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The Prophets The Stranger The Lamb | Main ministry directory.
Flying! Providing transportation for missionaries living in remote places. This is Randy's main ministry. The airplane is the vital link between missionaries and their food, shelter, clothing, income, fellowship, equipment, communication, construction and in some cases, their family! Most days Randy is out moving people and cargo over the jungles of the area to meet the needs of our tribal church planters and supporting personnel. New Tribes Mission has over 800 people
in Papua New Guinea including missionaries and children. To meet transportation
needs not met by airlines, each year our nine aircraft fly a total of about
three thousand hours to move over seven thousand passengers and nearly two
million pounds. We work as a team to communicate, organize and execute
transportation needs. See: Why
Aircraft? Mission Pilot! Airplanes! Another major part of Randy's ministry is scheduling flights, planning the most efficient routing, coordinating passengers and organizing loading. Resolving conflicts in the flight schedule, planning for big events requiring movement of many people and planning for aircraft maintenance is all part of scheduling. Computers! Diana uses her years of experience as a computer trainer to assist missionaries. One tool that most missionaries have for use in their ministry is a
computer. Microsoft PowerPoint presentations are used to represent the
work that missionaries are doing in their remote locations and communicate with
friends, family and supporters. Microsoft Word and Outlook are used in day
to day correspondence, Bible translation and development of literacy
materials. Excel is used for keeping track of finances, billing,
expenditures, language acquisition, ordering supplies and communicating
needs. And FrontPage is used for designing web pages such as this
one. Of course there are many more programs in use among our missionaries,
so I am just using these as examples. Diana has taught many of these
programs in corporate and mission training sessions for many years! Randy
has also had a lot of experience troubleshooting hardware and software problems
(mostly personal experience!) over the years. So, we spend a lot of time
helping others in these areas! People is our ministry! Interruptions are our work! There is frequent
need for food and housing as people pass through Wewak in their ministry
travels. We enjoy having people in our home for a meal or a place to rest as
necessary. It provides us a unique opportunity for fellowship, to find out what
God is doing in other locations, and to encourage each other in the task before
us of reaching the un-reached with the Good
News! Missionaries live a long way from home in uncomfortable settings, without many conveniences, away from people of their own culture and language and work with people who have many needs, are demanding, unpleasant and normally ungrateful. Generally they work well in these situations but life can get lonely and the task is ominous. The most frequent visitor to the remote location is the pilot. He may be the only like-minded person the missionary sees for weeks or months. This provides a unique opportunity to provide encouragement. We all need to be reminded of why our job is so good! Missionaries also need to be reminded of the reasons they are working in adverse circumstances and of the goal. This is a war for the hearts and minds of men and women. It is a battle for eternal souls. God is the victor and He has given us the job of communicating His victory through Christ to those who have not heard! |