NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Though there are many things to do in Indonesia at this time, the biggest reason we came here was to install a micro hydro power system in one village. Right now the tribal missionaries are using solar power, but due to the daily rain, they are unable to make enough power to use their printer except on bright days with no rain. Because of this, they are months behind on printing the lessons they are teaching. Every day there are literacy classes, initially taught by the missionaries, but now tribal men have taken over who have learned to read their own language well.

After that there is chronological Bible teaching. The missionaries have covered from Creation to the death and resurrection of Christ. The resulting believers who understand their sin and need for a Savior and have accepted Him are now going through the teaching a second time, in hopes that just like literacy, can soon teach the rest of their people in neighboring villages that message. However, the workbooks and literature they need to teach better, have not been available.

The solution was to use their small stream to make power. The tribal missionary took all the necessary measurements, and then all of the hydro equipment was built for the specific stream and prepared in America and shipped over in our luggage. The cost of excess baggage fees was more than the price of our tickets to get it to their village, but it was still cheaper than sending it freight. And we didn’t have to worry about paying extra for customs.

There were over five design changes to the system as well as the location where we would build it until we finally decided what to do. Two large logs had been cut out of a hard wood that the people said would take many, many years to rot. These were the mounts for the turbine at the bottom and then the generator at the top, both of them connected together by a drive belt. The water source was 37 feet above us, giving us plenty of pressure, and all we had to do was divert the stream down to the turbine.

We had 40 meters of 4 inch pipe to carry the water and we simply had to dig a trench to bury the pipe. We also had to build a little shed around the system to keep the kids and pigs from messing with the valves and electrical components. Burying the posts was going to be a challenge with only a square tipped shovel, but I was thinking like a westerner. In these situations, you need to think tribal; wet the ground, take a 50 pound hardwood pole, sharpen the end and pound it over and over into the dirt until it buries itself as deep as it can before either your arms turn to jelly or the pole hits a rock. Now do that 7 times, cut off the excess and nail the boards to the finished frame. Unless, of course you don’t have boards, which was our case.

Part of the deal with making our own boards was to fix the chainsaw that hadn’t been run for 5 years and needed a carb overhaul and a few adjustments, and we were ready to haul that beast of a saw up the mountain, find the largest tree, cut it down, cut it into 6 foot pieces and then cut those into slightly crooked and sort of misshapen boards. Within a few hours, we had enough wood for walls, and soon the pipes were connected. The shed was built, and we were ready to run the wire.

One of the issues with a micro hydro power system is that once the batteries are charged there needs to be some sort of load. If there isn’t a place for the electricity to go, the turbine will begin to spin faster and faster until it destroys itself. The only way to prevent this is to give the power somewhere else to go, in our case a hot water heater. However, we have a 12 volt system and a 220 volt hot water heater, which required me to disassemble and remove the electrical components and replace it with 12 volt pieces. After a day and a half, we were ready for water.

So as to not blow up the pipe with the weight of the water shooting down the hill, we slowly filled the 125 feet of pipe until all the air had bubbled out the intake. Now with full pipes, we were ready to break our dam and send all the water towards making us about 20 amps of 12 volt power.

Talking back and forth on the radios, we quickly realized that things were not as they should be. Apparently we had just enough water to make an amp and a half of power. That is almost enough to charge a AA battery over several hours, and basically useless to us. We needed more water.

After the Bible teaching the next morning, we rounded up 5 or so men to join us hiking 1000 feet up the mountain in a search for more water. It was certainly no picnic hacking our way through the jungle. The village was already at 4900 feet elevation, so my sea level lungs and heart were having a hard time. It was even more annoying that while I’m sucking wind and clawing at the roots to haul myself up the slippery path, the guy behind me is playing his flute and has his kid on his shoulders. But soon I was grateful when we began digging the ditch through the rocks and roots. Those guys worked tirelessly and within four hours we had five separate streams diverted into one.

Though the water was very dirty from all the digging, we couldn’t wait to see what the difference would be in output until it cleaned itself out. The result was only 10 amps. Well, not quite what we wanted, but we’re halfway there. We still needed more water. We could use another $2,000 worth of pipe to bring water over the valley from the next ridge, but since we didn’t have any pipe, or $2,000, we’re going to have to work with 10 amps.

Since the water was so dirty, we had to clean the intake screen every 20 minutes or so. But over dinner it went a full 40 minutes without a cleaning, and I went up to check it again. With that much water going down that much of a slope creates quite a vacuum when the screen clogs up and no water is available. In the time it took me to eat dinner, the 55 gallon drum we used for our intake totally imploded, crushed under air pressure like a soda can.

In the morning, we dug up the destroyed barrel, and with our one remaining drum, we built another intake, making a few modifications as we went. We made tighter seals to keep water from leaking, changed the way the water flowed over the barrel, and most importantly we made a vent sticking 2 feet out of the barrel so that if the screen ever plugged up again, there would be a place for air to get in and prevent another catastrophic failure. Trial three went off without a hitch and now as I write this, has been working at 10-12 amps consistently for a week now. Now that I’m out of the village in some resemblance of a town, I’m getting materials together to make a pre-filter, to try to cut down on the junk getting stuck in the intake. The problem is, I have to charter a helicopter to take 3 pounds of screen into their tribe. The pilot agreed to drop it off if he’s flying in the area for no charge, which is very good news. However, it just might take several weeks before it gets in there. In the meantime, the tribal missionaries’ batteries are fully charged and there are no problems running their printer to get those materials to the hands of the people, and that’s what’s most important!

Getting into a village isn’t just difficult it’s also very expensive. Our last trip in ended up needing a rebuilt engine in the truck. This trip was a matter of getting all of the hydro power equipment from the closest town where JAARS has their aircraft to the village. The only snag was the airstrip is a two hour hike from the missionaries house. And this wasn’t a stroll through the woods. The mountains we were in are very rugged with steep vertical cliffs, narrow, muddy paths on the edge of those cliffs with numerous streams and rivers to balance on logs over. Considering each of our 9 boxes of parts, tools and equipment weighed 50 pounds we needed a plan B, so we brought in a Helimission Jet Ranger Helicopter to turn that 2 hour+ hike with all our junk into 2, three minute flights.

The airstrip, carved into the steep hillside of the mountains, required our Pilatus Porter to put in almost full power just to taxi up to the top. Here we were met with maybe a couple hundred people from little hamlets all throughout the jungle. These were the indigenous people of Papua, tight black curly hair, dark leathery skin worn from hard years living and working in the jungle. If the plane has room he will take their stuff to town to sell for them. Today they had brought bags and bags of oranges, beans, and there was even a huge pig wrapped tight in rice sacks and vines, struggling to free itself.

The people were very friendly, and everyone wanted to shake our hands. In their culture a handshake is a weak grasping of the others hand with very little shake, then one person extends their index finger slightly bent, the other puts it between their index and middle fingers and pulls hard enough to snap your fingers into your palm. Do that twice and follow up with another weak hand grasp, all the while saying “Wa, wa, wa” over and over. “Wa” we learned, covers for Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, and You’re Welcome. This was a very helpful word! We had about 20 minutes while we waited for the helicopter to arrive to greet every man on the hill. The women stayed together off to the side with the little kids.

Soon the helicopter arrived and we loaded it up under spinning rotors and the scream of the turbine and the terrified pig. When we arrived in the hamlet the missionaries lived in it was “Wa” and finger snapping all over again. The women and children helped up carry our boxes up the hill as most of the men were still at the runway to begin their hike back. By the end of the first day there was a couple of guys who would become good friends with us, being very helpful with finding the right trees to cut down to make boards out of, where to go to divert more water to our stream when we discovered there wasn’t enough to make any sort of power, and always to dig and dig. There was so much digging to do!

By the end of the week and a half, we had so many friends there, the missionaries didn’t bother taking us to the runway. I had fixed so many things for the people, and Jonie had taught many of the women to knit or crochet, sitting with them for hours on the porch every day. When it was time to carry our four bags of clothes and tools back to the runway, (this time there was no helicopter) there was no shortage of people willing, even demanding to carry our stuff and show us the way. I had to even fight to keep my trekking pole that I need since my Filipino motorcycle accident ruined my right foot.

As we passed little hamlets and houses, the people came out to see us. So many we had fixed things for, Jonie had treated for medical issues and taught her crafting skills to. Many had helped me dig, cut wood and lay pipe. We were mutually grateful for each other and we made many stops to snap fingers and show gratitude both ways. The language barrier disappeared long ago and through a simple sign language we are able to communicate with them. Many thanks were given to us on our way out.

The trail wasn’t that long, but at times so narrow it was one foot in front of another, and one misstep would result in a long painful slide to the bottom of the ravine, several hundred feet below. Granted there was no shortage of sharp shale, spiky foliage and jagged sticks to slow or abruptly halt your decent. Some places were so steep it was basically climbing a ladder with slimy roots to grab on the way down. Up, was the same, though at 5000 feet elevation, it was incredible how although my body wasn’t tired, it felt like my heart valves just stayed open in a desperate attempt to move what little oxygen there was through my body.

Several streams had a single or a couple logs laid together to cross, though the fall was only a few feet if you slipped. The big river though was different. We could hear it long before we could see it, and every step told us this wasn’t a river we wanted to cross on a single slippery log. Jonie, who is afraid of anything higher than our two step ladder in the kitchen refused to look over the cliff to see the raging whitewater I was seeing. Huge boulders strewn the entire length at least gave somewhere to tie the logs that were laid down to cross it. It was quite bouncy, but it was a couple feet wide with boards laid so it seemed pretty safe, though I’m not sure when it’s last inspection was, and I had already collapsed one of their rotten bridges falling only 5 feet resulting in nothing more than a bruised elbow. This fall would have more permanent results, however. I made sure I was the only one on the bridge as I crossed, not daring to hesitate, moving quickly to the other side. Jonie did the same, refusing to look past her feet and soon we were ready to scale the cliff on the other side. Again, any slip would involve a few airborne seconds followed by significant pain, but at least this time I wouldn’t drown if I made it through the initial impact. But I don’t know what I was worried about. There was two women behind me with my tools being carried in bags slug off of their foreheads. They were backpacks, but that just wasn’t their custom!

Within another 45 minutes we were at the runway. We beat the missionaries best time, radioed to them we had arrived at the airstrip and began our finger snapping and goodbye saying to all those from this side of the ravine. And hour later the plane finally arrived, we loaded up our 8 passenger Porter with 12 people, and took off for two more villages before we finally made it back to town.

We desperately wanted a bath and to use a toothbrush to clean the dirt out of our nails and various infected wounds aquired throughout the week, but it was not to be. Our next flight out was at 6:30 the next morning and so we spent the next several hours repacking for the next adventure. Is it possible for ones body to go into adventure overload and just shut down? Right now I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus, but no time to wuss out. I’m needed at the hangar!

If there’s something I stress over and over to my disciples, ok my students, it’s using the right tools for the job. Sure, there are times when you just have to take the screws out of the back of your watch with a knife, but use a small knife, not a machete! For this trip, I’m checking water flow and vertical distance in one village, building a hydro system in another, wiring a solar system and house in a third and fixing generators in a fourth.

All of these take very different tools to accomplish the same thing, getting the needs taken care of so the missionary can get back to their tasks of translating, teaching and spreading the Gospel. They have their own tools, and when they break, mine are needed to get them back. It takes a bit of time, and a lot of experience to make a tool list for each place, based on what I think might be the problem. I’ve done most of the tasks many times before, so I find myself asking, “What did I need then?” Now, once you have that list, you put all the tools, parts and pieces you need to do the job in a bag, or in this case 7 boxes, pay $600 in over baggage fees, then pay $800 to ship them from the airport to the town you need them in, to get on the plane and spend another $500 getting them to the village. So $1,900 later (not counting the $2900 it cost to get Jonie and I from the US into one village), you don’t want to realize you forgot something, and if you did, you need to figure out how to make it work without it.

Thanks to Benjamin, my Tech Center right hand man, who helped me think out our hydro installation to the letter and finished with 5 left over lag bolts, 3 inches of the 25 foot strip of plumbers tape, zero tubes of epoxy, and a handful of washers and screws. I wished I had a few of the things I left back in town, but now wasn’t the time to fantasize what could have been.

The most ridiculous use of the wrong tool for the job was our chainsaw. I had a 12 inch log to cut into specific shapes for mounting the turbine and generator to. An 18 inch blade would have done the job quite nicely, but we couldn’t find it, so we were forced to use the 3 1/2 foot blade hooked to the heavy, old cast Stihl saw. It was going to be difficult to get that big honking thing to do the intricate job I needed, like calling in a bulldozer to roto-till your garden, but it was going to be quicker than my chisel and hand saw. However, like everything in the world I try to use, it was broken. It hadn’t run in 6 years, and no one who tried to fix it could get it to do anything.

After a quick going though of the carb, scraping most of the junk out of the gas tank with a stick and rag, everything was put back together and manually filling the fuel bowl with new gas, it fired up in a smokey cloud of noise that brought the whole village to see what happened. It took another hour of fiddling and cleaning before it would run right, but soon we were sawing away with our oversized, overpowered, wrong tool for the job. But it worked beautifully, and I couldn’t have gotten a straighter cut in the wood shop. And later when I needed to cut down a huge tree and turn it into boards, I was grateful for that huge blade!

If you have been following my life for the last 8 or 9 years, you might remember me recounting a story of my trip to Alaska. Though the whole thing was pretty much a lesson in disaster and being prepared there was a time when I met the Lord out on that road. Our truck had just frozen up trying to climb a long hill to Watson Lake, BC. It was 11 pm or so, and at minus 50 degrees it wasn’t a night to be out on those roads. When the carb froze up, it seemed hope began to fade. Half hour later, when the truck wouldn’t start, we couldn’t get it turned around to go back down the hill to a construction camp that was there, I was so cold I couldn’t feel a single part of my body. In those temps with all the engine cranking we were doing, that battery didn’t have a chance and soon wouldn’t turn on the little dome light in the cab. In despair, I laid in the road content to slowly go to sleep and never wake up. In moments, however, the lights of a semi truck washed over me, coming down the hill from the direction we wanted to go. What fool was out here at this time of night besides us?

He stopped and asked if we wanted help, I didn’t even bother to get off the road where I was laying. Climbing down from his truck he ordered me to get in and start up the truck. “The battery is dead,” I said and, “The carb is froze it won’t start.”

“Start it up”, was his reply. So I painfully crawled to my knees and then up into the truck. I was met with darkness when I opened the door, the dome light reminding me this was a foolish endeavor, just go lay back on the highway. But, I turned the key and the truck started right up and purred like it was a summer day, the dome light glow letting me know the charging system is working fine. I threw it into gear, but my frozen joints wouldn’t allow me to let the clutch out with any sort of finesse so the engine stalled, and the dome light disappeared. The truck driver hauled me out, and despite the still dead battery, again started up the truck, turned it around, helped hook the trailer back to it and then followed us down to the construction camp. On our CB radio he asked if we were ok as we pulled into the parking lot. I told him I was, and thanked him for saving our hides. There was no response on the radio. I stopped and looked down the highway, 20 miles of straightaway that showed no tail lights. Our driver, our guardian angel was gone, just like that.

It was this part of my life that was in my mind when an old man handed me his watch after church in the tribe. The missionary translated, “I have been watching you, everything you touch works. You can fix anything.” Though not necessarily true, I took his watch fascinated by his resemblance to my grandfather who is now in the presence of the Guardian of the Alaska Highway, and the healer of batteries. I opened the back of his watch, and using my volt meter, saw that his battery was totally dead. There was no way I could fix it, I had two kinds of watch batteries and neither one would work. So I did the only thing I could, prayed that the Lord would show Himself in this simple thing and heal this battery. In faith, I put it back into it’s case, closed the watch, screwed on the back, and with a deep breath, I turned it over. The time needed to be set properly, but that second hand was ticking away, oblivious to the fact that there wasn’t even a full volt in that 3 volt battery.

The old man gave me a huge grin as he put it back on his wrist. “Wa, wa, wa, wa” over and over, meaning thank you. Who knows how long it hadn’t been working, and only he knew what that watch meant to him, his most expensive worldly possession. As he walked out into the rain to hike back to his home, I thought how awesome it was that God was already here with these people, He didn’t need a flight in, and He was working in their hearts and lives in ways that we in “civilization” are too busy to notice.

Just last week a young woman was killed by her husband. In this culture the family of the young woman receives money from the other village people as a payment to avenge her death. In order to gather the money, tribal men from her village travel around in their war attire and have big feasts to raise money for the family of the deceased.

Upon arrival of each tribe, they do their cultural war dance. Then they holler to the next tribe they will go to. They have a talk and remind each tribe how they are all part of the same village and should stick together and take care of each other.

During the big feasts, they burry sweet potatoes and greens in the ground and cover them with banana leaves. Then they put very hot rocks over the leaves which cooks the food. Over a nearby fire, a pot boils with a spicy seasoning which will be poured over the greens. It had really good flavor!

When the food is ready, the women take the extremely hot food out of the pit and the men carry it to each house where the women and children are.

Once the food has been eaten, the men pass out beetle-nut to chew and cigarets to smoke. After this has happened, a family member asks for money of the people in the tribe. As each person comes forward with money to give, the family member says thank you, “Wa” over and over again while crying loudly.

We saw many come forward giving lots of money for the young woman’s family.

While Jason worked hard on tech things, I was more than happy to help the tribal missionary’s wife around the house. Doing dishes, cleaning floors, emptying garbage, watching literacy teaching, helping at the medical clinic, burning and taking food to the pigs, cleaning and setting the table, preparing meals, doing laundry, helping put lessons together for the new believers, and running back and forth when Jason needed a part or a tool were just some of the things I enjoyed doing in the Ingles’ tribe. I have to say that doing dishes with a view like this was one of my favorite things to do!

There is always much to do when each meal has to be made from scratch, the house gets dirty so quickly with all the mud from the rain each night, and tribal people are constantly showing up on the porch who are sick and need medication. It sure is a busy life, but one that is so fulfilling when I know I’m doing exactly what God wants exactly where He wants.

Three times a week, new believers whom have already gone through the first phase of the chronological teaching, gather for additional teaching as the missionaries continue the lessons through the New Testament. After going through the Gospels, they dig into Acts and Romans. Regularly they take communion together, and it was such an honor to “break bread” with them remembering what Jesus did for each of us. Because bread isn’t anywhere to be found out here in the jungle, they use what is available: sweet potatoes and water.

In Jesus’ time, bread was their staple food and wine kept them from getting sick, cleansing their bodies of impurities. Here, the sweet potato is their staple, one for every meal, man, woman and child. And their communion water was filtered, the only water they drank that was guaranteed to keep them from getting amoeba or dysentery.  The food and liquid that sustain life. Though it may be odd for us, it’s exactly the picture Christ was portraying to his disciples, and the tribal believers understand just what he was saying.

One of the missionaries’ kids asked me later why tears fell from my eyes as we took the sweet potato and cup of water. I told her that it was such a special thing for us all to remember our Savior together. I cannot speak their language, and I know nothing about their culture. I’m just a visitor passing through, but I was just reminded of the importance of taking communion and remembering what He did for me.

From the time I (Jonie) was little, my mom taught me how to knit. And though this has been a hobby since I was young, God used it in a special way in the jungles of Papua this past week.

The ladies here make a special bag, a yume, in which they place their belongings and take with them everywhere. Every man, woman and child has at least one yume with them at almost all times. They use these bags to carry everything from food to even their kids. For years the women have gathered the fiber, rolled the fiber on their legs (our version is a spinning wheel), and then through a very, very time-consuming process, they make these bags with a very small needle and handed down methods.

The tribal missionaries have shown them how to crochet in the past year. And just a few weeks ago, visitors of the missionaries came and taught the tribal people how to crochet different things. And now I’m here, and so excited to sit with the ladies and work on projects with them. I might not be able to speak a single word to them, but the missionaries help translate. I have been able to teach them how to hats, and I have learned so much from them. I’m certainly no expert, but to them who have never even seen knitting needles or worsted weight, wool yarn, I am the best expert around. I’m thankful to use what I already know to help the ladies make things for their families in an easy and fast way.

It seems that through life, we all have things that come up which we just don’t understand. Our human minds cannot fathom why God would allow things. We don’t get why things happen, and sometimes we ask God, “Why?”

Tribal missionaries, Tim and Rebecca, and their two girls have lived in two different tribal locations. After building a house and spending years learning a language and building relationships, for some reason, God closed the door for the family to live there any longer, and they had to leave.

This move forced them to a new village, to build a new home to make new friends. Yet this is where God has placed them, in a jungle above the clouds. God has already used them greatly in the short time they have been here.

They live here with their two beautiful daughters, Lilly and Eva. The girls play with the tribal kids and even know some of the language. They have many years ahead of them involved in teaching and translating. Please pray they will have the endurance needed so that all those in this tribe will hear the Good News.

For years and years, generations after generations many of the babies and children do not survive. And commonly no one lives longer than sixty years of age. Illnesses come and the young and old tribal people get sick and die. A tribal man came to the missionaries recently and told them how amazing it was that there were so many children in the villages now. He told them that since the missionaries have been giving medicine and taking care of the sick, very few have died and now there is an abundance of children.

Not only is God using the tribal missionaries to save the physical lives of the  people, but He is ripening the harvest of His future children. More people surviving means more who will be here to Hear the Big Talk that the missionaries have come to share.