Ned and Linn Beall Your Missionaries to the Tigak People Home Assignment
We hope you are encouraged in your walk with the Lord. We are excited to see how the Lord is continuing to work among the Tigak tribe.
Land issues and disputes are a constant battle for many missionaries in Papua New Guinea. We have had our share of issues with one of our land owners.
Tags: Bible translation, home assignment, land disputes, Papua New Guinea, Tigak
Rain, Wind and Good-Byes
We just returned yesterday from a trip to the other end of New Ireland. We have never made the trip before so it was fun to be able to see another bush location. It is a long trip by truck down the length of the island. I was missing the interstates in the USA as we bounced through potholes, rivers and dirt roads for close to 6 hours each way. Yesterday on the way home the truck started stalling on us and we were not even half way back so that was scary but thankfully we made it! With the rain and high winds we have been having, we almost couldn’t make the last part of the trip via boat until the water calmed down right before dark. I have been helping organize the school testing for our area and that is why we made this trip. We had 12 – 1st to 7th graders to test for this year. While I was administering the tests, Ned was able to do an translation check for another missionary in the Patpatar language. So, we made good use of our time. 
The fellowship with our friends we rarely see made it special.
We have had a great time this past month with Bethany and Savannah home for school break. This was Bethany’s last time on the island. We tried to go to all her favorite places in between the wind and rain. Hopefully she has some great memories to take with her as she transitions to life in the USA. Paska brought us all to tears as he shared at her “kaikai” (meal) what a great part of our ministry our kids have been, saying that he could see the gospel being played out in their lives. Paska had also caught eight octopuses to make our favorite national dish which you can see in the round pot at the front of the picture. Even if you don’t like octopus you would like this! He does an amazing job cooking.
Answered Prayers!!
Boy am I thankful for the prayer partners we have! The Lord has surely been answering your prayers.
Every one of Ned’s flights into the tribes to do translation checking went off without a problem. Every day before and after the days of his flights were filled with typhoon winds and rains with no chance of an airplane or helicopter flying – BUT the days his flights were scheduled the weather was clear. Totally amazing!
Also, Ned’s computer revived itself and is up and running. If it can just hold out until summer we will be thrilled! The Scripture checking went well too. The Lusi tribe now has all the Scripture portions translated and checked in order to teach from Creation to Christ. The Mengen tribe now has the books of Jonah and Acts translated and checked.
The picture above is some of the Tigak believers with their new Scripture portions. The new book has 48% of the New Testament including the new books of Philippians, Philemon and Revelation. It is a joy to be able to place the Tigak Scripture in their hands.
Thank you for standing with us in prayer, encouragement and giving! We couldn’t be here without you.
Team Translation Workshop
Whew!!! It has been a busy two weeks. We just completed the Team Translation Workshop (TTW 2012).
The TTW is for the missionaries who have recently completed learning a tribal language and are ready to begin translating the Bible into their tribal language. It is required for the whole missionary team to attend the workshop since there are many ways each person on the team can help move the translation along at a faster pace even if that is not their main responsibility.
There were actually two workshops going on concurrently. One included 17 nationals from 8 different tribes including three national teachers. This workshop was held in the national language – Melanesian Pidgin. The English TTW had 17 missionaries representing 6 different tribal languages plus Ned and another consultant as the teacher/facilitators.
I, Linn, was responsible for the logistics. I had some amazing ladies who organized all the housing for the missionaries and national helpers along with meals for everyone. That left me with organizing child care for the 21 children of the attendees – including three of my own. It was an exciting and encouraging time to see the missionaries and their translation helpers gain a vision for “turning the talk” into their own heart languages.
There were some incredible people attending the workshop! It was encouraging to meet Seong and Mina Mun from S. Korea. They are 62 years old serving in a village in the Highlands as their only missionary. They finished learning the tribal language at age 59!
Ezra and Paal from the Patpatar tribe were also an example to us. They traveled a couple of miles every day to hear the Gospel when it was presented in their tribe. The day before leaving for the TTW – Paal’s brother died. It was a very hard decision to make and went against their families’ wishes but they felt like the Lord had given them this opportunity to attend and that they should be here.
One more lady I would like to tell you about is Kariang. She has been helping with the Mengen translation for many years but has never been able to attend a TTW due to having many young children. Most of her family is not Christian and her husband had said she could not come out. She prayed quietly and the Lord worked a miracle in her husband’s heart – allowing her and her one month old baby to come out and take part in the TTW. She was very excited to be here.
I know this is getting long – but please be praying for Ned these next two weeks as he is checking translation in the Lusi and Mengen tribes. He flew by helicopter this morning. The Lord gave beautiful weather which was a big praise. Another HUGE prayer request is that Ned’s computer quit working last night!! He has hard copies of what he needs for the translation checks but cannot continue on with his own translation until either the computer is repaired or replaced or I guess he can take over my computer. Anyway, we need to figure out something pretty quickly.
There are some uploaded pictures of the TTW and a music video of a song the national translation helpers wrote during their time here. Go to www.sinco.nl and click on the Jan. 15th entry. The blog is in Dutch but if you go below the third picture and click on the link it will download the music video which is in Melanesian Pidgin.
Tags: Bible translation, New Tribes Mission, NTM
Kara Linn’s Graduation
We wanted to let y’all know that our oldest daughter, Kara Linn, graduated (summa cum laude) from college! She has been attending East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, Texas. Her degree is a B.S. in Chemistry and a minor in math along with a teacher’s certificate for Physical Science and Math. She has really been struggling with what to do next. She has now decided that she wants to attend New Tribes Mission’s Bible Institute (NTBI) in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She wanted to go to NTBI but is not excited about the cold weather. She has a hard time with winter even in Texas! Please be praying for her as she adjusts to a new place, a new school and attempts to find a job. She won’t have the government funding and scholarships that got her through her undergraduate work.
Kara Linn’s long term goal for now is attending medical school. She will be working on preparing for the MCAT and applying to medical schools during her time at Bible school. We are praying that the Lord will make HIS way known to her and guide her through each step. If medical school is what the Lord has planned for her, it is a huge commitment. We are thankful that she now has a plan for January at least! Thankfully Kara Linn already knows some people at Bible school so that will make the transition a bit easier. She will be driving herself to Wisconsin the first or second week of January.
Tags: children, graduation
Merry Christmas 2011!!
“May the celebration of Christmas cause us to rejoice like the angels… hear like the shepherds… follow like the wise men!” Roy Lessin
We are excited to celebrate Christmas once again! It is such a fun time of year – to relax with family, enjoy good food and celebrate the birth of our Savior! We were able to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Our main substitution was eating chicken instead of turkey. We will probably do the same for Christmas dinner. Even a chicken is a treat since the price is about $14 for a whole chicken.
We have our presents wrapped, our Christmas tree decorated and lights up! As a result of having weak batteries and having to run the generator more in the evening – we can have our Christmas lights on more! So, there are advantages to running a generator.
Chris and Erin Lujan are in our tribe right now checking the progress on culture and language learning for Aimee and the Carltons. They are just making sure they are making progress and on the right track. They are also available to answer any questions they have about how to make the best use of their time each day.
Ned is working hard on checking the book of Acts, Jonah and Old Testament portions of Scripture for the Mengen and Lusi tribes. He will be helping with a translation workshop and traveling into these other tribes for the month of January. We are hoping he can finish before Christmas so we can have a week of family time before the marathon month of January begins.
Have a VERY MERRY CHRIST-MAS!! Never forget Jesus is the reason for the season!!
Full Team again…
We are thankful to have Tom and Beth Carlton back in the tribe. We were able to meet their beautiful new daughter, Iris! As you can imagine the Tigak ladies are in love with her and can’t wait for their turn to hold her. Iris is 3 ½ months old. The Carlton’s firstborn, Jude, is 2 ½ yrs old and loves his girlfriend, Christina. Christina, our 10-year-old, takes him outside or over to our house to play for many hours every afternoon. Jude is totally into Thomas the Train – so all our boys’ old toys are being drug out and put into good use again. Christina certainly doesn’t mind an excuse to put off school…
We are having a lot of visitors this month. The Carltons just had our NTM-PNG solar specialist here to set up their batteries and solar panels. Thankfully it all seems to be working. Batteries are always the weak link in solar power and we are finding that our own batteries are on their last leg and need to be replaced. Right now we just run a generator every evening in order to use lights, computers, etc. when the sun goes down. Not the ideal but it is getting us by. When the batteries completely die we will lose the use of our fridge and freezer and we certainly don’t want to go there! So, we are in the process of trying to get some batteries shipped to PNG. We would appreciate your prayers that this could happen quickly and the Lord would provide as He always does for the finances.
We also have a leadership couple coming to visit tomorrow and then later in the week we have language consultants coming! The language consultants will be doing a Culture and Language Kick-off for the Carltons and a 6-week check for Aimee as they begin the process of learning the Tigak language. We are very excited that the consultants are bringing believers from their own tribes – Siar and Patpatar – so they can fellowship together with the Tigak believers. It will be a great encouragement to the national believers and to all of us!!
Ned’s return and the workshops
We are thankful to have Ned at home again. He had four long weeks of intensive training. The first two weeks was an Advanced Language Workshop where they were working on learning how to decode the tribal languages on a deeper discourse level. When you understand how languages are put together – how they make a main point, how they introduce characters, how they introduce a story – then you will be able to make your Bible translation and lessons much more understandable to the mother tongue speaker.
The next two weeks were spent actually checking the book of Ephesians for the Dinangat tribe. There were four Dinangat men helping missionary Ralf Schlegel check his work. There were 8 consultants-in-training checking the work. The check went very well and the Dinangat men were very grateful for everyone who came to help make sure the translation was clear and accurate. The Dinangat men even brought thank you gifts of peanuts and onions from their gardens for each consultant. It was quite humbling!
We are so blessed to have God’s word in our language. What an awesome opportunity to be part of bringing God’s word to more language groups in Papua New Guinea. Thank you for standing with us so that we are able to be here!
Tags: Translation, Workshop
Moving into the dorm…
Bethany and Savannah setting up their dorm room.
While I was getting the girls settled into school, Ned has been back in the tribe continuing on with translation. He is doing his final corrections to Revelations, Philippians and Philemon to get them ready to send to a printer. The Tigak believers are especially excited about being taught the book of Revelation once it is printed.
Aimee’s house is almost ready to move in to. After two work teams being on our island for three weeks each, a final two man crew is setting up her solar panels and batteries and finishing up her plumbing so she can actually have power and water in her home. It will be a relief to have that behind us. It is exhausting building a home – but when you are dealing with a third world country where materials are not always readily available when you need them – it adds more stress to the job. Also, with the value of the US$ dropping our money doesn’t go as far as it used to. For an example – one gallon of paint cost over $100!! Most of the things we buy are imported and are heavily taxed. Maybe as a result of rising prices I can lose some weight – changing from meat, cheese and potato meals to greens, rice and sweet potato meals can’t hurt!
Tom and Beth Carlton have a new baby girl, Iris! They plan to return to the tribe in Sept or Oct. We look forward to having them back and seeing them get started in learning the Tigak culture and language.
Thank you for being a part of reaching the Tigak people by praying, giving and encouraging us!
Tags: Partners, School, Translation
Back to the Tribe…
Thank you for praying! It has been an encouraging month. Ned has finished his marathon month of checking translation for several different tribes and having his own translation checked by a consultant from the USA. The final totals were – almost 2700 verses checked for Akolet, Siar, Lusi and Maleu tribes combined and over 500 Tigak verses checked and approved. We are thankful to see this leap forward in verses that are available to the tribes of Papua New Guinea in their heart language. This puts Ned at 48% of the Tigak New Testament that has now been completed.
The check was stressful for Paska. It was up to him to give back each verse of Revelation, Philippians and Philemon in the trade language to make sure everything was accurate and understandable. The day before the check began a situation arose with Paska’s son on the island and it was hard for him to not be there to be a peacemaker. He was thrilled to be out here though visiting with his Christian brothers from other language groups!! It was fun to see the excitement for Paska and his friends to be reunited once again.
Tomorrow morning we will be making the trek back to our home from our regional center where we have been working the last month. We will purchase supplies and head right into the tribe. Our kids have loved being at our regional center with lots of friends to play with but it will be nice to have a few weeks left of summer break to be together as a family.
Aimee now has all the wood needed to complete her bush house! The first work team was able to get the framing done and the roof on. The second work team arrives July 2nd and will be there for three weeks. We are thankful for the sacrifice these 9 men and 1 woman are making by coming over to help with the construction work. As soon as Aimee’s house is functional she will be able to begin the long process of learning the Tigak language. Our other new partners, the Carltons, are still in the USA waiting on baby #2 to arrive.
We know these are challenging times for all of you. We trust that the Lord is showing Himself faithful in meeting your needs. We find ourselves shocked at the rise in prices each time we buy supplies. We are thankful to be serving a faithful and loving God who never fails to know what our needs are.
