Macon and Katy Hare Your Connection to Tribal Ministries The Little Bride
The Little Bride smiles after Macon purchases an artifact from her.
She came walking down the muddy jungle trail… crying so hard she could hardly see where to place her feet. She was only 10 years old, dressed in a small palm skirt. As she wiped away her tears and dried her hands on her skirt she would pause, look back up the hill and start crying again. Each time she looked the two men on the ridge started laughing.
The missionary explained to me that one of the jeering men was her father. He had just sold her to be the wife of the other man. Using shell money they bartered on her bride price. Now she was obligated to follow her new husband hours away to live with his other wives and children. She was a piece of property just like the pigs that would sleep inches below her in the women’s house.
The father carefully tucked each piece of the shell money in a special knit bag and trod down the trail to get his little girl ready for her trip.
Tears and laughing happen at our well planned marriages as well. But not these kinds of tears and not this kind of laughter. This is much different – It happens in an animistic society where women are treated as property and can be bartered and sold.
Things are changing. God is changing lives among the tribal peoples where New Tribes Mission works. At www.ntm.org you can find stories of how marriages and families of tribal believers impact their communities and bring light to those around them.
Recently in a small tribal village in the Sepik I heard the story of tribal husbands working for days and then using their wages to purchase their wives gifts. And another where a believing husband refused to beat his argumentative wife and ultimately led her to faith Christ.
I thank the Lord for you who have partnered with us to see God’s Word change lives.
And you, who are wondering how you can get involved, read these stories. Visit ntm.org and follow what God is doing. We post daily the most amazing stories and give you opportunity for an online gift. Together we can be a part of the incredible work that God is doing in some of the remotest areas of the world.
Lives Interrupted
Left, Macon & Katy,Pastor Rene & Miriam Perez, Judy & Natania, Alberto & Maria Sanchez Family
In 1994 Colombian NTM missionary families’ lives and ministries were interrupted by violence. Since that fateful day, many have lived with a deep sense of loss. Two of our own, suffered the loss of a husband and father. And all remember their former MK school and home located in a beautiful tropical valley in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, where they lived and ministered for so many years. How sad it made us, knowing the lives of our co-worker’s families were changed forever and our former ministry center was left empty and deteriorating.
Macon and I, along with Jeremy and family returned recently to that former school property. Jeremy is a friend with the present owners, Alberto and Maria Sanchez. I cannot express to you the impact this visit has had on me, personally, and perhaps will have on those still hurting from lives interrupted.
Alberto and Maria are believers and they are passionate that this incredible property once again honors God and those who minister in Colombia. It is now a retreat center for Colombian youth, churches, pastors and missionaries. Each building is lovingly restored to better than original state. They are converting the former two-airplane hanger into a chapel building that will seat hundreds. And they have added a state of the art dining facility to the former dormitory school kitchen.
Alberto and Maria have dedicated one restored building on this special property to our fallen missionary co-workers, Steve Welch and Tim Van Dyke and their families.
Tags: New Tribes Mission
God Saw This Day
A Few of Our New Colombian Family
With tears streaming down my face, I listened to the worship team. It was Mother’s Day in Colombia and I was worshiping God in the very location where 36 years earlier, I had become a mother for the first time. We were attending a Sunday service located at the former orphanage, Paraiso Infantil in Villavicencio, Colombia. Joining us were more than 50 members of Jeremy’s biological Colombian family, his wife, Judy, his children, and Judy’s parents, Miami pastor Rene Perez and wife Miriam.
I thought, God saw this day 36 years ago when He put that precious baby into my arms. He saw that one-day, in this very place, Jeremy, reunited with his biological family, would invite them to worship God with us and hear his father-in-law’s passionate presentation. How amazing is that?
After the service we joined the family at Aunt Rosa’s hacienda where we feasted on roast pork and enjoyed warm camaraderie with aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings. God is good.
Katy Hare
Tags: New Tribes Mission
A New Thing – Family Story Time
The Patpatar Team
In the encroaching darkness he saw the silhouette of a man sitting in the dirt, bent over a book. Then he noticed that the man was not alone. Three small children knelt before the man, each with a finger pointing to the details of the picture on the page that was opened before them. A month prior, Bulu was illiterate, but now is starting to be able to read.
Tags: Church planting, New Tribes Mission, unreached peoples
The Dreaded Simbari Stairmaster
Boulder Hopping
I can’t believe just a few days ago I was hiking in the Sepik – one of the hottest places I have been. Now we are in the highlands and the early morning is cold. I am wearing a hoody sweatshirt and long pants to keep warm. The only problem is the cooler temperatures include 180 inches of rain a year and lots of mud; Clay mud that sticks to you and doesn’t come off; Clay mud that is impossible to stand on without your feet slipping out from under you. You are standing on the trail and then, BAM… You are sitting on the trail. It’s funny until you are the one sitting and you are covered in clay mud; it’s impossible to stay clean.
Missionary David Ogg and his wife Sherry have seen a mature church established in the Simbari tribe. We are here to record that in photos. We decide to hike to the vine bridge going across one of the prettiest, raging rivers I have ever seen. The Ogg’s warn us about the trail. It is straight down the mountain and straight back up. This includes forty minutes hopping down a riverbed on giant boulders. A piece of cake, I think. Boy was I wrong. We started straight down the mountain, subsequently, slipping and sitting. This trail is a vertical clay pit impossible to stand on. Of course the aforementioned missionary David was wearing lumberjack boots with spikes. (Wearing golf shoes and riding in a helicopter to the bridge would be my choice.)
Vine Bridge over Raging Water
What a majestic view with the river, the waterfalls and a great vine bridge leading to picturesque villages that the Simbari believers are now evangelizing. Dale Stroud captured incredible photos that you will begin to see in many of our publications.
The climb back up the mountain was a killer. The breathable cool air disappeared quickly. Gasping, we tried to suck it in. It was the closest I have ever heard a bunch of missionaries sound like howler monkeys, screaming in the early morning. At one point, Dale disappeared off the face of the earth. I turned around to speak to him and he was gone. Did the Lord return and I was left behind? No, he had accidentally stepped off the trail into a large Dale-sized hole on the side of the cliff. We eagerly pulled him back on the trial, but not until he shot photos of me reaching down with my walking stick. Remember we are out here to get photos.
I have a soft spot in my heart when I hear missionaries share the Gospel and teach tribal believers in their native language. Do you have any idea what it takes to pull that off in the harshest of living conditions? If your heart is not touched then there is something wrong with your touching spot! There are hundreds more tribes to reach.
The only thing missing…. More Missionaries. www.ntm.org/train – pass it on….
from macon’s journal: PNG
Heart-pounding Bridge Crossing
The Rescue: Pictures First, Please
Tags: New Tribes Mission, Papua New Guinea, Simbari, Vine Bridge
God Builds His Church in the Most Unlikely Places
They let me set the pace. It was slow...
To state that Siawiland is one of the harshest places to live and work that I have ever visited, is saying a lot. I’ve been in a lot of places.
The dugout canoe is uncomfortable with no seats and tippy; the 2 hour hike incredibly exhausting. I realize my body is no longer accustomed to travel this way. The heat is oppressive. The sweat runs rivers down my face and I cannot wear my glasses. We wade creeks, cross logs over creeks, and tromp through tall grass. These tribal people do not clean their trails, they just power through them. Why build a bridge, when you can just skinny across on a pole or wade through leech infested swamp water?
We arrive in the village. Tribal smiles all around and this sweet missionary wife is so excited to see us. Her welcome is infectious. She waits on us, refreshes us with drink and food and she chats about the people, her people, and I can see the pride in her eyes, the joy on her face. I am so impressed.
The night is no cooler. The heat is oppressive. The sweat will not stop. I take a cold water shower, but when I step out the sweat starts again. I towel it off. I am tired, rumpled and hot. Very hot. I try to get to the bed without exerting myself but the sweat runs down my back in rivulets. Staying dry is a hopeless cause, but I towel it off. I get behind the mosquito net and begin the battle to remove the entrapped mosquitos and the sweat starts all over again. My first day in Siawiland.
Contrast the living conditions with the excitement in the eyes of the missionary as he listens to the tribal elder teach from the book of Acts and watches the people’s intense understanding of Truth. The people take notes and flip through Scripture. Sunday Church is pretty amazing.
The missionaries tell me, it’s worth it all. I see it in their eyes and in their speech. The missionary’s job is soon done, here. In a month they will pack up and leave this place with a functioning mature church and a printed New Testament in the Siawi tribal language.
The realization dawns on me that this missionary and his family have lived years amidst the harshest of conditions, in order to see this mature church established. It’s down right miraculous. Can you sense the awe, I feel to be in this place? Can you feel it?
God is building His Church in the most unlikely of places. The world is unaware, unimpressed. God sees and heaven erupts with praise.
Tags: New Tribes Mission, Siawi, Tribal Church
