This is the rainiest time of the year where Ben, Tabea and family live in Asia-Pacific, so they are thankful that they have still been able to drive to the North of the island a couple of times via the dangerous mountain road that often gets washed out. This road is known locally as the “SS road” because of how it curves through the mountains.
After the initial excitement of the survey a few months ago, where the team discovered an open door to move into a village, reality set in, and they started to get frustrated with the slow progress in it happening.
Thankfully in the last couple of weeks there has been some real progress, and they were able to get an official letter of permission from the king. This letter will be the key to getting the other permissions that they need from the department of religion and the police etc.
They cannot move straight into the mountains where there is a monolingual tribe, instead they need to move to a place on the coast (where the king lives) where they speak both the national and the tribal language.
The team are planning to build their own wooden houses in this village and they had hoped to buy pre-cut wood as it is possible to drive most of the way into the village, however they haven’t been able to find a yard that sells enough wood to build even one house and they want to build three. It turns out, that most people who need wood for building, usually hire people to cut wood for them not far from where they want to build, and there is no shortage of wood.
This process is very similar to building a house off-grid in the mountains. As you can imagine this is going to take way longer than they hoped. Please pray for patience and wisdom in decision making. On their next visit to the island, they hope to find some loggers who will be able to fell some trees for them and make planks.
As there is no guesthouse in their region, in the last couple of months, between them and their co-workers, they have enjoyed being able to host lots of people in their homes. Some were just passing through and stayed for a night, some came for paperwork, others wanted to see the region to help them decide where they could serve after finishing national language study and leadership have visited for in-person meetings too. It keeps them busy and stops them feeling lonely.
Currently their guesthouse abilities are being stretched again as they host a group of ten Americans for an “encounter trip”. Basically, a chance to see what mission work with New Tribes Mission looks like first hand, before going into the training.
Arriving at the same time next week (but staying for two and a half weeks) is a national family from the training centre. They have finished the training and want to serve in a tribal location and are gathering information and praying for God’s guidance for where to serve. This is exciting for Ben, Tabea and their co-workers as they need more national families on their team.
Praise Points
• That they now have the letter needed for government permissions to live and work among this people group
• For lots of visitors and good times of fellowship
• For the national family that are visiting soon
Prayer Points
• That they would still be able to make progress with house building despite the monsoon rains
• That the national family visiting joins their team if that is God’s will
• For the time with the encounter group and that people will be challenged into missions and maybe Asia-Pacific.