John and Kay Abbott, Jr. Equipping Missionaries for Tribal Church Planting Painting Projects
Please pray for two new painting projects I need to do this summer: One is for church VBS, and one is a background scene to use in the Culture course. I would appreciate your prayers that I do a good job on both.
To view some painting projects, CLICK HERE
To view some mural painting projects, CLICK HERE
The Joking Chins of 2009
If you want some crazy fun, mix a bunch of Missionary Kids with Bible lessons, singing, swimming, crafts…and JOKING CHINS!
Three kids lay on their backs, their heads hanging over the edge of a table, chins pointing up toward the ceiling. Put a pillow under the neck so it is more comfortable. Then, using white sheets and clothespins, make it so only the mouth and chin sticks out. 
Then comes the fun part - using black craft paint, put a couple dots for eyes and smaller dots for the nose. I like to add hair or a moustache on a couple for variety.
Have the “chins” open their mouths really wide! Then have them do funny things with their chin, like stiffen it, or pucker it. Today, we had them tell jokes and sing happy birthday! The best joke was voted on by the class. Hilarious!
Tie-Dye
This year we tried a couple of new ideas, like adding marbles and coins inside our rubber bands.
Marshmallow Shooters
These are always a huge success! I’m guessing the ants think so too, since not only do the kids make these shooters, but they have a “fight” with them in my yard.
For more pictures of all the fun we had, click here!
Spring 2009 Missionary Training Center Graduates
After years of preparation and specialized training, students are graduating from New Tribes Mission’s Missionary Training Center! While this group may be small due to course changes, they pack a powerful representation of Christ’s love to the world. So…Pray with them as they delve into new geography, culture and language!
Graduation at the Missionary Training Center
Wow. Once again, a group of wonderful people have finished New Tribes Mission’s training program. We thank God for each one of them! Please pray for them as most of them will be traveling a lot over the next several months, and will also be preparing for a move overseas.
Going tribal
This fall we have 82 students coming back from all over the country. Most of them have already completed 2 years of Bible College plus their first year of missions training. For the majority, this will be their last semester of school before they head overseas. The first thing those students will do when they get overseas is to begin learning the culture and the language of that country. For example, if they go to Mexico, they would spend the first 1-2 years learning Spanish. If they went to Brazil, it would be Portuguese, etc.
This fall, I will be helping to teach a course that prepares them for that task. A number of the faculty, myself included, will be dressing up and acting out the part of a tribal person 1-2 times a week over the first couple months. After having studied important principles and methods in the classroom, our students will be coming to us and practicing what they’ve learned. My students will be learning a little of the Indonesian language from me as well as beginning to investigate a tribal culture that I will be portraying. Kay will play the part of a tribal lady during part of this time as well. We’ve found this time to be both an enjoyable and practical part of the student’s overall preparation for going overseas.
I finished the Murals! Check out the paintings
For the past two years, the youth group has had a themed banquet, put on by the staff and non-seniors. I always enjoy helping out by painting some murals as part of the scenery.
The theme for this year’s teen banquet was the far east…. With some help from John and Luke, we constructed a 3D moongate and a pagoda. Luke also worked on an animated fountain to be shown on a large screen, and John made some wooden swords.
For the most part we kept the theme a secret from the seniors, though I think they had a pretty good idea by the time the banquet actually came around.
Everything was very beautiful, and the food, eaten by chopsticks, great as well.
Click here to check out the pictures of our murals, swords, and other interesting scenes.
Wiggling ears, holy socks, and precious memories
"I remember all the holes in his socks!" said another. "What I remember," replied yet another, "Is how when ever I stayed overnight, I would wake up and always see grandpa sitting at the table with his Bible and his coffee."
This was Christmas…an unexpected different -than- usual Christmas. The living room was packed, and memory after memory was shared around the room about my Dad, who had passed away only 10 days earlier.
Family members were not the only ones to talk about how special my Dad was…when I went into the florist shop to help figure out the floral arrangements for the funeral, a teacher of mine who worked there shared about how years ago Dad had found out she and her children needed wood. He and my uncle loaded up a truckload of wood and brought it to her. This was my Dad. This was normal. He and my mom were always helping somebody.
This "helping others" was not "good works" to my Dad. He didn’t do it to earn a spot in heaven. Dad would be the first to tell you that wouldn’t work. Salvation is a free gift from God, and not based on our works.
So why did Dad help others? Why did he spend time, money and energy on others…especially when he was usually pressed for time, money, and energy himself? I believe it was because Dad, motivated by the love of Christ, genuinely cared about how others were doing. He was a hard-working, strong-as-an-ox farmer who was a bit of a "softie." He truly "did unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Now, our whole family is experiencing "others doing unto us." The outpouring of love, food, cards, gifts, memories, verses, words of encouragement, work, and much much more has been appreciated. And yes, my uncle, the same uncle who helped Dad bring a load of wood to my teacher, brought over a load of wood for my mom…
For more photos (and precious memories) click here
PARANOIA!
I hollered that I had trouble over the walkie-talkie to Terry who was driving ahead of us, and glided to a stop along the side of the road.
Nearly two years ago one of my fellow instructors came up with the hair-brained idea of taking our students to Mexico for a month to practice what we’d been teaching them in the classroom. We’ve been preparing for that on and off ever since. In early October of this year we embarked. Four staff, 12 students, and three children all headed south of the border.
Before I left, one of the passages of Scripture that God had impressed upon me was the one in Hebrews 3 where He says, “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” Here God is telling us not to be like the ancient Israelites whom Moses led out of Egypt. In spite of seeing some of the greatest miracles of all time, they continually failed to trust God.
Well, I had plenty of opportunities to trust God on this trip. And consistent with His promises, God went with us and took good care of us. When we were traveling up into the mountains to get to our destination in Mexico, and a pulley really did fall off the engine of the van I was driving, God provided some construction workers 
to find a new part and put it back on for us.
One of our main concerns going down was finding enough Mexican folks in the town we were to stay in who would spend time with our students every day, helping them to learn Spanish and become familiar with the community. God worked that out too. Every person we’d talked to ahead of time about helping our students came through for us and did a great job.
Our students were able to get to know some very special Mexican folks. And they were able to make progress in their ability to communicate with them in Spanish. All this was done in the context of having to live and work together in fairly rustic conditions. In spite of my own tendency to get up tight and worry about how things were all going to work out, God was faithful and met all of our needs.
As a reminder of how God took care of me, I was awarded a special homemade plaque complete with the car part that fell off and landed on that road in Mexico! All my students and co-workers signed it.
Click here to check out MEXICO pictures!
Thank you so much for praying!
Mexico!
After approximately 3700 miles, way too much hot sauce, and not enough sleep, John safely made it back from Mexico.
He visited the camp where some of our students will spend some time practicing what they have learned at our Mission Training Center, particularily in the areas of language learning and culture.
This will be the first time this part of our training happens in Mexico. There are yet many details to work out, so your prayers are much appreciated!
To check out photos of Mexico and the camp, click here!
A different kind of project
The project I am painting is a small mural on each side of the door that leds into NTM’s TECH CENTER.
BEFORE
The Tech Center is quite a place! Their goal is to train missionaries to manage the physical aspects of living in remote locations. That means learning about water filtration, lightning protection, solar panels, and hydrodynamics. You can imagine how difficult it would be to figure all this out on your own. Often the Tech Center custom designs and assembles the equipment used in these unique living conditions. And if a missionary has technical problems, the Tech Center gives advice. I’m sure their email box is full everyday from questions around the world!
Click here to see how my artwork progressed and view other art projects of mine…
FINISHED