NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

prayer letter Jan. 2012.pdf

We praise God for the way He has been orchestrating our lives for the last two months. Thanks for your prayers for us during this very hard time. It seems like ages ago that the little air-taxi plane landed on the grass airstrip here and the pilot said he would give me a ride out to town. We had been praying for God to help us make the right decision and He did. I was indecisive up till the last minute about going to be with my dad, though Mike was sure I should go. But when the time came God’s hand just pushed me to get going and I am so glad I did. It was very special to have those two weeks with my dad before his home-going. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to miss that. Our kids were all there for the funeral and so we had a wonderful time with the five of us in a hotel room! (Christian wasn’t able to come because of his studies). Jodi was e-mailing with a young man at the time that has since turned out to be quite important in her life. So I got to enjoy being a part of the ups and downs of the beginnings of romance. Got to see Holly’s new figure with the baby on the way. Chad kept us all laughing, when we weren’t crying. Crystal got to meet relatives she still hadn’t met after seven years of marriage to Chad. Three generations of cousins catching up together, and Mom’s two sisters there to hold her hand and love her. It was good, it was hard and exhausting, thanks so much for your love and prayers through this time. I didn’t do much on the computer except to keep up with Mike.

Please pray for my mom, Lois, as she grieves and is suffering from advanced dementia. Also please pray for my sister and her husband, Jeri and Virgil Holt (missionaries to Mexico), who are taking care of her. She needs to have some one with her all the time now.

I landed here on December 23rd, in time for Christmas! On Christmas eve, a Yanomami man came to ask Mike to go to a meeting the next day. So on Christmas morning, Mike was at a meeting from 7:30 till 11:15. We hadn’t had a cargo flight since October 22nd so we didn’t have a big Christmas dinner but Mike had been saving cheese so that I could make him a pizza. So that is what we had and it was wonderful!

Since the school has had so many days off with the feasts and their months down river we aren’t taking time off now. Last week I worked on evaluating all the students to see where they were at and got ready to bring in a new class of little ones. We had an end of the year party for them on Friday with the promotions of each to a new teacher and class. It has been very time consuming and I feel so behind on things, my desk is full of paper work to go through, but I will keep plugging away at it.

It was nice that while I was away, Mike was able to visit three different villages. That way I wasn’t left in the village alone while he was gone each time. I’ll let him tell you about the most recent trip he made with Ademar and two young guys.

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The Wanape U village, (the bamboo creek people), is a small village of about 50 people. They don’t live on a river so we had a five hour walk to get there. When we arrived we hung our hammocks, rested and were given food to eat. That evening Ademar spoke from the center of the small round house where everyone lives. He said that we had been wanting to come for a long time and had even come in 2008 but they weren’t there. Their creek had dried up and they had temporarily moved to another river. The really neat way that God worked for this trip was that two weeks before a witch doctor from this village, Arico, had come and while talking at my house, said he wanted us to take God’s Word to his village. They had heard the Good News many years ago while at the Toototobi and he had rejected it all these years but now he was wanting to hear God’s Word and he knew that God could help him leave witchcraft behind. He said, “Mike, don’t say that you will come and get our hopes up and not come, like has been done in the past.” I said that we would definately come soon. A week later, he returned to our village and asked Ademar, Brais and Mario (all church leaders) as they were coming out of prayer meeting, if they would come. So now the invitation had been made very clear. Two days later we were on our way, very excited about starting to teach the Wanape U people God’s story. Another interesting fact that I should add is that a young man that is very against the teaching of God’s Word, Dario, Davi’s son, left our village the day before us for this same village and was there when we arrived. He was there for the whole time and heard the message and saw the interest. He kept saying he was leaving but never left, so we were very happy. Ademar was not intimidated by his presence at all. After Ademar spoke, others stood up and affirmed their desire to hear God’s Word and their happiness that we had come to share it with them.

The next day, 10 men from the Coyobi, village (cutter ant people), arrived,. They had lived on the upper Orinoco River in Venezuela, had been at war with other villages and had fled to Brazil. They are just now making gardens and a new round house, they hadn’t had gardens or a permanent house for a long time because of the warring. They all stayed and heard the teaching until the morning we left. One of them stood up on the last evening and gave a strong testimony of desiring to know God better. He said he had a portion of God’s Word and had been reading it aloud in his village. Some had told him to be quiet, and not read out loud, but he has continued. He was so excited and happy to be there for the teaching. He said someday he would like to be a pastor like Ademar.

The chief of the Wanape U village, Eduardo and his wife Elena, gave clear testimonies of their faith in God and their desire to have more teaching done in the future. They said, “Don’t stop coming to our village. Come regularly. ” Ademar later mentioned in his final wrap up that he would bring his wife and kids and be willing to live at this village for a period of time and teach them. He said there was an awful lot of God’s Word to teach and this was only the beginning. He said that they were like a garden that had not been weeded or watered for a long, long time and that now he had come with God’s Word and had watered and planted new seed. They also affirmed that it had been too long and that they felt like God’s Word had dried up in their hearts and now was coming back to life. It was so exciting to see Arico, (the witchdoctor) sitting at every teaching session. He was the main host and supplied us with food.

We came home very excited about what God was doing after seeing one more village so interested in knowing God better. Pray with us and the church leaders as they start their second round of visits to these five villages. It seems like the more Davi tries to suppress the teaching of God’s Word the more desire they have to hear it.

When I got home, we mowed the airstrip, I cleaned the house and Diane arrived four days later! My life has returned to normal, I am thrilled to have her back and I thank you all for your prayers for us. We hope your Christmas was a very blessed one and 2011 will draw you ever closer to Him!

Love,

Mike and Diane Please do not send us forwards or include our message in your response, due to the high cost of our satellite connection. Thanks!

Thanks again for your love and prayers for Diane and her family. God did more miraculous orchestrating. God is good all the time!!

We had a flight for Diane’s return to the tribe marked on the 15th of December. With the funeral been scheduled for the 20th, Diane would not have been able to make it. So we canceled it. I tried to get another date marked for December, but there was nothing available. The whole rest of the month already booked solid. Diane is going to fly from Boise right after the funeral to LA on the 20th. She has some huge layovers and only gets into the Brazilian town that we fly out of,early morning of the 23rd. The Lord had another missionary station mark their Christmas cargo flight for the 23rd and the plane flies right over us. They heard about Diane not having a flight until the 3rd of Jan. and they graciously adjusted their Christmas orders and gave Diane 100 kilos so that she would be able to be home with me for Christmas.

Praise God ,He did it again!!! Perfectly working out all the details, giving us the desires of our hearts even when we are so undeserving.

Thank you for your Prayers for us during this hard time!

We have been asking God to take Verl home so he would not suffer. Diane was alone with her dad in the hospital. I was instant messaging with her and we were looking at tickets for me to go back and help. I was also working on packing up everything in our house.

At 9:30 Idaho’s time, Verl went to be with the Lord. Diane had Christian music playing and she was singing along,when she told me that she thought that he was going home. I told her to hold his hand and pray with him. She did and then she told him that it was okay, he didn’t have to keep fighting to stay with her. She said that he could go Home! “We will be alright”, Diane said then he was gone. Praise God that he did go while sleeping. It is amazing that I was still up and in contact with Diane when Verl died. I was able to get on the sat. phone and talk to her, right away even though I was out in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Diane was crying and she told me that the song that was playing when he died was TURN YOUR EYES UPON JESUS. God sure does know how to orchestrate,comfort and welcome His faithful children HOME.

It has been a while since I dropped something in your “inbox”. Sometimes life seems so common place that I have a hard time thinking of things to write about.

The Yanomami in this village are keeping very busy with memorial feasts. When a person dies, they wrap the body up in sticks and tie it in a tree to decompose. After many weeks, they take the body down and cremate it. Then they mash up the bones into an ash. They give out part of the ashes to various relatives in gourds. Whoever has a gourd of ashes then, in the months ahead will have a memorial feast for that person. So there will usually be several feasts held for one person. They hunt for several weeks for the feast and smoke the meat to preserve it. Then when they have enough, they invite people from other villages to come. For several nights they have singing and dancing, (very different singing and dancing than what you are picturing, I’m sure). They make a big hollowed out log full of some sort of drink, usually made from bananas but it can also be made from whatever else they have plenty of. They take turns giving other people gourds of the drink and they are forced to drink it till they can’t take any more and they vomit. This is considered a really good time. The relatives of the deceased, put some of the ash in their banana juice and drink it.

They have had two feasts here in a row and as soon as the present one is over, the men are going out to hunt for a third feast. This is keeping them very occupied and using up a lot of the food they are finally getting in their gardens. Some of the people in the village would like to change it to just having one feast per person, considering how hungry they were in the beginning of this year, but there is a lot of opposition from outside of the village, not to change the culture. The older people, also, are find it very hard to accept a change like that.

There have been a lot of visitors here with these feasts. A man I had never seen came and told me I was his daughter. Then he asked for rice and a razor!

Joel and Gwen came in to the village for two weeks in September to get their stuff packed up to send down river. They will be living in a small town where they can still have contact with the Yanomami but have the conveniences of city life while working on translation material. While they were in here, the river went down. Mike and Joel, with a lot of men helping, were able to get the motor out of the river. They did all the repairs they could, but so far it isn’t working so will have to go out to town to get fixed. We are thankful it is not still at the bottom of the river!

Thanks for praying for the women’s spiritual growth and for the church as a whole. Right after we asked you to pray, we saw a lot more ladies coming out for church and prayer meeting and a lot more men, too. We can’t see in their hearts to see if the Good Seed is sprouting and growing, like the Lord does but we look for outward evidence of change and do see some encouraging things. We know you are praying, we see the answers after we write to you, so please keep it up!!!

Another answer to prayer was hearing Simao pray the other day. He thanked the Lord for forgiveness, that God doesn’t hold grudges like the Yanomami do, and that He doesn’t throw us away when we do wrong. He has been coming to church regularly. Thanks for praying for him. (He was the one who had gotten drunk and violent several times while out in town.)

I read something good in, “Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands” by Tripp. He was describing a seminary student’s view of the church as “a well-designed, well-led, successful organization.” But Tripp said, “When I look at the church, I see a hospital full of people in various stages of dealing with the disease of sin.” I found this to be very encouraging as we look at the church here. I think it is pretty accurate of our situation and our fallen state.

Jodi is finished up her study of the Cherokee language in Oklahoma this last week. She flew out to California and is staying with Chad and Crystal while she does all the analysis of the language material that she obtained. She has sure been a gypsy lately with no place to call home. I feel for her. Lord willing she will be coming to Brazil as a missionary next year.

Thank you so much for your part in our ministry. You are a blessing and an encouragement to us. We know you are having a real part in what God is doing here!

Love,

Mike and Diane

Please do not send us forwards or include our message in your response, due to the high cost of our satellite connection. We can not receive messages larger than 25 kb. Thanks!

The entertainment of the day today was two little cousins. While about 10 mothers sat on our porch and egged them on, these two little ruffians chased each other, knocked each other down, pulled hair and kicked. It was like those ‘anything goes’ fights but all done in laughter. The kids never cried, never got mad, it was all a big wrestling match for fun. When Josimar got a handful of Aida’s hair, he stood there looking at the hair in his hands and that gave her enough time to come up and tackle him and grab his hair for a good tug! I was picking up words as fast as I could write, “grab him, pull him, get him, run”! I couldn’t help but compare it to how we raised our kids. Be nice, be kind, but then again these kids are not going to have an easy life if they don’t learn to be tough from a young age. I am always surprised, when a little toddler falls and hurts himself, how the mother doesn’t give any comfort. I guess that is all part of learning to be a Yanomami!

Everyone is back from the garden down river so life is full! School started up again this week. I went around to each the kids in the afternoon classes today and was glad to see that for the most part they are remembering where they left off and seem to be going forward.

Since the two pastors and one of the church leaders are down trading their jungle vines in the little river town, we have no pastor at church. It has been encouraging to see other men step up into leadership and also hear the testimonies that have been shared. When the pastor is going to preach, they don’t usually give time for testimonies so it was a good time to hear more of those. I am starting a new project of recording the testimonies and putting them on cds so we can play them for people to hear as they sit on our porch.

Prayer requests-

1. Continue to pray for Bruno, the pastor’s son. That he will submit to God and lead a godly life.

2. Continue to pray for the spiritual growth of the women.

3. Simao also needs your prayers. He was a leader in the church but while out in town with his sick son, he got involved with drunkenness and fighting and now has taken himself out of leadership. He doesn’t seem to be interested in the things of the Lord and we are concerned for him. Alcohol has become a very big problem in a lot of Yanomami villages, it has caused a huge increase in violence. Some missionaries with another mission have had serious threats and violence toward them from drunken Yanomami men.

4. The men down river were only able to get one of the boats repaired (with Joel’s help). They will be coming back with just one boat and leaving the other there for some future date when the bottom of the boat can be replaced. They will soon be heading back with an extra large load. The river level is dropping each day which makes the 20 + rapids that they have to go through even more dangerous. Pray with us that the river level will raise in these next couple of days. They plan to meet other smaller boats below the rapids. They can then share the load and lighten their boat up.

We can’t thank you enough for your part in what God is doing here. Jodi reminded me once that the Power that created the universe is here and still working. Its good to keep that in mind even when things look bad. So as you pray for the church pray for the Holy Spirit to be working powerfully in the lives of the people here! Thanks!

Love,

Mike and Diane

Please do not send us forwards or include our message in your response, due to the high cost of our satellite connection. Thanks!

Thanks for your prayers for us as we went down river last week. I must admit that at this time of the year the rapids are much less dangerous because the water is so high. We had a good trip down and went through the rapids quickly and without any problems, though they are still scary! God got us through just fine.

It was so good to get to “Thapeli” where most of the village has been camping for over two months and see everyone again! They all seemed really happy to see us, too. The living conditions did not seem as bad as what we had heard, but by American standards they would be considered really bad! (See pictures). Though the people have all lost weight, they all had food from the jungle and seemed happy.

The reason for our trip was to take down the diesel for the two big boats that were going down to a little town where we get supplies once a year. Joel is going to meet them there with a welder from his church who is going to redo the bottoms of the boats. God didn’t allow us to find the motor for the one boat that had been lost in the river so only one of the boats had a motor. Five guys left a day early paddling the one boat and the other would then catch up to it down river and pull it the rest of the way.

We slept in our hammocks under a thatch lean-to at the rivers edge. This shed was made to store their vines that they had gathered from the jungle to sell in town. They will be used to make wicker furniture someday.

There were really strongly divided opinions about when and how the people at “Thapeli” would get back to the village here. The first night they asked Mike to come over and talk to them and give them news. I was praying that the people would seek God’s will concerning their return and that there would be unity. We really praise the Lord for how He worked it all out and everyone came to agree that now was the best time for the women and children to go back. Nine men would go down river and most of the rest would stay there and hunt for a feast (for a memorial for two people who had died recently).

Mike was busy the whole time we were there helping them weigh their bundles of vines, and write down their “wish lists” of what they would like to get with their vine money. We were impressed that they had set aside a certain number of bundles to pay for the diesel back and for food for the men while down there. I got to help the women make their “wish lists” for the baskets they were sending down to sell in town.

With the decision to take the women back, we ended up having a boat full of people. We had ten Yanomami, two dogs and a parrot along with everyone’s baggage. Mike had “accidentally” taken too much gasoline. But that was God’s doing because we were able to share the extra so three other boats were able to get up that day too.

We got to the bottom of the rapids, waited for all the boats to catch up and let off our passengers. They went by trail up to the top of the rapids. One mother with two very young children wanted to leave her baby with me, but we said no and as we were stuttering to try to explain why, she took off down the trail with the baby and was gone before we realized she had left the two year old! Since his older brother was going to guide us through the rapids from the front of the boat we decided he would be responsible, though little Breno sat with me. Going up took longer and was scarier but I prayed for God to just give me peace and keep us safe and we made it just fine. We met with the passengers up river but one of the boats didn’t come so Mike went back through to see how he was doing. He did end up making it fine.

It was a long, hot, uncomfortable trip home. It took 7 1/2 hours. I sat most of the time on a basket of hammocks facing backwards. Our gas tank started leaking on the way home, so we were concerned that we would have enough gas to get home with such a large load but just like Jesus multiplied the loaves of bread and fish, He multiplied our gas and we made it just fine. We felt like having a real time of praise when we got home that night!

Thanks so much for praying for us. I am glad I got to go instead of staying home alone.

Here are some prayer requests;

1. Bruno- Pastor Brais’ son, has been really going down the wrong path and living an immoral life. Brais has been talking to him and is working with him. Pray for him to turn back to God. 2. Oneron- An unbeliever that is really making a mess of his life and needs the Lord. 3. Pray for the spiritual growth of the women. It seems like we are seeing more growth in the men than the women. 4. Pray of the men going by boat down river and especially for their trip back with only one motor. They won’t be able to go through the rapids like that.

Thanks so much for partnering with us in prayer!

Love,

Mike and Diane

Please do not send us forwards or include our message in your response, due to the high cost of our satellite connection. Thanks!

Just wanted to write a quick note to tell you that the men that went up river to try to diffuse the hostility between the two villages came back tonight. They had quite a different story to tell. They said that there was going to be blood shed and killing not just chest pounding. We told them that you were praying for them. Abrao, the chief, said to tell you thank you very much. He said God really helped to calm the situation. He said they did it like the “napas” (civilized people) do. They asked people to decided and vote. Do you want to have war and bloodshed or do you want to have peace, unity and health. Unanimously, every one wanted peace, unity and health. Praise the Lord! We will tell you more as we hear it. They just got in tonight after dark.

We are leaving in the morning for a two to three day trip down river to visit the people that are camping down there. They are all really hungry and their living conditions have become a real squalor. One man, the father of twins, says that everyone’s garbage is just building up outside their lean-tos. His twins are crawling now and the maggots are coming out of the garbage and going towards the living quarters. There are no bathrooms and people tell us the smell is horrific. There is some controversy about when they will be coming back up river and some logistic problems. It looks like they will need to come by land and so have to make a trail through the jungle.

Baunilha (vanilla) and Bolinha (little ball) are names I have heard a lot about in the years we have been here. They are the two big rapids that we have to go through to get down there. After all these years I get to see them for myself. I am a little nervous. I will let you know how it goes. You have already heard some of the recent stories! So we appreciate your prayers!

Love,

Mike and Diane

Please do not send us forwards or include our message in your response, due to the high cost of our satellite connection. Thanks!

Thank you for your prayers and concern for how the Lord worked on this recent trip. The village we visited lived near the missionaries for many years and had been taught a lot in the past. The chief, Fialio, have been asking and asking for more teaching but it took a while to happen. The younger people there have never been taught.

We men left early Saturday morning. We had to go way down river to pick up Brais where the village is camping out for several months. We were unable to reach him by radio to confirm the plans so when we got there he was out in the jungle hunting. We had to go out looking for him and lost about 4 hours there.

We got away at 3:00 and headed up river, as we were going through one of the two large rapids all of a sudden our boat did two complete donuts without hitting any rocks or sinking. I looked back and our driver had lost total control of his motor, he yelled for me to come back and drive so I did and we started up the rapids again. We got up to the top with two men paddling and his motor wide open and we couldn’t make it up out of top of the rapids. What to do? You don’t just spin the boat around and head back down the rapids without causing real danger but that was all that I could do. We just missed a huge rock and I was able to get into a calm area. We switched to a strong 2nd motor we had on hand and then made it up fine. We continued on till it got dark and hung our hammocks in the trees. We had planned on arriving in the village that night but with the lost time we weren’t able to. I took a tarp along but somehow when the hammock were hung, mine didn’t fit under the tarp, the other four guys got under there and were already in their hammocks. It poured down rain three times, so I got soaked and by morning the river had come up a foot. God knew that we needed that extra foot of water because we went over seven fallen trees that we would have had to cut our way through. Again, your prayers through the rapids and with the river going up were so evident. After the experiences in the rapids no one else wanted to handle the motor.

We passed two other Yanomami villages, both stopped us and asked where we were going. We told them that Fialio had been asking to hear God’s Word so that’s where we were headed. We arrived at the village in the early afternoon. After setting up our living accommodations in the round house and getting some food to eat, the first night, Brais gave an introduction out in the middle of the round house. The next morning as we started our first teaching session a boat pulled up and in walked the government health care people (who go up and down the river to the different villages), most everyone left the meeting to go watch them give out medicine. When they came back we were able to continue without any further interruptions. We had our afternoon session which was Pastor Ademar giving his testimony. He used to be a witch doctor and he shared that for many years he heard the missionaries talking about God but didn’t want anything to do with it until finally, the Holy Spirit worked in his heart and gave him a desire to hear. He became a believer about 10 years ago. He shared a lot about their culture and the lies of Satan through witchcraft. He challenged them to listen carefully to God’s Word while there was still time. Once they were in eternity in hell there would not be another chance.

While Ademar was speaking, the health care workers came in again to give out medicine and again everyone went to watch, you just see Satan trying to hinder the spread of God’s Word. That night was Agosto, a fairly new believer, sharing his testimony. He said, “I didn’t come just to ride in the boat, I came to tell you what God has done in my life.” He went on to give his powerful testimony about how God had changed him from a mocking, fierce unbeliever to now a follower of Christ with the desire to share the Good News about God and His Son Jesus Christ.

After all the sharing was done, Fialio got up and spoke. He said he was very happy that we had come and that what was taught was the truth, that he had been taught it years ago by Mike’s dad and other missionaries. He sang a verse of a song and said how this comforted his heart and that he was a believer and that he had been trusting Christ for many years. He was very encouraged to hear God’s Word again.

We left early on the 4th day to head home. It was going to be an all day trip. These rivers can fluctuate very quickly. I was praying that the water would stay at that height or higher so we could make it over all those fallen trees. On one really tight curve I made it around with the motor full throttle and ended up broad side to a newly fallen tree. We had heard that there was a place along the river where there were wasps in a fallen tree out in the middle of the river. Well, we found them there, where we were stuck broadside. All four of the other men, hit the bottom of the boat with their shirts over their heads but since I was on the motor I had to keep going and try to get us straightened out and over the log. Again your prayers were felt in a powerful way, not one of us was strung. I was able to get the boat turned and up and over the tree in a couple of seconds without having to get out to pull it over.

We made it home that evening after dark. Thank you for praying for Diane while I was gone. Satan was working there, too. With very few people in the village, everyone is very afraid of raiders. One day they said they heard them right by our house. The next day the women were too scared to even visit long and the last one asked Diane to look around the back of the house and in the house to see if any were hiding there. The raiders are very real to them but we missionaries usually think it is more fear induced but it didn’t help Diane sleep well at night, especially since she was the only one on this side of the airstrip right now.

Folio’s village was very happy that we came and want us to come back and tell them more. It was a good start but next time we need to get past the testimony’s and get going on laying the foundations of who God is and start teaching the Word in a systematic and planned way. This has proved to be hard for the Yanomami believers both here and in Venezuela so pray that they will grow in their ability to share the truth with people who have no idea of who God is.

Sorry this is so long and there is no snake story in the middle! : )

Thanks for praying!

Love,

Mike and Diane

Please do not send us forwards or include our message in your response, due to the high cost of our satellite connection. Thanks!