NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Radio story: String of Beads

The voices of the Akolet crowd hushed as missionaries unrolled a long string with thousands of beads, which represented time. One of the oldest villagers, Aiglas, came forward to guess where he was born on the timeline. Everyone thought he must be close to the beginning of the string because he was so old, but he was only born within the last 100 beads! Because the Akolets have no written history, they rely on the memory of their oldest living relatives, passed down from generation to generation. Aiglas isn’t even close to the beginning of time, but God was there in the beginning, and he wrote down the true story of history so that the Akolets can know what really happened at the beginning of time. The Akolets are excited to learn more about the very first bead…and the creation of all things.

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The above story is one of 235 stories airing on the radio. Stories like this direct people to our website filled with opportunties to pray, give or go. You can subscribe to a podcast of the Reach Beyond Your World stories by RSS or through itunes. (Copy the RSS link into your RSS reader, or subscribe through itunes for free.)

usa.ntm.org is live Thanks for praying: check out the new design.

Thank you for your prayers for the February workshop. I learned about listening and confronting, had core values challenged, and was challenged by Jesus’ focus on ministry and dependence on the Father. I’ve been learning about hospitality lately, so we’ll see what God has in store in the coming days.

Thank you for your partnership in seeing more tribes like the Akolets reached with the gospel. It takes a team.

Prayer Requests:

1. To complete 25 more radio stories that will challenge people to get involved.

2. That I would be dependent on God moment by moment. Eph 3:14-21

3. Pray for the Mwinika tribe that is in the middle of hearing the gospel in their language:Read More.

Praise:

1. Many in the Akolet tribe have believed on Jesus. Read more.

2. Praise: ntm.org is live

Praise: A visit from our consultant

Thanks for your prayers; it is so cool to see God working. Our radio/audio consultant came in several times this month and encouraged me with ways to take our program to the next level. We fine-tuned the rhythm of a recorded story, (that means making pauses shorter or longer, like 2/10ths, 5/10ths or 7.5/10ths of a second), and also went over punctuation for the scripts -i.e. there isn’t any: a period, semi-colon, comma, dash or colon can be put in anywhere to make it flow for speaking. We’re going to air all new stories in March! God has done much through your prayers this past month.

Ministry Update

I continue to work on new radio stories, our team is launching our new ntm.org website this month, and our training video is released online. We always have ideas rumbling around about new video projects; please pray for wisdom as we develop these ideas. Also, A local critique group, Word Weavers, has been helpful with feedback on my writing.

Workshop

This month, I’ll be attending a workshop called “Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills.” This will be a great opportunity to learn tools to minister and encourage others more effectively. Please pray that I will understand and apply the core concepts!

Praise:Funds came in for the orphange in Haiti

In December Greg and Jasmine had just a few short days to come up with funds to purchase a new property or the owners would sell the property to another group. God provided the needed funds! They should have the property in mid-January if I understand things correctly. Thank you for praying!

Personal Update

I just celebrated my 29th birthday with friends here. I’m looking forward to what the Lord has for me this year. My church is exploring ideas for outreach, and I’m becoming friends with a couple local girls. God is so good to give us just what we need each day from His Word, and he is doing that for me through a church Bible study.

Thank-you, thank-you for your part in praying so that together, we can see more tribal churches started and mature in the Lord!

Praise:

1. Praise: radio stories are moving forward

2. Praise: local writing critique group is helpful

3. Funds came in for the orphanage property in Haiti.

4. Video & web projects are wrapping up!

Prayer:

1. Continue to finish 85 radio stories

2. To learn and apply core concepts from the interpersonal skills workshop

3. That I would seek God with my whole heart

4. For the Akolet – hearing God’s word, and for the Mwinika translation work.

Prayer requests:

1. For Reach Beyond Your World radio stories to impact listeners, and to complete the next set of 85 stories.

2. That our new video about training will help people take their next step into missions.

3. For the new ntm.org website to be easy for people to use, and for Micah as he works to get it ready.

4. Pray that God would draw my heart close to Him, that I would seek Him with my whole heart.

5. For the Akolet people hearing the evangelistic lesson starting on Jan 4th.

6. For the Mwinika people as they learn to read and write their own language, and for lessons to be translated clearly.

I wrote a November update and didn’t finish it until now… But here are some of the things God was doing in October & November, through the church body. It takes a huge team of people praying, supporting and serving to reach these tribes with the gospel.

New believers

Evangelistic lessons were presented in six tribes…some of the lessons were not taught by missionaries, but by the tribal believers reaching out to their own people: the Moi in Indonesia, the Uriay in Papua New Guinea, the Wano in Indonesia, and the Guanano in Brazil, the Bena Bena in Papua New Guinea and the Dao in Indonesia.

Believer’s ministry

Other tribal believers are in the process of reaching out to new villages: the Tabganwa, the Manobo and the Banwaon people in the Philippines, and the Prai people of Thailand.

First-time hearers

The Akolet people of Papua New Guinea will begin hearing evangelistic lessons January 4th. One man who helped translated the lessons has already trusted in Jesus!

Translation-in-process

And Bible lessons are being translated into the Siar language of Papua New Guinea, the Southern Tepehuan language of Mexico, and the Mwinika language of East Africa, in preparation for teaching the people.

Wow! God is doing so much around the world. Thank you for being a part of my ministry, of planting and establishing new tribal churches, through prayer. Without God, we can do nothing! With God, nothing is impossible!

I hope you have enjoyed the holiday season, with family and the Lord. It was so nice to be with my parents, and also meet our neighbors from Puerto Rico. My parents have been down here in Florida for a whole year now!

85 new stories in production

This fall has been busy, with a digital photography class at Daytona State, and writing new radio stories. It is challenging to write a whole story that is about 50 seconds long when it’s read aloud. In the past few months, I’ve recorded about 40 new stories, read by various staff at the home office. Now I have a big pile of editing to do! The other 45 scripts or so have been sent back to the revising stage, because they are too long, need to be re-focused or need to be written more descriptively. =) It is tough, but fun to write a story in one minute that is simple, interesting and impactful.

New Listeners

In November, we mailed about 600 sample CD’s to radio stations and chains. Praise that we have heard back from several that they will be playing the stories. Pray that the stories will touch the hearts of the listeners to get involved with missions on a deeper level. We hope to share our program through itunes as well.

Odds & Ends

In the midst of working on radio stories, I’m also helping a little with our new website with forms and data entry (like videos and creating the NTM@work archive pages). Programmers and designers have put it all together, and are moving most data from the currant site. It’s exciting to see it come together.

We are also finshing a video about training with New Tribes Mission, and hope to record the voiceover this week. A local company is finalizing the video and developing the background music. This will be a tool for people already interested in missions, to see if they want to train with New Tribes.

To Seek God Wholeheartedly…

I’ve been reading the Kings lately, and see that many good kings did not seek the Lord their whole life and turned away to idols or became proud. That gives me reason to stop and think! Only two other kings were “like David.” What about me? What does it look like in a normal week to seek God with my whole heart? As I enter 2011, I trust God will continue to teach me more of Himself.