Bill is Back…

Bill’s new friend, Wana consultant Ribin

…and pretty much over jet lag. Whew! Thanks to all who prayed for Bill during his recent Asia Pacific trip. The smoke in the region did not cause breathing problems for him. His plane back to the capital city was not delayed. The trip was a great success, and Bill made new friends and ate some delicious spicy food.

Now we appreciate your prayers as we make plans for another trip (or two… or more!) to the Asia Pacific in the coming months to follow up on the need for more training for the consultants who help missionaries succeed.

EXCITING FACT: More and more non-Western missionaries are stepping out to reach Unreached People Groups! (And it’s part of our Bill’s new ministry to help them.)

CHALLENGING FACT #1: These missionaries tend to use different learning strategies than Americans and Germans prefer.

CHALLENGING FACT #2: There are too many of them for Bill to help individually.

What’s the Answer?

We need to adjust our training so that some of the language learning methods we teach are more natural fit for these learners and better help them to succeed.

And we need to train lots of consultants and language learning coaches so there is always someone available nearby when these missionaries need help and advice.

And that is why Bill went to the Asia Pacific region last month: to learn how to help these missionaries, and to spend time with consultants and those who can be taught to help others.

Thanks to Doug and the other interpreters!

He spent three weeks with visiting with over 20 missionaries. Most of the missionaries (and 3 of the consultants) were actually Wana tribal people from the Asia Pacific region who have left their homes and villages to reach other Unreached People Groups such as the Da’a, the Lauje and the Banggai.

Just like all missionaries, they have left their home culture and families; they face hardships and sickness.

And just like every other missionaries, they need help lots of help. Bill was able to give them some encouragement and a few language learning tips. But much of his time this trip was spent listening and learning what their specific challenges are.

Now he is busy working on some ideas for better training methods. Lord willing, both of us (Bill and Donna) will go to Asia Pacific together in February to implement some of these new training ideas and to continue to work on consultant training.

The smoke looks kinda like this

Smoke, Smoke, Go Away…

Today NO flights went in or out of the city where Bill is, due to the smoke and limited visibility.

He is supposed to fly Sunday morning early (that’s tomorrow morning for him there in Asia) to make his connecting flight to San Diego that same evening.

So please pray for rain, cleared smoked, etc., to enable him to fly as planned.

Here’s a bit of an update…

Around 5 p.m., Bill and his travel companion went to the airport and learned that the early morning flight of Bill’s airline HAD taken off this morning (they have more leeway taking off than landing). They told Bill that if the 10 pm Saturday flight from the big city was able to land, then his Sunday morning flight would likely be a “go.” As of 8:15 p.m., that flight from the main city to Bill’s island was 35 minutes under way!

So keep praying… things are looking encouraging.

Final Update…

Thanks for praying. The sky was clear enough and Bill’s flight was able to take off and get him safely to the big city where he will board his flight home to California tonight.

Pictures and lots of great updates coming soon from his consultant trip!

Bill arrived safely in Asia Pacific and was part of some meetings discussing how to best help non-Western missionaries with language learning. (Note: some of them are even tribal people reaching other tribes.)

We need to help these learners to reach a high level of proficiency in language and cultural insight so they can begin their ministries. Bill and ten other men explored questions such as:

Will the same language learning techniques work for them? Or else how can we customize the program to maximize their progress with activities that better fit their learning styles, educational experience (or lack of it), etc.? How can we evaluate their exploration of the culture if they were unable to chronicle their observations in a database or with lots of written documentation?

Now Bill is on another island. When he arrived, the smoke from the fires seriously reduced visibility, and was a real concern for his breathing. PLEASE PRAY ABOUT THIS! Meanwhile, God has sent some rain during the night. That will help alleviate the problem a bit. So keep praying with us.

Tuesday morning Bill and his consultant companions head into a tribe where 5 tribal believers are learning a language in order to reach a different tribe!

More news with photos soon to come…

What if you knew you probably had some good advice to offer, but didn’t even know what the questions were going to be?

…then you would be going on a missionary consultant trip!

What Are We Doing?

Next week Bill flies halfway around the globe to a country in the Asia Pacific region on just such a trip. He will visit three remote tribal locations, accessible only by helicopter, a first for him. (note: we are using generic terms like “Asia Pacific” online for the security of the missionaries there.)

The three missionary teams are just about done with tribal language study, just about done with culture study, and right on the cusp of being able to begin teaching God’s Word and presenting the gospel to three different Unreached People Groups.

Why Are We Doing This?

We do all this so Unreached People Groups can hear a clear presentation of the Gospel.

Missionary work is challenging and missionaries need help every step of the way: they need good prefield training; then on the field, they need help with language learning and cultural adjustments, help with planning the best way to communicate the gospel to a people group with no previous concept of the true God…

Just imagine if you had to learn an unknown, unwritten language well enough to present the gospel and teach your way through 2 Corinthians. Hard? You bet. You will need help.

Why were we able to minister effectively in the Philippines for all those years and produce a good New Testament translation? You guessed it… we had lots of help from consultants and missionaries who had “been there done that.”

Now it is our privilege to take our experience and provide necessary help for missionaries who are taking the gospel to places where Christ has not yet been named.

On this trip, Bill has been invited to travel with NTM consultants in the Asia Pacific region, helping them and working together with them to help three different missionary teams.

Why Are We Excited?

Three people groups are getting closer to hearing the gospel. That should excite anyone!

But on top of this, most of these missionaries are non-Western. Yes, in addition to two Americans and three Germans, 12 of the missionaries are from the Asia Pacific region, reaching Unreached People Groups right in their own country!

That’s not all… some of the consultants who will be traveling with Bill are actually TRIBAL men from the same Asia Pacific country. We met these men last March in Manila at our Asian Training Forum. They were brought to Christ and discipled by missionaries, and now they are involved in training others from their country.

We’re excited to see missionaries and being raised up from countries which were mission fields not that long ago. It’s our passion to help them preach Christ in the Heart Language of Unreached People Groups. And discipling some of them as leaders and consultants and missionary trainers is even better.

We hope you are excited, too. You are a part of this ministry as you partner with us!

Pray with us:

• Bill will face a lot of travel (international and in-country flights, helicopter, motorcycle, hiking…) and some of this will be physically challenging
• The climate may be a problem for Bill’s asthma, especially with the smoke from extensive fires in the region
• Wisdom in the consultant work, especially since much of it will be done through interpreters
• Donna will be holding down the fort alone while Bill is gone

It’s easy… tell them that their Bible translation is being used and that people’s lives are being changed by it!

A pastor from Australia teaches Palawano young people how to study their Palawano New Testaments more deeply, using 1 Corinthians 15 as the text.

A Good Report

We keep hearing good reports about the Palawano church back in our village. People are reading and teaching the Word of God, using their Palawano New Testaments and the Talking Bible audio players. This thrills our hearts.

Recently, we received news about how a number of Palawano young people (late teens or early 20s) are being impacted by the Word of God. These kids were not even born when we arrived on Palawan on 1982. They are the children of our daughters’ childhood friends. Through the ministry of another NTM coworker, these young people are finishing grade school and going to high school; some are even starting college! They are studying the Bible because they want to teach other Palawanos. Some want to go back and be school teachers in their home village; others feel called to the ministry.

Lord willing, whenever our ministry travel takes us to the Philippines or that part of the world, we want to get to Palawan to teach these young people, as well as the Palawano church leaders.

We’re so excited to share how the translation is bearing fruit! Meanwhile, pray with us about Bill’s upcoming trip to SE Asia in October. He will work with the consultants there to train both Indonesian and Western missionaries who are right on the verge of sharing Christ with several Unreached People Groups.

There is still so much of the world to be reached.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Risyal’s aunt Nili was our daughter’s friend at age four. His mother worked for us in her teens so her parents could avoid the pressure to marry her off too young. We gave Risyal rabies shots when he was about six. Now he wants to become a teacher among his own people, and he feels called to the ministry.

Teresa (in green) and Melanie (Risyal’s baby sister, in purple) are among the first Palawanos from our area to have a chance to finish high school. We knew both Teresa and Melanie as babes in arms and then toddlers in the Palawano church. Now they are sweet Christian young women who want to learn God’s Word and help others.

Tato (in the foreground) has had a lot of heartache in his life due to poor choices. Now he is walking with the Lord, going to college and excited to share God’s Word with others. Tato’s real name is Brazil; his parents saw that on a missions magazine about South America and liked the sound of it! His father Abil was one of Bill’s main translation helpers and is a leader in the church. Risa is the girl in the back. Her father Karding was the ten-year-old boy who learned to change the cassette tapes while Bill and others were building our first house in 1982. Bill helped to “officiate” at Karding’s wedding years later. Now Karding’s daughter is finishing school and studying the Bible for herself.

Yes, it’s all because of this book, the Word of God, which is now in the Palawano language. By God’s grace and through so many who partnered together over so many years, the Palawanos now have God’s Word, and it is changing lives!

The world is a big place. And Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations is a big task. We can easily feel overwhelmed by it.

Can we do it? Yes!

We have his command, and his promises. The church can move forward with confidence; undaunted, and full of hope.

How can we do it?

First of all, someone needs to go. And they need training. Our mandate is to “make disciples.” That requires a high level of competency in the language. It requires deep relationships built on trust and cultural sensitivity. We are excited in our new ministry phase to be working to provide training for the wave of non-Western missionaries God is raising up to reach the Unreached.

We are often asked: “How can you teach people a language you don’t know?”

That’s a good question. Answer: we don’t!

Bill teaches missionaries language learning principles and techniques they can used to learn ANY language, anywhere in the world. There are challenges involved in this kind of training, but it’s not as hard as you might think.

But there is another aspect of our ministry which is actually more difficult, and harder to explain: Language assessment.

Good enough?

Missionaries need to know when they are “good enough” in their language proficiency to begin a ministry of evangelism and discipling, teaching deep spiritual truths. How can they know? And how can their mission leaders and consultants evaluate their progress?

If you speak Spanish, you could evaluate how well I speak Spanish. But when missionaries are learning unknown languages, we face a problem!

For example, an Indian missionary is learning Kannada, the language of the Adi Karnataka, an unreached Hindu group with a population of nearly 3.5 million. How can her mission leaders evaluate her fluency when they themselves do not speak Kannada?

There are ways to do this. Back in 2004, Bill worked with others in NTM to develop a whole system of techniques for doing this kind of evaluation. It takes time. And patience. And diligence. And the consultants must first be well-trained to do this kind of “assessing the unknown.”

Help is needed

Some ministry opportunities are coming out of our recent Training Forum in Manila. (We attended this forum last March) Right now Bill has been invited to help some consultants in Southeast Asia learn to do this kind of evaluation. (the dates are not yet definite, and because of sensitive political issues we cannot name the country or region at this time.) He would be training both Europeans and some Asians, guiding them in how to evaluate both Western and non-Western missionaries who are learning the as-yet unknown languages of unreached people groups.

Please pray with us as work through the details of this ministry trip, and as Bill develops training materials in simple English which might be more easily translated into the language of the Asian consultants. When this trip gets confirmed, we will try to plan some other ministry travel and events since we’ll already be in S.E. Asia. Lord willing, we’d also want to get to Palawan to teach the Palawano church leaders.

Everyone deserves to hear in their Heart Language…

…and we want to help the messengers communicate clearly!

*image used by permission of IMB (Intl Mission Board), imb.org