It’s true. Our 2 years at NTBI are coming to a close. In 22 days we’ll be graduating! This week the entire senior class of NTBI, Jackson will be headed to Wayumi, which is one of NTM’s camps, for our “Intro to Tribal Missions course. Everyone is headed to Jersey Shore, PA for a week filled with all sorts of random things like a pig slaughter, a traditional Papua New Guinean dinner called a “mumu,” hiking, language study, tribal village simulation, etc. Our final class when we return is Ecclesiology, and then we’ll be packing up all our belongings!

If you haven’t heard, Colorado is our summer destination. Payton will be doing the internship at ABEFC again, which we’re both excited about. And several families have graciously agreed to host us this summer, so we’ll be moving around a bit. We’re glad to have the opportunity to be back in fellowship with our Colorado friends and church family, even if it’s only for the short summer months between training. Then next time I write we’ll be in Colorado!

Just in the past week or so we’re heard from some interesting parts of Southeast Asia, a couple who’s working in Thailand among Animistic Buddhists and another who’s working in the Philippines among the Ga’dang. We’ve actually never heard from NTM’s staff in the Philippines before, which made it feel like a whole new world of unreached people groups opened up! Who wants to ride on a water buffalo?! I do! Except, I guess if you ride them in shorts and they get wet, you get a rash later. Not cool. Oh, but Thailand was still up there in competition with the Phillipines because they aparently have amazing food. Each of these countries requires you to spend 2 years learning the National Language (Central Thai or Tagalog), which is a whole lot longer than Papua New Guinea, which is 3-6 months. If you’re curious about more of what God’s been doing among unreached people groups, namely, the Hewa tribe, check out the link below.

I’ve tried to keep up on the blog a little more faithfully this month. So, follow the link for more pictures!

Blessings,

The Downings!

Hola team,

Here is our latest update. Please read, pray and pass it on!

And don’t forget to check out and pass on the new video (4 minutes) about our ministry called Mexico City: A New Day

• http://vimeo.com/37437776  (vimeo)
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRfvIEPFKsM (youtube)

And yes, we survived the 7.4 earthquake (just a tiny thing for us California folk). Thanks for all the expressions of concern and support. Lots of shaking but not much damage where we live.

Blessings!

Joshua (for the Smiths)

Mexico City Team Leader

EFCA ReachGlobal

We have been recommended on to the Missions Training Center in Missouri! There’s a slew of paperwork to complete before it’s a done deal, but as far as we know, we’re headed to the next phase of training in the fall. As we head into our spring break, it’s strange to look around and realize that our two years here have flown by and in a matter of weeks we’ll be headed to Colorado for the summer and then off to Missouri. One teacher mentioned this past week that if we were to stretch out our Bible training to its uncondensed length and were to study it in our regular sunday school and morning church, it would take about 37 years! I cannot tell you how much has been packed into every inch of our minds during these hours, not only in the classroom but outside as well. It is our desire that this knowledge wouldn’t just fill space in our heads, but pour forth into our hearts and find its way into the lives of those around us.  We heard this week from Brad Buser and from Jason Swanson the week previous. Both men have spent years on the mission field and had so much truth to impart. One of the joys of our training has been to hear from missionaries who have walked in paths that we someday hope to follow. They shared about hardships and the unsurpassed satisfaction of a life lived in service to their Savior.

Jason Swanson’s story was unique in that he and his wife joined an existing work over in PNG where 9 missionary families had already been. Much of the groundwork was laid, but there was just as much confusion as well. He told us the story that went beyond the first four years of language and culture study. His story wound through 12 painstaking years of guiding a small, scraggly, syncretistic church into a rooted, maturing body. Just this past year, elders and deacons were appointed from within their midst. The NT translation is almost finished, but there will still be a few years where they will watch and guide–mostly from the sidelines–as God grows the Siawi body for His glory amidst the struggles.

Brad Buser, sometimes affectionately referred to as “Brad the Abuser,” is quite the firebrand. He’s a 6’5”ish former surfer from California and talks incredibly fast. He’s not afraid to get in your face and ask you if you’ve counted the cost of missions, if you’re ready to lay it all on the table. He spent years and years on the field first working with the Iteri people, and has since been involved in challenging many young lives with the great commission. A few of us got some time with Brad, so I wrote a little more about the conversations on our blog if you care to read all of the secrets we learned from a seasoned missionary.

We’re currently on spring break in Asheville, North Carolina, visiting Payton’s brother and enjoying the warm weather! We’re staying with some lovely friends from Colorado who moved to NC a few years ago and opened a B&B called the Fox and Fiddle. I’ll probably add pictures to the blog when we actually arrive home. After this, our days are numbered and the flood of homework, graduation and such will not let up until we actually pull out of Jackson. Keep us in your prayers!

The following describes a challenge to ministry in comfortable America. It is one we daily face as we are surrounded by “believers.” We are not called to go and make believers, but to go and make disciples. That is what we want to happen in Harlan and our surrounding community—that is why we do what we do.

At some point we stopped calling Christians disciples and started calling them believers. A disciple is one who follows and imitates Jesus. She loses her life in order to find it. She steeps in the language and culture of Christ until his word and his world reshapes hers, redefines her, changes inside-out how she sees and thinks and dreams and, finally, lives. Whatever values she brought into his realm are reordered, oft-times laid waste, and Kingdom values take their place. Friends who knew her before scarcely recognize her now.

A believer, not so. She holds certain beliefs, but how deep down these go depends on the weather or her mood. She can get defensive, sometimes bristlingly so, about her beliefs, but in her honest moments she wonders why they’ve made such scant difference. She still feels alone, afraid, sad, self-protective, dissatisfied. She still wants what she always wanted, and fears what she’s always feared, sometimes more so. Friends who knew her before find her pretty much the same, just angrier.

You can’t be a disciple without being a believer. But – here’s the rub – you can be a believer and not a disciple. You can say all the right things, think all the right things, believe all the right things, do all the right things, and still not follow and imitate Jesus. (emphasis mine)

From: http://markbuchanan.net/2012/02/10/going-to-mordor/

Updates for Praise/Thanksgiving and Prayer:

The roof project is underway. A large majority was in favor of proceeding with the needed structural and roof repairs. When the project started a few other problems came to light that needed to be dealt with in the process (isn’t that always the way it goes?). We have about half of the funds needed for this project, but decided to proceed because of the contractor’s availability and the urgency of the project. We pray that God would provide the remaining funds quickly. Pray also for unity and growth as we trust God together in this project.

Our Girls Gone Wise girls’ discipleship is at the halfway point. Praise the Lord that all of the girls (11—about half from our church) are still coming faithfully. Pray that they would embrace God’s wisdom wholeheartedly and that God would use this study to transform their lives. Pray that they would not grow weary/lazy about reading the chapters and doing the homework.

Early in Feb. a family on the fringes of our body called to say that they would no longer be coming to our church. The reason: Jim had told them that God might choose not to heal the husband (who is battling cancer). They have been influenced by TV prosperity preachers and were angry that he would tell them that. God gave grace to speak truth in the heat of that moment, and to firmly warn them that it was foolish to go looking for another church that would tell them what they wanted to hear instead of the truth. A few days later, they allowed Jim to come visit and apologized for responding as they had. They have even been back to church once though their kids have not been back to kids’ club since then. Pray that they would become vitally connected to Christ and to His church and that their hearts would be responsive to His Word.

Pray for the Thornburg women’s retreat (March 31). Several ladies from our church will be attending and Lynette is one of the speakers for the day. Pray that she and the other speakers (friends and other local pastors’ wives) will have the preparation time needed and speak the truth boldly.

Pray for upcoming summer plans—VBS, vacation, time with our sending church J, conference—may God’s will be accomplished in all!

Pray that God would raise up true disciples here in Harlan and the surrounding community and that we would be disciple-makers.

We thank the Lord for each of you—for your prayers, your giving, your love expressed in a short note—God uses each timely gift to “hold up our hands” (Ex. 17).

Learning to lay down our lives,

Jim and Lynette Karg
Serving with Village Missions
In Harlan, KS (very near the end of the earth J)

So, we’re technically not in the exact middle of our senior semester, but mentally, I feel like I’m in the thick of it. If you wonder what we’re feeling like in school right now, here’s a little glimpse into the middle of it all. There is so much reading (The Bible Handbook to Revelation, The Pastoral Epistles, The Believer’s Payday,  and Green Letters) that my brain can’t remember if I was in Revelation or 2 Thessalonians–oh wait, that was last block, we’re in the Pastoral Epistles now. See, all this intake is making me loopy. There’s so much information to sift through (4-6 hours per day). Payton and I take theological ideas out and ruminate for a while. Then it usually gets tossed around the dinner table, and then on toward the yellow-lined notebook–I tore through an entire one in the past 3 weeks. Then, more rummaging through the Bible and lexicons until it comes full circle. Sometimes we’re wrong, sometimes we’re seemingly right, and sometimes it goes on the shelf for future consideration. There is a lot of stuff on my shelf right now.

But, don’t get me wrong it’s good stuff. It’s absolutely necessary if Payton or I presume to one day take the Scriptures to an unreached people group and translate! My Hermeneutics Practicum has probably been the most beneficial of all the courses so far in that it enables me to approach any book of the Bible with a literal, grammatical, and historical interpretation and understand it from the original audience/author’s point of view. We are taking apart the book of James right now. The students do all of the grunt work outside of class and the class time is used for discussion. We have outlined one chapter of James each week. The practice of outlining has already shown fruits in that making book charts for 1 and 2 Thessalonians were much easier. Pray for good sleep so that we can be alert in class, and pray for wisdom as we approach the Word of God daily.

In case you were worried, we don’t always keep our noses in the books. Payton played in a Ping-Pong tournament fundraiser a few weeks ago. I’ve been enjoying futsol and getting plenty of bruises and sometimes even a goal. I sewed a rip-off of my mom’s chiropractor pillow. Payton got sold for the school’s Senior Servant Auction (a fundraiser). We actually took a trip to Chicago with our friends the Cizdziel’s (pronounced “cheese-gel”) for a concert! They had friends in the area, and we were hosted for a few days of music, board games and good food. I put up a few pictures on the blog if you care to have a look.

Blessings,
The Downings!

You can listen to past Sunday evening services on our Sermons page.

The course costs $93.

Click this link to sign up online for the class.