THEN (1980s) AND NOW (2016)
A LOT HAS CHANGED. (Well, besides the fact that we are a little bit older…)
THEN: For 33 years, it was easy to explain our ministry: Bill and Donna? Oh yeah, PALAWAN. We lived and ministered on Palawan. We worked with the Palawanos (we were palawano.com, for goodness’ sake!) We were translating the Palawano New Testament. It was easy for people to “get” what we were all about. And when people thought of us, they thought of Palawan, Palawanos and translation. Simple.
NOW: We’re all over the place. Lots of different countries. Various projects. We even have to be cryptic about where we are going sometimes for the safety of the missionaries there. Since our ministry is not tied to one location or one people group, it’s harder to get a handle on… especially for many who have had “Bill & Donna = Palawano” in their minds all this time.
Basically, we are helping lots of missionaries to do what we did.
We had to learn Palawano on our own (there’s no Rosetta Stone language course for languages like that.) And other missionaries who want to reach other Unreached People Groups have to do the same kind of language learning. It’s hard! So we’re teaching them how to do it. And many of the missionaries we get to train are non-Western missionaries: Asians from many countries, and (soon) Latin Americans and Africans.
WHAT HAS NOT CHANGED: We’re still with New Tribes Mission, still passionate about seeing Unreached People Groups like the Palawanos reached for Christ. But instead of reaching one people group, now we are a part of reaching many groups as we train others all around the world. It’s a big ministry with many challenges in terms of travel, budget, health and strength, as well as the often daunting task of figuring out how best to train missionaries from such a diverse range of cultures.
We need your prayers more that ever. We need others like you to join our team, as well. So many people groups around the world are waiting to hear the Gospel in their Heart Language. We’re doing all we can to reach those people groups by training missionaries to learn their languages in order to reach them with a clearly-communicated message.
This weekend were asked to shared at the Missions Moment in a church who have been partnering with our ministry for nearly 20 years. So we took the opportunity to make a one-page flyer explaining what we did “back then” and what we are doing now.
We thought you might like to see our cool flyer. You can read it here (or click on it to open it/save it.)
Join our team. Pray for us. Let’s reach the world.
Hi Bill and Donna, We don’t do facebook but saw your picture and names and it rang a bell, also when seeing Chet Bishops picture and name show up as well, it all came together. I remember a lunch we shared together at Boot camp in Baker Or. Wow time flys. Wonderful to read about your Ministry there in the Philippine islands. We are retired and still married ourselves as we walk each day in a new adventure of life. Blessed to have two great kids- well not really kids anymore- Patrick was born the day after we left Baker for home in Rogue River Or. Kayte showed up two yrs later. We marvel at Gods grace and the different directions he shows us all. I am not very good with this tech stuff but if you send a phone number I can send you a picture to remind you of who we are. Dennis Patterson
Hi Dennis and thanks for the comment. Somehow I never got a notification of your comment here, but we’ve connected, anyway! Great to be in touch.