Greetings All! Just to let you know that we returned from the tribe after a wonderful visit with the Saluan tribal people and their missionary team, followed by a Bible conference in the Wana Tribe where we have been serving now for 40 years.

Greetings from the Asia Pacific! My first week in Asia Pacific has gone well. I have been able to get around and spend some time with most of our missionary families living here in town, and some of us from our regional leadership team have been meeting as well.

Greetings All!

It is hard to believe that just three weeks from today I will be somewhere up over the Pacific Ocean headed for Asia Pacific! We want to thank each of you for your prayers as we have been preparing for this trip and for the finances involved. This trip is shaping up to be another busy one with a week long Bible conference planned the end of March with the Wana churches, and then along with some of our Wana church leaders we will be making consultant visits to 4 other tribal missionary teams – three of these teams have Wana missionaries serving on them, so we are excited about this!

Just 6-1/2 weeks

Greetings all,

We trust that the New Year has gotten off to a good start for each of you. Our month started off very cold with subzero weather and then a blizzard last week but we have since enjoyed some more mild weather for January.

Dear Co-Laborers,

Greetings from the two of us.  We trust that you have had a very blessed Christmas and that your new year has gotten off to a good start!  We were very blessed to be able to spend Christmas day with our parents.  We had a nice Christmas dinner here followed by reading the Christmas story together and then exchanging gifts.  We missed Geoff and Tina but enjoyed seeing some pictures from them as they shared Christmas with their little church in the mountains of Peru.

Dear Ministry Partners,

It hardly seems possible that it is already November and another trip to the Asia Pacific is already in the history books. We do want to thank you so much for your prayers for Jeanne and our parents as they held down the fort, and for me also as I was gone for over 6 weeks traveling and visiting different churches on our beloved island there.

Greetings all,

Sorry for being a couple of days late with this email. I am still in jet lag and trying to my act together. Just to let you know that my flight on Friday went great and everything was on perfect schedule. I was able to get through Customs and Immigration with no issues and landed in Lincoln, Nebraska 23 hours after departure from Asia Pacific which I think is an all time record. Jeanne was there to meet me and it was so good to see her after over six weeks of being away. We spent the night in Lincoln and then drove back home on Saturday.

Greetings all!

I just arrived back to town from being in the tribe for the past 3-½ weeks. I want to thank each of you very much for your prayers for me during this time. I also appreciate your prayers for Jeanne and for our parents as well. It was such a joy to be able to finally talk again with Jeanne as we took about an hour to just “catch up.”

Greetings all,
Our consultant team just returned from a consultant trip to the “Lauje” tribe on Friday. We had a wonderful time meeting with the team, the Lauje pastors, and a number of folks from the church there. It was fun to talk with them, hear their challenges, and help them with some of their strategy for the next few months.

Greetings all,

Just a note to let you know that things are all on schedule for my departure to Asia Pacific next week. If all goes as schedule this time next week I should be just an hour or two from my destination. Thank you so much for your prayers thus far – once again the Lord has provided the funds for this trip – PTL! Yesterday and today I have been trying to do my preliminary packing and get and idea of suitcase weights. I usually have a number orders for other folks so never quite sure where I stand weight-wise. I am allowed two check-on suitcases with a limit of 50 lbs. each. As it looks now I should squeak under those limits. 

Greetings All,

It is hard to believe that it is just six weeks before I will be departing again for the Asia Pacific Islands. I am looking forward to this next trip and the things that I will be involved in once again. One of the major things we will be doing is a final translation check on Old Testament Scripture portions from Exodus to the end of the Old Testament which go along with our Old Testament Chronological Bible lessons. We are anticipating this check to be about 10 days long so will appreciate your prayers for that and the final preparations for it.

Dear Ministry parters,

It is hard to believe that the middle of summer is already here. We are enjoying some nice hot humid weather here which is keeping me in shape for that trip to Asia Pacific coming up in September – yes, already making plans for heading back over!

Jeanne’s sister flew in from Ohio on Monday and will be spending this next week with mom Jackson. Jeanne and I enjoyed spending the 4th with them yesterday while my parents enjoyed a local parade in the little town of Comstock not far from where they live. Then our little town here is having its yearly celebration this coming weekend. I heard they saved all the fireworks till then so guess they will light up the sky on Friday evening!

Greetings all,

Remember this man? This is “grandpa” or “Pa’a Judy” (father of Judy) who nearly died from a foot infection last year. He is now able to walk and is studying God’s word diligently – currently they are studying through the “Life of Christ” lessons with him. (Pa’a Judy is the father of one of our missionaries serving on Peleng Island. He had refused to listen to the gospel until this ordeal with his foot.)

Dear Ministry Partners,

Our last letter saw me in the final stages before departing to Asia Pacific. My how these past two months have flown by! We want to thank you so much for your prayers as I made this trip and for the six weeks while I was gone. The Lord took good care of each of us and nothing too much out of the ordinary happened while I was gone for which I was thankful.

Greetings Ministry Partners,

We wanted to write and let you know that over the weekend “New Tribes Mission” changed it’s name to “ETHNOS360” which would translate “All Nations”.  Basically in a nut shell the reason for the change is to better position ourselves for ministry in an ever changing world, and not using words in our name which would appear to be derogatory to those whom we have gone to minister.  For instance in Asia Pacific we had to drop the word “Tribes” from our name years ago as it inferred a people who weren’t even citizens of their country.  Thus for the word “tribes” we substituted the phrase “Citizens who live in the Interior region” –  (We can say all that in two words in the national language!!)  As we look at the broader picture we also find ourselves reaching language groups that are not isolated but still very much without the gospel.  Thus we found our name not really explaining who we are reaching.  So it was for reasons like this that it was felt necessary to make a name change.  Rest assured that our doctrine, our vision, our ministry values, and our personal ministry all remain the same.  

Greetings all,

I know it has been a few weeks since you have heard from me. For much of the last few weeks I have been in remote locations and thus out of contact with the outside world. I do want to thank each of your for your prayers during this time. Our time in Wana was great…..we were able to finish the “read check” on the selected Old Testament Scriptures and have set a date for the final check with our NTM translation check for September. We also had a wonderful Wana Bible conference with our Wana churches which was held in the village of Paramba.

Greetings All,

It is hard to believe that March is here and just one week before take-off to the Asia Pacific. I want to thank you once again for your prayers as the Lord has once again graciously provided for my needs to make this trip. The plan will be to leave Lincoln, Nebraska early morning on the 8th . I will make my international connection in Chicago with a non-stop 12-13 hour flight to Tokyo, a couple of hours layover for plane change and security check, and then the last 7 hour leg to the Asia Pacific Islands where we work. All in all it will be about 25 hours from departure till arrival. The Lord has given me some good aisle seats so it will make it easy for getting up and stretching whenever I want.

Dear Ministry Partners,

Wow it is hard to believe that Spring is nearly here, and with that just one week until I depart for the Asia Pacific. This letter finds me scurrying around trying to wrap up all those last minute items before departure, not only getting my things in order but also fixing those leaky faucets that always have a way of starting their dripping right before I leave .

Greetings!

It is hard to believe that it is already time to begin thinking about returning to Asia Pacific once again. It seems like just yesterday I arrived home from my past trip. I know it is getting close to departing once again as last night I dreamed that I was back in Asia Pacific and that the helicopter pilot was trying to teach me and check me out in flying the helicopter. I must say it wasn’t a pretty picture and I wasn’t doing a very good job at flying that machine. I woke up feeling very grateful for the great pilots and mechanics we have to make our job in these isolated places possible.

Happy New Year!

Greetings All,

With this short note we want say that we trust that you all had a very Merry Christmas and we wish you a very Happy and Blessed New Year! All three of our Wana co-worker families traveled home for the holidays so are spending time in their respective home villages visiting family and friends. Miyanto and Rone (one of the couples) had to make an unplanned trip out to town and to the hospital a few days ago as Rone was bit by a rabid dog and had to start a rabies shots. We felt badly that their Christmas time had to be interrrupted by this but thankful they could find medical facilities not too far away which could help them.

Greetings all,
Years ago back in the 1980’s some of the Wana whom we had gone to minister totally rejected the gospel and moved away from our village so they could continue to practice their old cultural ways in peace. “Bue” (grandfather) was one of those, however his kids did not reject the Savior and have been praying and trying to encourage him to listen to the gospel for years. Two of his boys have been serving the Lord as missionaries in two different areas. Below is a letter one our flight personnel wrote about “Bue” who was recently flown out to town for medical help.

Dear Fellow Co-laborers,

We thank you for your prayers for all of us as I have been gone to Asia Pacific for much of the past two months. There has definitely been a climate change since I have been gone 

The month of September started off with a bit of a scare as Jeanne’s mom had a fall in her apartment which resulted in a nasty cut on her head, and then while in the ER she passed out on us. This landed her in the hospital for four days as they wanted to make sure it wasn’t related to her heart. Everything checked out fine and she was released from the hospital the day before I was to leave for the airport. Jeanne spent the night with her and then the following day she and the kids took me to Lincoln to catch my flight to the Asian Pacific Islands.

Greetings all,

These last 6 weeks have been full of travel and blessing as I have journeyed to many destinations throughout much of the central part of these islands. I have been living out of a backpack for most of the time. It has been a joy to spend nearly two weeks in our own tribal work and then be able to take leaders from our Wana churches and make consultant trips to other tribal works as well.

Greetings all,

This email finds me having just returned from almost two weeks in our Wana tribe. There we were able to hold a leadership Bible conference and discuss and talk about many ministries of our church. It was truly a blessed time. Following the Bible conference we flew to the Wana village of Padalempe where we spent a week working on comprehension checking on many Old Testament verses which go along with our teaching program. This was about 60 pages of selected verses from Leviticus through to the end of the Old Testament. We are hoping that we can complete the various pre-checks on these verses within the next few months so that all the selected verses from Exodus to the end of the O.T. can be final checked in September of 2017.

Greetings from this side of the world!

Trust all is well with you. I just returned on Friday from a consultant visit to one of our works on a remote island way to the east of us. We were able to take a couple of our Wana church leaders together with some church leaders from another of our tribal works along with us on this trip as well.