NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Answers to four frequently asked questions:

1. How is Mason?

Mason was diagnosed four weeks ago with a systemic fungal infection. We are so thankful though that as he has followed through with treatment and stayed with a strict diet (temporarily) we have seen a huge improvement. We are excited to see him getting better. He still has some symptoms on some days, but is able to live normally and walk and talk just fine. Please pray for the last of this to heal.

2. Are you going back to Papua New Guinea?

Lord willing, yes. We changed our tickets to leave in early August. We came home thinking Mason may never walk or talk again…and we have seen healing. I was told that I had cancer and we were thinking that we were not heading back….and once again we were blessed to find me completely healthy once again. So here we are are, thrilled and thankful about what God has done. We took some time and considered not going back, but we feel that God has made it abundantly clear to both of us that we are to continue down the road of bringing God’s word to those who do not have the chance to hear.

3. Why August?

We have round trip tickets and that is as late as we can go without re-buying the tickets. It also gives us time to recover physically and financially from the past few months. We are praising the Lord already for providing Mason with a teaching job for the next few months here in one of our supporting churches – that should help to cover a lot of the expenses we have in getting back to PNG. Always fun to watch the Lord provide.

4. How are Kim and the kids?

I am finally starting to feel normal. It feels so good! The kids are doing great.

We are so so thankful for each of you who pray for us, write us, and support us.

Amazed at His blessing,

Mason, Kim, Ian, Andrew, Isaac and Brayden

Just wanted to say thank you all for the encouragement and prayer. God’s used you guys to show us His care for us during this trial. There’s been more than a couple of nights I’ve wondered if Kim was going to make it through the night. She had a low blood count from her surgery, had Malaria working to destroy the red blood cells she had left, and went untreated and without food for a couple of days in the hospital while they tested for all kinds of things other than Malaria. Add to that the medications they had her on for problems she didn’t have and it all equaled one really sick Kimberly. This morning and last night, she’s like a new person. We finally figured out that she had Malaria and after treating her for that for a couple of days she is doing much better, eating and drinking well, and on her way to regaining her strength. Thankful today for the medical community here who has cared for us and for the risen Christ who has given us the chance to spend a few more years down here experiencing and sharing His gift of life. Thanks again for expressing God’s heart for us through your care towards us, it has been sustaining, Mason

Hello out there, At present, Kimberly is still running fevers, has flu like symptoms, and a consistently dropping red blood cell count. She had to return to the hospital on Tuesday and has been here since. So far, all the tests they’ve done have come back normal(including a few malaria tests) and they are bringing in an infectious disease doctor to see if they can figure out what’s causing the problems. We’re thankful to God for her being in a place where we feel like she is being well cared for. She is currently on an antibiotic for possible infection and will be receiving some blood shortly. We’d sure appreciate your prayers. She has been and continues to be quite sick. Thanks for all of you out there who have cared for and followed along in this drama with us…we appreciate you,

Mason

Surgeons were able to remove all of Kim’s tumor and no cancer has spread to other areas. Thank you for all of the prayer and encouragement. She is currently cancer free and recovering from surgery. The Lord has been gracious to us and we are thankful to Him.

Mason and Kim

Surgeons were able to remove all of Kim’s tumor and no cancer has spread to other areas. Thank you for all of the prayer and encouragement. She is currently cancer free and recovering from surgery. The Lord has been gracious to us and we are thankful to Him.

A lot of you have heard already, but for those of you who haven’t – we found out that Kim has intestinal cancer. She will have a surgery to remove the cancerous tissue ASAP (probably no longer than 2 weeks from now). The doctor was optimistic that it hasn’t spread to other parts of her body yet, but we won’t know that for sure until after her surgery. Best case scenario, we’ll need to be in the States for 4-6 months after Kim’s surgery, for follow up visits. We’ll be waiting to make any life changing decisions until after the surgery and consultation with doctors about what they’ve found. We are heading down to Santa Barbara on Monday to see the surgeon who will be doing Kim’s surgery and are hoping they will get her in quickly for the operation.

Mason’s health issues (pain, muscle cramping, numbness, shakiness, weakness) are much better for the last 2 days, but have a tendency to come and go and as of yet have no diagnosed cause. All test results, including the MRI, came back as normal and the neurologist we were seeing left chemical poisoning, stress, and parasitic infection as possible root causes.

We could use your prayers during this time for the enabling grace and peace that God so faithfully gives to those who belong to Him. We are assured that God loves us deeply, looking forward to the day when we will see Him face to face, and hopeful for some more time on this earth to introduce people to the God who wants to spend both now and eternity enjoying a relationship with them. Thank you for all the encouragement that has come our direction already, we have felt truly blessed for the heart God has placed in so many of you for us. We truly have it far better than we deserve,

Mason

We’d love to hear from you, but probably won’t be taking the time to answer questions right now.

Here we go!

Mason is not getting better and needs some further medical testing. We cannot get what we need here in Papua New Guinea. We attempted to go to Australia, but could not find a neurologist there who was willing to see him in a timely manner.

That is why we are headed back to the United States soon.  We plan and hope to return to Papua New Guinea in 12 weeks. Only God knows what news we will receive and what recovery will look like.

We have flown half way around the world with small children many times now and I thought you may enjoy what we have learned along the way..

1. If you want to see a flight attendant get very upset…toss a dirty diaper in the trash along with your dinner leftovers when they come by for trash

2. Bed wetters become airplane seat wetters on overnight flights…be prepared.

3. Escalators and elevators provide hours of fun for little boys.

4. If you or anyone in your family appear to have pink eye – wear sunglasses – otherwise they will threaten to quarantine you

5. An adult sweatshirt can be easily fashioned into a pair of pants for a toddler who has had an accident

6. If someone steals the runway lights from the international airport, you cannot land until morning.

7. If a flock of bats is hanging out on the runway this will also keep you from landing

8. We’ve lost strollers in Japan, the Philippines, and New Zealand…and we got them all back eventually.

9. Airport security checkpoints are way more fun if you call them “secret tunnel tests.” The boys are always thrilled when they “make it through.”

I wish I could write each one of you who have written to us and prayed for us. Thank you so much. We are doing well and reminded daily of God’s love for us and that His plan is perfect.

Please pray for our trip – especially for our very active 1 year old and for Mason

Resting in the Lord,

Kim and Mason

In the last couple of weeks I have spent a good deal of time unable to speak without stuttering, unable to walk without tottering, and unable to use my hands without shaking. Medically speaking, my body has been having a reaction to stress (according to 2 doctors and a neurologist) that results in my nerves firing almost constantly and eventually resulting in the muscles throughout my body becoming one big knot. The sources of stress are most likely me worrying about my wife having been sick and having to accept that I am completely unable to use my right hand for any of the computer work that is so much a part of what we are here to do. Spiritually speaking, it is clear to me that God just had some things to teach me about myself and about Him. For the sake of brevity, I’ll just share one of those with you all.

1 Cor 1:26 says, “For you see your calling brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.” It goes on to say that God chose to save and use the foolish, weak, and of no account on purpose so that nobody could boast in His presence. I don’t know about you, but I have to admit that when I read the not many among you part of that verse, I assumed that I must be one of the exceptions. I guess I figured God chose to save me because of my usefulness to Him, my perseverance, my ability to speak, etc. I somehow missed the point of the closely following verse that says, “Of God you are in Christ who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
I somehow failed to remember that I
-quit playing junior high basketball because I didn’t want to deal with the kids on the team who gave me a hard time
-quit playing baseball because I matured late and was discouraged by how I compared to others
-quit competitive swimming in high school after 2 years of pretending to be sick at practice because I was lazy
-lost a college tuition scholarship in my first term of school because I was too lazy to study
-and eventually became a lying, stealing, drug using, college drop out (and then I got saved)

A lot of my drive to finish and be successful in the work in Pal is me trying to prove to myself that I can do something of worth. So far my moments of greatest personal effort have resulted in my losing the use of my right hand and most recently in my temporarily losing the ability to walk and talk. In short, God is teaching me this – “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Funny to me now that I could have thought something different, but it seems pretty obvious to me at this point that I am yet another one of the foolish, weak, and of no account that God has chosen to save and use so that He might be praised for the work that is accomplished. “As it is written, ‘Let him who glories, glory in the Lord.” Currently my physical condition leaves me able to continue in the work and yet almost constantly reminded, through pain and shakiness, that it is by the power of God that the church in Pal will be born.

Thank you for standing behind us in prayer. We’ll be heading back to Pal as soon as seems wise.

If the first 15 years of my Christian life could be described as a steady pushing ahead, it is my hope that the one’s I have remaining might look a lot more like a wobbly legged, quivering lipped, shaky handed man being carried a long by an undeniably divine source of power.

Stuttering on the Rock, (you have to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes)

Mason for the Lockwoods

Hey out there, Having some physical issues I wanted to ask you to pray about. For a couple of weeks now and currently I (Mason) have been experiencing a pins and needles sensation all over my body. A couple of days ago I went for a jog and the whole left side of my body went numb for about 8 hours. After seeing a family doctor here in PNG, we started on some vitamin B complex. It is possible that my symptoms are related to a vitamin B deficiency. If about a week of vitamins doesn’t fix the problem, we will likely be needing to head to some other country (possibly Australia or the Philippines) for an MRI and other tests. The list of possible things that would cause my current symptoms range from pinched nerve to multiple sclerosis, hence the potential need to get some testing done.

Praise the Lord that Kim is feeling good and God has been supplying for our needs.

We could use prayer for:

1) Wisdom as me make decisions about if, when, and where to get tests done.

2) Healing (It would be such a relief to us to see this clear up and be able to get right back to serving in Pal).

3) That we might be sustained in peace and joy as we fix our mind on the incredible hope and deep love we have in Christ.

Meanwhile we have been very burdened for our friends in Pal. The blindness and bondage that the enemy is holding them in has been very apparent lately. We want to head back in there, finish up language and to get going on what we are there to do. Please pray that we could be back there soon!

Thank you to those of you who took the time to read and pray – I appreciate it and have hopes that the Lord might have in mind to respond to His people on this one by sticking a healthy Mason and Kim back into the midst of the Pal people for the sake of His glory among them. Thanks again, Mason and Kim

Holding one of these in each hand while learning to rollerblade could end up being a gutsy experience…

After 11 months of language study Mason is somewhere around 2/3 of the way towards fluency in the Pal language.

Mason went back to Pal this past week for the language evaluation and enjoyed seeing our friends and co-workers again, as well as gathering more language recordings to work through. We are eager to return! I (Kim) will be evaluated next time.

Every day is bringing us closer to the day that the 1300 Pal speakers will have their first chance to understand what Christ has done on their behalf!

We are still studying language out in town while continuing to explore some medical concerns. January we plan to return to living among the Pal people.

We are thankful that in our absence, our co-workers are faithfully loving people and working hard to learn the Pal language and culture.

Merry Christmas! Enjoy the fact that you were born into a language group that can read God’s Word and know Him as your Savior.

Please pray

For fully restored health for Kim

For plans and flight schedules to work out so that we can get back to Pal soon.

For continued progress for us and our co-workers.

For prepared hearts among the men, women, and children in Pal.

Thank you for praying for us and for God’s work here in PNG!

Mason and Kim Ian, Andrew, Isaac and Brayden (and the toads that join our family occasionally)