Praise:

1. For the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with Mike’s siblings and their families.
2. For Mike’s parents, who came to visit their children and grandchildren in Paraguay for 3 weeks.

Prayer Requests:

1. Wisdom and guidance from the Lord as Mike & Trisha raise their children and train them to walk in truth.
2. For their lives to reflect Christ and that all they do will honor and glorify Him.
3. For wisdom for Mike and Trisha as they serve in the different responsibilities that they are responsible for.
4. For Trisha, who is homeschooling Michael, Lea, and Kaleb.
5. For Mike & Trisha as they lead the Latin short term mission trip called ACERCATE. to the Pai and oversee the building of the Pai church.
6. For good health.
7. For safety in travels to the Chaco and the East side of Paraguay

Read about our Christmas with Mike’s family and Pai believers,

our church’s youth camp, field conference with other missionaries,

photography opportunities, and a brief update about our children

Christmas with Mike’s Family and Pai believers

Each year we look forward to spending Christmas with family. Mike’s brother and sister and their families live only a 5-hour drive away, making it easy to drop in for a couple of days. This year included a Christmas service with the Pai Tavytera church on the 25th. The meeting lasted over 3 hours as one by one people would go up front and share a testimony of God’s grace in their lives.

In 3 weeks, we will be returning to assist the Pai Tavytera build a larger church building for their weekly gatherings for worship and teaching. Pray with us and the Pai Tavytera church, as we continue to raise funds for this building project and for volunteer workers.

If you would like to have a part in Acércate 2012, you can visit our website. Be sure to indicate that this is a one-time designated gift toward the building project.

December: Youth camp, Field Conference, and Photography

Mike was given several opportunities to share on missions during our church camp. After talking passionately about the  Ayore people in the Paraguayan Chaco, he asked, “and who will go!?” to which one girl replied, “you will Mike!”

From church camp we went directly to NTM’s conference where we were refreshed by teaching in both Spanish and English.

Mike was able to serve two young couples in December by photographing their wedding. One couple started training in Brazil and will continue missionary training  in Bolivia in 2012. They desire to be tribal church planters.

Children Update

Michael graduated this year from 2nd grade in the Paraguayan Christian school this year. In 2012, he will be homeschooled by his mother.

Lea had a great time playing with her cousin Briana during Christmas Break.

Kaleb is started out the year very shy in pre-school, but he emerged very fluent in Spanish and outgoing.

>> Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name forever and ever. Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. Psalms 145:2-4

Thank you for your prayers and support which make it possible for us to serve on a full-time basis here in Paraguay.

Because of Christ,

Mike & Trisha Goddard

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised. The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the LORD our God, who dwelleth on high,  Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth! Psalms 113:3-6

Building Project and 2 Short Term Missions Trips

The planning phase for the building project of Iglesia Nueva Cristiana, is in full swing! This is the Pai Tavytera church founded by a New Tribes Mission church planting team starting in 1996. After a lengthy period of pre-evangelism, a church was finally born in 2000 and has now grown into approximately 100 members.

The small property where the NTM Team built their houses was named “Light” in the Guarani language. Truly light has shown in the midst of darkness in this corner of Paraguay as this small group of believers grow in maturity and seek to impact their sphere of influence with the Light of Jesus Christ!

For 2 weeks in January and 2 weeks in February, we are combining this building project with the short-term missions program we lead called Acércate. We are planning for two separate work teams originating primarily from the capital of Paraguay and will be completely in Spanish. Many lives have been challenged into full time Christian work through these types of short-term missions trips. The cost of the project is as follows:

• Church building: $7,500 USD

• Cost per person for the two-week trip: $100 USD

Please pray with us and the Pai Tavytera church, Iglesia Nueva Cristiana, as we raise funds for this building project and trust God to bring the right young people as volunteer workers.

If you would like to have a part in Acércate 2012, you can visit our website.  Be sure to indicate that this is a one-time designated gift.

Neat Experience in the Southern City of Encarnacion

This month, we had a neat experience when visiting a small church in the southern city of Encarnacion. We shared with their youth group and adults what God says about cross-cultural ministries. Their response was tremendous and expressed desire to support a Paraguayan church planter! They also put us up in a hotel, treated us out to dinner, and gave us a tour of their city. What a joy to experience interdependency in ministry!

While in southern Paraguay, we took advantage of the opportunity to visit the ancient Jesuit ruins from over 300 years ago! We also stopped in for a quick visit with a missionary family working with the Mbya tribe.

4 Teaching Sessions on how to implement a Missions Program

The missions mobilization manual that Mike developed for the churches associated with an organization called FEMIPA is slowly making progress. With each step forward, there are overwhelming challenges to overcome.

In November, Mike will be providing 4 training sessions and discussions on how to implement a missions program within strategic churches.

Please continue to pray for us and with us as minds are retrained to think cross-culturally.

Thank you for your prayers and support which make it possible for us to serve on a full-time basis here in Paraguay.

Download pdf format of our Goddard Grapevine (Oct. 2011) and Praise & Prayer (Nov. 2011) here >> Goddard Grapevine – October 2011 (pdf format)

MINISTRY // CHILDREN // YOU CAN BE INVOLVED

MINISTRY NEWS

A tremendous blessing from the first Missions Conference in our church here in Asuncion was that it brought the missionaries closer together in unity. Recently after church, the six missionary families had dinner together and discussed ways that we can continue to encourage our church in missions throughout this year and the next.

Each month we invite the Christian community to NTM Paraguay’s Acercate meeting. This has been a tremendous opportunity to build relationships and share about tribal missions around the world!

Mike continues to meet with the members of a Paraguayan Mission Board called FEMIPA. Currently, they are working their way together through the Mobilization Manual that Mike put together for such an occasion. The objective is to assist FEMIPA to equip their church association to handle both local and cross-cultural ministries.

The Pai Tavytera church where Mike’s brother and sister are working, have been praying about a new church building. FEMIPA has adopted the church project, and therefore, several short-term missions trips are being planned for early 2012, to build a church building and to see young people challenged into cross-cultural ministries!

Mike has 2 more teaching sessions (last weekend of October and last weekend of November) to teach the church leaders of an association called CEMP. Out of 68 Bible lessons, he has taught through 12! When offered the option of moving rapidly toward the end, they said “No! We want to savor all the truths we are learning from the book of Genesis!”

Trisha recently had brightly colored t-shirts made; each designed with a missions challenge designed to show the need for more missionaries among tribal people.

MICHAEL, LEA, AND KALEB

Michael continues to plug away at learning different languages and doing really well. He is happy that they recently started their Soccer tournament at school. He, Lea, and Kaleb are on the “Blue Shark” team! When his team didn’t win, he said, “That’s alright, we did our best and had lots of fun.”

Right now in school, Lea is learning cursive writing and has been practicing a lot. She is praying that mommy will be her teacher next year, because she says “Mom is the best teacher and doing school with her is easy!”

Kaleb loves using the different languages that he knows and especially mixing them together to make new words. He has definitely outgrown his shyness. He now enjoys talking away, being his teachers’ helper, and motivating other classmates in their schoolwork.

YOU CAN GET INVOLVED!!

Would you like to sponsor a Paraguayan youth to be a part of building the Pai Tavytera church? The estimated cost per person for one week is $100. This includes transportation from Asuncion and food. Any remaining funds will be given as an offering toward the building project.

Thank you for your prayers and support which make it possible for us to serve on a full-time basis here in Paraguay.

Praise the LORD; for the LORD is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant.

Psalms 135:3

Praise:

1. For the safety in our travels.
2. For the 7 years of ministry in Paraguay.
3. For the encouraging times of fellowship with Paraguayan believers.
4. For the opportunity to work with the other missionary couples from our Paraguayan church in organizing our 1st missions conference for the end of August.

Prayer Requests:

1. Wisdom and guidance from the Lord as they raise their children and train them to walk in truth.
2. For Michael, Lea, and Kaleb, as they continue studying at the Paraguayan Christian school and that they will be godly examples to their classmates.
3. For good health.
4. For their lives to reflect Christ and that all they do will honor and glorify Him.
5. For a missions camp that we will be participating in from July 11-13
6. For Mike, who is teaching the Chronological Bible series in Guarani (from Creation to Christ) the last weekend of July. He has 15 Christian leaders in his class.
7. For Mike & Trisha as they works alongside the other missionary couples from their Paraguayan church to organize their first Missions Conference for the end of August.
8. For Mike as he plans a trip to the training center in Bolivia sometime this year.
9. For Mike as he begins the preparations and scheduling for a Latin Mobilization conference in Brazil mid next year.
10. For the ministry of assisting other NTM mobilization ministries in Latin America.
11. For full time coworkers to help Mike and Trisha.

In this Goddard Newsletter, read about our Chaco trip and the latest tribal news from Paraguay!

>>> CHACO TRIP

This month, our family had the privilege of visiting the Chaco region of Paraguay for a week.  Our first stop was to visit a missionary team working among the Ayore. Mike had the honor of encouraging the local church to consider having an impact among other people groups.

Mike taught the missionary kids a class on photojournalism and Paraguayan culture during an Education Camp. He also had several meetings while in the Chaco and enjoyed visiting a Nivacle village for the first time with a young Paraguayan missionary couple.

Trisha enjoyed teaching the younger children about “the fruit of the Spirit” during the morning Bible class. Her sister-in-law Odie Goddard brought her guitar and taught new songs that followed the same theme.

Michael and Lea absolutely enjoyed their time with the other missionary kids during Education Camp and learned so much from the teachers like “Professor Cranium” and the “Snake Guy” who came all the way from the USA to talk about reptiles and creepy crawly things. At the closing ceremony, their class sang a few songs and did a skit on the “Six Blind Men”.

Kaleb was happy to be on vacation for 10 days and spend most of it in the Chaco. He had all kinds of fun playing with his English-speaking friends like his cousin, Briana. They spent hours outdoors in the playground and found a can full of small snails. During the middle of the week, he began missing his teacher Nancy and especially his friend, Jeremias!

>>> PARAGUAY NEWS

(1) TRIBAL CHURCHES: Paperwork for the formation of an inter-cultural church association was recently submitted for recognition by the Paraguayan legal system, granting the legal right for tribal churches to meet together for worship and to carry out the vision of church planting.

(2) NIVACLE TRIBAL CHURCH PLANTING TEAM: Nivacle Team members continue to progress closer to their proficiency goal in Culture and Language.

Pray for them!

(3) MANJUI CHURCH LEADERS: After many years of ministry among the Manjui people of the Chaco region of Paraguay, the local church and missionaries formally recognized the faithful service and leadership of 5 men from their fellowship. Together these men will continue to guide the church onward in evangelism and discipleship.

Read below for the Goddard’s up-to-date Praise & Prayer Requests.

Praise:

1.   For Lea and Trisha, who both celebrated birthdays in February.

2.   For  the opportunity to visit with many of our coworkers this last month and the visit from Mike’s brother and family.

Prayer Requests:

1.   For Mike and Trisha – continued wisdom and guidance from the Lord as they raise their children and train them to walk in truth.

2.   For Michael, Lea, and Kaleb, as they continue studying at the Paraguayan Christian school.

3.   For good health. Right now, there is a lot of sickness going around as well as dengue fever.

4.   For their lives to reflect Christ and that all they do will honor and glorify Him.

5.   For Mike, who will be sharing at a missions meeting on March 4.

6.   Safety for Mike, as he travels out of the country for 10 days the 3^rd week of March to attend a seminar.

7.   For Mike, who will begin a Chronological Bible teaching series (from Creation to Christ) the last week of March. This teaching will take place the end of every month from March until October in a town 3 hours outside of Asuncion.

8.   For wisdom for the Goddards as they have opportunities to visit with, encourage, and disciple their Paraguayan friends.

9.   For the ministry of assisting other NTM mobilization ministries in Latin America.

10.   For full time coworkers to help Mike and Trisha in Mobilization.

11. For Ronald and Melissa, Maria Marta, Israel, and Leonie – Paraguayans in Bible or Missionary training in Bolivia or Brazil. Please pray for them as they study, their home churches, financial partners, and their future ministries as each have expressed a desire to be cross-cultural missionaries.

This month in Goddard Grapevine, you can read about:

1. Our trip to the pai tribe
2. Participating in a youth camp
3. Paraguay tribal update
4. Specific prayer requests

Trip to the pai tribe

We were invited out to visit the pai tavytera and participate in an important meeting held in their community. Church leaders from various tribes met together to discuss the formation of an association which would bring them closer together in vision and purpose. Mike also accompanied his brother Mark to a meeting with a Pastor from the area to discuss future partnerships.

Youth camp

Earlier this month, we went to a youth camp that was 4 hours from home. We set up a display table about New Tribes Mission and had the opportunity to share about tribal missions with the different Pastors and youth that were present. Mike was invited to teach 2 different classes each day for 3 days at the camp. One class was on tribal church planting and the other class on Chronological Teaching. Many young people showed great interest in missions and specifically tribal people. Our children enjoyed playing with 3 other Mks during the camp: 2 from Paraguay and 1 from Mexico.

Tribal update

Recently, 3 tribal groups gathered together and started working on the formation of a tribal church association. In 2 weeks: the Sanapana people will be receiving printed portions of the Bible for the first time; the Manjui church will be appointing church leaders; and an Ache church will be having a dedication service for their new building. At the end of this month, the Ache churches plan to discuss the formation of their own church association.

Please pray:

1.    For the 17 tribal groups in Paraguay. God is at work here, and recently He has provided additional missionaries to the Paraguayan field with a desire to reach them!

2.    For us as we mobilize and train the local church here in Paraguay. We have been in this ministry for 5 years, and it has been exciting to see God at work in the lives of the Paraguayan people.

Home Assignment for the cross-cultural missionary, plays a vital role in the life of both the Sending church(es) and the missionary. Both the Sender and the Sent need a period of time together to regroup and reconnect after long absences away from the local fellowship.

The Missionary may need: encouragement, rest, pastoral care, moral support, reoriented, growth, a listening ear, fresh ideas, etc.

The Church may need: encouragement, support, served, greater understanding, insight from a cross-cultural perspective, etc.

During this 4 month Home Assignment, our heart is to spend as much quality time as possible with God’s people who pray, partner financially, and are part of local churches that have stood faithfully behind us during these 6 years of ministry in Paraguay.

If you are a part of this group or are interested in more information regarding what God is doing in and through our lives, we would be delighted to connect with you. Please feel free to write us through email at mike_goddard@ntm.org.

• Paraguayans in training
• Equipping, a lifelong journey

Melissa is in her final year of Missionary Training in Bolivia. Please be praying for her relationship with Ronald and her church here in Paraguay.

Maria Marta is finishing her last semester at PENIEL Bible Institute. She desires to attend the Missionary Training Institute this August in Brazil. This is a 1 ½ year course. Please pray for wisdom and financial support needed to continue on with the training and for her church here in Paraguay.

Israel is in his 1st year of PENIEL Bible Institute in Brazil. He desires to be a part of tribal missions. In June, he will be home on break and will be taking a short trip to the Pai tribe with Mike and 3 other students from the Institute. Please be praying for Israel and his church here in Paraguay.

Equipping, a lifelong journey

God is using these 3 young Paraguayans to pioneer a new paradigm in their country. They have stepped far outside the comforts of their country and have chosen to be equipped for cross-cultural ministries. We have the privilege of coaching each of them during this lengthy process; watching them grow, listening as they tell stories of joyful times and tremendous hardships, and yet through it all, they continue to press on in faith, desiring to glorify God by introducing Him people groups whom have never heard of their real Creator and Maker.

The New Tribes Bible Institute (NTBI) and Missionary Training Center (MTC) exist to train the people passionate about God’s glory and reaching the nations with the gospel of grace. God has used many graduates (from 9 different training centers around the world) to plant churches in countries all over the world.

We both attended the NTBI in Waukesha, Wisconsin: Mike from 1996-1998 and Trisha from 2000-2001. There we received a solid biblical foundation and heard daily about the needs among tribal people all around the world.

Together as a newlyweds, we attended the MTC from 2001-2003. At the MTC, we were equipped  to overcome communication barriers such as worldviews, culture, language and living in remote locations so as to plant a church with all the tools necessary to grow in grace and maturity.

Even today, after 6 years of ministry in Paraguay with NTM, the growth and equipping process continues as we gain greater insight into Gods precious Word and its practical outworking in ministry at the local church level.

So whether you are considering missions or just want a solid Biblical foundation for life, consider attending NTBI, and continue your lifelong journey of glorifying Christ!

To God be the Glory,

Mike & Trisha Goddard

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Mike: http://www.facebook.com/mikegoddard

Trisha: http://www.facebook.com/trishagoddard