NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Below is an update that our co-workers the Smiths sent out yesterday relating to the sudden and unexpected death of one of Ralf’s translation helpers Bunex’s wife.

Thank you for your prayers.

The Schlegels

“Now I’m getting rid of my old clothes and the new clothes He gave me I am putting on”

These were the last words of a young mother who died just a few hours ago. She gave birth to a beautiful baby boy at 3 am this morning. It is their 3^rd child. However after delivering the baby, there were complications and a few hours later she died. As sad as this is her words demonstrate a strong faith in God’s provision in Christ. Even in the midst of pain and agony she was looking to her savior to give her the clothes of righteousness he promised. She did not waiver.

And even in the midst of our sadness her family line all is encouraged that God has taken her home. They amazingly are able to cry and mourn but have hope. They are saying we must not do the big hopeless crying we used to do. We must stand strong in our faith, because we know God’s word is true. It is true we are sad, but really she is very happy right now. Even her husband, Bunex, said through his tears, “If we live a long time and then die it is okay, but if we only live a short time and die that is okay too because God is almighty and He knows what is best.”

Please pray for this family. Now Bunex a father of two young children and a new born has a big load to carry. His brother’s family will take the newborn for now to feed him and care for him. No doubt people from the outside will come and try and cast doubt on their faith. Pray that they can stay strong and encouraged.

While you are heating your houses at home, we have to consciously remind ourselves that the winter season is coming closer. But in our hearts we know that the birthday of our Lord is coming near and that we get to celebrate it again this year with the Dinangat believers. Even though we miss home, we are still very much looking forward to that celebration!

At this time we have the impression that the church here is a bit tired and needs some new excitement and motivation. Do you feel that way sometimes? In our weekly meetings with the Bible teachers we now talked about those things more and prayed about how we can help the church to move ahead and to get to know their God even more. Let me share a bit about how one of those meetings went:

Lukas: “I think that the families should sit together in the church service, why do we men always separate ourselves from our women?”

Felix: “And we sit way too scattered! Maybe we can build a fence or plant bushes to make the people sit closer together.”

Jaspa: “I think the young people need to be integrated more. Maybe the young girls can sit by the boys with the guitars and lead the songs together?”

Basa: “I really miss it that the older people don’t share what they have heard and learned from the sermons. They need to say more in order to strengthen our talk.”

Felix: “Yes, that’s right, and we need to encourage the people to get up and share what they have learned to encourage others also.”

Last Sunday we already saw a difference. After the sermon which spoke on how we need to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives instead of listening to our old nature, some men got up and shared the following:

Boringke: “As I got up this morning and saw how the sun slowly came up and the darkness became more and more light after a while, I was thinking about my own faith and how I was in darkness, but now as I’m hearing more and more of God’s Word I understand more and my faith becomes more and more like a light to me.”

Tom: “I have something important to say. Urungneyo and Kejuk (two older women), you need to stop talking bad about the church. You are ruining the faith of many. You two need to stop quarreling around!”

Emma: “We need to truly take to heart what we have heard this morning, and we need to put it into practice. Let us all learn to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit!”

Next Sunday the church will receive for the first time the chapters 1-8 and 12 of the book of Romans printed in a little booklet. We are excited about the fact that we can hand out the Word of God to them. Please pray that they will get better at reading and that they will read the Word regularly and learn much from it. This week 2 NTM carpenters are here to help the church build an office. The office will be used by the Bible teachers and Literacy teachers to study and prepare their material. They will also have a storage place there for all the church and Literacy materials. We hope that this will be a great help for the church. We are sending warm greetings to your chilly fall weather and thank you for all your prayers for us and the Dinangat church.

Ralf and Elli Schlegel with Naomi, Rebekka and Mirjam

How the believers of our neighboring village learn more about the greatness of God was expressed by one of the ladies which I met yesterday when she said, “The Bible teachers that come to us every weekend to teach us have now started to teach the book of Acts and I’m just loving it. I understand the Word of God and see more and more how great our God is!”

Thank you so much for your prayers for the believers there and here in our own village! Many are excited about God’s Word and can’t get enough of it. But there are also some who like to stir up the people and make them unsure of things by bringing up old traditions and beliefs. Please pray for the believers that their faith would get stronger every day!

After several months of working hard together with our Dinangat helpers on the translation of Romans 3-8 and 12, we are now ready to check those 185 verses in town next week with the help of our translation consultant Jason Stuart. We will travel together with 4 of our Bible teachers who will help with this upcoming check. It will be the first time for them to go to that town, and so they are pretty excited about it. While in town they will get to meet some old friends from another tribal work of NTM in the tribe of In*. Last time they met all of them hadn’t heard the Gospel yet, but now there will be a lot to talk about as both of these groups have since then heard the story of God in their own language and believed in Jesus Christ as their Savior. They are excited to get to share with them how things are going with their new life in Christ and in the new churches of their tribes. We are pretty excited about that!

After the translation check all of us missionaries from the Madang region will get together for our annual conference. A church team from England will come over to PNG to help with that. They will take care of the kids, meals and worship services for all of us. That is a very special time for us as throughout the year we are all scattered in different places and don’t get to fellowship with each other very much.

There is still more exciting things to come ☺. Right after conference my (Elli’s) parents will come to see us. We will spend a week together in town and then a couple weeks in Dinangat. We are so excited about that because being without grandparents is really hard. But we will make sure to make the most out of it and enjoy every little bit of it.

Thank you so much for your prayers for the Dinangat church and please continue to pray that they might learn more and more of…”the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Romans 11,33

Serving HIM together, the Schlegels.

P.S.: All three pictures above were taken just in front of our house! (Our co-worker Gary took the one on the left ☺).

As you can see on the pictures we are excited to tell you that we have our co-workers, Gary and Esther Smith, back here with us in Dinangat. It was a very emotional moment when they got off the plane, not only for us but also for the Dinangat people. The Smiths were in the States for over a year and enjoyed a very good time with their families and church. But even though saying good bye at home was very hard, we could still feel excitement in their hearts about coming back as they got off that little plane. They came with renewed energy and motivation which excited and motivated all of us here and felt like a fresh wind coming through. Thank you, Smiths, we so appreciate you!

To be able to work as a team out here is a precious gift we believe. When we are alone it feels like we are not moving along very fast because in most areas we are only maintaining things. But now we can share the load. Gary is the main teacher and lesson writer. He also is the one who focuses on discipling the Bible teachers and our new church plant in T. Ralf is now able to put all his time into Translation and will from now on be able to translate more than double the amount per week than last year. We are really glad for that!

The other good thing about teamwork is that we can encourage each other and care for each other. As we celebrated our 13th Anniversary last week Esther cooked a yummy “Dinner for two” for us and took our kids to her house for supper. We then enjoyed a wonderful evening in our own house-restaurant together. Also our girls are more than excited to have their friends back. Naomi is happy to have her Charis to crochet, stitch and talk and talk and talk never-ending talks together . Rebekka is thrilled to have her friend Caleb for playing outside mostly and climbing the trees together. Nathan and Zachary love this place, there is so much to do for boys their age. And Mirjam just enjoys playing along with all of them calling them over by her own creation of their names.

Thank you so much for your prayers for us as a team and the work here. We do appreciate every single one of you and see you as part of our bigger team! Please continue to pray for the believers of Dinangat, that they would grow in their faith and stay strong even in hard times. That they might… “know that you, whose name is the LORD – that you alone are the Most High over all the earth.” Psalm 83, 18

In HIM, the Schlegels.

Dear praying friends!

Below you will find the update from our co-workers, Jeremiah & April Markley about the 11th week of teaching in the neighboring village T….

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:5

This was the 11^th week of the teaching from Creation to Christ, and for the first time ever these people heard John 3:16 in their own language!  At first many of the people were confused, like Nicodemus, when they first heard that they needed to be “born again,” but after some explanation the lights turned on and excitement filled the air.  Pol began to laugh out loud, Bun started clapping, even a couple of people who have normally been indifferent towards the teaching were asking questions and were anxious to hear more.

Please continue to pray for all of the teachers.  It’s been over 2 months of solid teaching and everyone is getting pretty tired.  We have four more weeks to go of this initial teaching, where we teach 5 times a week.  Please pray for Felix, Basa, Lucas, Epox, Ronny, Itiringke, Jaspa and Nonjong and also for their families as they have a lot to do to keep things going at home without their husbands.

Easter is a special time of year and the same is true for the Dinangat believers here in our home village.  On Easter two of the Bible teachers will be teaching on Christ’s death burial and resurrection.  I was talking with one of the teachers this morning and he told me that he and his wife were reading through Mark 14-16 the other day in preparation for teaching.  As he read, his wife stopped him and said, “Jesus did all this for us.”  They spent some time praising the Lord for what he has done, then decided to take Friday off and just go around and talk with different people, reminding them to think of what Jesus did for them personally.  As you celebrate Easter this year, please don’t forget the reason for all those family get togethers, parties and church celebrations.  Our Lord and Savior is alive, and because of what HE has done, we also get to share in HIS ABUNDANT LIFE!  What Grace!

April and the kids are at our support center where the boys are “enjoying” some school testing.  They will be there until next Tuesday.   I would also appreciate your prayers as I’m in here alone for a while.  It’s been pretty quiet, but I’ve been able to have some really good times with different people in the village.

Thank you too for standing behind our family.  It’s been difficult being away so much these past months, but we rejoice knowing that the Lord is working in the hearts of our Dinangat friends.  It truly is a privilege to serve Him in this way and we thank you for your partnership.

This week we’ll teach:

Monday:

- Jesus foretold His death, burial, and resurrection.

- The Jewish leaders plotted to kill Jesus because He healed a man on the Sabbath.

Tuesday:

- Jesus told the parable of the sower.

- Jesus fed 5000 men.

Wednesday:

- The way of the Pharisees is not God’s way.

Dear praying friends!

Below is the update from our co-workers, Jeremiah & April Markley, about the 10th week of teaching in the neighboring village T…. Exciting news !!!

(left to right, Basa holding a green python we found on our way to T., one of the three snakes we encountered last week, Felix and Bayario acting out Gabriel and Mary, Samandeng, really excited about hearing God’s Word)

“She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Lk. 1:21

Dear Praying Friends,

It is a great day to be a missionary; we have the awesome privilege of watching God change hearts and lives right before our very eyes!  Last week one of the lessons was on Zachariah’s prophecy concerning John and the Messiah.  There is a different atmosphere among the group as we are shifting focus from the destitution of our souls and our sin debt to the coming Redeemer.  It is the most wonderful privilege in the world to be able to tell a sinner about the Saviour who has come to rescue them!  There is an excitement in their eyes that tells us they are right with us, knowing their need and anxious to hear more about Jesus!  At the end of the lessons they said, “Don’t stop, we want to hear more!”  Praise the Lord for what He is doing among this tiny village in the middle of nowhere!

A few more people have been coming forward and denouncing their animistic practices which rely on different spirits (and a lot of trickery.)  To this, Felix replied, “That is good that you turn away from these ungodly practices of sorcery.  But you need to know that your sin debt still stands- the wages of sin is death and no matter what you do or stop doing, you cannot wash that sin away yourself.  Keep listening to the stories, and you will understand how to be right with God.”  Praise Him for what He is doing among the Bible teachers, imparting His wisdom and strength to reach these souls!

Yet, this adventure is not without its trials.  One of the literacy teachers had a major fallout with his wife which effected the whole home village.  While working with him was difficult, we praise the Lord for allowing it to happen.  The teacher recognized his sin and he was able to watch God do His Divine work of restoration.  He also confessed his sin to the village and the other teachers, and we are grateful to be able to say that they made the right choice and forgave him (although not without some healthy lectures!)  Situations like this do not always work out so smoothly, and we praise Him for this open demonstration of humility and forgiveness, for we are all fallen creatures dependent on our Father for the grace to do any good work!  The home church is also being tried again by their traditional religious leaders who are wanting to come back in to the village over Easter and do their “holy work”, letting people participate in their rituals for the remission of sins,  and all for a price of course.  While there are still some that are not quite ‘off the fence’ yet, the majority of the village recognizes the fallacy of these doctrines and are standing firm against their former beliefs.

This week we’ll teach:

Monday:

- Jesus resisted Satan’s temptations.

- Jesus began His ministry.

Tuesday:

- Jesus taught that people must be born again.

- Jesus had power to heal sickness and to forgive sins.

Wednesday:

- Jesus foretold His death, burial and resurrection.

Together for HIS glory,

Ralf and Elli with Naomi, Rebekka and Mirjam