NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Greetings from Autumny Missouri,

…Settling In…
We trust this finds each of you enjoying God’s goodness this fall season. We have been enjoying the house God has provided for us and watching the leaves change colors all around us. Anna and I have begun to feel settled in here as we piddle about doing home projects, but we could still use prayer for our children’s various adjustments.

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Dear praying friends,

So sorry for not giving you an update after our Thailand trip two whole months ago! Fact is, we were going back-and-forth on some important decisions and didn’t want to send an update and then another update that we had changed our minds!

Our time in Thailand was very profitable both as a family together for R & R and also meeting with advisors and counselors. I was able to receive help and encouragement with seasonal depression as well as counseling with Anna Marie. Katie was able to receive guidance counseling for her time after high school as well as taking some aptitude and personality tests. I was also able to see and eye doctor and get a thorough check as well as reparative surgery on one of my eyes. All in all, I was in some type of appointment or surgery all but one of our 12 days there! Somehow I found time on my one day off on Sunday to go on a mountain bicycling tour up in the mountains! We also enjoyed walking around the Chiang Mai night bazaars as well as the Thai food, Indian food, sunny weather and we were able to take Kurt across town three times to hang out and skateboard with Thai teens. No, Kurt’s still 10 years old, but all the other guys that tend to skateboard in Asia seem to be teens and older!

After our time in Thailand we thought we would be able to continue on here in Indonesia until the summer of 2010 at which point we would take our year-long furlough. But in this past month we’ve realized that we really need to bump that up to this summer mostly for the sake of our two older girls, Katie and Grace, 18 and 16 years old. Rather than waiting until the summer of 2010 to take time out from ministry to deal with family issues, we really feel the Lord leading us to deal with these things beginning this summer in order to make it possible for returning to Indonesia to continue ministry for the long haul. Because we’ve only taken six months of furlough time in six years of ministry in Indonesia, we are still due just shy of a year for furlough right now.

So where will we be relocating for the next year? It appears that the Lord is leading us back to Missouri where we served with the New Tribes Language Center (now MTC or Missions Training Center) for almost 8 years. This area is the closest place to “home” that our children have. I will not be teaching at the MTC for this year-long furlough, but will be close enough to visit friends there and see how the program has changed and visit with families heading to Indonesia as missionaries. As an orientation coordinator in Indonesia where we are getting around 15 new families per year, it will be good to see what their Stateside training is like now. If the Lord wills, I can plug back in there to teach some if needed too.

To see more photos of our trip, please go to Photos/Thailand Trip

Please be praying for:

1. Our transition from here saying “goodbye for now” to friends and coworkers as well as wrapping up final responsibilities and passing the torch to others.
2. For our children in this transition, especially Katie and Grace who have made many close Indonesian friends.
3. For finances for the transition including plane tickets, finding housing, travel out to California to see my mom and home church family. We will also clear our stuff out of my mom’s storage as she plans to sell her house and downsize moving to a more manageable home.
4. For us finding the right house in the right area of Missouri with the right church for our family, right school system, and neighbors. We’re sure God is going ahead in all of this!
5. For the Orientation team we leave behind as they get ready for a large group of new families in July and November.
6. For continued open doors for new missionaries to Indonesia and for our plans to return in the future.

Praise:
1. For God giving us clear direction in this time.
2. For the past six years of ministry in Indonesia.
3. For prayer partners and givers to the ministry back in our home country.
4. For our families health.
5. For our field leadership that gives guidance and direction to all of us here.
6. For our coworkers, both Indonesian and other nationalities, and the unity that God has given us as a team.

Please contact us if you would like us to visit your church and share about what God is doing in Indonesia! You can most easily contact me through email, john_weeks@ntm.org as we don’t have a phone number yet.

On this journey together,

Thanking God for each one of you,

John, Anna Marie, Katie, Grace, Paula and Kurt

Dear Praying Friends,

We’re leaving town again, but this time as a whole family, minus Paula. This was a bit sudden, but works best in our schedule right now before Anna’s brother comes to visit and before the next group of new families in April. We’ll be heading to Thailand for more medical as well as some counseling. That’s a bit vague, but we really need direction as we’d like to wait until the summer of 2010 for our year-furlough, but may need to head home this summer depending on several factors. Since coming off 2 ½ years of hard medication for my eye disease I’ve really had lots of depression and other symptoms I need looking into if we’re going to keep on here. I was told beforehand of the side-effects of the eye disease medication, but it was the only medication available if I wanted to keep my eyesight! My father too was treated much of his adult life for depression but was faithful to stay on his medication. I was told 21 years ago that I had it too and had to be on medication for life, but decided to go off it after only a couple months.

Also, our eldest daughter graduates high school this May, but we’d really like to find something profitable for her to do for the year until we head home on furlough. This may include the local university in town or the language school as well as keeping up the pie business with her sister. Katie is also experiencing medical issues possibly related to chemical imbalance which she experienced some as a small child; my older sister has it pretty severely but won’t take her meds. Please pray for Katie and I as we see doctors and as all of us seek counseling on what to do and which course we should take, either continuing on here in Indonesia until our furlough in May of 2010 or heading home earlier for treatment and helping Katie get settled into life in the U.S., whether with a job or college.

Thanks for your prayers,

In this together,

John, Anna Marie, Katie, Grace, Paula and Kurt

“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux

Travels here and travels there…Thanks so much for your prayers the past couple of weeks during all of our travels. Anna, Katie and Grace made it safely to Jakarta for some medical appointments, but not without event! They first headed to the airport an hour away from our home (they had found plane tickets cheaper than train tickets so thought that would make the trip quicker and easier)around 10:00 a.m. with the plane scheduled to leave at 11:40 a.m.. But, due to local flooding, they were delayed 8 1/2 hours along with all other passengers from other delayed flights. Even the train station was closed as the tracks were under water! The doctor there in Jakarta, an Indonesian trained in the U.S., was very thorough and ran a complete battery of tests on Katie who had been suffering from a lot of random, but disconcerting symptoms this whole past year. Most everything checked out fine, but he was a little concerned at the results of an ultrasound that showed very slow moving digestion which could be due to several things. We’ve decided to treat this with diet and exercise for now, but are also looking into pursuing some more tests that have to do with other possible causes. How’s that for keeping things vague? Let’s just say we’d appreciate your prayers as we look into things!!!

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

While Anna, Katie, and Grace were still in Jakarta, Paula left for Kalimantan where she helped with the youth program for their regional conference. Her flight left out of the same airport on time! PTL! She traveled with three other couples heading there for the conference. Paula had a great time “being on her own” as well as working with the children. Paula made all the colorful posters for the teaching on the 7 C’s of History, Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, the Cross, and Consummation. She also got to teach the lesson on Catastrophe, about the Flood and Noah building the ark.

Finally, I traveled to Kalimantan to lead two tribal team “kick-offs” for the Da’an and Sekadau teams. My trip overlapped with Paula and we were in the same location so we got to room together! Everybody had good things to say about Paula and her connecting with the little kids! I was able to team teach with Mike Henderson who did the church-planting part of the team kick-offs and Shane Whatley who is a consultant-in-training. The team kick-offs are to help with relationships between the consultant and the tribal teams, to help keep church-planting in focus, to review and instruct with language-learning techniques, and to motivate them before they move into their tribal locations. We were also able to meet with native speakers of each of the two language-groups who had moved out to town. Normally, the kick-offs are done on-site in the tribal locations, but because of logistics this time we met in town. To see more pictures of this kick-off and others as well as some pictures of Paula working with the youth, go to our website under Photos, Tribal Team Kick-Offs.

Thanks again for your prayers these days,

In this together,

John, Anna Marie, Katie, Grace, Paula and Kurt

One of my responsibilities of being here is working each day with our newest language-learners. For a period of 10 weeks, we go out everyday on what we call “culture and language excursions.” We take all the different transportation around town, go to the market, to the rice fields, to the Post Office, various factories, tailors, universities and basically all over this region! The students take photographs of each excursion and use these as a platform to learn the language and culture associated with that excursion! They do all of this with Indonesian language helpers and my guidance.

Please check out our Photos tab under the album Language Consulting to see more photos of excursions. Check out our other albums if you have time!

One of our final excursions was to a local coffee plantation, one of my favorite trips! It was interesting to study that coffee is not native to Java! What, but we call coffee “Java!” The plants were smuggled out of Ethiopia-Yemen in the 17th century by a Dutch botanist who took the live plants (punishable by death) to the Netherlands to be studied. The Dutch realized the plants would flourish in the Dutch East Indies, or Indonesia, specifically in the mountains of Java. Since the Dutch occupied Indonesia (controlled it for 350 years until 1941 when Japan occupied it during WWII) they forced the people to grow coffee rather than rice. There was a subsequent famine because now they were growing coffee instead of enough rice! The initial plants were Arabica, but there was a “rust plague” that killed many of those plants. These were replaced with Robusta, a more hardy plant. The Arabica is still grown at the highest of altitudes and contains less caffeine.

Every Friday we all get together with our Indonesian language helpers for group session. We each share new cultural and linguistic discoveries as well as play language games. This past week we played a language game in order to study conjunctions and “transition phrases” and how to logically and meaningfully flow from one sentence or thought to the next. We first brainstormed the conjunctions and “transition phrases” that we use in English such as but, and, however, after that, unlike, actually, fortunately, therefore, meanwhile …etc. Then we brainstormed which “transition phrases” or conjunctions we’ve heard in Indonesian so far. Then one of our language helpers began a story and each of us would add a couple sentences to the story using these “connector” and “transition” phrases. We realized that each of us in our own language only uses a certain set or “arsenal” of phrases and words to connect our thoughts together and certain connector phrases are only used when writing, preaching, or publicly speaking.

Then we shared blunders or cultural mistakes that we each make. I shared how just a couple weeks ago I was sharing with an Indonesian about our friend who had died. I remembered a colloquial phrase and said “dia berkarat,” but used the wrong prefix. What I had said is “she is rusty” where the phrase I wanted “dia sekarat” means “she was dying!” In speaking about the realm of dying, there are many potential blunders just waiting for us to stumble upon! When a person dies you must use “meninggal” whereas when an animal dies you use “mati.” However when you are in church you will hear about Christ’s death as “Yesus mati” not “Yesus meninggal” where in spiritual terminology you use the word for “death” that refers to animals dying as opposed to people dying when talking about “Christ’s death!” When you go to a funeral (you go to all neighborhood funerals) you tell the family “Kami turut berdukacita” which means “we join in your sorrow,” but be careful not to use the word “bersukacita” instead of “berdukacita” because that means you “rejoice” with them! And the cultural and linguistic mine field goes on and on and …

Please be praying for Paula and I as we each take trips to another island for ministry. Paula leaves in just four more days to help with the youth program during a regional conference. I travel in one more week and will help with “team kick-offs” for two of our tribal teams. Please pray for me as I still have lots to prepare! Please pray also for Anna Marie as she travels leaving in one more day for Jakarta with Katie and Grace for a medical trip. Katie has been having some medical problems that need to be addressed by a good doctor. Please pray for the three of them to have a profitable trip, for answers to Katie’s medical problems, and for safety and a fun time sharing and traveling together.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support,

John for the Weeks family