Jim Sims of New Tribes Mission worked as a fixed-wing and helicopter pilot with the aviation ministry to Papua New Guinea for 11 years. He shared some recent highlights with us.

New Tribes Mission Aviation team had a KODIAK in an Asia- Pacific region, but they desperately needed one in PNG as well. (Photo by New Tribes Mission)

For years, NTM has used Cessna 206 and 185 planes, small aircraft enabling them to reach isolated tribes all over the world.

In the early 90s, however, fuel increased in price and decreased in availability. NTM was paying $15 or more per gallon. This issue, combined with the small cargo hold, made the old fleet insufficient for the work NTM was doing.

Fortunately, a mission-specific aircraft was in the works. Quest Aircraft created a superior plane for the mission field called the KODIAK.

For a long time, NTM staff and supporters prayed for the money to purchase a fleet of KODIAK for PNG. But they had no answer.

But all of the sudden, God moved. Donors gave the money to purchase the first of three planes. When NTM went to purchase the plane, instead of waiting for Quest to build it, the plane was ready and waiting, complete with a coat of paint.

God had been working the whole time.

“We had no idea that this was going to take place, but we were informed just a short time ago that an airplane had already been built, was painted white, and was sitting at the Quest plant,” says Sims.

The KODIAK runs on cheaper fuel, has a stronger engine, carries nine passengers, and has a cargo hold big enough for a small boat.

Sims says, “This airplane was designed basically for mission work. It’s just going to be a blessing, and we’re very excited about it.”

The delivery of the PNG plane is taking place today, beginning the transition to the new fleet of aircraft.

“This is a team effort. The people that are donors and supporters: they’re our co-laborers and co-workers in this whole thing.”

The plane needs to be outfitted with seats, a cargo pod, an HF radio, and a splash of red paint. They hope to have it in operation by the end of the year.

The plane was all ready to go. (Photo courtesy of NTM)

Sims says, “As we know from God’s Word, His timing is always perfect. And so, we’re not aware that anything’s going on behind the scenes when, in fact, God already had this plane built and put together and was sitting on the ramp, ready for us to go. [This] is a huge thing because if we had to actually put in the order, it would probably be six months.”

NTM needs support to purchase the whole fleet. You can help that effort here. If you’d like to become part of the flight crew at NTM, follow this link.

The new fleet of planes is going to help NTM reach more people with the Gospel quicker. They train indigenous groups to witness to their neighbors.

Sims has many inspiring examples of this work. Watch for these stories soon. While you’re waiting, try to guess what cake has to do with the Gospel.

New Tribes Mission found a way around this in Brazil.

Using a computer program called VSee, New Tribes missionary Barry Spor in Wisconsin can create Bible lessons in the Guanano language with a co-worker in Brazil.

"It's as though he's sitting at my side, or I'm sitting at his side," Spor says.

VSee is a computer video call program that's similar to Skype, but it allows for file sharing. Spor and his cohort are able to talk about the lesson and make changes that they can both see. Using this technology, Spor can continue his field work, even though he's on leave.

Why work from home?

"We are church planters, which is not just seeing people come to Christ: we want to see the baby grow up to be a mature adult that can handle life in a responsible way. So spiritually, that's what we're looking for," Spor explains.

Barry and his wife, Denise, work with New Tribes to plant churches among the Guanano people in Brazil. A Guanano man named Gustavo recently came alongside Barry to help develop Bible lessons in his heart language.

Gustavo says his understanding of Bible truths grows as he works on Bible lessons from Romans, and as he helps Barry translate lessons from the book of Ephesians.

He notes an interesting comparison.

"When we make new trails in the dense undergrowth of the jungle, we move quickly, just breaking branches as we go so we can find our way back. Someone trying to follow that path of broken branches can get lost pretty easily," states Gustavo. "When I heard Romans teaching for the first time, it was like making a broken-branch trail in the jungle.

"But since working on these Bible lessons, and carefully thinking about expressing God's truth in my language, I feel like we are clearing a wide and straight path through the jungle. Anyone who desires to come after us can easily follow."

Pray that the Bible lessons Barry and Gustavo are working on will help others grow as Christ-followers.

To learn more about New Tribes, or the work Spor and his wife do in Brazil, click here to view their blog.

As Barry is encouraged by this new program, he sees a growing need for someone to be in Brazil physically. He says, “We need people willing to be career missionaries: willing to give their lives, not just for short term, but for life.”

Ask God to instill passion in the lives of many to become career missionaries.

It helps kids discover how they can be a part of reaching isolated people groups who have never heard the Gospel. Expedition is designed for students in grades 9-12, giving them a chance to experience missions in a new, cool way, enjoy fun with their peers (like any camp), "rough it" in Jungle Camp, and visit NTM's tribal village.

It's a great missions experience for individuals or entire youth groups, including youth leaders who can serve as chaperones. New Tribes Mission staff takes care of all the details.

Wayumi Expedition costs $199 per person, which covers all expenses. Students may want to bring extra cash for the snack shop and bookstore.

A typical day at Wayumi Expedition begins with devotions and sessions on tribal missions. The students will learn about language, culture, Bible translation, and evangelism from veteran missionaries. Afternoons are dedicated to games and competitions which mesh with the things they learned in the morning. Of course, there will be tons of time for swimming, games, and other activities. Evenings are spent around the campfire singing and hearing the Word of God.

The weeks are filling up quickly as the Wayumi Expedition is designed for only 40 to 60 kids, but dates for 2014 are wide open. Click here to sign up your teen before it's too late.

Persistent drought was stirring trouble where Terry Reed with New Tribe Mission serves with three other missionaries: his wife, Renee, and Dennis and Machelle Bender.

"People were beginning to fight, and even our families were considering relocating," says Reed.

The springs that people traditionally rely on for water began running dry, and the community water system broke. With no technicians around to fix it, things began to look desperate. Reed sent an e-mail about the situation to NTM supporters in December, and those believers began to pray.

"We are asking for people to pray that God would intervene and supply the water so desperately needed by the people," he wrote. "We won't be able to function here much longer."

Nothing changed in the weather forecasts; it was supposed to stay hot and dry. Soon after sending the first e-mail, Reed had an update.

"Nobody was expecting rain anywhere, yet by 9 o'clock in the morning clouds were starting to build all around the area," he recalls. The clouds began to get very thick, and it caught the attention of Santos, Reed's translation helper.

Reed said, "He stopped and said, 'Wow, this is amazing! It's really powerful when God's people start to pray.'" By 1 o'clock in the afternoon, it was "raining cats and dogs."

"It not only built our faith," says Reed, "but it was an encouragement to the young Guarijio believers and to people in the area to see God supplying a direct answer to prayer."

Reed and the other NTM missionaries are nearly finished with a Guarijio New Testament and are approaching a translation "checkpoint." Pray that the process would go smoothly.

Pray also for a young Guarijio man "who finished Bible training with New Tribes Mission and has come back out now to help translate the Bible for his people."

And while there's enough water for now, "We need people to continue to pray for rain, and for a qualified technician to come fix the water."

Dennis and Machelle Bender, NTM missionaries who serve the Guarijio community alongside Terry and Renee Reed, also need prayer for their goat's milk soap project.

"We see a lot of promise in that because it's allowing people to provide for their families without being involved in illegal activities," Reed explains. "Their biggest challenge right now is finding places to distribute it within Mexico so that they wouldn't be dependent on us as a source of distribution."

Reed says it looks like the project is making progress; one contact wants to sell the soap on her Web site.

"They also found a Christian bookstore owner in the city of Chihuahua who said he'd be willing to sell as much soap as they could make," says Reed.

Pray that God would reveal more distribution sources for the soap. Pray, too, for a 90-year-old man named Bonifacio.

"He was one of the first Guarijio believers to make a public statement of faith by baptism," explains Reed. "God's put him in my life almost as kind of a grandfather, but he's been having serious health struggles."

Because Bonifacio never married, he lacks a family to take care of him in his old age.

"He struggles, and he spends most of his life alone in squalor. It's just heavy on my heart," states Reed.

"I know that he has faith, and I know he's soon going home to see his Savior, but just pray that the Lord would send people along to care for Bonifacio."

New Tribes Mission has many missionaries in the area when the typhoon hit. Gene and Carol Trudeau reported that it was the strongest typhoon they have experienced. Their 6-foot high cell phone antenna pole broke and crashed onto the roof right, breaking their solar panels. The high winds ripped away part of the roof, scattering or shattering solar panels.

Rain poured into the house, flooding the Trudeau's second floor bedroom and leaking into the lower level.

Hearing of their need, many believers in the village rushed to help the missionary couple, temporarily fixing the worst of the roof damage with some used sheet metal roofing. Even as their own homes needed repair, the Christians assisted the Trudeaus.

Gene and Carol then opened their home for those who needed shelter from the storm and shared their food, as well.

Pray that they will be able to repair the damages soon. Pray also for more opportunities for the Trudeaus to build relationships with villagers and share the God's Word.

They went to work to discover a community project that would financially support the Guarijio believers. There was no real market for options such as leather work or making saddles. After praying, Dennis thought of a new angle: soap.

After practicing for several batches, he found directions for making goat's milk soap, which is very popular in the USA. "Goats are very common in the tribe," Machelle explains, "so we thought that would be the direction to go: goat's milk soap."

With two goats donated to the project, Dennis began to teach Guarijio believers how to mix soap in their homes.

"The lye has to be mixed carefully, and they need to wear safety glasses," Machelle writes. "For several hours, they keep slowly stirring the liquid. The first day, the ingredients are mixed and stirred and poured into molds. The second day, the bars are cut, stamped, and smoothed. After a few weeks, the bars are packaged."

After catching on very quickly, the Guarijio believers began making their own soap. Goat's milk soap has now been produced for about 1 1/2 years. Production continues to increase, and in the last three months they have made 1,000 bars.

Pray that they will find a consistent market for the soap. Ask God to bless this new venture and give the Guarijio believers much joy in their obedience to Him.

"All the way through, there's a ribbon of truth that shows that God's going to send someone who will be the sacrifice for sin," said NTM's Nita Zelenak. "God's going to provide a way to take care of the sin that we can't take care of ourselves."

In the coming weeks, missionaries will teach the Biem people about Christ's life, death and resurrection. This week, the Biem people were taught about the birth and life of Christ.

“I see that this talk is like our coconut trees," one of the Biem men said to describe NTM teachings. "We haven’t yet heard of the Road Man, but He must be the food at the top of the tree. And just like there is no way to get the food but by starting the climb at the bottom, we too are understanding bit by bit and slowly climbing, and soon we’ll know of Him.”

Before NTM entered the scene, the Biem people only had access to God's Word in their trade language, Tok Pisin. Because the Bible wasn't written in their heart language, Zelenak said the nuances of spiritual truth didn't come through clearly to the Biem people.

"This group had the Bible in the trade language, but not in their own personal language," she said. "Consequently, as they took bits and pieces from the trade language Bible and mixed it in with their animistic beliefs, they ended up with beliefs that the way to get to heaven is by keeping lots of rules and doing lots of good works.

"They don't have a clear understanding that it was Christ's death on the cross that paid for their sin, and that's the only real road back to a right relationship with God."

The Biem people are an oral society, and therefore lacked any written forms of their language. Three NTM families immersed themselves in Biem culture, building relationships and learning the Biem language. After becoming fluent in Biem, teams developed a written language based on the English alphabet and began translating books of the Bible.

Firm Foundation Bible lessons began on July 16, and the Biem people started hearing Scripture in their own language.

"When the reading started, we couldn't believe that this was coming in our own tongue," said one of the tribal men excitedly. "The talk comes so much more clearly in our own tongue."

Not only are the Biem people hearing Scripture in their language, they're also learning how to read it. When the first students graduated their literacy training program, Zelenak said 700 people showed up at the graduation ceremony.

"They were so excited about the fact that people could now start learning to read in their own language," she stated.

As the Biem people learn about the life of Christ in coming weeks, they need you to pray.

"They expect to finish that in about 3 weeks, so these next 3 weeks are a critical time for the people," Zelenak said. "This is why we'd really like people to be praying for them.

"Please pray for the missionaries as they teach. They need real wisdom to make sure that what they're communicating is being understood."

Zelenak also asked for prayer for the Biem people.

"Pray for clarity of understanding in the hearts of people who are listening, and that their hearts would be open and ready to accept the Truth as they understand it."

You can support NTM missionaries serving in Papua New Guinea here. Or, you can learn what it's like to serve on the field through a missionary internship.

Missionary Lane Sanford's family serves with New Tribes Mission, along with two other families on the Island of New Ireland in southern Papua New Guinea. He says the Siar had read God's word in the national language, "But, [they had] absolutely no teaching from it, absolutely no understanding of the God of the Bible–especially Christ and what He did for them."

Sanford says it took them about 18 months to learn the language. "We had learned the language well enough so we could begin translating. And that began the process of translating the portions of Scripture we would need to begin teaching them, starting in creation and leading up to the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus."

Three months of intense chronological teaching led up to the Gospel presentation. Sanford says the Siar finally understood what grace really meant. When they did, they couldn't keep quiet about it. "A large number of the ones that were there gave a public testimony. None of it was prompted by us, the missionaries. They gave just tremendous testimonies of personal faith and what Jesus had done for them. I'm feeble in my attempts to try to relive that for anyone else. It was just awesome."

While that was a great experience, Sanford says this is just the beginning. "[God's] desire is to build a church, not just simply to evangelize people. It's the growth and maturation of the church that God's concerned with. That's His program. And He wants to see the church grow and mature to a place that it can multiply and reach out."

Since hearing and receiving the Gospel, the Siar have reviewed all they have learned and are now moving forward, says Sanford. "Right now, as we speak, they are working through the book of Acts in the early chapters, and they're starting to get this early picture of what the church is supposed to be like, how it's supposed to function. And within about a month, we'll be stepping into the book of Romans."

These new believers are already understanding their need to share the Gospel with nearby villages. "They're seeing God work in their own lives, based on truth. And the conviction to tell others is just really become a natural outworking of God in their own lives," says Sanford.

These new believers need prayer. "With the same fervor and passion that people prayed for the Siar to hear the Gospel, we really need a whole new band of people to do the same for them as they continue to now go down this journey of becoming the body of Christ,"says Sanford.

If you'd like to see the video of the Siar actually responding to the Gospel for the first time, click here.

New Tribes Mission has similar translation efforts underway all over the world. If you'd like to be a part of this, click here.

Krieg, 66, has been part of the missionary team to the Siawis since 1986. That's the year the Siawis, an unreached people group, invited New Tribes Mission to begin planting a church among them.

Tom Brendle and his family served among the Siawi in Papua New Guinea with New Tribes for 11 years. "When we first started out, the people didn't have any Scripture translated into their language. In fact, their language wasn't even written down when missionaries first moved in."

Krieg will remain with the Siawi, even after Siawi church leaders have been ordained and the other missionaries have moved out. That's because Krieg is still translating God's Word into the Siawi language. So far, she's completed 76% of the New Testament translation.

In August, 2 Corinthians was checked and approved for publication, with a few final corrections. It will be printed as a separate booklet, as others books have been, so that it will be available to the Siawi believers even as they await a complete New Testament.

Now the Bible translators have turned their attention to the book of John. Specifically, they are doing comprehension checking of the draft translation. Comprehension checking ensures that the translation clearly conveys to the Siawis all that is wrapped up in each verse and points to passages or verses that need more work.

"As we work our way through John, as in all the other books we've done, we are constantly being blessed by the nuggets of precious truths," Krieg said.

Brendle says this is good news because the 350 people in the village are hungry for God's Word. He says as the translation project has finished each book, "We print each one of those portions in a book and give it to the people. And when they come to church, they bring a whole bag full of individual books of the New Testament."

According to Brendle, the Siawi are not only reading God's Word, but they're being doers of the Word. "In fact, this Spring the Siawi church appointed three men and their families to be missionaries — to go and reach out to a neighboring language group.

With 2 Corinthians completed and John well under way, the Siawi New Testament is now 76 percent complete.

While this project is completely funded, News Tribes is asking people to help with another project nearly funded. The Mwinika translation of Mozambique could use your support. Click here to help.

Andrew and Cathy Goud are translating Scripture into the Wusuraambyan language. Through chronological Bible teachings, they show the Wusuraambyan people that Christ is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Many have come to realize that the finished work of Jesus on the cross is the only way to be reconciled to God. Six of these believers are now teaching the Truth to their fellow tribesmen. These young men teach older believers from the book of Romans and new believers from the book of Acts.

NTM missionaries know that their labor is not in vain. Many belonging to the Wusuraambyan tribe want God's Word in their language, and there are many more that need it. Pray that God would renew the strength of Bible translators. Pray also for the Wusuraambya Bible teachers as they lead fellow believers in correct understanding of Scripture. Andrew Goud is currently working on translating the book of Exodus, and Cathy the book of Ruth.

You could help these believers with your prayers and encouragement. If you want to learn more about their ministry in Papua New Guinea, click here.