NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

We completed our Bush Orientation!!! We spent the past two months in the Jungles of the East Sepik of Papua New Guinea. Veteran missionaries Brooks and Nina Buser hosted us and oriented us as we cotinued our Tok Pisin study, learned the life and the work of men and women in the bush, saw a new healthy functioning tribal church, learned about bringing literacy to a tribal group, saw the translation process and how the Tribal men or women actually gets the Bible in their own heart language, and so so so much more. The Leaders of the Church were amazing, men and women who all their lives had been in utter darkness and within the past 7 years had come to know Jesus from a foundational understanding. Their stories of orgin and life and customs had been displaced by the Truth of Jesus and God’s Word to them. Their own testimony was that they were able to weigh out the stories of the past that were empty and vague and continually changing in detail to the written word of God, newly translated into their heart language. They were able to present this even as they taught their own people in their own churches in their own context. They were able to impress on me some ideas that had not yet impacted my thinking … they knew that their sancutary didnt need, chairs or carpeting or a sound system or A/C or even walls that went all the way up to the ceilings. They knew this church was theirs to maintain, and if the missionaries had started with all that there would be no way to maintain it simply because that is not what they do. So the wisdom in the thatch roof, four post cornered, dirt floored, half walled worship center was pricisley the thing that fit the culture of these people! The teachers were so humble and although the role could produce the idea of a ‘Big Man’ they constantly downed themselves and upped Christ. This was no pomp or pride simply humble men teaching Gods word in their heart language. These believers also took on the role of discipling our family in a physical way to. They taught us what is takes for the average family to survive in the jungle. And the work is hard. I kept thinking (especially after the guy’s axe skipped off the tree and cracked his shin to the bone, then tied a shirt around it and kept chopping) the work that these people encounter on a day to day show the curse that God pronounced on mankind ‘by the sweat of your brow’….
Yet as believers now they took it all in stride. To the point they even took out of their days of finding and harvesting food to help us with Tok Pisin, trusting that God would provide as the work of teaching us language and sendig us out to another tribe was a task on them that was more important than even their ‘daily bread’. The time wasn’t always encuraging especially as we encountered jungle rashes, surgery on Lauren’s leg, swollen eyes, Cellulitis, Infections, hard work, long hikes, no facebook and a combined hundreds of mosquito bites. Yet the Lord was always there to come alongside us and point to the craziest testimonies of men and women of the Jungle experiencing Grace simply because some people responded in obedience to the call of all Christians to ‘Go and make disciples!’. All of it came into perspective in those moments, the ones where we seemed furthest from anything or anyone familiar and comfortable. The result total trust that this is completely worth it. And, as we daily consider the cost we are humbled to be here doing this type of a work!
Thank you for sending us.
In Christ,
Justin for the Rees Family
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