{"id":883,"date":"2014-09-12T18:41:07","date_gmt":"2014-09-13T00:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/?p=883"},"modified":"2014-09-30T06:24:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T12:24:40","slug":"surveying-the-wantakian-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/2014\/09\/12\/surveying-the-wantakian-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Surveying the Wantakian People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Tuesday, Jeremy and I\u00a0finally got our feet on the ground in the Wantakia tribe! As most of you know, we have been praying and looking forward to this day for many years. Our goals for this first contact trip were (1) to find out if we missionaries have an invitation to come live amongst these people, (2) to find out if the tribal language is still strong and if they need a translation of God’s Word, (3) to get the lay of the land by seeing it firsthand, (4) and to make sure there was no mission\u00a0work being done in the area by anyone else.<\/p>\n

We can say with confidence: YES–these people desperately want us to come; YES-the language is strong and needs God’s talk in their language; YES-we got to see, smell, taste, experience all 10 villages firsthand; and NO-there is no mission work being done there\u00a0in the language.<\/p>\n

It was an incredible 8 days. We trekked up and down\u00a0the entire Wantakian\u00a0area, from elevations of 4,000 ft. to 8,100 ft. Everywhere,\u00a0the people are incredibly welcoming and friendly. In each village, the people provided us with a place to sleep, a warm fire\u00a0to cook over, water to drink, rivers to wash in, and outhouses to use! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Pray<\/strong> for us to continue to follow the Lord’s leading and for Him to give us peace as we pray about taking a second trip in there next month. This is a HUGE\u00a0decision, because\u00a0a second trip in there means we are committing to come and live among\u00a0these people!<\/p>\n

\"River<\/a>
River Crossing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jos,<\/a>
Jos, an Aziana believer, came with us. Huge encouragement!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jeremy<\/a>
Jeremy with our new friend, Tavman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Would<\/a>
Would you believe this is an airstrip?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jeremy<\/a>
Jeremy resting from our trek.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"My<\/a>
My tired feet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jeremy<\/a>
Jeremy in conversation with a local.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Me<\/a>
Me getting to be an anthropologist \ud83d\ude42<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The beautiful central mountain range.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Tuesday, Jeremy and I\u00a0finally got our feet on the ground in the Wantakia tribe! As most of you know, we have been praying and looking forward to this day for many years. Our goals for this first contact trip were (1) to find out if we missionaries have an invitation to come live amongst […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":956,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,58],"tags":[448,637,229,65944],"class_list":{"0":"post-883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"category-prayer-requests","8":"tag-ethnos360","9":"tag-new-tribes-mission","10":"tag-survey","11":"tag-wantakia","12":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/956"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bj-sanders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}