Wendy Rees Latin America Regional Literacy Coordinator 
Wendy
GUAYABERO, NUKAK, PUINAVE & TIKUNA TRIBES
New Tribes Mission’s church planting ministry is completely based on biblical principles, so the entrance and effective spreading of God’s Word is one of our key thrusts. My coworkers laboring in the tribes are often the ones who translate Scriptures into tribal languages, so they also see the vital importance of maximizing the accessibility of them. That’s why literacy is so critical and why I am sent to facilitate its development in our church planting contexts.
Four Colombian teams are at various stages of their church planting progression and desirous to push their literacy programs forward: Guayabero, Nukak, Puinave and Tikuna. When I was last in Colombia, these teams and the field leadership invited me to return and lend a hand in the development and promotion of their literacy programs. So from early March through early May (or more?), I’ll be spending a couple weeks with each of the teams on site, to see how much progress we can make toward starting reading classes in the not-too-distant future. There’s a lot of background preparation to complete before that.
Ideally, the people will be taught just before they hear the evangelistic Bible study series where they are taught on a profound, world-view level. If they are already literate, they will be used to an new “educational” situation, and faithful, open-hearted people will already have practiced participation with groups of their families and neighbors in new areas of understanding. They’ll also be able to use the evangelism lessons in written form for clarification, participation through review and comprehension questions, and better remembering. The more ways a person can interact with new ideas, the more likely they will be to internalized them. As the new readers receive and believe the gospel, they will already be well on their way to being equipped to teach the same lessons themselves in the next outreach. Can you see how literacy learning is a form of “pre-discipleship” and discipleship?! You can understand why I, who rarely get excited, am excited about the doors the Lord is opening there!
- Please pray for these meetings to be fruitful, and for the wisdom to overcome the plethora of obstacles involved.
- Pray that I may be a tremendous encouragement and help to these teams upon whom, admittedly, these programs will place a substantial burden of work.
- Please pray for tribal coworkers to become willing and available to participate in the preparation of these programs that will be theirs to own soon.
- Please pray for travel without incident, and for provision for the flights to the interior.
- And pray that I’ll have strength and health to be able to maximize the brief time with the teams.
And I thank you profoundly who will commit to lift these tribal ministries before God’s throne of grace. His Spirit imbuing these efforts will be the only valuable force that will bear lasting fruit.
Tags: church planting, discipleship, evangelism, indigenization, indigenous languages, tribal literacy