Proverbs 3:5-6

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Going Forward

As I am on staff with the new construction crew here at the MTC, we had run into a snag. Money that was given for the student housing projects was allocated to the new classroom buildings, meaning that we can not touch it due to the account that it was placed in. legal stuff. So here is the praise and the problem. New tribes currently has around 3300 members around the world, I believe about 2200 are from the USA. The problem is the rate that members are retiring to the rate students here are becoming members is behind. We don't have the capacity to keep up with the attrition rate. That is why we have been trying to pump out so much student housing, our goal is to be able to have 370ish students graduate each year. The sad part is that currently we have 90 tribes that are all ready to have a team of missionaries move in and get a work started in them. NTM is planning on getting into 40 of those in the next ten years, that is if we can up our capacity here to catch up and exceed the attrition rate. The praise is that a donor came to the campus here for a meeting. His heart is very much for the students and providing them housing rather than classrooms, he came and saw the progress that we were making towards our goal. He told us that he wants to see our goal come to fruition, and he said that he wants to see two new four plexes every year and he will give as much as he can to see that happen. This is such a praise God for His provision. We now have the funds to lay down 2 new foundations, and get started on those buildings. God has also blessed us with concrete forms that we got at auction, the awesome thing is we were able to get them so cheap that their scrap value is 2/3 higher than what we paid for them. These forms will save the mission a lot of money in the next few years, because we can now lay out our own foundations instead of contracting them out. So praise God for that. Please pray that we can get these buildings up and the new classrooms that we have planned so we can see these 90 tribes reached and many more, by being able to train up more and more missionaries to go out, and to thank God that as fast as we are building people are coming into the training center to be sent out into the harvest. When we first arrived here I was helping finish a building, final touches etc, and as fast as they were inspected and approved people were in them. It is awesome to see that God has laid it on so many hearts to reach those in the far corners of the earth. Other prayer requests include the health of the staff here and the students, there is a bug going around and knocking out everyone. I am justing getting over it, but Amanda is still very ill. If you could also be praying that we can get a good prayer support team built up. Also if you could be praying that God would continue to raise financial support as well. Thank you for all your prayers. We are going to be sending out email updates and updates through this blog. if you would like to get email updates on our ministry and prayer requests and praise reports, email us at jahardname@gmail.com Thanks for being apart of our ministry, see you here, there, or in the air.

your brother in Christ- john stro