the first ever Tobo believers' meeting

Oh, the fun and excitement of gathering together with 30-40 brand new Christian believers for the first time!

We’d like to give you a little taste of our first believers’ meeting yesterday (Jan. 25th).

Several people were immediately eager to express their newfound freedom in Christ. Our first believer, Tingon, gave a testimony of how he thought he couldn’t help Jason translate the Bible lessons because his sin was too great. Then, as he was brought in with open arms and later went through the Old Testament stories leading up to Christ and then began to see that Jesus paid for all of his sins on the cross, he couldn’t believe it at first, then as he accepted this simple truth, he was set free. He told us, “Now I am so happy all the time. I’m not afraid to tell other people about what Jesus did for me! I have eternal life!”

Our neighbor, Alis, shared that God’s Word and the story of what Jesus did in dying for his sins “really split my insides up.” “We do know that we can go to heaven. Jesus died for me, and I am now clean in God’s sight. My sins are washed away and dealt with.”

Another man, Pol, who was one of Jason’s language helpers, and who currently helps me with final checking of the Scriptures, was bursting with enthusiasm! His typical rapid-fire speech was ramped up a notch as he went on and on about what Jesus did for him. One thing he shared was this: “Who can tell me now that I’m going to hell? No one can tell me that! It’s because of what Jesus did for me, that’s why! I truly believe this!!”

And how much fun would you have in a group where you passed out Scripture portions “hot off the press” (booklets from our laser printer) and not only have them follow along with you as you’re reading that Scripture in their language for the first time, but then even have some of them read it aloud for the first time? Let us tell you, it was a blast to hear women like Daisa and Saniya read verses from Luke 24 (from the Emmaus road account). To our surprise and delight, one of those who jumped in to read a verse was a quiet and reserved man named Harmbocks, who ended up doing a fantastic job reading! (Harmbocks was one of the artists on the Tobo literacy primers and readers, and he recently began helping me in checking of the translated Bible portions.)

In a day of great joy, perhaps one of the greatest thrills came when, after the teaching and discussion time, centered around Scriptures such as the Emmaus Road account and the Great Commission, Pol stood up and exhorted everyone to “Tell other people, tell our family, our friends about what Christ has done for them, so that they too can believe and come join us!” Our sentiments exactly!

Finally, after the meeting, I had a Scripture comprehension checking session with one of my helpers, Welsen (Megilin Mama or ‘Megilin’s Father’ as he is known). I asked him what he thought about the meeting earlier. He said, “You know, I just want to say thank you. Not thank you to you 2 white men, but thank you to Jesus!!” (Knowing the Tobo mindset of high respect for Westerners, this statement actually spoke volumes!!)

Thanks to you all for being part of our team, for all your prayers, and thank you to Jesus, who is being glorified in Tobo!

Chad, Janeene, & Elijah

PS- If you read the Emmaus Road account in Luke 24, you’ll notice in verses 27 and 44-45 that the whole of God’s Word, Old and New Testaments, all point to none other than Christ Himself and the Gospel message. This is exactly what we’ve been doing in teaching 5 days a week for the past 3 months!!

It's contagious!

Have you ever been around a group of new believers??

The excitement is contagious.

People are talking a mile a minute about how happy they are now because of Jesus dying on the cross for them.

“I can be God’s friend now.”

“My sins are forgiven.”

“I don’t have to keep doing good works hoping that I might go to heaven, Jesus is holding me.”

“Jesus took my place so I don’t have to die. I’m free now.”

How incredible is God’s salvation?!!

Thank you so much for all your prayers!

And please keep praying for these new believers, for their growth as we begin to teach them more about the incredible life they now enjoy in Christ, and for their zeal to continue and reach those who have not believed yet.



Your partners in the gospel,

Chad and Janeene & Elijah

"I have eternal life!"

“Thank you, Yesu!!!!”


Yesterday the 16th of January, 2007 was a historic day for the Tobo people! For the first time, people heard the Gospel message of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in their language! After the lesson, we were each surrounded by a cluster of excited people and the questions were really coming at us. We were able to confirm that several had indeed understood and believed that Jesus had paid for their sins through His shed blood. Praise God! One of these men, Welsen, told me this morning, “I am so happy! Yesu spilled His blood for me, I believe, and now I am going to heaven. I have eternal life!”

There were 2 other men who said the quote at the top of this email- one to Jason and the other to Chad. After today’s teaching on the resurrection appearances and ascension of Christ, as well as a recap of the Gospel from the yesterday, people just sat there, many with bowed heads, some with tears.

Jason went over to our neighbor and landowner, Alis, who was sitting there crying. The first words out of his mouth as Jason approached were, “Thank you, Yesu!” When Jason asked him why he said this, Alis’ response was, “Because Yesu died for me, and I believe and now I’m not going to hell anymore!” Just to remind you, Alis has been a very loud, arrogant, outspoken, quick-tempered man who has given us more than our share of headaches since our arrival in Tobo-land in 2002. His change in demeanor the past few days has been nothing short of incredible! Would you pray for Alis and his family (wife Lanisa, 3 young daughters and a toddler son)? We believe that his brother Morozin (who is another one of our neighbors who in the past had been, let’s say, difficult..) has also chosen to place his faith in Christ. Another unlikely person to come to faith—but God is in the business of saving the most unlikely of people, isn’t He? Praise Him!


Jason with Alis

I (Chad) went over to talk to Agabus, just a few years younger than me. I asked him what he was thinking, and he said “I believe Yesu died for me, spilled His blood and saved me from the penalty for my sin. Thank you, Yesu!” He also said, “I still have lots more questions, and I really want to talk more about these things!” I assured him that, yes, we will do much more talking about these things.


Chad with Agabus

We look forward to sharing some more of these accounts in the following days, as we visit with different people and find out what they’re thinking and what they’ve understood. It is too early to give you a number of believers, but we are definitely encouraged by the response of several of those we’ve been able to talk with thus far. We’ve also spoken to several who still do not understand, and others who are choosing not to believe, which is sad. We invite you to continue to pray with us for the salvation of these dear people.

Please join with us in rejoicing for those who are now our brand-new brothers and sisters in Christ!! And pray for extra wisdom and energy as these look to be extremely busy days ahead. Many of you who are parents already know the huge responsibility and work involved in caring for the new baby after he/she is born. Imagine a multiple delivery! But along with the work ahead and overshadowing that, there is sheer joy! Yes, joy—at the birth of several baby believers—the body of Christ in Tobo-land!

Thank you, Yesu!!

Chad, Janeene & Elijah

3 days to go!

We are down to 3 teaching days until the end of what is known as “Phase One”- that is, evangelism and presentation of the Gospel. On Tuesday, we will be going through the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ! Praise God, most of our core group of 75 have continued to come faithfully. Many of the cargo cult leaders have stayed away these past several weeks, and this morning (Sunday), we awoke to hear a number of them heading off to another village down the valley, which is the chief village of the cult in our area. On Tuesday, the same day we will present the Gospel, people in our area who have stayed behind have been told to wear their traditional bark loincloths and grass skirts and wait for the cargo to come.

Thanks for praying for this last week! Monday’s lesson left people really quiet and thoughtful as we left each one to think about which soil their hearts represent as the Word of God is sown. Jason taught an especially thought-provoking lesson on Wednesday. Following that lesson on Jesus being the Bread of Life, we had some interesting conversations with people.

Anjere- “So you’re saying that to get eternal life, we are simply to believe in Jesus? What about following all of God’s other rules, doing good things, helping other people? What you’re telling us is too easy!”

Jason- “Let’s look at what Jesus said again in John 3:16, and again in John 6:29. What did Jesus say we needed to do to have eternal life? What are we to do to do God’s work? ”

“Only to believe in Jesus Himself! Jesus’ words are short here, and we men have added a lot more to what He said, haven’t we?”

“You’re right.”

“I’m going to come back tomorrow to hear more of this teaching!”

(note- this man brought his wife with him the next day, and he and another friend of ours were excitedly discussing these things throughout the teaching and afterward)

One woman, Nowina, had this to say to Janeene after Wednesday’s lesson-“God’s Word is really breaking my insides. I see that this is not just food to help my body, but to help my soul. Just like the people in Israel, we have been looking for Jesus to give us rice and tin meat to fill our bellies, but He came to give us eternal life. Now I don’t know what to do, I have 2 insides now. I don’t know whether to put on my grass skirt on Tuesday or not!”

(please pray for Nowina, as she is a part of a clan which is heavily involved in the cargo cult, and the pressure on her will be tremendous to follow along with everyone else)

Finally, our neighbor and landowner Alis has been openly struggling with what to do for Tuesday. We were very encouraged to see that he and his family, as well as most of his clan, chose not to follow the group down the valley. We are thrilled that the majority of our 75 who have faithfully attended the teaching have chosen to stay here and hear the teaching. Pray that they will come, and that many will have the courage to stand up in the face of opposition and social pressure to follow along with their traditional way of thinking.

We are hopeful and praying that very soon, we will have some new brothers and sisters in Christ in the next few days!!

Please join us in prayer!!

Chad, Janeene & Elijah

Please pray and have others you know join us in prayer for these next 48 hours! The last 3 lessons of our phase 1-evangelism- will be taught and we ask that you would specifically pray for us these days that these lessons will be communicated clearly and that many who are listening will trust in Jesus as their Savior:

January 15th : ( Mark 14) The last supper; Jesus is arrested-the Deliverer suffered for us- God fulfills His word exactly as He says He will

January 16th : ( Mark 15, 16) Jesus is crucified, buried, and rises again from the dead!-Jesus is our substitute and paid the penalty for our sin- do you believe that?

January 17th: ( Mark 16; Acts 1:9-11) Jesus ascends into Heaven-Jesus proved that He was alive-proving that He had conquered sin and death!

Some of the guys enjoy an early pre-lesson conversation.

God loves the Tobos

“For God so loved the world…” No sooner did these words (reading John ch. 3 in the Tobo language) escape my lips, an airplane roared loudly overhead. For the next 20 minutes or so, the plane decided to conduct training maneuvers on our difficult airstrip. Although this created a minor distraction for us, it wasn’t until the end of the lesson that someone who was visiting from another village decided to object to the use of 2 or 3 words we were using in the translation. This set off a heated debate about things such as which word was best to use for ‘sheep’. Rather than using the time to think about and discuss the significance of being born again, people were embroiled in a meaningless and trivial quarrel! Our enemy has been pulling out all the stops to snatch away the Word of God from people’s hearts and minds. We determined that it would be necessary to repeat the lesson the following day.

Our prayers were answered the next day as the only distraction was a plane which flew overhead and kept on going. We came away encouraged that people went away, and several thanked us for the repeat lesson, as they said that the day before, due to the controversy over the “little words,” they had forgotten the bulk of the lesson and weren’t able to review it with family members at night over the fire as some have been doing. Praise God for using His Word, even if it needed repeating, to get people thinking about the truth which these people so desperately need to understand!

This white little stripe is a layer of rocks down the middle of our airstrip.

Please pray for the Tobo people this week, as in each lesson, we will be confronting some wrong thinking with the powerful truth of the Word from the life of Christ. What kind of soil will individuals’ hearts represent as the Word is sown? Will people choose to hunger for the Bread of Life rather than the bread from a bakery? Will they see that, like the Pharisees, their strong grip on their traditional customs must not be added to or elevated above the truth of God’s Word? And will they acknowledge that Jesus is the ONLY WAY to God? All of these are items about which you can join with us in earnest prayer this week! Again, we thank you for your prayers, love, and support of the work God is doing here!

Chad, Janeene & Elijah

This week, the following lessons will be taught and we ask that you would specifically pray for us these days that these lessons will be communicated clearly:

January 8th : ( Mark 4) Jesus told and then explained the parable of the sower and the wheat seed—Theme question this lesson—“Is God’s Word taking root in your hearts? Evaluate yourself as to what type of ground you are.” (should be a great lesson for this agricultural society!)

January 9th : ( Mark chs. 4, 5) Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee- Jesus is God

January 10th : ( John 6) Jesus is the Bread of Life-God sent Him to give us eternal life

January 11th : ( Mark 7; Luke 18) the false thinking of the Pharisees, who held proudly to the customs of their ancestors and not only added them to, but elevated them above God’s Word (Please pray- this lesson is very applicable to many people here!)

January 12th : ( John 10, 14) Jesus is the Door, the Way, the Truth and the Life- Jesus is the only means of salvation, and the only way to God!

New Year, dividing 2 ways

“Don’t judge me!”

“I am a sinner.”

“I’ve been a part of this group for years, and God hasn’t punished me!”

“God’s Word is not in me. I’ve been thinking wrong on these things.”

“These prophecies will come true, if I believe strong in them. We will have the ‘good life’ on this earth.”

“How can a bad tree produce good fruit? How can we leave our sins?”

As you can see from these quotes, since we started teaching in October, and especially in the last several weeks, there have been 2 lines of thinking at work among the Tobo people here.

At the close of 2006 and outset of 2007, we are beginning to see the lines being drawn more clearly between those who are interested in hearing the teaching of God’s Word, and those who are interested in how ‘God’ can give them cargo. The latter group has mostly dropped out of the daily group that comes to hear the teaching as we move on into the life of Christ. Sad to say, it appears that although the prophecies expected were not fulfilled on either the 24th or the 30th of December, many of these people are still looking to this year ‘sometime’ for the long-awaited cargo to appear. We continue to pray that they would be disillusioned with the lies and false hope, and choose instead to believe God and His Word.

As for those in the first group, those who continue to come faithfully to the teaching to hear God’s Word, we have been encouraged by some of them, who have begun to take a look at some basic questions, such as how we as sinners can be made righteous before God. Jason used a great illustration recently adapted from John’s talk to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matthew 3 about the trees that bear bad fruit. He asked, “What would we do with a coffee tree that produces bad fruit? Can we pick all of its fruit off and hope for better fruit next time, or maybe we could chop off all its branches and wait for new ones with better fruit? Or perhaps it can change its own fruit?” They all laughed knowingly, and said, “No way, it’s only good to be chopped down and burned, because the ‘mother’ tree itself is bad.” They did not laugh when they saw how this related to themselves and their sinful condition. Our neighbor Alis asked, “Then how can we bear good fruit if we are bad trees?” We answered, “This is what Jesus came to do for us. Keep listening to learn how we can be forgiven of our sin and be clean in God’s eyes and able to bear good fruit.”


She’s taking the skin off the coffee beans and later will wash them and lay them out in the sun to dry.

We are looking forward to very soon revealing more of the answer to this question of Alis’, as we move further into the life of Jesus leading up to the culmination of the gospel message. It does appear that at least a few of the group may be close to understanding the truth. We’ve already begun to introduce the parallel of the ram which took Isaac’s place as well as the blood on the doorposts at Passover to that of Christ, as we read the story of how John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! We are showing them that Christ Himself is God in the flesh, and that He is the Deliverer God promised back in Eden who would crush Satan’s head, saving us from his power. Please pray that these people would understand the truth soon!!

Finally, please pray for those people who seem to be torn between the 2 groups. They are feeling the pull of those who hope for the cargo and ‘better life’ by ‘using’ God rather than seeking to understand Him through His own clearly revealed Word to them, and on the other hand they are feeling the emptiness and futility of a life without the personal knowledge of our Savior. God loves these Tobo people, and desires for them to enter into a personal relationship with Him.

Thanks so much for praying! We are hopeful that in this new year, we will see new birth among the Tobo!

Chad, Janeene & Elijah

This week, the following lessons will be taught and we ask that you would specifically pray for us these days that these lessons will be communicated clearly:

January 1st (already taught today): ( Matthew 4) Jesus used God’s Word to thwart Satan in his attempts to tempt Him in the wilderness

January 2nd : ( Mark chs. 1, 3) Jesus began His ministry of teaching, healing and casting out demons- Since only God has power over sickness and demons, Jesus is God

January 3rd : ( John 3) Jesus tells Nicodemus that we must be born again-only Jesus can save us from sin and death, and only He can give us new life (being born again). “For God so loved the world,..”

January 4th : ( Mark 2) Jesus has the power to forgive sins, as he forgave the sins of the paralytic and then healed him (the one who ‘dropped in’ on Jesus)

January 5th : ( Mark 4) Jesus told and then explained the parable of the sower and the wheat seed—Theme question this lesson—“Is God’s Word taking root in your hearts? Evaluate yourself as to what type of ground you are.” (should be a great lesson for this agricultural society!)