NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

One of the biggest things we needed to do before we left the country was to find someone to store our belongings, as well as our truck. At first we thought we’d leave it in Manila and have someone start it up every once in a while. Then one night we were talking with some tribal missionaries who were considering options for getting their supplies. A while ago part of their runway eroded away and in a few months when we switched types of airplanes, the new plane can’t land on that short of a runway. Their options were either to close the work there after 15 years, or use an old abandoned logging strip about 5 miles away. However, how would they carry their supplies for 5 miles on the deteriorating trail, through the river and up the mountain to their village.

The missionaries came to our house in Manila one evening to talk about the possibility of buying a truck like ours. During the course of the evening it came to our minds, our supporters have bought this truck in order for us to reach tribal works that no one else can get to. The best way we can use the truck is to make sure that it’s doing it’s work for the tribes that our supporters expected. So…

We boarded a very large boat (nothing like a cruise ship ) from Luzon to Mindanao (with the truck). We were supposed to be on by 4 pm, but with they way things go, it was delayed several hours. So, we ended

up staying up all night doing the paperwork and loading the truck on the ship. We climbed into our little beds in our cabin, and after a 36 hour ride, we finally arrived in Mindanao at 2 in the morning.

The next day, along with our friends Trevor and Judy Clarke, we drove to the mission home about 2 hours away to pick up cement, groceries and a large water tank. They had bought the tank 3 years before but it wouldn’t fit into the plane. Now was the perfect opportunity to get it in! Then we drove 12 hours to their village.

The final 2 and a half hours were on dirt roads, which got progressively worse as we went on. We were met by the entire village who had never seen a vehicle like this in all their lives. We stayed in the village four days, teaching Trevor how to drive off-road, making some repairs and just enjoying tribal life, including church.

Thank you from all four of tribal missionaries whose life has become easier with the truck.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.