Rick and Jonell Barth Training the Missionaries of Tomorrow The Staff Gets Together As A New Year Begins.
On Tuesday we had the staff kickoff for the new school year. It was largely a social time, with opportunities to visit with each other and learn what has been happening since the school year ended. Many, like us, spent the summer visiting ministry partners around the country. The next few weeks, though, won’t allow time for much additional socializing, as everyone is busy gearing up for the new year. Our time together ended with a time in the Word led by our Dean of Education, Thomas Freeman.
Home At Last!
Well after being on the road since Memorial Day weekend, and logging 9258 miles, we finally arrived home on Monday evening. We thoroughly enjoyed the summer but it’s good to be home and getting ready for a new school year. Those new students who will be getting jobs with a local school bus company have already begun arriving, as also have the returning students who will be serving in leadership roles this year. The remainder of the students should begin arriving in a little over a week.
Crossing West Texas
It is July 26th and we are traveling across west Texas. Oh my, what a unique area of our country. It is flat, farmland as far as you can see. We have not seen such as this since we left Wisconsin the end of May. For me, Jonell, it is my roots, where I grew up and it is fun to be here.
This has been an amazing summer of traveling over 7000 miles, at this point, and we have seen many supporters, churches that support us, family, and friends. Oh how we are blessed to have so many love us, pray for us and support us financially.
Today we are going to see a woman and her family that I knew as a teenager. How great is that!!! It is fun to reconnect with her.
It was fun, fun, fun having time with our granddaughter, Lily, or “lulu” as I like to call her. She will be 3 in August and she is sooooo fun. I think my son-in-law was a bit taken back when he saw me teaching Lily the song, “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” especially because it iwas accompanied with my own dance steps to the song. After that day, Lily would come in and say, “Grammy sunbeam, sunbeam.”
We have also had time with Matt, Emily and boys on Skype. You can imagine what it means to Rick and to me to see our little men while they are in their little house in Papua, Indonesia. They talk to us and we all laugh a lot. Matt and I are acting pretty crazy through the 
whole thing. Something just happens to me when I have an audience!!! Are you laughing?
I LOVE traveling with Rick. He is so fun and he stops anytime I need or want to stop and never once has complained about it. My muscles hurt from the Lyme disease so I need to get out and move around every hour or so.
That’s enough for today. We will be home in Waukesha on August 9th. I can’t wait to see our staff and students at New Tribes Bible Institute!
Landed in Mississippi
We have now been in Ms for over a week. We have had the best time being with our daughter Heather and family. Jonell goes around the house dancing with 3-year 0ld Lily while singing, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam to shine for Him each day.”
We are traveling around to our various supporting churches in Ms and Louisiana. We love it!!!
We had one of our former NTBI students drive four hours out of the way to come see us this week. That meant sooooo much to us!
Man, is it hot down here in the south. I always forget how hot it gets until we get here and I start almost bursting into flames!!!
We arrived in Mississippi a little over a week ago. Last weekend we were in Hattiesburg, MS. We will be in Tupelo, Ms this weekend and New Orleans the weekend after July 4th. We do get to stay here in the Jackson area for the weekend of the 4th.
We have had numerous opportunities along the way to encourage those who are hurting and struggling. God always seems to give us that privilege wherever we go.
Heading for Birmingham
6/11/10 It was just as we prayed it would be. Our time in Ft. Myers, Fl. Was amazing. What a precious group of believers at our “sending church.” We felt that our church family there became more at one with us in our ministry at NTBI. It was so fun and encouraging to see them getting excited about our students, about the fact that many will eventually be missionaries in some of the most remote parts of the earth. It couldn’t help but touch our church family to think that as we teach these students, they are being prepared to share God’s truth in all its glory, to tribal groups that have never heard the fact that Christ can set them free-free from sin, free to live life abundant as new creations in Christ Jesus.
We had numerous sessions with the church folks at different small groups, in Sunday School, in homes, and Rick had the opportunity to speak in the main service on Sunday. The Lord enabled Rick to exude our passion for our students to really grab hold of who they are and what they have in Christ. Only then can they go and take God’s truth in all its fullness to those who have never heard, to those who walk in darkness.
Now we are heading north to Birmingham, Ala. This is soooo great! Rick and I love to travel together and we love seeing dear friends along the way. We are humbled by the opportunities to share in churches each weekend throughout the summer!
On the Road Again!
Packed & Ready to Travel!
Packed to the gills!
What a wonderful thing to get to spend the summer doing -visiting our supporters, both individuals and churches. It is such fun for Rick and me. We loved raising support to go to Ireland as church planters, and we now love sharing with everyone the joys of ministry that we have at New Tribes Bible Institute.
Here are a couple of pictures of our car loaded down with everything needed, from our display to show at churches, to 2 months worth of stuff just for living day to day.
Right now we are heading to our sending church in Ft Myers, Fl. They are a precious group of believers and we love them dearly. It always encourages and uplifts us to go and spend time with them and share with them what God is doing through their partnership with us in HIS work.
We are thankful that we have a couple of our NTBI graduates to house sit for us while we spend over two months on the road.
End of the Year Cookout
- Part of the Crowd
Every year we have a number of students and graduates who have to stick around after school ends. Many of them are school bus drivers for a local bus company. They have to stick around until public school ends. Since the school cafeteria is closed they have to fend for themselves with regards to there meals. We, therefore, generally try to have a cookout sometime during the two weeks after the end of school for them and any other students or graduates that have remained in the area. This year’s cookout was last Thursday, May 20th. Somewhere between 70 and 75 showed up. We cooked 80 hamburgers and 56 “brats” with all the trimmings. We had absolutely nothing left over. It was a great evening!! We both enjoyed it but by the end we were both pretty much exhausted.
Spring 2010 Graduates
This past Saturday, May 15th, we had our spring commencement ceremony. This year we had 78 students complete their education here at New Tribes Bible Institute. For those of us who have a real heart for ministry, it was exciting to know that 85% of them say that their desire is to become involved in fulltime vocational ministry. Of these students 76% said that they plan to move forward with New Tribes Mission with the intent of ultimately becoming involved in carrying the Gospel to unreached tribal groups.
Graduation is always a time of mixed emotions for Jonell and me. On the one hand there is great sadness in seeing students, whom we have come to love, leave us to move on to the next phase in life. But on the other hand there is great joy in knowing that we have helped prepare them for a fruitful life and ministry. It is our hope that the seeds we have planted will continue to grow in the days and years ahead.
Last Thurday Bible Study of the Semester
Some of Our Thursday Evening Group
Thursday night we had our final Bible study of the school year. The group this week was a bit smaller than it has been throughout the year, but that was to be expected given the fact that a lot of end of the semester assignments were coming due. The weekly Bible has been one of the highlights of our week throughout the year. We’ll look forward to starting it up again in August when the school year begins again. We’ll miss the Seniors though.
What Kind of Fruit Are We Producing?
Students in Bible Basis of Missions Class
As I sat in Rick’s Bible Basis of Missions class I was struck by the thought of the danger of producing plastic fruit, as far as the Christian life is concerned. How sad it would that be if our “fruit” looks like ugly plastic fruit!!
The disciples may have done the wrong thing a lot, yet it didn’t alter that they were his disciples, because their discipleship was about who they were-in Christ. Their growth and changed actions came out of their relationship to Christ. It was not just a ticket into heaven, it was a way of life, in Christ.
People know if we are real, if our lives truly show forth Christ. I don’t mean that it is something we can produce. It is His life flowing through us. It is not I, but Christ. I long to carry the very impressions of Christ, not to my own glory, but for His, the One who calls me a saint, a son, an heir, a child of His. All of which only HE can produce in me. I hope you are challenged and encouraged by this.