for another adventure!

This time we are returning to the lovely country of Colombia with its dramatic rainforests, mountains, and colorful cultures. We will need to pack warm clothes because temperatures in Bogotá will be cooler than most of the places we travel (44 – 65 F). But the delicious hot chocolate and Colombian coffee will warm us up! 

We look so forward to the fellowship with all our dear Colombian friends and co-workers and are thrilled for the opportunity to bring encouragement and practical help in the area of literacy. The motto of the team in Colombia is “boldly pressing forward!” Because of security concerns, the missionaries face great obstacles and risks, yet they serve faithfully in 10 different tribal groups. We are convinced of the great value literacy skills will be to these isolated tribal people.

Our three main focuses:

• To help teach the literacy course in their missionary training center. This prepares Colombian believers to join the work as tribal missionaries.
• To meet with tribal missionary teams, evaluating their literacy situations and giving practical help so that the tribal people may read God’s Word in their own languages with good comprehension
• To continue to equip literacy consultants

Will you join us in prayer?

• For safety in travel – for us and all the missionaries traveling out of their areas
• Good health during a hectic schedule
• For clear communication in Spanish – the vast majority of missionaries there are our Colombian brothers and sisters! This means that all of our meetings and classes will be done in Spanish.
• For wisdom as we teach the literacy course to the missionary candidates and also meet with the tribal missionary teams.
• For the country of Colombia. While there have been great strides in recent years toward resolving issues, there still are vast areas that are considered too dangerous to enter. This limits access to the more than 50 language groups that are still unreached and without the Gospel. Let’s pray that God will work in a mighty way that His Message can go out into these areas.

So as God brings us to mind during these next few weeks, we sure appreciate your prayers!

It is a location known for amazing diversity in wildlife, plants and scenery. There you will find the world’s largest lizard, the Komodo Dragon; the world’s largest snake, the Reticulated Python; the world’s largest flower, the Rafflesia; and the world’s largest bee, the Chalocodoma Pluto. 

So…did you guess Indonesia? Joyce and I can hardly wait for the opportunity to work with the missionaries and the tribal churches. We will be there from April 5th through May 14th.

Please pray for:

• The details of traveling…flight connections, physical stamina for the 13 hour time zone change, paperwork and customs in different countries with different languages!

•Prepared hearts for us and those that we will be serving (missionaries, tribal church leaders, consultants). How we want to be instruments that God can use to build His Church among tribal people in Indonesia! Please pray for God’s wisdom as we listen, learn and minister.

•And for the Kuna churches in Panama as they continue to send their own missionaries into unreached villages. We just got an update from Kuna co-worker in a new work where God’s Word is changing lives. Please also pray for the ongoing final revisions of the Kuna Old Testament translation being worked on by our dear friends and coworkers, Keith & Wilma Forster and the Kuna translation team.

We need and are counting on your prayers!

preparing missionary candidates for literacy ministries

How exciting! A brand new year in which we will serve our Lord together. May many more tribal groups hear the Word of God for the first time in this coming year. We continue to do our little part in His big plan for the world. We have been working with Wendy Rees, helping to equip her for her new ministry as the literacy coordinator for Latin America. We were blessed to have some concentrated training on a computer program that helps missionaries organize all their tribal language and culture information and then uses that for literacy, as well as linguistics, Bible translation, Bible lesson writing, etc. This will enable us and Wendy to better help with some of the tedious language analysis necessary to develop literacy programs.

Later this month, Joyce and I head out to MO, where the New Tribes Missionary candidates receive their training before being sent out to the mission fields around the world. Our focus will be on literacy training, but pray that we will also be a help and encouragement to all those preparing for missionary service during the weeks that we will be there. We dread the cold! It’s been a long time since we have had to deal with winter…brrr.

So often as we travel we have to ask ourselves, “Were we as great a blessing as we were blessed?” This was the case again as we returned from a trip to Mexico!

Our hearts were so encouraged by the quality and commitment of the missionary candidates studying at the training center. The staff ministering there are doing a great job of imparting not just the technical things about mission work, but a real passion and urgency in the ministry.

We enjoyed every minute of our time in Mexico, taking the students through the steps necessary for motivating, producing and teaching literacy in tribal settings. Each one practiced by teaching the class a literacy lesson they developed.

Can you imagine what God will do through this group as they minister in tribal groups throughout Mexico?

How does one put together a literacy program for a tribal group? What syllables should be taught first? What can be done for groups that are already somewhat literate in Spanish, but not their own language? These are some of the topics covered in an upcoming literacy course in Mexico!

There are technical parts like analyzing the grammar and choosing the best syllables to introduce first in the primers. But we also desire to share with the students our passion for how important literacy is to the spiritual growth of tribal churches! We will be training an instructor at the mission institute to teach the literacy course in the future.

After the course is done, we will have several more days in Mexico working with consultants and tribal missionaries, looking at printed materials in the tribal languages and working to see literacy programs move forward in the best way possible.

Joyce & I, along with our friend and co-worker Wendy Rees, are teaching classes on literacy programs to missionary candidates here in Bolivia.

These classes cover ways that literacy is an important part of our goal of seeing strong tribal churches, how missionary teams can be working towards literacy even in those first months of language study, how to motivate people to want to learn to read, how to analyze the language information to decide what order to introduce letters, etc.

The students are doing so well and have written the first lessons of their practice primers. Next week each student will teach one of their literacy lessons to the class, using the blackboard exercises, flashcards, writing practice, and comprehension questions. So they are beginning to sweat! It’s kind of nice to be the teachers and not the students!

We sure are enjoying the students in their zeal to be equipped for the ministries God has for them among unreached tribal groups here in Bolivia.

Joyce and I are preparing to fly to Bolivia next week. We are so excited for the opportunity to teach a course on literacy to the missionary candidates, preparing them to work among tribal groups.

Our hearts’ desire is not only to cover the technical details of literacy programs, but to leave a passion for the important part literacy plays in strong, mature tribal churches. After the literacy course, we will have several days working with a missionary team in a tribal location on literacy and materials.

Please pray for God’s wisdom as we serve our dear co-laborers. We also are relying on Him for health, strength and stamina. During these trips we are interacting with people 24/7, eating different foods, drinking different water, sleeping in different beds, working in many different languages, and seeking to bring help and encouragement to many different situations.

February will find me in the country of Bolivia. Our team will be meeting with missionaries at several different locations.

Over the years, God has done amazing things in Bolivia, but there still is work to be done! We are thankful for the opportunity to share the load and assist the missionaries there in seeing strong churches established in the eight tribes that NTM is currently working with and move forward in their goals of reaching three other unevangelized groups.

Sadly, Joyce will not be able to make this trip to Bolivia. She had a small stroke the end of December and we’ve been working through medical tests. Several things have shown up which can be treated by medications, but she’s not able to travel for a bit until things are regulated. Knowing my girl, she’ll keep working on the Kuna literacy program and get all sorts of projects that we’ve been working on completed while I’m away!

Bolivia is the final country in our region that we have yet to visit! So this trip will be our introduction to the field and missionaries there. Pray that we will be a blessing and encouragement to all that we meet there.