James and Nicky Poarch Follow our journey Watch our new NTM video “AWAYO”. The Da’an people who we minister to doing Bible translation and Church Planting, are very similar in their beliefs to the Moi in this video.
The Poarch Page – October 2009
MATTHEW 7:9-11
“Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a
stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then,
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father who is in heaven give what is good to those to ask him?”
We’re thankful to our Father who is always teaching us new things through His
Word. Recently, He has been challenging us in regards to our prayer life. At church,
the pastor is going through the Lord’s prayer, sentence by sentence. It’s been
wonderful & refreshing. It’s been challenging to think about the order in which Jesus
modeled in His own prayer: glory, kingdom, basics, forgiveness, and sin.
Kids in sports
What Are We Doing?
This is the question we get the most since we’ve been on furlough. It’s
surprising that our days are filled daily. James is just returning from a 9 day trip
to North Carolina where he was able to share with supporting churches &
individuals. He also took a 9 hour drive down South to visit his mom who just
recently had a knee replacement. James just ended coaching Jr. High soccer.
Nicky has joined a Bible Study on Tuesdays. She is also the room mom in
Emily & Samantha’s class. She volunteers in Luke & Samantha’s class several
times a month as well.
Together we have joined a cell group that meets on Tuesday nights. Our
children are playing soccer, softball, & gymnastics. They are going to Awana
every week. Ok…it seems like we’ve become busy Americans 
but for us
enjoying these activities is a joy & a privilege & something we were looking
forward to while on furlough. God has been refreshing us through relationships
& His Word! We praise HIM who is faithful in our lives!
The Joys of Home Assignment (Furlough)
Everything in (or on)!
Over the summer, we traveled to a lot of interesting places. Washington DC, the White House, the Creation Museum, the Grand Canyon, and many other exciting places.
Our kids have recently started school and are loving it!
Thank you for your loyal participation in our lives and in our ministry.
A Privilege to Work with the Da’an
Da'an Team-April 2008
A Privilege to Work with the Da’an Tribe
The Da’an people have a history of being drunk, especially the men. They used to drink the strong rice wine together, then go home and beat their wives. This was their way of life. Were they happy? If you ask them today, they would say no! They lived under the control of the bottle. They also lived under the control of their animistic beliefs.
Before they did ANYTHING (even walk on a jungle path), certain rituals had to be done in order to appease the spirits.
After 20+ years of missionaries serving amongst the Da’an people, there is a small thriving church in two of the seven known Da’an villages. Words cannot describe the testament of God’s faithfulness that we see with these Da’an believers. Instead of being controlled by alcohol or by their animistic beliefs, they are living under God’s grace. They have true joy that comes from the fruit of the Spirit.
A year and a half ago, one of the Da’an believers came to one of the New Tribes Missions conference that was going on in our local town. At the end of the meetings, he stood up and asked the chairman of New Tribes Mission when they would be able to read God’s Word in their own language. Over the years, no Bible translation has been made into the Da’an language. The man who stood up was desperately wanting missionaries to come. He said they were ready and needed to have the Da’an Bible in order to reach out to neighboring Da’an villages.
Today, in God’s infinite timing, there is a team in the Da’an tribe learning the Da’an language. The goal is to translate the Bible. Nicky and I will be part of this translation team after our one year home assignment. We know it is a real privilege to be a small part of what God is doing amongst the Da’an people.
Our team is made up of an Indonesian family, a German family, and our family who is American. It is a truly international team!
Incidentally…this is the same tribal group that my parents, Marvin and Mary Poarch, worked with for twenty years! Isn’t God good?
LANGUAGE IN LIVING COLOR
Tribal man at his house
As far as the Punan people of Indonesia are concerned, a rainbow only contains red and green.
“Punan [language] has only four colors,” wrote missionary Rachel Searcy. “Everything is either black, white, red or green. So green and blue have the same name. So does red and yellow.”
Therefore, instead of a rainbow having red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, a Punan rainbow could only be described as red, red, green, green, green, skipping orange and violet which don’t seem to exist.
Rachel is discovering many such unique oddities as she strives to master the Punan language. And the time-consuming, diligent study will be worth it all someday as she teaches and helps with translation work.
She shared some other interesting words which have caught her attention lately:
Cangluke: furiously digging with one’s hands, as a dog does.
Muke: gently digging with one’s hands, as a monkey does.
Ngabo: scratch or dig but the dirt is generally used for something, not discarded, as a chicken does.
Kari: dig with a tool like a shovel or stick, as for a grave.
“As you can see, so many things are best defined by a visible, [physical] example,” wrote Rachel. “Thinking about these things made me even more thankful our Savior came to earth to live. It’s no wonder then that He asks that we go as living ambassadors to tell the world of his love and grace.”
“Please continue to pray that Christ’s love will shine in this small corner of the world,” Rachel wrote. “Also pray for perseverance and wisdom as I continue to learn culture and language.”
From a missionary wife’s perspective
James & Nicky Poarch
To all of my women friends…(okay…guys, you can read it too)
HAVE YOU EVER…not read a book because the cover looked boring? Right now I am reading a book that my mother gave me last Christmas. I didn’t read it right away, even though she told me that it was good, because it looked pretty boring!
The book is called “Holding Nothing Back” by Ron Susek – it’s a true story about Ernst Vatter who worked in Germany. Ernst and his wife Sigrid, went to Japan as missionaries for 12 years. BUT, before Ernst became a Christian he was enlisted in Hitler’s “service” to become a teacher.
After Hitler fell, Ernst was then falsely accused (he was mistaken as his brother who was actually serving) by the French and imprisoned (even though it was illegal to imprison 16 year olds). After this, he became a Christian and went on to train and eventually served in Japan.
This book has taught me so much, I can hardly put it down. The main aspect of the book that has taught me is looking at the attitude of Ernst’s wife – Sigrid. She seemed like a wonderful example of a missionary wife. She always tried to encourage her husband, to love him, and to challenge him.
In one part of the book, she said that when Ernst came home, she always tried to have the children ready to greet him and was ready to show her children of her love and respect for her husband. Sigrid knew that although she was a missionary, right now – her first priority was her children and “freeing” her husband to go without anything holding him back to the Japanese.
WOW – this is exactly the position that I find myself in daily. I’m home with the children, although I love it, it’s hard to be content daily. It was a challenge to see how Sigrid showed her love and respect to her husband by trying to have things in order so that when Ernst came home he could enjoy sitting and spending time with the children. What a challenge!
I’m sure that we can all think about that in whatever area of our life we find ourselves in. The main challenge that I see is to show love without expecting gain or something in return. Sigrid gave and gave and gave to her husband so he could have a “successful” ministry.
Thank you all for lovingly praying for us, we are continuing to press on…we will celebrate Luke’s first birthday next Sunday (Halloween). It’ll be a lot of fun as we’re having a “dress up” party for the missionary kids here.
It seems that we are busy everyday with James helping out with supply buying for the missionaries in the tribes and me watching the kids as well as being involved with the local Indonesian church here. We are praying about our future ministry here in Indonesia and the timing of moving into a tribe…please continue to pray for us in that.
Isa 41:9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you.
2 Trips in 2 Weeks
On the boat headed upriver
Hello Everyone,
YES, missionary work is hard at times – being away from family, not having all things available at hand, etc. but I, James, am going to tell you now that I just got back from a trip doing EXACTLY what I love – off-roading with a 4×4 truck & traveling by boat! My first trip took me to an area where we have a missionary family that I went to help. I was gone 5 days.
I went to help them drive in a 4 wheel drive vehicle and to help set up their solar electric system (we took a solar/battery/dc powered refrigerator in with us in the truck). We first took a boat all night and then we drove for many hours into their tribe. The roads were quite “jelek” (ugly) as they say in Indonesia.
My second trip took me back to the place I grew up, the Da’an tribe (pronounced like “cotton” just with a “d” instead of a “c”) in a different area of the country. For this trip I was gone 7 days. We had a total of 5 men ordained, 3 men (with their wives) were ordained as elders in the church, and 2 men (with their wives) were ordained as deacons. Their names are: the elders: Juman with his wife Bungkat, Anton with his wife Marta, Dulah with his wife Siti; the deacons: Dakun with his wife Siroh, and Lujung with his wife Eun. Please be praying for these men and their families as they are challenged in many new ways with leading this new tribal church. Please pray also for the translation of the Bible into the Da’an language as that is a real need still. Most of the men ordained had direct involvement with my father, Marvin Poarch, as he taught and discipled them when he was there. It was an AWESOME experience to be involved in. The church in this tribe has not been very active in the past, but recently has done an “about face”. They have been very active in outreach and discipleship. We rode a bus for 16 hours and then a boat for 4 hours to get to this tribe.
Nicky was the real trooper, though, she stayed home and watched the kids and kept the supply buying ministry going smoothly. They say that the hardest part of missionary work falls on the wives. And Nicky does find it hard to “stay behind” but this time she said it wasn’t as hard and she kept the kids all going and scheduled some fun activities for them.
So that wraps up our 2+ weeks of excitement here in Indonesia!
Thanks for praying for us!
Till All Have Heard,
James, Nicky, Emily, Luke, & Samantha