Grace to Every Tribe

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Lord willing, David Sitton (To Every Tribe president) and I will be making a 3 week trip to Papua New Guinea in May.  The following are our primary goals for this trip:

1. Visit the struggling church in Chambri to encourage the believers.  Bible teaching and discipleship training; explore the feasibility of Appropriate Technology Strategies to provide better water, etc. for their people.
2. Visit the Black Water region (lowland swamps) village of Gavmas where there is no gospel witness; initial evangelism; survey the area for possible base for missionary activity in the near future.
3. Meet with the Bena (highlands) church leaders to pray for and strategize about how to utilize the 10 acres to establish a PNG training and sending base for new To Every Tribe missionaries and for the equipping and supporting of national pastors and missionaries.
4. Exploring with the Bena leaders how to begin businesses (Appropriate Technology Strategies) to generate income for their pastors and missionaries.

Beyond these specific goals, this trip will be an important learning experience for me as a new To Every Tribe staff member.  As To Every Tribe’s Mexico Field Director, one of my primary responsibilities is to help our agency form a Mexico-specific strategy for church planting that reflects our church planting strategy/methodology in Papua New Guinea.  The plan is for this trip in May to provide first-hand exposure the work there to better equip me for that responsibility.

The cost of this trip will be around $3000.  Thanks to a recent gift of $1600 we are well on our way to raising the funds needed for this trip.  Please pray that we will be able to raise the remaining money for the trip.  Who knows, the Lord may even want you to contribute!

More updates and prayer requests for the trip to follow the next couple of months.

Here’s our latest prayer update I sent out last week.  If you don’t receive our e-mail prayer updates and would like to, click on the “Prayer Updates” link on the sidebar of this page.

Mark Rogers over at The Gospel Coalition Blog has posted a list of 10 practical ways to encourage a missionary.  I thought it was a pretty good list.

1. Pray for them and let them know that you are doing so frequently.
2. Send “real mail.”
3. Pray for the people the missionaries serve and not only for the missionaries and their families.
4. Recruit others to pray for the missionary’s area of service (city, people group, etc.) or for the missionaries themselves.
5. Go visit them with the purpose of serving and encouraging them in their work.
6. Send them updates and pictures of you and your family (by mail or email).
7. Ask questions about their work.
8. Continue to be a Christian friend and continue to minister to them.
9. Support them financially.
10. Seek to encourage them when they are on stateside assignment.

Read the whole article here.

FYI, two new media items are now available here on our website.

• First is a sermon that I preached last Sunday at Mills Road Baptist Church in Houston, TX on Hebrews 10:19-22.  It can be downloaded here.

• The second is a 10 minute video that we’ve put together introducing our ministry.  You can view it here.

October 3 marked the 32nd anniversary of David Sitton’s (president and founder of To Every Tribe) first departure.  He was, as he admits, very green and very rough around the edges.  He had only recently been converted from a life of drugs and sin.  But God’s grace had marvelously transformed him and impassioned him to take the gospel to people who had not heard the message of Christ.  The following is David’s recent reflections on that event.

Thirty-two years ago this month (October 3, 1977) I left for the first time as a missionary to Papua New Guinea.

20 years old: lean and green and ready to tackle the world for Christ.  I boarded an airplane (by myself) in Corpus Christi, TX around 11:00 AM headed for New Guinea via Honolulu, Hong Kong and Bangkok.

David Sitton on Oct 3, 1977 before leaving for PNG

I was inexperienced, under-trained, under-financed and totally determined; a dangerous combination.  But I did have a Bible and a surfboard–and not a worry in the world.  The Lord must have chuckled at my reckless audacity. I think he liked it, though.

Family and friends gathered at the airport terminal.  There was much hugging and weeping as they figured I would be eaten by cannibals before my first two year mission was completed (and it nearly happened)!

Several elders from my sending church huddled together whispering among themselves about how they didn’t think that young kid would actually leave without enough money.  One of them told me years later that they thought I was completely crazy, but they couldn’t be left responsible for my starving to death in the jungle!  Right there on the spot, they gathered the remaining monthly support I needed.  Ah… Jehovah Jireh!

My old mentor used to say – “Look at the sparrows, missionary!  When God quits feeding the sparrows, missionaries will become extinct.” Well, the birds are still eating.

Three decades plus two years ago today I started a missionary journey for Christ.

I find myself especially tender on this anniversary.  4:00 AM tears puddle my keyboard as I reflect on the astounding privileges of my life.  To be used by God, even just once in a lifetime; to unhinge a stronghold of the enemy by the power of the gospel and Jesus’ name would have been enough.  But he’s given me so much more. I will die singing praises.

Amazing grace, amazing God!

October 3, 1977: God fed the sparrows and sent a missionary on his way.

Today we sent out a prayer update.  You can download it here (right click and save) if you didn’t get it.  If you are not subscribed to receive our prayer updates and would like to be, you can do so here.

Katelyn Grace born 9:09 am.

6 lbs., 13 oz.

20.5″ long

Mom and baby doing well.  Dad traumatized but stable.

Photos here.

Fotos aquí.

The Center for Pioneer Church Planting is a major part of our ministry here at To Every Tribe.  God has gathered an incredible group of students and staff here from many different backgrounds.  We’re a tight-knit little community here for one purpose: to train and deploy pioneer church planters into the unreached regions of the earth for the glory of God.  It’s in the context of community life and study that church planting missionary teams are formed to go to Mexico and Papua New Guinea.  Here’s some recent photos of the CPCP community (click to view larger image).

The CPCP community in front of our apartment complex.

...and again.

This place is crawling with kids....

...and there's three more on the way.

This place is also crawling with tarantulas. Here's a baby one we caught the other day. Cute pet, huh?

We enjoy two times of community worship (chapel) each week.

It's a great time of corporate worship and Bible study.