NTM - New Tribes Mission | Planting Tribal Churches

A year ago, we received an application to study at our institute in Mexico from Vicente Tigre (far left) a young Guarijio man.  His name in English would be Vincent TIGER.  He helped the missionaries learn his language, and had come to know the Lord through their teaching.  When we get this type application, we wonder if their Spanish will be “good enough” for them understand the teaching, or if they would be better off studying with the missionaries in their native language.   We are so glad we admitted him, he is such a blessing.  Vicente not only excelled in the curriculum, he did it while translating Galatians to his own language.  I just received an  e-mail from one of our missionaries who works with a group of Guarijio on the outskirts of Chihuahua City.  They had to move to the city, but continue to reach the Guarijio.  Here’s what he says:

      “But God in His grace and mercy has given us another opportunity with Guarijio here in the City of Chihuahua.  Linda has been teaching some Guarijio Ladies for many months.  Luis, a son of one of the ladies has joined the group.  It is a small group, but I am sure precious in the sight of our Heavenly Father. 

   A young Guarijio believer who started this semester in our Bible Institute took over the teaching.  His name is Vicente.  Vicente was thrilled with the chance to teach someone in his own language.  (He is also a gifted teacher).  We are two lessons away from the presentation of the Gospel.  Please pray as Vicente presents Christ this week.  We will be teaching on the burial on Wednesday the 11^th of May and the Resurrection on Saturday the 14^th.”

   Would you please pray for Vicente right now as he presents the final lessons in this very important series? 

Thanks,

 Virgil and Jeri

 ps.  We’ve become aware that those who have subscribed to our blog (www.ntm.org/virgil_holt) may not be receiving notification of new uploads.  You may need to re-subscribe sorry.

We just started a new Bible Study at church last Friday.  We are looking at the book of Ruth, one of two books of the Bible that bear the names of women.   Ruth was a gentile (Moabite) and married a Jew, Esther was a Jew who married a gentile.  Yet God in His sovereignty used both to save the nation of Israel.  The story takes place during the time that Judges ruled in the land of Israel… that’s NOT a good thing because rather than have God as their king, “every man did what was right in his OWN eyes.”  I made some interesting observations regarding the story of Ruth…

Elimelech, Naomi’s husband means “God is my King.”  Naomi means “pleasantness.”  They were from Bethlehem which means “land of bread.”  Yet, when the famine hit, “God is my king” seems to take matters into his own hands, and left the “land of bread” and went to Moab a pagan worshiping nation to meet their needs.  Isn’t that  what we tend to do?  Like Elimelech, we may bear His name as King, and live in His Kingdom, without really making Him my king.  As children of the King, we have all we need, yet when hard times come we leave the umbrella of His provision and pursue our lack in our own strength.   The result is death.  Elimelech, and his two sons died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in law with no hope of provision or inheritance.

I’m so glad the story doesn’t  end there, neither for Ruth and Naomi, nor for me when I take matters into my own hands.  God has a beautiful way of transforming our failures into classrooms of opportunity where we can learn to truly make him our King.  “Seek first God’s kingdom… and all these things will be added unto you.” trust Him even more deeply.    The end of the story is that Ruth is named as the great grandmother of David, and consequently named in the genealogy of Jesus Himself.  He has a way of turning our mistakes into blessings.

This has been a very “different” semester for our course.   We had  almost 40 students.  Over half of them are part time students.  What a varied group it was too.  Ages run from just over 14 years to 60 years old.

We have a young man from the Guarijio work who is working with our missionaries in translation.   He is extremely capable and it has been exciting to see him grow.

Several unsaved people came and  would not normally be considered for our course.  Our first requirement for attending classes is that a person be born again.  However, their circumstances have let us to look beyond the “normal” reasoning and allow them to take the Chronological Evangelism course.

One gal, has been in a church for several years, but has never really had assurance of salvation.  She shared with people in her church that she just didn’t “feel” saved.  Unfortunately no one picked up on the fact that her faith was ill-placed,  that it isn’t an issue of having enough faith to save,  rather an issue of in WHO that faith is placed.  Her problem was she had never really understood how the death burial and resurrection of Jesus applied to her personally.  A couple of weeks ago the puzzle fell together for her and she shared that that “feeling” of not knowing was gone.  She was SURE she was saved.

Another,  the unsaved sister of a pastor’s wife in town who is taking a few classes insisted on coming because that she really WANTED to hear that teaching.  We discussed it and decided it was a unique opportunity that God was providing and we shouldn’t turn them away.

Still another is Jesús Montaño.  He is our 60 year old, and readily admits that he isn’t a believer, and is considering the claims of Christ.   Earlier this month, he and I went out to coffee and the subject of the Chronological Evangelism class came up.  I was hoping to hear that he too had really understood his own condition and was trusting in Jesus as his substitute.   I couldn’t help but be disappointed to learn that he is still hanging on to the “front” of religion that has been his hope all his life.    These dear people continue to be in contact with our team.

Each of our Bible Institute students represents a unique window of opportunity for us.  Please pray that God will continue to work in their lives and draw them ever nearer to His plan for them.

Like many of you, we have spent a lot of our free time yesterday glued to the TV watching the Chilean mine rescue.  Jeri just turned to me and said, “What a beautiful picture of salvation.”  She is RIGHT!!   We ARE like the miners.  When the cave-in happened these men were left in total darkness, without any hope of rescue.  They were so desperate they began to quarrel and fight about what they could do about their situation.  They sounded horns in hope that someone on the surface would hear them.  In fact they did hear from above, but only assumed that “they were cries of the souls of the 33 dead miners.  What desperation!  If you’ve ever been in a cave without light, the darkness is almost palpable.  Then hope came from above.  Like to Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled, they began to hear the grinding of a drill.  At times irritating I’m sure, but every hour it got louder.  When it broke through, they knew they had hope of delivery from above.  Finally the heard the big drill.   They had real hope of rescue.  The path to their salvation was opened.  Someone (actually 5 of them) went down to them to show them the way to be free.  What a picture of what Jesus did for us.  We too were in that same condition.  We were in total spiritual darkness.  Our own efforts only led to frustration.  The only real hope we had was in the promise that a Savior would come.  Then came the day when we heard the sounds of deliverance.  Jesus had made a new and living way for us to enter into the liberating light of God.   We learned that the price has been paid we were free.  We only had to believe it was true.  Now we only await our physical liberation.  We have experienced the joy of knowing that everything has been done.  There is nothing we can do to make it better.  However, even though our salvation has been provided, we are still living in a dark place.  We don’t belong here.  This dark world is NOT our home.  We are children of light.  We live in a dark place, but we are no longer possessions of darkness.  Rejoice, brother, Jesus has promised to transform your darkness into the bright light of liberty.  The Apostle Peter understood, he says we are “God’s OWN POSSESSION… called… out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1Pet.2:9) “Even so come Lord Jesus.”

 One added note… Jeri just heard that the miners listened to translated messages by the late Adrian Rodgers while they awaited their rescue.  Could it be possible that this analogy actually happened to some of them??  I’m going to pray that!!!

over 30 pastors at breakfast

Last Saturday, our Instituto Misionero Transcultural hosted a breakfast for all the evangelical pastors of Chihuahua.  We had over 30 in attendance, from various different associations of churches.  We expressed our appreciation for them and their faithful proclamation of God’s Word, and their support of both students who study with us and missionaries and pastors who we have trained.  We also explained our reason for existence as an organization, and enlisted their help as co-laborers in preparing men and women to carry out the great commission.  Here are some of the statistics that we shared with them covering what has happened since we started.

1994-2010

Bible Course:

• 159 students (about 30% of them part time)
• 75 have graduated from the 2 year course.

Missions Course –  (this course is full time)

• Total of 52 students
• 14 of them went through the Bible Course
• 51 have graduated from the Missions Course
• 3 of them were return students who came back after getting married so their spouse could be trained.

 Work with our organization-

• 22 are working with NTM in Mexico.
• 2 are looking to the Lord for support
• 3 NEW works have been opened by teams formed from our graduates:

               Among the TRIQUE

               Among the MIXTECO

               Among the CORA

Work with other organizations-

• 11 Graduates of the Bible Course (2 yrs) are working as pastors, pastor’s wives or are involved in other types of ministry in their churches.
• 12 Graduates of both the Bible Course and the Missions Course are serving as pastors, pastor’s wives, or some other ministry.

     We sometimes sing that Willie Nelson song as we pack up and prepare to travel again.  Usually we sing it in fun, but this time it is with mixed emotions.  This trip will be our return to Mexico.  The joy of returning to God’s place of ministry for us is tempered with new concerns.   

     Long gone are the days of worrying about traffic, or whether we are taking everything we will need.  Now our minds are filled with thoughts of aging parents, personal health needs, and separation from kids and grand kids.  How will God meet the needs of aging parents?  How will we manage Jeri’s new knees, my diabetes, and various other concerns?

     The situation in Mexico doesn’t help much either.  Many have expressed concern whether we should go back.  Yet we are convinced that that is exactly what God would have us do.  We recently went out together just to talk about what God is doing.  It was encouraging to remember how God lead us out of our previous ministry in the states to go be a part of equipping the Hispanic Church as missionaries.  We know he called us to Mexico then and we have been encouraged that He is not finished there yet.   He has been so faithful!  Has anything happened that somehow took God out of authority?  The words of 1 Thessalonias 5:24 are very encouraging… “Faithful is He who called you, who will also do it.”

     So with this brief blog entry, we hope to motivate you to think of us these next months.  Pray that God will continue to raise up laborers for the harvest.   Pray for safety and provision for us, and for those we work with and train.   The situation in Mexico may be scary, but the safest place a person can be is in the center of His will.   Thanks for praying.