How would you like to be left alone in the middle of nowhere to figure out a language all by yourself?
Yeah, missionaries don’t like it either.
Fortuantely, New Tribes Mission doesn’t do that.
Missionaries always go into a tribal village as part of a team, so they’re not alone. And they get training in how to learn a language before they ever go in. But the training doesn’t end there.
“One of the great things about New Tribes Mission is that we really try to learn from the experience of those who have been successful in ministry before us,” wrote George Olson, who is learning the language of Southern Palawano people in the Philippines.
“This wealth of experience is extremely valuable for helping to continue to train missionaries new in their ministries, like us.”
An experienced missionary who has been trained to help missionaries like George visited the village recently.
“They showed us several ways in which we can improve our culture and language skills,” George wrote. “We are very excited and motivated now. Our vision and focus has been sharpened so that we have a better handle on what we want and need to do here in the tribe.”
The missionary also gave George his next clear goal: to have a vocabulary of 3,000 verbs and nouns.
I’m not sure how many verbs and nouns I know, but that sounds like an awful lot. Then again, you need to know a lot about a language before you can start translating God’s Word and teaching Bible lessons.
Right now, George and his teammates plan to begin teaching about August 2010.
What Julie and I are doing is a lot like what that experienced church planter is doing. We’re using our experience and training to help missionaries out in remote villages. This week, we’re unveiling a new generation of websites for our missionaries.
Who out there has the knowhow, time, energy or access to build a website? Yet it’s almost vital if you’re going to communicate these days. So our team provides an easy way for them to build a website … that they can maintain via e-mail … and can use to send e-mails to their team back home.
It’s one of the important ways that your role in our ministry is helping expand the reach of the Gospel to unreached people groups around the world. Thanks!
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