How does aviation play a part in global missions you might be thinking? Well, we had the overwhelming pleasure of getting to visit NTMA (New Tribes Mission Aviation) this past week and found out a little more for ourselves!
Let’s back up for a moment and tell you of our trip into the Taliabo people.
If you were to be living in the Taliabo tribe of Indonesia (which is our intent) and needed groceries or supplies you would have to do this:
1) Hike 2 ½ hrs to the beach. 2) Hire a driver for a 40ft.-hollowed tree (canoe) with an outboard motor for 3 hrs. 3) Get on a cargo ship for 22hrs to another island with a city. 4) Do this all over again to get back to your house in Taliabo but this time you have ALL your supplies with you for the next month or two depending on what you can hold/bring and depending on ‘how often’ you want to make this 55hr round trip excursion!
And our story is just one of MANY like this! That is without NTMA!
NTMA has planes & helicopters in the main regions of countries that we work in. It’s because of these pilots and aircraft tools that make stories like ours a thing of the past! For instance, NTMA has a base on the island region of Sulawesi with a Jet Ranger helicopter that can get us and/or our supplies to our tribal location is about 3 hrs. And you know what the best part of it is?! There is also support missionaries living in that area that do ‘supply buying’ for the tribal missionaries. What this means is we can email a list of supplies that we need, a support missionary then goes out and buy’s all those items (bills us), and then puts them on the helicopter for us. The reason why all this is SO great is because we belong to ‘a body’. A functioning body that when correctly used get’s things done faster & better! This frees up the tribal missionary’s to study language, teach, translate & disciple w/o needing to worry about a 55hr round trip excursion for Tylenol or salt!
This leads us into our next point! Helicopters are GREAT for when a remote tribal location can’t have an airstrip but when an airstrip is possible a plane is the best. They can carry more and fly a lot faster! But right now there is a problem especially in Indonesia. Aviation gasoline is in increasingly short supply at steadily higher prices as refineries are cutting back and even eliminating this product! The days for being able to fly aircraft on this kind of fuel in Indonesia are numbered.
This is where the “Kodiak” comes in!!!! Can you tell we’re excited! :) The Kodiak airplane is a special airplane that can fly faster, carry more, and runs on Jet Fuel instead of aviation gas! And jet fuel is less expensive and more readily available! But as you can imagine these airplanes with cost of buying, flying & insuring are not cheap! NTM has one of these planes (going to our area of Indonesia) and has on order 13 more for around the world. NTM is intrusting the Lord that they finances will come. Would you ask the Lord if he would have you financially help in this ministry? If you would like to give you can go to this NTM website to find out how
http://www.ntm.org/news/
**Also a special thanks to our friends the Glidewell family who invited and hosted us at NTMA. We had a GREAT time! You can check out their website here http://glidewells.blogspot.
Also to our new friend Ben. It was cool getting to meet you at church this last Sunday. And for those of you who go to Sunridge church we'll see ya there this Sunday!
2 comments:
Ben, you seem to be in a habit of making friends named Ben! It's a good name... Hooray for the Kodiak!
Nice to meet you, too, Ben. By the way, because of your recommendation, I had the 'whole grilled' at In n Out on Sunday night and WOW...that was so good! I can't believe that I've been eating at In n Out for more than 25 years and I'm just now eating a grilled SLICE of onion on my burger. Incredible!
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