NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Living out in the village, we often feel the need for fellowship with other believers. Especially on Sunday, we feel this desire to fellowship with the family of God. While there is no church here in the village, there is a church plant in a community about 20 minutes away from us. Kris and I decided that we would start attending the services there in this community. We had to laugh at all we had to go through to, “go to church” and how there were so many excuses to keep us home. ha First of all, Kris has to go down to our aluminum boat and clean all the mud and water out, then he hauls our 5 horse power motor down the hill to the river where he hooks it on the boat. Meanwhile, here at the house, I get a backpack ready with toilet paper, bug spray, extra clothes and anything else I think we might need for the morning. After this, the kids and I dress in somewhat nice clothes and walk the 150 yards through the mud down to the boat (carrying our shoes, or course). When we get down to the boat, we try to climb into the boat without getting our clothes too muddy and stick our feet in the river to wash the mud off. Off we go! Kris is getting good at driving us in the boat and it is pretty fun sailing down the river in the early morning. We arrive at our destination and climb out, walk through the mud barefoot, wash our feet off in the water barrel outside the church and put our shoes on. We walk into the church with many stares directed our way but also with many smiles. We don’t know any of the songs they sing but we clap our hands and try to follow along as best as we can. It’s good to see this little group of believers, their smiles, and their desire to serve the Lord. We enjoy the fellowship and then we head back home, exhausted but glad that we went to the effort!

I know for sure that crippling thoughts come to us like an unexpected rainstorm. “Is it worth it?” “Am I doing anything here, and is this isolation really worth it?” Just like a storm, we can find ourselves in a dark gloomy state and dripping with doubt. Satan often uses thoughts just like these to discourage us and to bring us down. I hope you all don’t get too much bubble gum on your face as I might be bursting your giant, super spiritual, has no problems bubble of what a missionary is like. We face these very thoughts almost daily it seems. It is a daily struggle and daily we have to preach God’s Word and Truth to ourselves that what we are doing is definitely worth it!! One night I was suddenly awakened by the shouting of my name. I stumbled out of my bed to find Herbert at our veranda door. I opened the door and he came up on the veranda and sat down in the dark. At this time I did not really know what was going on, just thought that it was a weird time to come visit but sat down with him. He began to mumble about various odd topics in Spanish and it slowly dawned on me that my friend had drank just a little too much “piyarentsi”, fermented manioc drink. I attempted to use my Spaniguese (mixing my Portuguese with what little Spanish I know) and began explaining to him the Gospel and what he needed in His life was Jesus, not “piyarentsi”. He was quiet as a mouse and I began revving up and my tongue got looser as I began to really preach it to him. I thought to myself as I shared with him, wow he is really listening. I carried on for a few minutes and then turned on my flashlight only to find Herbert fast asleep across from me. Ok, that explains the lack of interruptions and attentive listening. Ha! I did finally wake him up after much effort. Before he left my porch that evening he broke down crying and said, “Kris, I have no value…I am worthless!” Those words still bring tears to my eyes as I write this. I felt so helpless as I could not tell him in his own language how much God loved him and that he is very valuable in God’s sight. Yes, it is worth it, because Herbert has worth, he is precious in God’s sight! Thank you all so much for praying for us as we serve the Lord amongst the Ash!

Lucy and I have been back in the village for about a week now. All our travels went well though I did not enjoy traveling without Kris! I didn’t realize all the details that he takes care of until I had to be the one doing it all! It was so good to get back though and see that Kris, Baylee and Dawson did well here without us. We have a new neighbor lady who moved into the hut behind our house. She is just here visiting her parents but she has spent a lot of time here at our house. She only speaks Ash but it doesn’t seem to discourage her that I can’t understand everything she says, she just keeps talking until I figure it out. She is really curious about everything that we do and will even sit beside me while I write emails and ask me what every word I type means. She even sits by me when I am reading to the kids and makes me stop every so often to explain the picture or what I read. It can be kind of frustrating for the kids. She asked me why I lived here and I tried my best to explain to her that we had moved from a far away country because we wanted to learn her language and tell her God’s story. The part that really seemed to amaze her was that I had left my family to come here. She is different than the Ash women we live with as these women tend to be very shy. Tahe is her name, please pray for her and all the Ash as we strive to learn their language so that we can tell them God’s story.

Lucy, the lovely young lady who is here helping us this semester has to make a trip. She is here right now on a tourist visa and she is allowed to be here in the country for 90 days. However, after 90 days, she can renew her visa for 90 more days. So, her 90 days are almost up and she has to make a long journey to renew her visa. I will accompany her for part of her trip, along with Ayla and Colton. So, next week, we will once again spend one day on the river and then do a short air taxi flight to our supply town. The kids and I will stay there while Lucy takes another flight to renew her visa in a larger city. We will wait for her return and then we will all come back together to the village. Kris, Baylee and Dawson will be staying here in the village. Please pray that Lucy would be able to renew her visa for 90 more days! Lucy has been such a blessing to us these past couple of months and we hope that she will be able to stay with us through the end of December. Pray for the travels ahead and for Kris and the kids staying here! I am hoping that we will not be out of the village any more that a week but I know that things don’t always go as planned and I want to be flexible.

Even though we are in the rain forest, fresh fruit isn’t as easy to find as you would think. We can’t really just take a stroll through the jungle and gather all the fresh fruit that we want. We do have banana plants and papaya plants that grow around our house and an inga tree right in front of our house. (Inga comes in a long pod. There are big black seeds inside the pod that are covered with a sweet white fuzzy skin. You eat the thick skin off and spit the seed out.) So, we have planted a little pineapple patch behind our house to supply some extra fruit and good old vitamin C. We love those pineapples I must admit. They are so good and sweet! It takes about 1 year for a plant to produce fruit so it is definitely a treat when they do finally produce. In the past couple of weeks, our plants have started producing. However, we aren’t the only ones who are interested in those pineapples! We will be watching a ripening pineapple and waiting until its ready only to see that it has been taken by one of the Ash! It is such a temptation to get upset with them, especially when we have been so looking forward to a nice sweet pineapple! They know that they are our pineapples but as long as they don’t get caught taking them, they don’t think there is anything wrong with it. The Lord reminds me that they are only doing what comes natural to all men. It would be pointless for me to spend much time stewing over my missing pineapples and it would certainly put me in a sour mood! I’ll just plant my pineapple plants a little closer to my house now and not so close to their trail.

Ayla and Colton love to play dress up. Ayla usually decides what type of dress up game they are going to play. In the past, she has always wanted to dress up as a princess. However, I am noticing more and more that she doesn’t choose to dress as a princess but as an Ash woman. Besides Lucy and myself, she only sees women that wear robes, so she has taken to dressing in a robe herself, putting a sling across her shoulders to carry her baby doll and strapping a basket to her head filled with her valuables. This has become such a common sight that I don’t hardly notice it. However, it took the Ash by surprise one day when they were visiting to see her all decked out like an Ash woman. She and Colton also like to paint their faces up with the red berry that the Ash use on their faces. We have been over with the Ash when they are cooking these berries to make their “paint” and they love painting Ayla and Colton up and telling them that now they are Ash too. Colton and Ayla just beam since, to them, being Ash is the best thing there could be. Colton was just 8 months old when we moved into the village and Ayla was 3 so this culture is quickly becoming the culture they are most familiar with. It is cute now to see them dressing up and wanting to be like the Ash but it also reminds me of how isolated the kids are and how far removed they are from their own culture. I feel like I am always trying to keep this very delicate balance in our lives. I want our family to really immerse ourselves in this language and culture so that we can form strong relationships with the people and they will want to hear what we have to say when we are able to teach God’s word. However, I also feel the strong responsibility to protect my children from things in the Ash culture that could be harmful to them. This is often on my heart.

We are in the last month or so of dry season and we are getting almost all of our water from the river. We still have enough rain water reserved so that we can drink rain water but we do occasionally have problems with mosquito larva in the water. It is hard on the people we live with when the rains stop and they come to us to help them with their water problems. The children and adults come at all times of the day wanting some cold water to drink. They often come to drink water when they are hot and thirsty but they also come when they are bored and just looking for something to do. Cold water isn’t something that they have to have to survive but it is a small way that we can let them know that we love them. I have to confess that I do not always hand out the water with a gracious attitude but once I choose to serve, the Lord is faithful to change my attitude. Living out here really changes the way that I look at the weather. When I lived in the US, I never paid much attention to the weather, it usually didn’t affect my life one way or the other. However, out here I find myself always watching the skies, watching every cloud that comes into sight, wondering if it will be the cloud that brings the much needed rain. When the rains come, the river also rises. We are hoping to get supplies in the end of this month. A higher river, means easier transportation of supplies. My kids can’t wait for the rains to come, but for a different reason. I can already tell you that when we do get that first hard rain, my kids will be out there in their bathing suits, running around and acting like crazy people. They love it!

Well we haven’t had much time to sit and be still but I will try to write this before the day gets busy. The Lord was good to us and got us here safely. The boat driver had told us we were going to leave early, 6 a.m. So we were up at 5 and got things ready. I even carried our stuff down to the top of the stairs, bought some fresh bread for the trip and we were ready to go at 6. No boat driver though and we waited, and waited and waited. It was 7 a.m. and he still had not come so off I went to his house. When I got there his neighbor said that he had left. By the time I got back he was pulling up to the shore so that we could load our stuff. I guess he overslept. So we did not get off until 7:30. The trip took 8 hours and was pretty uneventful. Twice we got sand barred and a handful of times we ran over unseen logs that made the boat tip a little. Those logs really startle you out of your boredom. The kids did real well with it all and we pulled into the village port at 3:30 p.m. Right away the Ash came down to greet us and it was evident that most of the men were drunk. They were all eager to help carry things up the hill for us though and very talkative. One Ash man took our big gray bag up those steps and who knows how he got it up there being half drunk and all. Colton right away jumped into the water and played with some little Ash while we unloaded. The river is pretty low but God navigated us up here without too much difficulty. Lucy and I walked a little to lighten the load in the boat but only for a short distance once we could see the village. Everything looked wild around here as the grass is taller and there are lots of brown spots too from lack of water. The Ash were all partying a short distance in front of our house. They had a big, blue barrel full of pyarentsi (manioc beer) and they were all pretty lively. Not too long after we got here they even fired up the cd player for us. (-: Of course as soon as we got here in the house a bunch of them crowded in here too to see us and to watch. The men were talking loudly and were a lot more pushy than normal as they were all tipsy but we survived. After listening to them talk nonsense for a while I gently tried to convince them that we could talk more the next day after the liquor wore off. We were all dying of thirst only to find out that the Ash had drained our drinking water barrels. They had used the water for baths as we discovered little remnants of soap bars around the tanks. We have a huge 5000 liter tank on one side of the house that I had caught rain water in and it still had some water in it. The lid was half way off so they had been getting in that too but we had to use it as we were all dehydrated from the trip. Praise the Lord we had caught that rain water too! The chief did come over the next day and mentioned the water tanks and how it was visiting Ash that had gotten in to them. (-: He really did seem to feel bad about it all as he has mentioned it several times now. One thing we will have to remember to do the next time we go out is to fill up our water containers inside the house so that we at least have something to drink when we first get here. Everyone slept real well that first night despite the music and hollering going on. The party did end early as the friagem (cold spell) blew in around 9 p.m. and it killed their party. The wind was really blowing and our aluminum roof was rattling and carrying on quite a bit. I have never experienced that hard of a wind here and I was really thinking that the roof was going to whip off. It never did rain but the cold air came in pretty quick after that wind.

Yes, even here in the middle of rain forest, we are often surrounded by wild drunken parties. The people love to make their drink out of yucca root and almost every weekend, they will have some sort of get together. It is not uncommon for us to find ourselves right in the middle of it all. Not only are the parties opportunities for all kinds of immoral behavior, but this is usually when the big fights break out. Sometimes it seems to be only the wives using this opportunity to let their husbands know how lousy they are; but other times, it will be the men getting into fights that can get very violent. One afternoon, after a 2 or 3 day party, we found out that one of the men had a bad knife wound. Kris went across the river to make sure that the man got to the clinic. Kris and I both thought that the party was coming to an end and we didn’t think there was any danger at the time. Our two daughters had followed Kris to the rivers edge and were waiting there for him to come back across. While the girls were standing there, a fight broke out between two men. Kris told the girls to run back home and Kris came back across. By the time Kris had gotten back to our side of the river, one of the men had pulled out a gun and he fired it down towards Kris and the other men with whom he was standing. Praise the Lord, the the gun was not loaded and no one was seriously injured. The Ash people are normally very friendly and non-violent and it is really during the parties that we see all the tensions and anger that they are holding in. Satan has a hold on their minds and their hearts. Thank you for your prayers for safety and that we would learn the language as soon as possible so that they will know the life and hope that only Jesus can give them.

The Ash eat all sorts of little plump, squirmy critters. They eat large grubs that they find in old palm trees and will also eat the beetle that the grubs turn into. The other day I went over to the chief’s house to visit and to my surprise there was a new plump critter on the menu for breakfast. Everyone was quite delighted to be able to chow down cooked caterpillars for breakfast. I decided that a cooked one would be better than a raw one so gave it a try and it was not too bad. I saved one to take home, as I was just positively sure that Mary-Jane would like to try one too. As I was walking home I ran into a Ash man and I did my best to muster up some Ash words and converse with him. It struck me as being so funny that when I showed him the caterpillar he just turned his head in slight disgust and said, “I don’t eat those, I only eat the large grubs and the beetles!” Come on…what is the difference as they are all plump, squirmy little critters and have the same basic taste of “yuck” right?