Jim and Pat Smith

Total Years of Service with NTM

Jim and Pat served with New Tribes Mission in Brazil for 20 years.

How were you challenged into missionary service?

Rudy Johnson, one of the New Tribes Representatives, came to speak at our church in Birmingham, AL at their Missions Conference each year. We had him and other missionaries to our home. Rudy gave us an application to come into NTM, and we laid it on our bookcase. Each year he would ask us “If we had dusted off our application yet?” During this time our oldest daughter, Becky went to the New Tribes Bible School in Waukesha, WI. There she met her husband to be, Stephen Smith, and they continued on through the NTM missionary training program.

I, Jim was an accountant with McGraw Edison and later with Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Pat had a catering business. We had three children, and were raising 2 foster children. We both had a real heart for missions. In fact, we had many missionary students stay at our house each year. We were right on the route for them as they traveled from the NTM training Center in Oviedo, FL to the Language phase of the training in Camdenton, MO. These plus visiting missionaries at our church numbered over 100. Yet, the Lord continued to tug at our hearts to be involved full time. Although I was already over 50, one Sunday I announced to our church family that we were going to put our house on the market and go into missionary training with New Tribes Mission.

What was your biggest test of faith?

Pat said that, “Stepping forth by faith to go into missionary training was definitely our biggest test of faith. We thought, our house would sell and we could use that money to pay for our training. Well, the Lord’s plan was different. It got to be the last week before we had to leave for our training in Oviedo, FL and our house and our second car still had not sold. We continued to pack and Jim continued to affirm that ‘We are going!’ Then on Wednesday of that week, someone bought our car. Also a man that was a friend of NTM offered to take over the house and sell it for us. So we loaded our station wagon and a U-haul and left on that Saturday morning. By the way, our house sold about a year later. Meanwhile, we learned to trust the Lord to supply for us financially. In the midst of the training we needed to move from Florida to Missouri and again at the last minute the Lord brought in $600. so we could hire a truck to haul our belongings.”

Tell us about your ministry in Brazil.

As we continued on through the NTM training we felt we should not consider going to Brazil because by then Stephen and Becky were already serving there as missionaries and maybe it “wasn’t spiritual to go where your children were”. Again the Lord showed us He had different plans. One day we got a phone call from Henry Lowen, one of the NTM leaders in Brazil asking us to come to Brazil as they badly needed a bookkeeper. We gladly accepted! But, we needed a visa and they were not easy to come by. We applied and then waited over a year before being told to come on a tourist visa and try for a permanent visa later. We did that and left shortly thereafter. Our permanent visas were not granted until we neared the end of our first term. Once we got to Brazil we studied Portuguese for a year in Manaus. Jim also did the Field bookkeeping and I helped in the guest house kitchen. We were then asked to move to Puraquequara, the NTM school base. The first 6 years, Jim did the bookkeeping and I worked in the school kitchen. As the school grew to more than 90 students, the bookkeeping needs increased and I became Jim’s full time bookkeeping helper. We also at times helped with teaching at the school, Jim teaching bookkeeping and me teaching Home Ec. We were also responsible for helping keep the field’s inventory. An added blessing during this time was that Stephen and Becky adopted 3 Brazilian children and so we even had grandchildren there with us on the field!

What advice would you give to new missionaries going to the field?

Go! Keep going unless the Lord stops you! He is faithful!

Date of interview: June, 2008

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