I asked a tribal group where I’d gone for a workshop, “When you think, to yourself, what language do you think in, in Embera (their tribal language), or in Spanish?” 30 out of 32 responded, in Embera. And this is despite the fact that they are literate in Spanish (at least in an elementary way). This illustrates to us the importance of mother-tongue reading education for ethnic minorities. When we want to plant a church, communicating the eternal gospel through God’s Word, by far and away the greatest impact will be in the language of the people’s heart. Dressed in local vocabulary, and bridged with cultural concepts, the life-transforming message will get through with greater clarity and hopefully no distortion. As the church is established, personal access of every one of its members to the Scriptures through reading education enables their discipleship, growth and involvement.

God gave me the joy of facilitating such reading education programs in the field of Panama for over 16 years, supporting the missionary teams to the tribes on location in 5 of its tribes. Now He’s giving me a chance to train up more such facilitators throughout New Tribes’ Latin America region. I may still have a couple training projects yet to pursue in Panama, but those will be for a later time. The Lord will have to make those arrangements.

New Tribes’ mandate is to see Jesus’ Church extending itself from us the sending churches to partner with national churches in the fields and continuing to plant and nurture to maturity churches in the ethnic minorities. Central to this broad goal is the entrance and availability of God’s Word. I will be involved specifically in training reading program consultants for each of New Tribes’ 6 Latin America fields, to basically do what I have done for the tribal works there in Panama–help with the development of reading program curriculum.  My new team, the LCT, would like me to travel a lot with consultant trainees into tribes, especially at the time of the development of their tribal reading curricula, and I’ll also provide them all with helpful resources. I love getting into the tribes–really hard on this not-so-young body, but worth it. And thanks to many friends who pitched in, my latest portable computer will be serving along with me.

Also, in order to help us evaluate whether we’re accomplishing our goals of mature churches full of literate members and to know where to provide more help and resources, I’ll be collecting statistics on the kinds of literature available for each tribe.

Besides that, we have missionary training institutes in four of our Latin American fields. It’s possible that I’ll train or help the institute staff in our four centers to teach the 20-30 hour literacy segments of their training courses, starting in November next year. You may remember that I’ve had the delight of doing this in each of these countries before. Some field staff and I will probably teach the next round of training modules in the next 1 to 3 years, then I’ll turn that job over to them.

Come December 27, I plan to travel to our USA headquarters in Florida to meet with my new team, the Latin America Coordinating Team (LCT) and the International Literacy Coordinators. They’ll fill me in a bit on the team’s expectations for my new ministry, and we’ll get some tutoring together on one of the mission’s language/culture learning tools. Then, Lord willing, I’ll fly on down to Paraguay on January 14 to my new location in the capital, Asuncion. That will be the home point out of which I will be flying commercially to all points in the region. I have already made a couple of short ministry trips to Paraguay in 2000 and in 2002. These “previews” made leaving my comfort zone in Panama easier. I’m eager to return to Paraguay and resume the relationships.

New Tribes is currently serving in 5 Paraguayan tribes–Ayore, Manjui, Nivacle, Sanapana and Pai Tavy Tera–and hoping to extend to 7 more. The cost of renting in Asuncion and the cost of flights is greater than what I was getting by on in Panama, and I will be flying more in the days ahead.

Though I lamented leaving my loved ones in Panama, the familiar, and starting all over again with relationships and worldly goods–it’s hard enough doing it the first time when you’re young and energetic–still God has been so good to me so far that I trust Him with the changes. And as I start anew, I expect to see more of His strength in my weakness and more of His glory in this vessel of clay. Your petitions to our Father for me will surely be of inestimable impact in the years(?) ahead. Thanks for this partnership with me.

We couldn’t have bought our tickets for a more untenable time…
during a surge of unrest in Bolivia. For the month of October Jerry and Joyce McDaniels and I had been invited to the missionary training center to team teach the literacy module for missionary trainees. This was the last chance for the graduating class of ‘08 to receive orientation in the indispensable but complex task of developing reading programs with tribal groups in their own languages. Then when we heard that there was a window of opportunity during peace negotiations, we were able to reschedule our flights for one week later. "We’re going… we’re not going… we’re going after all!" God (re)opened the door for us.

If the Center’s seven would-be missionaries are to hope for any success in planting tribal churches that mature into God-honoring, evangelistic bodies, they’ll need to assure that as many members as possible are enabled to participate in the life and function of those churches and are given personal access to the Word of God. The introduction and practical application they’re given in the missionary training program and through our interaction with them should help them to open these doors for unreached people groups. Jerry and Joyce regaled us with accounts of how God deluged them hungry hearts in Panama’s Kuna tribe, and of how the wedding of tribal language literacy, evangelism and pastor training brought a harvest of souls, as well as a revival in "old school" Kuna churches.

Also attending our workshop were missionary training center staff members Elizabeth Copa and Judy Gill. This course has been or will be their responsibility too, so they participated for the sake of inspiration and updates. I may even get the privilege of teaming up with them the next time the workshop is offered–so the plan goes at the moment.

Pray that when these trainees graduate, their home churches will get behind them 100% and speed them on their way to the waiting mission fields.

Rejoice with us and the Naso Christians over the precious Word of God in their own language! What a thrill it was for us, along with 3 of our co-workers from Chame, to join Simon and Lavonne Challinor and boys for the celebration on August 17th in the triabl seat near Costa Rica, Naso land.

…Traveling by car rather than flying meant a 10-hour trip over miles of dangerous mountain roads, but with help in driving and the ability to stop as needed to stretch. Thankfully, the boat rides coming and going were minus rain and not overly lengthy.

For the dedication itself God gave us a beautiful, sunny day. This made it easier for the Naso coming by trail and much easier for all the visitors (we heard there were 15 boatloads!) with boxes of Bibles that came upriver. As we stood under blue tarps for the nearly 2-hour ceremony, we heard official welcomes, Naso songs, recognition of all who have been involved in the ministry to the Naso tribe throughout the years. Many of these gave speeches and testimonies. The climax of the dedication came when Andy Keener, the Wycliffe Bible translator, had a group of Naso children bring to the platform a box of Naso Bibles, wrapped carefully in black plastic. Andy asked the native translators who were present to come forward to open the box, and with tears of joyful emotion, presented the first Bibles to these dear, equally tearful Christians. In fact, I believe most of us missionaries were also teary eyed. What a joyful reality to see come to pass after many long years! …

Victorino helped carry boxes of Bibles to the Challinor home across the river then sat on the front porch reading his very own NASO BIBLE. Down the bench from him sat Simon, also reading his Naso Bible…

As you thank the Lord with us for this wonderful provision, please pray that many, many Naso folks will have a spiritual hunger for this Bread of Life now available to them. God is not finished building His church among the Naso people, but they now have spiritual food for evangelization and for the growth of the believers. Would you also pray for Seledonia? She is an older Naso Christian who never learned to read or write, and who, now that she has good reading glasses, hopes to be able to read God’s Word for herself in time. Lavonne is teaching her.

We thank God for the privilege He gave us to be present for this momentous occasion. And we thank all of you who [pray] for us and … for the Naso people.

To God be the Glory for it all,

Don & Pat Barger