Our first post to our (hopefully regular) newsblog. What a trip is has been getting this far!
We are Chris and Evelyn Jones. We are relatively newlyweds, who met in the small city of Jackson, Michigan. We both wound up in Jackson because we were headed the same direction in life- full time ministry.
New Tribes Mission (NTM) is the largest faith based mission worldwide, and it specializes in ministry to completely unevangelized tribal groups. These tribal groups, scattered across the better part of all the third world countries in the world, number in the thousands. Each group has it’s very own distinct language and culture, diverse from any other on the planet. Without a single written word in their own heart language, these people live in fear of spirits and beings they believe control every aspect of their existence, and the bottom line is that they need to experience the freedom of Christ from a life of fear and oppression.
So Jackson Michigan, huh? Why there? Well, it just so happens that Jackson Michigan is the home of the New Tribes Bible Institute. The facility here is equipped for providing students with the amazing Bible education that a missionary needs, if he is to go to a tribal group, and be trusted to translate the precious Word of God into another language and culture. And that is where we fall in to place. We met here in Jackson, fell in love, and married on August 6th, 2005. We are partners in this ministry to tribal people. We both have different stories and different backgrounds, and have followed a different path to Jackson, but we found each other, and are united in our purpose and desire to plant and indigenous tribal church in at least one tribal group that has not heard of Christ. This is our mission, whether it costs us our life, or our death.
We firmly believe in Christ’s love for every unreached, and untouched tribal group on earth, and want to embody that love by going overseas, and living with a tribal group- Living among the people, learning their unique heart language, and their unique culture and lifestyle, and showing them Christ’s love through that venue. Meeting these people where they are at, and bringing Christ to them, NOT teaching them English, and teaching them an American Christ, and an American way of Church and worship. Enjoy the beauty of a new language to worship our amazing God in, and the beauty of a new culture’s method of doing Church- often without a building, under trees and stars, or on riverbanks, around fires, where community is church. Christ’s love is a universal common denominator, and can be translated into any culture, and understood by any people.
There are thousands of these unique tribal groups. Spread across the continents of Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America. That is four of the six inhabitable continents of the world. “Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” (John 4:35) We have not yet decided exactly where we will be going, we would like you to be a part of that decision, and we would like you to help us get there. We are students of the Bible, as many of you are. We have memorized all the same verses, know all the same tired clichés, and we have come to the conclusion that Christ has told the entire church to “Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:”(Matt. 28.19 *emphasis mine). So we are asking the Church to do as Christ asked, and go, through us, wherever it is the church would like to go. We have signed up to be the arms of the Church, the arms of the body of Christ, and reach the uttermost parts of the earth for him. But the rest of the body needs to be involved. The rest of the body needs to tell the arms where to reach, and where to touch, and how to love. We need your fellowship

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