Trip to Indonesia

My sister, Joanna Jansma, and her co-worker, Kubili Condit, allocated to the Nagi people group of Papua, Indonesia last January.  They spend many hours each day working along side the people, building relationships.  They are doing an outstanding job learning the language and culture. When they first moved in, a group of national builders came in and built a shell of a house; however, they were unable to finish the job properly.  And so the house still sits.  Joanna and Kubili have been staying in their co-workers home while they are on furlough, but this family will be returning soon.  I felt God leading me to take a trip to Indonesia to help my sister. I decided to ask around here to see if any other missionary would be interested in joining me on the trip.  We were so thrilled when three men said they’d love to come help.  All three of these men are skilled in construction.  The team will be leaving tomorrow, the 16th of November and will return the 1st of December.

Please pray we will make all our many connections.  We will first take a twin engine plane from Goroka to the border town.  Then we will take a taxi to the border where we will walk across and then meet another taxi on the Indonesian side.   We will overnight in the mission guest house and will then fly in a small plane to a nearby village where we will shuttle into the tribe in a helicopter.   In a country where nothing goes as planned and you plan for the “unexpected” , we learn to keep flexible.   Pray we will have good weather and will be protected from the many diseases in this area.   Pray also for our families we leave behind.  They will most definitely need an extra amount of grace and strength during this time we are away.  This trip has already been a HUGE encouragement to the girls.  Thank you for your part in making it possible through your prayers and giving!

Sincerely,
Phil Jansma

New Moi Video from Papua!

Hot off the press, this new NTM short film illustrates how Christ revolutionized the Moi people group and set them free from fear! It very much depicts how Christ completely changes their perspective and way of life…watch it and catch our vision for those who live in fear and bondage, never having an opportunity to be set free, except if we “Go” and tell them…

ICCM (International Conference on Computing and Missions)

Tomorrow, June 10,  I will be leaving the family for six days to attend a special tech conference in Indiana.  During this time,  I hope to find out about all the latest tools and computing technologies that missionaries from all over the world are using.  I hope this time can be profitable for learning and also for building friendship networks through which we can help each other further missions around the world.  Pray for Kristi as she holds the fort down here at home with all the many responsibilities.

You can find out more about the conference at ICCM

Bamboo joints explain justification!

How would you explain the Biblical concept of justification to your next door neighbor?  How about explaining it to a recent immigrant to your area who is learning English? What about a group of people who speak a language with no one word for “justification”?

For us, one way to answer that last question involved bamboo joints and dirty sticks.

So what does justification have to do with bamboo joints and dirty sticks?

Well, a lot, if you happen to be a Tobo believer coming to our weekly gatherings to study Romans.

At the end of chapter 3, we discussed the fact that our faith in Christ does not mean that we stop sinning and become perfect people in our daily lives on this earth.  But it does mean that God says of us, or declares of us, that we are straight and righteous people now. This not of ourselves, we know that we still mess up and sin on a daily basis.  But the righteousness we have is that of our Lord Jesus Christ!  When God sees us, He no longer sees our sinfulness, since Christ took care of the penalty for that when He died on the cross. Instead, He sees us as covered with the righteousness of His Son and our Savior.  Wow!  All that is wrapped up in that big term “justification”.

To communicate this important (and freeing!) concept of justification, I had Tingon bring me a nasty brown bamboo joint that was old and covered in dirt, and another freshly-cut shiny clean green bamboo joint (bamboo joints are hollow tubes with segments between the hollow spaces at top and bottom). These two joints were cut open at the top, and the bottoms left on, so they formed 2 long cylinders like large cups that a small child could reach their arm into.  I then had Tingon bring me several dirty sticks, which I put into the dirty joint.

I had a number of curious eyes on me as I held up the dirty joint and pulled one of the dirty sticks out of it.

“Is this stick clean or dirty?” I asked.

“Dirty!” was the response.

“What about the bamboo joint?”

“It too is very dirty!”

I then took the stick and put it into the glistening green joint.  “Is the stick clean now?”

“No, the stick’s still dirty.”

“That’s true.  What about this joint?”

“The joint’s very clean!”

“Can you see the stick now that I put in down into the joint?”

“No, only if you take the stick back out.”

Then I put a few sticks into the clean joint, and left the rest in the dirty one.  “These sticks are all dirty, and they represent us people. At first, we were all in the dirty joint, stuck in our sinfulness, in Satan’s joint and under the hand of (meaning control or power of) Satan and sin.

“Then, just as I grabbed some sticks and put them into the clean joint, God has put us into the clean joint of Yesu.  Just as the stick is still dirty, we are still people who sin even after being placed into Yesu’s clean joint. However, just as the stick is hidden in the clean joint and all we see is the good cleanness of the joint now, so now God looks at us as hidden inside of Yesu and His cleanness. Because of the cleanness of Yesu, He now says of us that we are straight people in his eyes.”

At this point, there were lots of nods, smiles, and whispers of “Élok!’ (“True!”) from the group.  I then asked them this:

“So, did God take some of these sticks and put them in there because they were a little bit cleaner or better than the other dirty sticks still in the dirty joint?”

“No, they are all the same, all dirty.”

“You’re right!  So then we too are not better or cleaner than our friends who have not believed in Yesu.  But we are now in a better place in God’s eyes, aren’t we?”

“Oh, yeah!  We still sin even now, but God still took us out of Satan’s joint and put us into Yesu’s joint because of what He did for us!”

So, readers of this email, if you have trusted in Christ to pay the penalty for your sin once and for all, then you along with our Tobo brothers and sisters are all safely in His bamboo joint and God sees us in that special place as perfectly clean—not because we are better than other people, but as a result of the righteousness of Christ He covered us with when we first believed!  Can I get an “Amen” now?  Or perhaps an “Égat migi i élagék yamda,” (Tobo for “This talk is hugely true”)?

(Taken from Chad Mankins – a PNG missionary with the Tobo people.)

Ministry Pics

Are laptops a blessing?

Yes and No?   Well, let me explain.  Laptops are built to sell to business people who work and live in perfect climate and dust free rooms for the most part.  This greatly reduces downtime and issues.  Most missionaries live in conditions that are extremely  opposite of that.  120 degree weather in combination to near 100 percent humidity, etc., is not what the manufacturers had in mind when they build them.  (Unless it is the OLPC computer) In fact most  warranties state that when you take a laptop in those conditions their fancy warranties are voided.   Because of this, missionaries laptops have a lifetime expectancy of about 6 months before they need repaired.   Generally I have about 10 laptops per week come in and out of my office.   That is a whole lot of down time for missionaries.   Most missionaries choose to use laptops because of two main reasons…power consumption  (most use solar power)  and portability as they travel in and out of their villages.   Because productivity is so important to the modern missionary, most missionaries carry about 3 or 4 computers with them.  Computers are a huge asset to the missionary life in language learning, bible translation, emailing supporters,  etc.,  There are always exceptions, but in general laptops have an awful track record for reliability and  support and if it were not for those two reasons stated earlier I would choose a desktop over a laptop any day of the week.  There are brands that do better than others…right now, we work on far fewer IBM (now Lenovo) machines than any other machine.

A friend or foe?

If you saw this man walking down the road…would you stop and talk to him. In PNG, it is normal for you to see men and women carrying bush knifes like this. The closer you get to evening the more you see. Almost all of them carry some weapon at night.  There are quite a few rascals about and they use the bush knife as a weapon of choice. Having said that, the bush knife makes up part of who they are. Kind of like wearing shoes would be for us.  There are a hundred different uses for bush knifes and most of the locals are quite adept at using them.  So what do you think?  Having heard that…would you smile and share Christ’s love with those that you pass a long the road?