NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

1. What is life like in PNG?

6 million people. 865+ languages. A few large towns exist, but the country is mostly rural. Think tropical paradise without any of the conveniences of modern life… like roads, paved airports, Home Depots, Walmarts, clean hospitals and adequate schools. Men hunt and women grow gardens for food. Most people’s lives are governed by trying to please the spirits.

2. How are there so many languages spoken there? Are you sure those aren’t dialects?

Cannibalism? Difficult terrain to pass? We can only speculate. No, they aren’t dialects. We do know that these people truly understand and are able to live out the gospel when it is taught to them in their heart language.

3. How many language groups are still untouched by the gospel?

318 language groups that number > 1500 people– after a 4 year survey by NTM, Wycliffe and others

4. Why are you going there?

The Lord has given us each a heart for those people who have never had a chance to hear the gospel. We said “we’re available”. Ro. 10:14-15 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? …Ro. 15:20 and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation…

5. If you two are busy doing nursing and construction, how will people there hear the gospel?

Because of the lack of infrastructure in PNG, it takes a lot of people to reach the unreached. About 1/3 of the NTM missionaries there are in support roles similar to ours–pilots, teachers, supply buyers, mechanics, government reps and more. The support workers make it possible for families to live and stay in the tribes by building and helping to maintain their homes, educating their children, flying them and staple foods in and out, fixing their broken bones, immunizing their kids, etc. The other 2/3 are solely church planting. Let’s say that the Smith’s, the Doe’s & the Jones live among the “livebythesea” tribe. They are the ones who know how to speak”livebythesea” and who know how to communicate the gospel to these people in a way that is meaningful to them. They are the ones who will teach in their heart language, disciple believers and help establish church elders because they live there and know them.

6. Why is a nurse who cares primarily for the missionaries necessary?

The medical care in PNG has declined so much in the past 30 years that it is no longer safe to receive care there. There is a high risk of infection from reused needles and open wards. The hospital may not have the medicine you need in stock. Adequate immunizations for children are not available. The closest, consistent, and safe medical care is in Australia. This is why NTM has 2 physicians and several nurses that care for the missionaries living in the tribes. Only when surgery or hospitalization is necessary will missionaries have fly to Australia to receive care. A nurse practitioner and Amy will care for 139 families scattered throughout 42 language groups.

7. Why is it necessary to have a full time missionary who knows how to build stuff and how to fix stuff in PNG?

Church planters and linguists need logistical and man power help to fix stuff and build stuff. To build a cost-effective home in PNG, you cut down the wood, let it dry, mill it, then build with it. You also have to coordinate buying other supplies from Australia that are not consistently available in PNG. Missionary homes are built with conveniences like running water and solar electricity because it helps facilitate church planting and allows the missionaries in the tribes to do more than just survive. Translation goes faster with computer software!

This is the story of how Ryan and Amy started down the road to Papua New Guinea. It all started when Ryan was a young boy growing up in the jungles of PNG. He became a believer after a good friend from PNG died before the gospel was presented in his tribe. Ryan quickly learned the value of the gospel and the Lord continued to reinforce this throughout his life. In January 2009 Ryan thought he’d be serving with NTM in PNG in a few short months, but found out that he had melanoma. Based upon the lack of access to health care in PNG, doctors here said that his plans to leave should be delayed at least a year.

Amy grew up in Dallas and also became a believer at a young age.  With the support of family & friends, she learned to trust and love the Lord more as she grew up and experienced new things. Her eyes were opened to the unengaged (those people groups that have no access to the gospel) on a trip to Sudan and a few years later she began to pursue missions. She was waiting on an assignment from Africa Inland Mission when she met Ryan, who was waiting for his health reports to clear before going to PNG.

In 4 short months they were engaged and shortly after marrying they took a 2 month vision and training trip to PNG. The Lord directed them to return to PNG to serve together.

It has been a great summer, we spent it working and getting to know each other and settling in to marriage. Amy has been working at Parkland in the ER, and Ryan has been working for Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Dallas. It has been good getting settled in to life together and slowly making our way around to all of you.

We are still on track to head to PNG in the spring. We are just beginning to start raising support and such. Our hope is to begin scheduling small group speaking times ASAP. It is exciting to see how God has beginning to bring a great network of people around us to make all of this possible.

What does the future hold?

We are going to Michigan the 5th-16th of August to visit family and friends and to contact some old family churches for possible support.

Ryan starts teaching Biology at Cornerstone Academy in South Dallas mid August, and Amy will continue at Parkland through the end of the year.

We plan to start support raising support in September, and begin finalizing plans to leave.

We have training with NTM the beginning of November in Florida.

We will head to MI in Dec for Christmas and stay through the end of January.

We will share with a few churches, and finish support raising there.

We plan to head back to TX the beginning of February to say our goodbyes and head to PNG mid February.

Now as a disclaimer this plan is dependent on support, visas, health etc. Basically we have prayed and believe this is the way to go, and are trusting God to work it all out.

We just wanted to give you all a heads up for what our summer will look like. Ryan was approached by Pastor Chris Simmons at Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Dallas to run a summer Business Entrepreneurship Program for high school students. We have prayed about it and feel it would be a good direction for Ryan to go. The salary for it is questionable right now so please pray the God would provide the funds to make it worth it. Our goal is to have Ryan’s student loan payed off by the end of the year and we are putting his income towards that end. This could be a great opportunity for ministry and for us to continue to develop relationships with the people around us.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We are excited to see God opening the doors ahead of us.

Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

We just wanted to let you know what all is going on. We have been living with Amy’s parents while settling in to life as a couple and getting used to being back here in the USA. It has been a good time, just learning what marriage looks like. We have been praying for a place to live and God has provided us with the chance to move to South Dallas close to Cornerstone Church. Pastor Chris has offered us one of the units in the old motel there by the church and we are happy to accept. This will allow us to live cross culturally to an extent as well as to pour time into lives Ryan has already invested in for the past few years through C-kids.

Ryan has started a small construction business and has been doing remodeling and landscaping jobs and the work is coming in consistently. We are hoping to be able to pay off his student loan by the end of the year and are putting his income to that end. Please pray that jobs would come in consistently and allow us to do just that. Amy is still at Parkland and will continue there until we are set to leave the country.

We have talked with our church leadership and they are excited to be sending us to PNG with NTM. They have asked that we wait until we have been married one year before we head overseas long term. That means the soonest we can go would be December of this year. We have talked with PNG as well and housing there isn’t really available until January. The leadership there has asked us to go to the main center first so Amy can practice medicine for 8 weeks under the doctor there with NTM and get a feel for tropical medicine.

So what is next? Our plan for the next few months is as follows.

Continue in our jobs and pay of student debt.

Move to South Dallas and get settled into life and the community there.

Lay low the next couple of months to get used to being married and settle into life here.

Finalize the applications process with NTM.

Begin to raise support for the tools we would like to be able to take to PNG.

Start raising support in September.

Training in Florida with NTM in November.

Christmas with family in Michigan then support raise there until February.

Return to TX in February and say our good byes.

Head to PNG mid Fedruary.

This our hope and plan as God enables and allows. Please pray that we would be faithful to his call, and grow as a couple to love him and each other as He would have us do. Please pray for continued divine appointments as we move forward and for God to provide the finances and support to make it all happen in His timing.

Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

THANK YOU for all you did to help us get to Papua New Guinea and back earlier this year. THANK YOU for your prayers. We attribute our health, safety, lessons learned, vision gained, “coincidental meetings” and success in early marriage while there to many of your specific prayers for us. Our time there was fruitful and we would like to go back. But first, here’s a wrap up of what our 7 weeks looked like…

Amy began learning Melanesian pigin. Ryan refreshed and updated his pigin from the 80s. We dipped into the culture: ate food cooked in an underground mud/banana leaf oven; sat with the women making string bags; helped with their garden work; sat in their yards and homes and chatted some more…

We heard and saw what missionary life is like—the challenges & the Lord’s faithfulness in it all.

We worked in our future roles in medicine & construction/ maintenance. The nurses, doctors, builders, mechanics, pilots, teachers & more enable the missionaries to do their job better because services like heathcare, roads and schools are practically nonexistent in PNG.

We met missionaries that we will be supporting. These missionaries move in to a tribe’s village and then spend years learning their unique language and culture. Then, they share the full gospel. As a body of believers is born, missionaries disciple them and teach them to read & write. The missionaries tediously translate the Scripture into their language. With God’s Word, the new believers can grow. The missionary’s goal is to leave behind an indigenous, self-sustaining church.

We saw that PNG is very “missionized”, however, very few know or have heard the TRUE gospel. Most churches preach a works-based salvation. Others still follow animistic beliefs and most everyone else follows a combination of the two.

We learned there are now 318 unreached language groups in PNG. This number was recently reached from all major mission organizations in PNG.

We drank PNG coffee everyday!

We hiked through beautiful mountains & valleys and swam in the ocean.

We did NOT eat any bugs.

So, what’s NEXT??

Work, eat, sleep, play, reconnect with you in person, keep learning about what it is to be married folks that honor the Lord. And finally pay off remaining student loans.

Now that the Interface program is over we are spending the next few weeks with missionaries doing the roles we hope to come here and fulfill. The hope is this will give us a good view of how ready we are to come here and serve. We wanted to see how we fit into the big picture here in New Guinea and get a feel for what life would be like.

I’ve spent the last 10 days working in the clinic here at the NTM’s main center in PNG. Their main job is to keep the missionaries well and healthy because getting treatment at the local hospital is rolling the dice on whether you’ll get adequate care. Not to mention that you’re taking your chances catching somebody else’s germs….a reused needle, the TB patient in the same open ward as you, the dirty sheets, the community bathrooms. The medical system in this country has seen better days. The closest reliable medical system is Australia–that’s where most of the missionaries goes to have their children or for big emergencies. The clinic also treats many people from other mission organizations, nationals that live nearby and a few random expats working in country.

The clinic does a little bit of everything–their own lab work, microbiology labs, xrays, ultrasounds, pharmacy. I was amazed. The 2 physician clinic supports all the missionaries, both in the bush and at center. They package up medications and get them on flights to families in the bush. They are always available by email for medical questions and in emergencies, by radio. They teach missionaries how to look in ears and listen to breath sounds. If the missionary can tell that their kid has an ear infection they can give them the antibiotic they’ve already got on hand and save themselves a plane flight out to the main clinic. Even though it only costs $10 to see the doctor (which covers the clinic’s utility bills), trips can add up quickly when the only way out of your village is by plane or helicopter. And, it’s that much more time and energy that the missionary can be working on what they are there to do.

I loved getting to jump in and get my feet wet at the clinic. My experience in the ER proved to be very useful because I had seen such a wide range of illnesses. And I had never dreamed of being an ER nurse. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of room for learning, but it was encouraging to see that I have a good foundation to build upon in that field.

I was amazed at the number of missionaries that live at the main center. It takes about 100 people to keep NTM running in that country! That includes pilots, mechanics, builders, teachers, dorm parents, accountants, tribal supply ordering people, doctors, nurses, people that run the guest house, government representatives, computer technicians, and probably a few more! It takes a large force of people to keep church planters and translators in the middle of nowhere healthy, fed, clothed, sheltered and able to communicate with the outside world!

Ryan and I are looking forward to coming back and being a part of the work God is doing here. It has been so good to see it all happening first hand. Please pray God would give us clarity on timing and location to serve him as we continue with this trip. Next week we are going to a smaller center to see what life there would look like. That is where Ryan was headed before the cancer  set Him back a bit. We are still thinking that is where we would like to be long term and are hoping that our time will confirm or eliminate that. Pray that we would see what we need to and that we would be an encouragement to the missionaries there. Thank you for praying with us so far. God has been good and this has been a very good and fruitful time.