Hope to Unreached People Groups
Two Wednesdays ago we got to partake in the Jungle Camp feasting. Each year after the first year students have moved up to Jungle Camp they hold an Open House for the staff. This year we were invited by Jacob and Melissa to a meal of tacos. Yum! You can see from the pictures that Melissa is quite pregnant and the next day they delivered a baby girl. Congratulations Jacob and Melissa and thanks for a great supper!
Sweat glistening on his face, his feet heavily powdered in the dry dirt of the road, he knocked at the door. His request wasn’t unusual, the fact he had walked 22 miles was. For 22 miles he had carried a note, a list. A list of 41 names. 41 names representing 41 people who wanted to hear God’s Word.
Read the rest of the story.
Jason’s New Ministry
Of all thats new for us this spring, probably the biggest change is Jason’s ministry! Jason is now working in the Communications and Media Department. He enjoyed working in his book-keeping ministry, but graphic design has always been his passion. He is super excited to be spending all his time in this new ministry. For more details, read here: http://blogs.ntm.org/jason-bechtel/
New Leadership
Another change has been the new leadership here at New Tribes Mission of Canada. Ray Jones has been with the mission for over 35 years and has been the chairman of the leadership team for a number of years. With Ray’s retirement, my cousin’s husband, Tim Whatley, has assumed the reins. It has been nice to have them around, although we’ll miss Ray.
Barry Challinor, who also served on the leadership team and as a trainer in the Missionary Training Centre, along with his wife, Christine, will be heading back to England as their Visas were not renewed this year. It is sad to see them go, but we know it is the Lord’s timing. So yes, lots of changes.
Missionaries to the Field
As far as the students, another class has graduated and have headed out their various ways to serve the Lord. It’s so neat to watch them and see where the Lord takes them. The first year class is in their first week of Jungle Camp (here’s pictures from our month in the bush). They have two pregnant ladies amongst them, for whom you can be praying. One of them will be induced on Thursday if she hasn’t had her baby and the other is due in two weeks! In case you’re worried, yes, they’re allowed to come out of the bush to have their babies!
Angie’s New Job
On the home front, I’ve started a tutoring job in town. I started with two students and now I am up to four! It’s still only one evening a week though, which is great! I have three highschool math students and a grade three student. My grade three student is in French Immersion, so I do all her subjects with her—mostly in English, but I do some French work as well.
Delena and Lorelei
The girls continue to grow and amaze me with the things they say and do. Delena still enjoys visiting the ladies at the retirement home. On the weekend, we were out for a walk and she wanted to visit ‘Grandma Szabo.’ I told her that Grandma Szabo probably had family visiting so we wouldn’t visit her today. She was quick to reply, “Let’s go and visit with them then because we’re family too!”
Lorelei turns 1 on July 4th and is starting to show her fun and mischievous side. She can climb up the stairs now and thinks she’s quite clever. She’ll start to climb them and then turn to make sure you’re watching. If you are and you come to get her, she’ll giggle and take off faster. Too cute!
We really appreciate all your prayers for us as a family. Finding (and keeping) a balance takes constant attention. Between personal time with the Lord, quality time as a couple and with our girls, our multi-faceted ministry with New Tribes Mission, staying connected with family, friends and a number of churches, life is always full of excitement. The more we think about these responsibitilities, the more we are reminded to let go and let God. Only God can bring any good out of our lives.
Not only can we do nothing without Christ, but we can’t do this without your prayers and support. Each one on our team has a vital role in seeing the good news about Jesus Christ brought to tribal people around the world.
Millions unreached, none unreachable.
Angie for the Bechtel’s
Change. It happens, but does anyone really like it? Yes, some people handle it better than others. Maybe I am one of those “some” people.
New Tribes Mission of Canada is going through change. The entire organization is going through a restructuring. Some people are retiring, some are moving to other countries to assume new ministries.
For the last almost 2 years I have been primarily helping with bookkeeping, and helping with graphic design work on the side. Then in January, myself and two co-workers visited the NTM USA home office. It was great to meet face to face those we email almost daily. This Lord used this trip to help me articulate a desire he placed in me to work full time in “Communications and Media”.
Fast forward to April. The new Executive Director for NTM of Canada pulls me aside and asks if I would like to spend all my time in “Communications”. The answer was not hard—the Lord had already prepared me for such a conversation.
From that conversation to now, it has been all downhill, or uphill… Faster than expected, I was freed up to spend all my time in “Communications and Media”. But what is that?
The Communications and Media Department will shape what people across Canada read, hear, touch and click. Through delivering high quality print, web, video, radio and other creative environments, the Communications and Media Department will inform our friends and partners of opportunities to help reach the unreached.
While I have had a long and intimate relationship with the printed page, my love for social media has been growing. I am now “the man behind the curtain” of NTM’s twitter account, @newtribes. I thoroughly love this aspect of my ministry. I have actually been asked to sit on a “Social Networking Round Table” panel at a conference in Indiana later this month — http://www.iccm.org/.
The bottom line is that I am excited about change. I am excited about the opportunity to get more Canadians involved in tribal church planting.
| Social Networking Round Table |
Among our weekend activities have been a few birthdays. This year we have been celebrating the birthdays in twos since it seems there are few weekends where everyone’s schedule works together and always two birthdays near each other. Three weekends ago Jason was preaching at Bethel Chapel in Waterloo, so we were able to go down on Saturday to my sister’s apartment to celebrate my mom’s and Jason’s birthdays.
This was Jason’s first birthday under the gluten-free restrictions, so that made the cake-baking effort a little more challenging. My mom’s favourite cake is a special 3-layer cake that her aunt used to make. I decided to make that for her and the rest of us. That turned out to be a little more challenging than it should have been. I had never made it before, but I had the recipe, so I checked it over a couple days in advance to make sure I had all the ingredients. I did, but I noticed that the recipe for the filling between layers was missing. I called my grandma to find out some answers, but she didn’t have that part of the recipe. So I decided to just use the information I had in hopes that the icing was the same as the filling.
On the day of the cake-making I made the cakes and the icing only to discover that no, the icing is NOT the same as the filling. I knew the filling was some sort of pudding, but I couldn’t remember what the icing was like. That’s when the phone came out again. I called everyone I could think of and finally someone was home to tell me the coveted pudding recipe! 
So I completed Mom’s cake.
Onto Jason’s cake. He told me that he wanted cheesecake, so it actually turned out to be more straightforward than mom’s cake. It was only the crust where I had to make a substitution. Instead of 1 cup of white flour, I used a mixture of white rice flour, potato starch and tapioca flour! A little brown sugar, some butter and crushed pecans and voila!
Here are some pictures of Delena with the cakes. It was her first cake decorating experience.
Hot off the press, the newest GPS newsletters are going into the mail. You can read it today, here, right online!
Jason Helping with Video Support at Pitch and Praise
This year was our fourth annual trip to Paris, ON for the event Pitch and Praise. The event itself was essentially the same and our roles didn’t really change, but it was definitely a year of change. In the kitchen we had a change of our head cook. We came last year to help in the kitchen and find out what actually goes on. This year he jumped in with both feet. Luckily for him, there were a few of us who have been in that kitchen for P & P for a number of years so we could answer any questions he had, but he did an excellent job! Thanks for leading us Jeff!
Another change was was the whole gluten-free thing again! It seems to pop up everywhere we go—funny how we eat every day, isn’t it?! The tech crew (including Jason) usually gets their meals brought to them. Thankfully Jason brought along his personal chef, so I was able to send down a special meal for him each mealtime since there was only one meal he where he could actually eat everything on the menu. Any guesses? CHILI! It could have been a no-no, but it was thickened with corn starch and therefore, good to eat.
On Jason’s end, in the video and sound area, there was a couple changes. They also had a “head man” change. This meant that a lot of the equipment changed because the former guy had a lot of people from whom he got favours. There was also a lot of equipment conglomerated from different places. This year all the equipment was from one company and that company came to assemble it! Jason and the other men were able to assist with the assembling and learn how there are quicker ways than they’ve been doing it in the past! Also, this company came with a lot more lights and things so it was a better ‘show’ than ever before.
All in all, a fantastic weekend with the warmest weather I’ve ever experienced at Pitch in the past!
