NTM

Just having arrived from a trip to see family and friends in the Southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois areas, two words come to mind – thankful and blessed. From my location in North Carolina, I headed straight to Southern Ohio on July 16th, staying overnight  first with a

college friend and her beautiful familyin Centerville, OH.  The following night I stayed with the Whitman family in Covington, OH. They have also just finished training with New Tribes Mission and are headed to Paraguay! From Ohio I traveled to Lincoln, IL to be with family friends for a night. The Denlingers are with the same mission my parents are currently with (Rural Home Missionary Association) and I was given the opportunity to share at their church that Sunday. I then traveled north to Elgin, IL where I stayed 2 nights with the Befus family – he was my 6th grade teacher in Venezuela! Following that, I also stayed 2 nights at my Grandma’s apartment in Elkhart, IN. My uncle Theron, Grandma and I then went down to Berne, IN for a night with Aunt Cindy and Uncle Keith. We arrived just in time for ‘Swiss days,’ a festivity celebrating the town’s history – there are many Mennonites and Amish in the area. I was then glad to make a night’s stay at the house of Rebekah and Lucas Hanna who graduated with me in Venezuela. They now have two very cute children (= Lastly, I was blessed to stop at Marianne Henderson’s for a night in Fairborn, OH. It was largely because of her that I ended up going to Papua New Guinea for 6 weeks back in 2002 and it was there that I learned that there are several thousand tribes living in darkness because they have no gospel witness. I’m so thankful for the great fellowship and many gifts given to me along the way…I was blessed at each stop!! My car has been a bit unreliable in the recent past and for that reason I had a tad bit of concern driving it all that way. Thankfully I had no problems with it. My friends in the area here (Motoi and Billy), lent me their GPS which came in extremely handy. I only thought that maybe it should have told me when to stop for a red light as well (=
Now, to change the topic to something I’ve been thinking about, one of New Tribes Mission’s objectives is to train and see that nationals carry on the work themselves. With that in mind and in looking at the long term needs of Paraguay, I’ve personally felt burdened with the need to see the local Paraguayan church carry out their role in reaching their own unreached tribes and beyond. The Paraguayan church is young, but capable of such a task with much awareness, motivation and planning. Mike and Trisha Goddard are fully involved in mobilizing the Paraguayan church to see that expatriates, nationals and tribal believers work together to finish the task in Paraguay. They need co-workers who are at a capable high level in the Spanish language…pray about that if you will. The Goddard’s have an informative website at www.ntm.org/mike_goddard if you’d like to take a look! Paraguay will soon have some of its first tribal missionaries – two single girls are currently in training; one at a training center in Bolivia and the other at a training center in Brazil. The Paraguayan church has begun to catch the vision, yet there is so much training on our part left to be done. With only 9 of its 17 tribes reached and no Paraguayan fully trained as of yet, I am thankful for the handful of families and singles who are looking to be placed in one of the 8 remaining unreached tribes within the next several years. Although learning the Paraguayan culture and language (Spanish) is an extra step for us that a Paraguayan national wouldn’t have before reaching the tribe, I appreciate the step of faith and willingness of heart of my possible future co-workers. The picture includes Jenna and I, plus three families all planning to head to Paraguay – plus there may be more on the horizon…yea! Could you pray that I would continue to be a vessel for the Lord’s use and also pray that my intimacy with the Lord would continue to deepen; that I would be quick to discern and respond to His voice. I so much appreciate you!!
Love, Rebekah

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.