The Village

Yabelewa nanimama anya namale.

Five points for anyone who can correctly guess what that says. I'm guessing you won't be able to...unless you have been to New Tribes Wayumi program or you can speak the Malaumanda tribal language of Papua New Guinea. I learned this sentence today when I went into what they call "the village." Sounds intimidating, huh? Well....it kind of is. Let me set the scene for you.

You walk through two double doors into a dark, smoky room. Lots of high-pitched noises come from all around you, all words that you do not understand. You're in some sort of a grass hut and there's a tribal man in traditional headdress and facepaint sitting on the floor sharpening his machete. Is it safe to sit? If you do, you're sitting close to this tribal man who, mind you, is SHARPENING his machete (cannibal???) and the only place to sit is close to the fire on the floor. Not really typical American greeting. The only phrase you know is "How are you?" and that won't really get you too far learning the language or building a relationship with this unusual fellow sitting by his fire. He looks up, sees you, and mumbles something in a language you don't understand. You sit down and he goes about his business as if you weren't even there. How do you build a relationship? How do you learn his language? How do you learn his culture? What are you supposed to do?

Thankfully we were given the phrase "What is it" so we could correctly elicit a list of words from this man. But today when we went to visit the village, we had to elicit sentences. The tribal man played pretend for a bit and actually understood some of our english for a bit, and so we were able to write down some sentences (mind you, this is all phontetically....so they looked like this "Yah-bey-leh-wah nahn-bah-mah ahnya no-wah-ley"). After we had sentences, we then were given the correct spelling of the sentences (so no longer phonetic) and then we set to the task of breaking apart the sentences, identifying words, phrases, tenses, pronouns, question markers, and other parts of speech. This is something I found out I LOVE! I love being able to break apart language and find patterns. I love figuring it out. It's really enjoyable for me. Challenging, but enjoyable. Phonetics and linguistics is really a cool thing. God constantly amazes me the more I learn about different cultures and different people. The fact that we are all so different and that we all speak such different, complex languages is totally a sign of God to me. How incredible is the God we serve!!

Wayumi Day 1

Why did Jesus have to die? Why can't I merit goodness? What does God require as a payment for sin? Does God require a payment for ALL sin? Why are we on earth? What purpose were we created for? How can one man's death pay for ALL man's sins? Why can't my good and bad works even out? Is God more pleased with me when I go to church?

Imagine going into a group of people who have no clue who Jesus is, no clue who the true God is, no clue that there is a heaven and a hell. Where would you start? How would you answer the above questions? This week I am studying at Wayumi, which is a program here in Jersey Shore, PA put on by New Tribes Mission. The staff here are all missionaries who have spent time on the field and are here to give people a taste of what cross-cultural missions looks like. Their goal is for us to leave here with a better understanding of what some of us will be doing. Today we talked about language and culture and how important they both are. We also talked about what God is doing on earth. And what is He doing? He's calling out a people for His name. Hey, that's us. That's the church. How cool is that? :) And He has specified previously that it will be from every ethnic-linguistic group. We're not there yet, but we will be. Why? Cuz God said so. Awesome stuff. :)

So what's with the questions I started out with? Well, our textbook for our time here is on how to plant a cross-cultural church and it was telling stories about how many countries (and honestly, we could probably say this about some American churches as well) have churches established and when people (missionaries) go in and talk to them about what they believe, they find that the people professing faith in Christ are confused about what actually gets them saved! Many people in so-called "reached" areas are not reached at all...they didn't understand the Gospel message. And so the missionaries had to ask questions and figure out where their understanding was at. Over time they realized that the foundation for the Gospel had not been properly built. The people didn't understand God's character and based it on what they knew of their previous gods, but not the one TRUE God. And so this caused false facts and ideas to be mixed into their ideas of God. They couldn't answer the questions written above according to Biblical truth. They simply believed the "white man" and trusted his friendship. So the missionaries started at the beginning. They began with Genesis 1:1 and taught about God's character and His goals for creation from the beginning on. They showed the people WHY blood was required and WHY no one can merit goodness so that by the time they presented Christ, they understood WHY He had to die and why it was the only way to take care of their sin. They knew that they were sinners from Genesis and that they needed a Savior from that. They saw their need all through the Old Testament and understood the Law for what it really was. With the proper foundations laid, they were able to understand the Gospel message as truth. And the missionaries were able to see how important foundations from the Old Testament were. So now New Tribes presents the Gospel from Genesis to Revelation and that is how we have learned at school. I've seen the benefit of that style of teaching in my own life and I'm so excited as I hear stories of my brothers and sisters in Christ from tribes as they learn the truth that God laid out for us to hear! What a great God we serve!!

Grace and Renewing our Minds

Over break I was able to do a book chart of Galatians and spent a lot of time just reading the text. It was extremely impactful to me. It's interesting how many times I feel like I have been just like the Galatians, understanding that they are saved by faith but expect to become sanctified through self-effort and conforming to a set of rules. We want to perfect our faith on our own. We thank God for saving us and then want to take over, take it from here. How silly we are! We were in chapel today and Shirley was taking us through Philippians and showing us how God is the one who started a good work in us and how that good work God started is to conform us to the image of His son. It's GOD'S WORK though, not ours!! His Work...challenging. And yet we do have responsibility to allow God's Word to renew our minds and transform our thinking, but ultimately HE is the one doing it. We cannot force ourselves into being like Christ....because we won't be even if we outwardly look it. Outward conformity isn't what God desires. That was Israel's problem. God told Israel in the Old Testament that he HATED their sacrifices....sacrifices HE instituted! He hated them because they were ritual, done without heart change and just for the sake of doing the right thing. God doesn't want us to outwardly conform to what His Word says. He wants our hearts to be changed and our actions to change as a result of our heart change. The change is INWARD first and the natural outflow of that is an outward change. So many times I think we focus on making someone, especially ourselves, look a certain way and behave correctly without addressing the real problem, our wicked hearts. It's been such a challenge to me as I evaluate the WHY behind what I do. Am I looking for a list to conform to like the Galatians were? Am I trying to perfect myself without God or am I allowing His Word to transform my thinking and acting according to the truth that I know, depending upon His power? Really challenging.

We have also been talking in 2 Corinthians a lot about grace vs. performance. It's interesting to see how many times I treat people based on performance without even realizing it. I think it's definitely a cultural thing, but definitely a WRONG thing. We have been looking at Godly, Biblical discipline verses social justice as well and that's been super convicting too. Discipline should come from a heart of seeing that person as part of the body of Christ and wanting to do whats best for them in order to restore them in fellowship and do it in a loving, gracious manner. Most of the time I don't even know what that would look like. But it's been good to ponder it, to look to His Word for answers, to study. I feel like I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of it. I feel like that a lot...

Thank God that He is faithful!

Spring Break

This past week was my spring break. For those of you who don't know, I went to Texas to spend some time with Alex. Unfortunately, he wasn't on spring break and still had to go to classes (he attends LeTourneau University), so that meant lots of relaxing sleeping in time for me! Well, I didn't just sleep in....I did some homework too. I even went to a couple of classes, but since airplanes really aren't my cup of tea, I just did my own homework while he learned about avionics and fuel pumps. :) But I did learn a lot while I was in Texas. It was really good to just be able to be there and see Alex in his element. He's a great teacher and a great pilot and is going to be such an asset to the mission someday (so long as he continues looking and depending on Him of course). I'm so thankful for the time that we had to learn more about each other. I learned a lot about myself too, in all honesty, and how selfish and rude I can be. I am beginning to more clearly be able to see and distinguish opportunities to walk in the Spirit...and learning the effects of when I choose not to and when I choose to do so. It's funny how prideful we can be and not wanting to humble ourselves before Him sometimes. God's been working on my heart and showing me the depths of my sinful nature and how important it is for me to be constantly in fellowship with Him, walking in the Spirit and depending upon Him in ALL things because when I'm not....I am embarrassed of myself and my selfish choices. All in all a very growing spring break. :) I even got to book chart Galatians in preparation for the class in a week! I'm excited! But for your viewing pleasure, I thought I would post a few pictures. :)

First, on the motorcycle...about to take a drive to the lake. I told him he had to get used to making funny faces in pictures. :) Aviators. Stereotypical pilot...


This is me "flying" an airplane. It's harder than it looks, let me just say that. I have a whole new level of respect for him...