Helping Enroute Missionaries

We first met Richard and his family when they were in Jungle Camp, in Canada, when we were ‘home’ for Ryan and Kara’s wedding.  We met them again in Germany, when we were ‘home’ for Craig and Claire’s wedding.  Now we met him at the airport in Manila.  It was good to see him again and help introduce him to life here in Asia.  This was a ‘Pre-Field’ trip where he was able to visit several tribes, our language schools and get an over all picture of how our field works. 

He has heard about these works and studied the process in our Mission’s Training, but now was seeing it first hand.  The Lord is leading Richard and Carmen to the Philippines to help reach a tribal group with the Gospel – but which island and which tribe?

During his 3 week stay he was able to visit several tribes and see the work that God is doing –

Tala-Andig – missionaries engaged in translation and getting the ground ready for a church building.

Manobo – a chance to help do repairs on the airstrip and see the missionaries busy with translation.

Kalanguya – attend a  meeting on Sunday where the believers are now doing the teaching and the missionary is phasing out.

I-Wak – get a close up view of the missionary in the middle of language and culture study.

Now as he gets on that airplane to head back to Austria and share what he has learned with his family and sending church, they will be able to pray better with him and help them make that decision about which island to work on – which language to learn – which team to join or which new work to help open.

Planning these excursions can be time consuming and challenging, yet rewarding.  Weather, availability of tribal missionaries, coordinating flights and bus schedules are just a few of the things brought into consideration.  Yet when we see new folks come and get excited about being involved in a tribal work we know that each minute spend on a venture like this is well worth the time expended.