More Grace at Each Step

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ... Eph 3:14-18

 

A Week of Growth

We’ve spent the last 2 months teaching the Mesi church about the practical outworking of our new relationship with God and with others who belong to him. I probably sweated more over this Sunday’s message than any other that I’ve done since last year. How do we, in a compact and understandable way, help our friends understand the unity and growth of the early church that came not through programs, but through God’s work in men’s and women’s hearts and minds? Those who heard the truth of the Word and were changed by it!

 

Here is the challenge for me: to help our men see that belief will affect their aspirations, desires, and passions without presenting those markers of change as a goal in and unto themselves. Not sure about you all, but here in Mesi-land, the church is used to following a script. Everyone wants to know what it takes to be perceived as successful. Nobody wants to be seen as missing the mark. Our guys will tell each other what it takes to do good announcements, prayer, song leading, and other things. For instance, because they have seen other meetings where a gong of some kind is sounded at the beginning, our men insist that a short metal pipe is struck to signal the beginning of our meetings. This happens even when everybody is already there, and everybody is sitting down waiting for the beginning of the meeting.  It’s just the way things are done.

 

But we are not here to develop a group of good church-goers are we? We are looking for disciples.

 

Please pray for us as we continue to identify and encourage faithful men and women whose hearts are being radically changed!

 

Looking Out

This Sunday we will also have a very exciting meeting with the community. We’ve had a formal request from the next Mesi village over (3 hours hike away) for literacy school and Creation to Christ curriculum. Not that this is a new request, but for the first time, we are seeking the Lord with the Mesi church to see if we can actually go! Think about that. Mesi men and women taking the gospel and the further establishing teaching to their own people! Our guys are, right now, praying about how to respond. This is a very personal thing for some of them. They are actually counting the cost – of leaving family and comfort – to move into another community, for the reason that God values those people.

 

On top of that, we have been in the process of looking to put a couple of missionary families in the neighboring language groups in the near future. We hope that some Mesi believers may be used beyond the borders of their own language group to work alongside a team of expat translator/church planters.

 

Please pray with us and your Mesi brothers and sisters. This is not a simple decision. Imagine leaving your job and security to plant a church in the next city. This is going to cost us as well; the time and logistics of discipling our believers into a church plant of their own 3 hours away is sure to stretch us.

 

A New Name

You might have noticed that our sending organization in the USA has a new name. Ethnos360. The concern over the old name (New Tribes Mission) was that some found it offensive. You can go to the website – ethnos360.org to check it out if you’d like. It doesn’t impact us or our work other than we may need to order new prayer cards… something we probably needed to do anyway.

 

Thanks for praying and giving to keep us here and working,

Nate for the Cs

 

Pictures: (1) Elizabeth explains our medical work and how our Mesi friends can get help. (2) Faithful men work to grade papers at the literacy school. Did we mention that there are 36 active (and unpaid) workers involved in teaching and overseeing our literacy program? Praise God with us for these men and women.