Field Choice

It's been a while coming, but God has finally led me to choose a specific mission field to serve on. New Tribes Mission (NTM) is currently in about 12 different fields which encompass at least 20 countries. In all of these countries, they focus on reaching tribal groups that are unreached. For NTM, unreached means that the people group has no Bible written in their language, no missionaries, and very few (if any) known believers.

Coming into training, I was thinking of heading to Papua New Guinea (PNG). However, during my first semester, I wanted to confirm that PNG is the place where God wants me to go. I researched all of the open fields where NTM serves, genuinely wanting to determine which country will be where I end up.

After a lot of research and prayer, God does seem to be leading me to PNG as a field of service. I am really excited about this! Let me give you a few stats on PNG:

• Location: Papua New Guinea is the right half of the large island right above Australia. The other side of the island is Papua Indonesia (previously Irian Jaya).
• Size: PNG is about the size of California
• Population: 7,013,829 according to the 2011 census
• Language: The trade language in PNG is Tok Pisin, which is fairly close to English. However, this language is very basic and is not spoken by the majority of the population in PNG. Actually, there are over 800 distinct language groups in PNG (imagine all those languages in California!)
• Unreached Status: Over 400 of the language groups in PNG are considered unreached.
• NTM Presence: NTM has a very strong support base in PNG. Permanent support teams comprised of support missionaries work in Wewak, Madang, and several other cities around PNG to keep those in the tribal works on the field. This is a huge blessing, because it means that the missionaries don't have to travel out of their villages to buy groceries, to buy construction materials, or to do their finances (often the missionaries don't have internet in the tribe). There are quite a few tribal missionaries in PNG, due to the enormous amount of work left to be done there.
• Geography: PNG is a very diverse nation due to its varying climates. There are lush jungles, beautiful untouched beaches, stunning coral reefs, cooler mountainous regions with snow, hot and humid lowlands, and everything in between. I'm excited to get there and see it for myself!

Thank you all so much for your prayers with me about mission fields! I'm very grateful that God has made this clear to me!