NTM

This is an article Jen posted on the MTC youth group’s blog…

After scrubbing our numerous dishes last night with fellow crew members Bryan, Nat, and Natan, I headed over to our nightly meeting. We always gather in the Girl’s Building to sing, do a short devotional, and share different thoughts about what God is teaching us. Right after we finished singing praise songs (most of which were in the page 40 range) we heard someone knocking on the front door. When we opened the door after a minute’s hesitation, we found an older tribal couple. They had heard us singing and had come to watch. Curdy read our devotional while the couple sat there watching and listening although they could not understand a word he was saying. We then proceeded to get out the guitars once more to sing some more songs for them to hear. This is just one encouraging example of the tribal people’s growing interactions with us. At first they were very shy, but the longer we stay, the more they open up to us. As Kayla said above, the children have started laughing and playing with us instead of peeking timidly at us from around a corner.

After we ended our evening of fellowship and the couple departed, the adventures had only just begun! We were all getting ready for bed when I heard a sudden commotion from one of the inner rooms. When I went to investigate, I saw what others had only just discovered…a large tarantula!!

The black, hairy thing was perched on the wall just above someone’s bed! A group of us earlier in the afternoon had fixed the tiling of the building, so all the little (or rather large) creatures hiding out of sight had been disturbed. Mr. Parker was ready to dispose of the beast with a flip-flop, but after seeing how massive the fist-sized spider was, he thought better of his choice of destruction. A large can was brought, and the tarantula was carried out of the building and later…ok so I was about to say that it was killed BUT… Natan here just informed me that the spider is still alive and breathing outside in his tin prison! Ugh! I wish they would have killed it!

I’m multitasking this morning, sitting in on a meeting of church planters and trainers from North America and Europe.  We are working through our teaching notes on Evangelism, the Beginning/Infant Church, the Developing Church and the Mature Church. I’m here mostly to listen & try to stay up to speed. There must be over 200 years of tribal church planting experience around the table, and the discussion has been fascinating and encouraging. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time,  listening to the New Testament apostles discuss how they are working through challenges and opportunities in the early church.

One of the things that encourages me the most is that we are not focusing solely on “out there” but we want our candidates to be living these truths here and now, impacting their community & peers with the truth of the Gospel through their lives and through their words.

Please keep praying for us as we continue to hone our program and sharpen one another!

Life has been an eclectic mix of formal and informal, outdoors and indoors, teaching and learning. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Last week we were camping with our students, teaching compass, topographical maps & GPS use.  This weekend, Dan & Melissa and Kathy are home, so we have had a blast hanging out, enjoying meals together with Poppy & Grandma (Don & Janet) Kline.  Our good friends Isaac & Neena Smey joined all of us for supper on Friday night.

Dad, Dan and I hiked around on Dad’s property & planted some pine trees on Saturday.

Regarding our ministry, Fonda has been organizing the coffee breaks for the 4th semester students this semester, working in the library & working together with me in discipleship.I’ve had quite a few teaching opportunities with our Construction/Maintenance Team,a men’s prayer breakfast (Dad is on the right) and a message for our Graduation.

December 2007 and January 2008 have been interesting months for our family.  Our son Dan married Melissa (Jackson) Kline on December 29 in Pennsylvania.  I had the priviliege of conducting the ceremony.

January 8 found Kathy and I on the road to New Tribes Bible Institute in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where I did a devotional for the staff kickoff, as well as taught 5 hours on Leadership and Discipleship to the student leaders.  We had a fantastic time of fellowship with the staff & students; Kathy and I had a great time hanging out together.  We arrived home around 1:30 AM on the 12th after a side trip through downtown Chicago.

Dan & Melissa came to our home on the 11th, so our whole family was together for a few days. Kathy planned to ride with Dan & Melissa back to College of the Ozarks on the 13th, and we were all scrambling to finish some last minute projects before they left.  Dan ran into town to pick up oil and a filter for his van, and I was out in the shop fabricating some bolts for Dan & Melissa’s  apartment door.  I was using a grinder to finish the bolts when the wheel caught one of the "L" shaped bolts and immediately pulled the middle finger of my right hand into the tool rest.  The X-ray and hospital photo tell the rest of the story.  A surgeon had to clean up the wound & put everything back together.  Looks like I’ll keep my finger!

Needless to say, all of these activities and events are keeping Fonda and I constantly looking to the Lord!  We would appreciate your prayers for all of us as we trust Him for strength and wisdom!

Sunday, April 29, I along with three men from the MTC flew to Chihuahua, Mexico for NTM’s annual International Trainers Forum. We have had very profitable meetings over the last few days discussing how to better coordinate our training programs, graduation standards, and safety issues. We are thankful for the tremendous amount of agreement among our 11 international training programs in the Americas, Asia & Europe.

On Friday, May 4 I’ll fly back to Springfield, MO.  Fonda, Kathy & Jenny will pick me up at the airport and we will drive to Lexington, Mississippi where I will speak at Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church.  We attended PRBC for 13 years and are really looking forward to seeing our dear friends there!  Please pray for safety as we travel.

Three of us were returning from the east side of our campus after trying to determine what had knocked out the power over there. Halfway back, someone stopped us to point out a power line that had just gone down. I parked the truck and all of us got out to try to figure out what had caused the break & where the power line came from. Just at that moment the top snapped out of a tree. The tree top fell on a power line that was connected to a power pole with two huge transformers. That pole and transformers were connected to three 7000 volt power lines. We were almost directly under the 7000 volt lines. The shock of the breaking power line snapped the pole with the transformers, and the top of the pole, the transformers and the 7000 volt lines toppled over with a flash and sizzle and crashed to the ground. All of us began scrambling to get away before the transformers had even hit the ground. Sprinting on icy slush is normally no easy task, but when you are running for your life it does not seem to difficult.

I compared notes with one of the men afterwards and we both honestly thought we were going to die right there. Obviously God was not ready to take us home yet!

The cables never actually touched my truck, but in the photo, the truck is sitting there, engine running with both doors open just like we left it. We didn’t want to get close till we knew for sure everything was off. You’ll also notice the propane tank some of the wreckage is resting on.

You can be sure I’m looking up before I get out of my truck now.

Our power was restored on Monday, January 15 after being off for about 30 hours. We have had to postpone classes, but we have had no other serious problems. Please pray for the remainder of our students as they travel back to the MTC. Also, please pray for safety as we continue the huge job of cleaning up all the broken branches & limbs.

According to some researchers there are over 4000 patents for mousetraps, with applications for patents still coming in.

The mousetrap in the photo was designed by a west African tribal person. Though the trap is complex, it is built on principles which are different from the common spring & board trap you and I are used to in the U.S.

Underneath things as basic as mousetrap designs are worldviews. James Sire, in his book “The Universe Next Door” defines a worldview as a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic makeup of our world.

What are the worldview assumptions underneath the design of a mousetrap? You may kill mice because you believe they are dirty and inconvenient. Tribal people might kill mice because the mice are consuming food which the tribal family needs to survive. Businesses design a mousetrap that is effective, cheap and easy to mass produce so it can sold at a profit. “Consumers” buy these mouse traps rather than build their own because they lack the skills, materials or time to build their own. The African trap is not designed to be mass produced and sold. It is made from local materials, it has no metal parts and it works on a different principle because of the paucity of available materials. .

If diverse worldviews are reflected in something as basic as mousetrap designs, imagine the complex situation a tribal church planter faces when presenting the Gospel in an animistic tribal context. All of the underlying assumptions about rational thought, science, man’s origins, sin, the existence of God, the purpose of sacrifices and other things we take for granted are either non-existent or entirely different than our Western, Christian theistic worldview.

This is why we have given our lives for training tribal church planters… the new NTM Missionary Training Center provides the essential, biblical and technical tools needed for a worldview-level ministry where the Gospel is clearly presented and clearly understood. Most of our teachers are tribal church planters and they teach biblical church planting principles from the wealth of their experience.

Someone (probably not Ralph Waldo Emerson) once said “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” We believe we are building a better training program for tribal church planters. Pray that God’s people will beat a path to our door in order to expand the reach of the Gospel! Thank you for being a part of what God is doing around the world through the Missionary Training Center!

The man whose photo you see is Tingon Willy. Tingon has been helping Jason Knapp translate the Bible lessons we’ll be using to teach the Tobo people in October.

Praise God! Tingon Willy has just become our first Tobo brother in Christ! Yesterday he trusted in Christ. We’ll let him tell you in his own words what he shared with Jason yesterday:

“Ever since you taught me that the law was like a mirror (that it was there so that I could see how sinful I really am) I have been thinking about my sin. After my family falls asleep at night, I think about it. On the trail as I am walking back and forth, I think about it. In fact, I even forgot where I was going and ended up in the wrong spot because I was thinking so much about my sin. I kept coming to your house to help you translate the Bible lessons, but I felt that I was just helping everyone else in Tobo to find eternal life, but I wasn’t going to be able to find it. My sins were too many and too big for God to be able to wash them away. And I would just go to the fires of hell. I was scared. I used to think Jesus could wash away my past sins, but that my future sins would heap up and then in the end God would just throw me into the fires of hell. But now I see and believe that Jesus took my place as the lamb took Isaac’s place and he died just once so I could live. And his blood washed ALL my sins away, and he delivered me from my sin, death, Satan’s power, and the fires of hell. I feel like the arrow of my sin that has been in my heart and in my head and giving me pain for all this time has been removed. And I am not afraid. Thank you, this is the first time I have ever heard this talk."

- Tingon Willy, 29August, 2006

I was with some friends recently when Ron, a tribal church planter with NTM received a cell phone call. We listened as he began responding in a language none of us recognized.

A tribal man had called Ron from his village in the jungles of South America. The man had cancer and was trying to get treatment. Ron and his co-worker had left a cell phone & antenna in the village that was capable of connecting with the nearest town and now Ron was able to help this tribal man receive the treatment he needed.

Things have changed in our world, but this is a real- time example of how this change has impacted every area of our lives and ministries over the last few decades. Technology is creating opportunities we never could have imagined.

As awesome as technology is, it will never do away with the need for face to face cross cultural evangelism. The tribal people Ron worked with are linguistically and culturally isolated. Ron would never have learned the language and culture over a cell phone, a regular phone or even via video conferencing. He was able to converse at this level because of the years he spent living among the tribal people.

Ron’s language helper said to him recently: “When you know our language well enough to give us the message, I will believe it because of the way you live.” Technology will never become a substitute for building relationships with people. There are no shortcuts to cross-cultural church planting.

Due to political upheaval, Ron and his family had to move out of the tribal village. This tribe and thousands of other tribal groups around the world are starting to experience change due to the proliferation of technology, but when it comes to the truth of the Gospel they are still isolated as ever due to their language, culture and unique worldview.

Things are also changing in NTM’s US training program. We have integrated our Missions Institute course with our Language Institute course and we have consolidated all our facilities and staff on the campus of our former Language Institute in Camdenton, Missouri.

We have not changed our commitment to tribal church planting, the clear message of the Gospel of Grace and the power of the Word of God.

Fonda and I have been a part of NTM’s training program for over 14 years and through your faithful support and prayers we have seen church planters prepared and sent out to over 20 countries. We are looking forward to seeing how God continues to use the Missionary Training Center to spread the unchanging Gospel to the unreached people of the world.