Who we are: We are Chris and Maggie Hostetter and we serve with Ethnos 360 and New Tribes Mission Papua New Guinea. We have four children: Micah Aaron (December 4, 2005), Cole Elias (May 20, 2007), Maisie Grace (July 24, 2009), and Bailey Joy (January 26, 2011).
Maggie grew up in central Minnesota and Chris grew up in Alaska. We both grew up in Christian homes and placed our faith in Jesus Christ at a young age. After high school, we each enrolled at Crown College in Saint Bonifacius, Minnesota. We met there as freshman in 2001 and tied the knot May 2003. We graduated from Crown in 2005 with B.A.s in Intercultural Studies. We lived in the area and worked for the next three years paying off our school debt before going into missionary training with New Tribes Mission.
Tribal Church Planting: We moved to Papua New Guinea as Tribal Church Planters in 2011. In 2012 we moved out into the middle of the jungle among the Pal people group. First, we spent a year and a half building relationships and learning their language and culture. Then we started a literacy school to teach them to read and write their own language. After literacy got rolling, we started translating and teaching them God’s Word. We have seen hundreds of people hear the message of God’s Word for the first time, hundreds of people proclaim faith in Christ and get baptized, three churches born, and many lives transformed.
Today: God has raised up strong believers and a group of Pal men are currently leading the Pal churches. We now live on a mission center and Chris takes frequent trips back and forth to the Pal tribe to continue working on Bible translation and to encourage the church leaders. Maggie teaches full time at Numonohi Christian Academy, a K-12 school which serves missionary kids from many organizations and serves a few Papua New Guinea kids.
Tomorrow: The vast majority of Pal people have no opportunity to send their children to school. We believe that God is leading us to start a Christian primary school among the Pal people. The community is begging for education and we believe education can be a great asset for the church. In 2026 we will take the first steps towards seeing this dream become reality. We are trusting God’s guidance as we begin this next big adventure.