All the pieces are coming into place for the Manjui church to stand and grow.

The Manjui New Testament is nearing completion. Colossians and 1, 2 and 3 John were printed and made available to believers and Bible teachers in October. With that step, 24 of the New Testament’s 27 books were printed.

Last month, 2 Corinthians was checked for comprehension, to see how well the translation was understood by Manjui people. “This now leaves only a couple of checks to go for this difficult book,” wrote Gordie and Nancy Hunt, who work among the Manjui people.

The only books left to translate are Hebrews and Revelation.

Three of the Manjui Bible teachers were recognized as pastors and leaders last May, and these men have been teaching through Romans and Ephesians.

“The Manjui church is definitely growing spiritually as the pastors have been teaching,” the Hunts wrote. “We are asking you to praise God for what He is doing among these people.”

The village was immobilized by fear. An 8-year-old girl died and everyone was looking for someone to blame. They were sure it was witchcraft but didn’t know who put the curse on the girl.

Missionary Elijah Hall had just arrived and asked what happened.

“Oh, it’s a very serious charge,” the missionary in the tribe replied. “If they think there is enough evidence, the person could be put to death. Usually the person they blame is old, or a woman, someone who cannot do much to defend themselves.”

In the midst of this darkness and suspicion the chief of the village stood for truth. He is a Christian and one of the elders in the church. This small, slightly built older man is leading the believers to a new awareness of Christ’s power.

“I am always amazed at how the Lord gives him so much wisdom to deal with these situations. First he will ask if she was taken to the doctor, and what the autopsy said, and then he will tell the others we have no proof of witchcraft” the missionary told Elijah.

 “What wonderful things the Lord is doing in the lives of the people here,” wrote Elijah. “There is a church packed full every Sunday, five elders to shepherd the flock, and a room full of materials for the believers who teach their neighbors, once a week, to read and write and share the truth with them from beginning to end of the Scriptures.” 

Praise God with us for this brave believer who is standing in the gap against those who are involved in practicing witchcraft and those who are fearful of the results. The people are growing in their knowledge of the Lord, but pray that they will have the courage to witness of God’s saving grace to those who are still in the clutch of Satan.

What does a new missionary do?

While every experience is different, Rebekah Huffman shares a typical day in her ministry in Paraguay. Rebekah is learning Paraguayan culture and language and she spends most of every day in her quest for knowledge.

She wakes up at 6:30 and by 8 a.m. she is studying the Spanish language and going over her notes on the cultural observations she has made. Her morning flies by quickly as she reads, processes the information, studies grammar and then prepares a lesson plan so she knows what to study next.

In the afternoon, Rebekah works at a Christian daycare center to assimilate the culture better. She arrives just in time for their daily siesta to end. She helps out in the 2 year old classroom. After the children leave, she and her co-workers mop and clean the rooms.

Rebekah has visited the children in their homes and found most to be needy but open to her visits.

She asks for wisdom on how long to work at the daycare. As she grows more comfortable with the culture and language she needs to be planning the next step of ministry.

Recently, she and her co-worker Jenna Curry visited the Pai Tavy Terra ministry. Missionaries have aided the Pai people to establish a strong, functioning church and are now preparing to leave the work to the Pai Tavy Terra believers.

“It brought tears of joy to my hearts to see the Holy Spirit working in these people’s lives,” wrote Rebekah.

Pray that Rebekah and Jenna will find the ministry God has for them. Since seeing the Pai Tavy Terra believers she is excited to see where the Lord might use her.

For Jamie and Char Hunt, progress recently has had its own soundtrack, with crashes, clanks and clunks and beepity beeps.

A bulldozer is cutting a path through the jungle, clearing the way for electric poles and lines all the way to the Nivacle village where Jamie and Char live.

Already, cell phone service is available, as evidenced by the 6 a.m. text message they recently received.

“Is ti lhamô?” the message read.

“Our Nivacle friends from across the village wanted to know if we had slept well,” Jamie and Char wrote. “After 13 years of living off generators, solar panels and beyond the reaches of communication, these advancements seem almost surreal.”

But those are not the only advancements in the Nivacle village.

An experienced missionary visited them to evaluate the Hunts’ progress in understanding the culture and learning the language of the Nivacle people. She rated them as “capable low” – which is better than it may sound at first.

After a year and a half of study, Jamie and Char are now at the bottom of the capable level. Before they can begin translating Bible passages and preparing lessons for Firm Foundations Bible teaching, they must reach the top of the capable level. “One key ... will be figuring out the complicated verb structure," they wrote. "With an estimated 80 different ways to conjugate each verb, this will be no easy task.”

“We still have much to learn, but we are so thankful to God for enabling us to progress this far,” they wrote.