{"id":2,"date":"2009-08-14T16:51:24","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T20:51:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2018-07-03T17:15:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T21:15:34","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEPTEMBER\u00a01976…<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

found us on a jet, heading to South America.\u00a0 Greg had visited the field when he was single and had even gotten the chance to be in on opening up a new work.\u00a0 This time, things were different; he wasn’t alone.\u00a0 He was traveling with a wife (me) and a little two year old, Tammy.\u00a0 We arrived at 1:00 a.m. and after a few short hours of sleep we were on our way to San Fernando de Apure in an old, rundown taxi.<\/p>\n

OK…just picture this.\u00a0 We’re tired, a little shell shocked from leaving our family and friends.\u00a0 The sweet smells and sound of America seemed far away.\u00a0 We know very little Spanish.\u00a0 We’re in this taxi, our driver has the address where he needs to deliver us and we are at his mercy.\u00a0 Did I mention that we didn’t know any Spanish?<\/em>\u00a0 That little fact was very evident to us during that trip.\u00a0 We kept passing all these semi trucks all bearing the words:\u00a0 CARGA LARGA.\u00a0 Greg and I commented on the fact that the CARGA LARGA company must be a large one since all the trucks seemed to be theirs.\u00a0\u00a0 We had no idea that Carga Larga means: Large Load.\u00a0 Like I said, we didn’t have a clue what was happening!<\/p>\n

Imagine our relief when we arrived at our new home and were greeted by our friends and fellow missionaries,\u00a0 Dave and Nita Zelenak.\u00a0\u00a0 After one year of Spanish Study, we headed off to Tamatama.<\/p>\n

JUNE 1977<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Although we were planning on moving into a tribe\u00a0after Spanish study, our plans changed.\u00a0 We were asked to fill in for one year as dorm parents.\u00a0 Wow…this\u00a0was huge change in our plans.\u00a0 Greg was 25, I was 24, Tammy was 3 years old and I was expecting a baby!\u00a0 No, we didn’t feel equipped at all to be dorm parents to ten missionary kids plus our little girl and a baby too.\u00a0 This was the beginning of seeing God use us in spite of ourselves.\u00a0 We learned a lot that year.\u00a0 I learned how to cook in the jungle thanks to the teen girls who lived in our dorm.\u00a0 We also both learned the simple fact that\u00a0\u00a0we didn’t want ten kids of our own! (smile)<\/p>\n

JUNE 1978<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The beautiful mountains of Parima became our home for the next 14 years. After all the years in the training, preparing to get to the field, Spanish language study and then our unexpected year in the dorm, our dream of being tribal church planters was becoming a reality.\u00a0 Language learning became our life along with getting to know\u00a0the Yanomamo People.\u00a0\u00a0We learned to love\u00a0life in the jungle.\u00a0\u00a0After many hours, days, months of language study, Greg was finally ready to teach.<\/p>\n

We have great memories of hauling our kids up to the\u00a0village every evening, sitting in the meeting house, listening to the guys teach.\u00a0 It certainly didn’t look like a\u00a0Bible class at home.\u00a0 It was loud,\u00a0dogs running all over, ladies picking lice out of each others hair\u00a0but it worked for the Yanomamo.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes it was unbelievable that the people could\u00a0really learn in that environment which was so totally foreign to ours.\u00a0 But learn they did.\u00a0 One of\u00a0 the blessings of teaching among the Yanomamo was when they would respond and react to what Greg was teaching.\u00a0 They would sometimes repeat what Greg was teaching; word for word. This took some getting used to but you always knew what they were thinking because they were saying it out loud.\u00a0 Those were fun days for us.<\/p>\n

MAJOR CHANGES…<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

We received a radio message one morning that changed our lives forever.\u00a0 Greg’s dad was diagnosed with brain cancer.\u00a0 We didn’t immediately go home but eventually we flew out of the jungle for an early furlough to help Greg’s mom and dad through his illness.\u00a0 We never returned to work with the Yanomamo.\u00a0 Greg’s dad\u00a0 was a General Representative for NTM and after he passed away, Greg was asked to replace him.\u00a0 This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever made.\u00a0 So now, instead of living in the middle of the jungle, our new home was central PA at the Jersey Shore Training Center.\u00a0 Greg went on the road, visiting churches and challenging people about tribal missions<\/span><\/p>\n

JUNE 2002-2006<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Greg became the director of the training center along\u00a0 with continuing his job as representative.\u00a0 Training future missionaires became a very busy and serious job.\u00a0 It was exciting to see so many young people with a passion for tribal missions but it was also a huge responsibility.\u00a0 Many of the students that we helped to train are now living in tribes and giving the Gospel to the those who have never heard.<\/p>\n

MAY 2006\u00a0 Wayumi<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

While our last group of missionary trainees were finishing up, we were at the beginnings of a completely new program called WAYUMI.\u00a0 First let me tell you about the reasons for the Wayumi Program.\u00a0 For years, Greg has been on the road, preaching in churches as an NTM REP, and in essence trying to mobilize new missionaries for this huge task of tribal evangelization.\u00a0 He has really enjoyed getting to speak in churches and <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEPTEMBER\u00a01976…\u00a0 found us on a jet, heading to South America.\u00a0 Greg had visited the field when he was single and had even gotten the chance to be in on opening up a new work.\u00a0 This time, things were different; he wasn’t alone.\u00a0 He was traveling with a wife (me) and a little two year old, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":280,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","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":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/280"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/greg-sanford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}