NTM

Have you ever tossed a pebble into a pond and watched the ripples that form? From that one point of contact with the surface of the water, waves can reach out for quite a distance. That is a good illustration of what happens within a culture.

“Structural integration” is a term we use to describe how the different aspects of a culture are interrelated. To illustrate it, let me use an American wedding. There are many different parts. First, you have the man and woman who are getting married. This obviously involves the two families from which these individuals come. Invited guests are most often the bride and groom\’s family and closest friends – so kinship and friendship relationships play an important part. Since weddings are often held in the church and officiated by a minister, there is a religious aspect. Because a document is required from the government to make it legal, the government also gets involved. There are certain special types of clothing worn as well as special types of food prepared. Probably the biggest factor in modern-day weddings is the financial aspect. This will determine the size of the wedding party, number of guests, what kinds of food will be served and to whom, where the wedding and reception will be held etc. etc. A simple diagram of the interconnectedness of marriage might look like this: 

It starts to look like quite a spider web, doesn\’t it? You can\’t fully understand the wedding ceremony without also understanding the individual parts and you can\’t understand the individual parts apart from the whole — they are interrelated. When one aspect is touched, it will affect all others. There is a ripple affect.

An example from years ago involved the Kaka tribe in Africa. The missionary forbade polygamy because some of the men were marrying their fathers\’ wives. As a result there was an increase in the selling of slaves. In that society, a young man would marry his father\’s wife in order to provide for her when his father died. It was their form of Social Security.

In another instance in a South American tribe, a missionary noticed that all children who had been adopted were being abused by their adoptive parents. In an honest desire to see them cared for, he began to teach against this practice. To his dismay, divorce became a much more regular occurrence. It was the fear that children would be mistreated that deterred many husbands and wives from separating.

These examples illustrate how the missionary must understand the culture. In both cases, there are issues to address, but one must know what the ramifications will be and take them into consideration before addressing the subject.

Structural integration is one of the many principles of culture that we teach our students here at the Missionary Training Center concerning culture. We would appreciate your prayers for our course as we endeavor to equip our candidates with an understanding of cultures and how to avoid possible pitfalls.

Can you imagine life without being able to read and write? In all contexts, literacy opens the world of the printed word. In the context of New Tribes Mission, our desire is that literacy will open the written Word of God to tribal people.

The primary purpose of NTM’s literacy programs is to enable the people to read translated Scripture and related materials in their own language. Literacy is crucial to the over-all church planting strategy of any given work. With this in mind, every effort needs to be made by the entire team to do what is necessary to assure a successful literacy program.

The paragraphs above are part of the introduction in NTM’s Literacy Manual and accurately reflect the heart behind our course here at the Missionary Training Center. Our classes focus not only on the purpose for developing a tribal literacy program, but also on the nuts and bolts of preparing and teaching primers.

This is not as easy as you might think. Of course, you must start simple with just a few letters and build from there. But with which letters do you start? It is very helpful to have a frequency count so that you know which sounds in the language are used most often. This will allow you to quickly build words that can be used in simple stories as you develop reading pages. Keeping it interesting is definitely a challenge.

In our course the students practice by developing several teaching pages in Pidgin English followed by a number of reading pages. Then they get the privilege of teaching them to their classmates including blackboard and flash card drills.

I’m thankful for the hands-on nature of our literacy course here at the MTC. Students have the opportunity to work through some of the difficulties they will encounter in developing a literacy course in the tribe.

It thrills our hearts as we think about these dear students and their willingness to do the hard work necessary to see unreached people groups have a clear understanding of God’s Word. Their desire is not only to translate the the scriptures into the tribal language, but to make sure that the people can have the joy of reading it for themselves.

Barry had the privilege to attend a Culture and Language Acquisition seminar at NTM headquarters in Sanford, FL. last month.  He along with about 80 other missionary consultants and trainers sat in on some informative and challenging sessions on cross-cultural communication.  Our job is people!  We not only want to bring the ‘Good News” to tribal people, it is essential that we, ourselves, change and adapt so that we can build that bridge of trust that will give us an open door into their lives.

Larry Goring shared a message based on the passage in Philippians chapter 2, where the Apostle Paul speaks of Christ’s incarnation.  He left heaven’s glory and took on the form of a man in order to identify with us.  He, being perfect and leading a sinless life, was able to give His life as a sacrifice for our sins.

After the same pattern, we as missionaries,  are called upon to leave our position of comfort and privilege.  We must not grasp too tightly to our own cultural forms.  Wherever we can, as long as we do not violate biblical teaching, we must be willing to adopt new forms.  They may not feel at home to us at first, but they will allow us to relate to people and develop deep bonds of trust.

This ministry approach is essential.  This is what we want to teach and model at our training centers as well.  It is not an academic approach; it is not an approach that will lead simply to programs.  It is life on life - that is what ministry is all about.