NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

Airstrip…..yes, we are building an airstrip!! Actually most of the stumps have already been removed and now we are getting ready to start the next phase of filling in all the holes & building it up with dirt.  But something we have to deal with here in the Sepik Region is RAIN, RAIN, RAIN!!!! Right now there is quite a bit of water on the airstrip so we may have to postpone work until it dries out.

But the blessing to this is that our water tank is overflowing!!     We can’t tell you though how nice it will be to be able to use our airstrip one day.  The river trips are ok & sometimes are even fun but they are long & hot!!   Plus once we get the airstrip done we will only be a 30 minute flight from our Sepik region support center.

Your PNG Parntners in the Gospel!

PNG Sutton’s

Dear Family & Friends,
CULTURE & LANGUAGE LEARNING!!!!! That is what we are doing now!! We have just finished our first week of language study. It is amazing to think that after all those years of training here we are relationship building in PNG!!!

There have already been times when we have laughed at ourselves, wanted to cry, or just plain thought there is no way we are ever going to get this!! But God has been faithful. We had a wonderful time with the Language and Culture Consultants that came in to help us get started.  Basically they will be coming in every 6 months to evaluate us and to encourage us in learning this unwritten language. We are looking at about 3 yrs of language study.

Three CLA consultants came in to kick us off and they challenged us to strive for excellence in all that we do here in YembiYembi land, and we do want to strive for excellence as we realize that people’s lives are at stake. We do NOT want to miscommunicate God’s Word. So, this is going to be a long journey but we know that with your prayers & God’s strength that one day the Yembi’s will hear what Christ did for them on Calvary. It would take us tons of time to tell you all the cultural things that we are already learning.

Tony was able to go and watch “saksak” being done with one of his brothers in his line.  This is a tree that they cut down and basically process the whole innards of the tree and then they cook it and eat it.  This is their staple by the way.  They eat this every day.  The goal for the guys on our team will be a minimum of 8 hours CLA study and the ladies for at least 2hrs, although they have all been able to get in three or four hours a day so far.   Tara has enjoyed going to the village every day with Scarlett & Logan.  Her goal is to continue language study as much as she can with homeschooling, keeping house & cooking meals.  She has already found several ladies that she enjoys visiting with in the afernoons.

Thank you for praying for us!

Tony, Tara, Scarlett and Logan

Wow,

We have partnered up, surveyed and are ready to begin working with the Inanbimali/YembiYembi people of Papua New Guinea.  Please pray for us as we take our families into meet the people.  After that we will begin housebuilding, relationship building and then begin learning the Bises Language.  Bises is what they call their language. 

Yames is good and so they say Yames Wodus, Yames Ales and Yames Nimakak for Good Morning, Afternoon and Goodnight!  There’s just a short snippet and the language that we will be learning soon.

Thank you once again for your love, prayer and financial support,

Your PNG coworkers in the Lord,

Tony, Tara, Scarlett and Logan

Hi all,

We just wanted to write a quick note to let all of you know that we have decided to join with two other couples. The only hitch is that they live in the Sepik region of PNG… so that means a move for us. We are excited to be joining Dave and Missy Schroeder and Brooks and Nina Buser as teammates.

Please pray as we figure out how to ship all of our stuff and get ourselves moved.

Tony Tara and Family

LIVING STREAMS
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
-John 7:37,38-

And the winners are: Joely Michalek from Minnesota and Judy Rowland from Kentucky!! We hope that you both enjoy your PNG coffee!! J Both of their suggestions helped inspire a new name for our newsletter, ”Living Streams.” This ties into the verse that is above and as we read it we realized, that is what we are trying to do here in Papua New Guinea…give living water to a group of people who have never had a chance to hear it. (Thanks for all your contributions).

OUR DECISION ON TOBO
In our last update we had written about the possibility of joining two missionary families in the Tobo tribe. After giving it considerable thought, prayer and seeking Godly advice, we have come to the conclusion that we will not be joining the team working in Tobo. We have been pretty set on joining this work for some time now, and did not expect to have to consider going elsewhere. It shows us once again that our plans are not God’s plans.
This brings up several important prayer requests. We do need partners (at least one other couple) before we can go into a tribe to start a work, and at this point there are not many options for us to consider. So PLEASE pray that we will have patience with God and can trust that he is working things out for the best. Pray that we will continue to trust Him and not become discouraged. There are some new missionaries coming in the fall of this year and they would be done with their bush orientation in Dec. or Jan. of next year. That means we maybe wouldn’t have partners until the beginning of next year, which to us seems like a long time. Those are only our plans though and we do not know what God has in store for us. In the meantime we will be doing research on different tribes, and helping out with different support ministries in the Madang Region.

PIDGIN STUDY & BUSH ORIENTATION:
As of June 10th we were done with our official Pidgin English study!!! Thank you so much for your prayers and encouraging words during these past 4 months as we have studied to learn the trade language. Of course it has not been easy at times but at least we can communicate now and find out where the toilets are in town!!
Our next adventure is what we call BUSH ORIENTATION!! We will spend 2 weeks in a tribe where there are New Tribes missionaries living, and there is a functioning church established. The tribe that we are going to is called Malamaunda. There are 2 families in there currently and we are excited about getting to know them. This time is for us to learn as much as we can from them about: housebuilding, churchplanting, discipleship, and whatever else we are wondering about. We will fly to our Sepik supply center (about 45 min. flight) on July 17th and then into the Malamaunda tribe on July 18th. We will arrive back in our supply center in the Madang region on August 4th.

PRAYER & PRAISE:
We ask that you pray for us in our search for partners, while in the meantime we will be helping out with support ministries such as: supply buying for missionaries who are already in a tribal location. We buy their supplies in town and then package them up and get them ready to send into the missionaries. There are currently 4 tribes being worked in with 9 missionary families between them all.

This past month has been very discouraging. Homesickness can come at the most unexpected times!! We covet your prayers that we would stay in HIS word and be encouraged!!

We want to thank God that we are almost done with the first language we are to learn while here in PNG!! This takes us one step closer to our goal of reaching a tribe with the Gospel!!  Also we want to continue to praise God for YOU!! Your prayers and support are what keep us going over here in the land of PNG!

In Christ,

Tony, Tara, Scarlett and Logan

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.

Dear Supporters,

We want to say a BIG thank you to YOU!! We realize that we would not be here if it weren’t for the sacrifice that you make.
God is teaching us so much here and even though at times it’s been extremely hard He is still there to hold us close.

Language study is keeping us busy. We are currently in Stage 3/week 3. This means that there is only one more stage to go which consists of three weeks. This is just the trade language that we are learning. We both have seen improvement…we can talk to people around town and understand a lot more!!

Scarlett and Logan are doing well. They have had their hard adjustments too but they seem to be doing better now. There are a lot of neighbor kids here that they can play with. Going to town and being around the people is getting easier for them.  It’s a struggle because so many people want to touch their hair or their arms and at first that really bothered them.

Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated. And we thank you for standing beside us in this ministry that the Lord has us involved in.

Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart…

We thank God for all of you!

In Christ,

Tony, Tara Scarlett and Logan