New Tribes is Like Star Trek

Believe it or not that is a direct quote from our chapel this morning and I (Caitlin) have never been so happy to be training with New Tribes Mission! The teacher who spoke today was saying that New Tribes is like Star Trek in that they both boldly go where no man has gone before. The inner Trekkie in me immediately perked up! What can I say? I grew up on Captain Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Archer, and Commander Sisko - I was raised well!

Anyways, all that to say, we want to catch you up on what we've been studying so far this semester! We've had Culture Intro, Communication, Phonetics, Romans, and Animism and there is so much to share about each of them! Rather than overwhelm you with one giant update, we'll spread them out over the next few days. We already shared a bit about our Phonetics class in our "February or Should We Say Fɛbɹʊəɹi?" post so, let's now move on to our Animism class which started February 2nd and concluded on February 24th.

Animism

A brief definition of Animism would be the belief that there are multiple spirits (whether beings or ancestors) that live all around us sometimes even inhabiting nature or objects or even people. Animist believe that they have the ability to manipulate the spirits for protecting, discerning illness, or revenge among many others. They work to appease the spirits through rituals, sacrifices, chants, and more. Animists live in fear as they have no security or stability in their relationship with the spirits since they are so fickle and can be just as easily manipulated by others to work against them. Their constant objective is to acquire power of some kind as that is what matters most. While this will most likely be the belief system in whatever tribal group we serve, animism can be found in Europe and America. For example, in Turkey, they sell these objects called "The Evil Eye" such as the one we have depicted here to ward off the evil eye. In India, people will put ash marks on their children to make them appear ugly and ward off any evil spirits. In America, we carry a rabbit's foot to attract good luck.

High Religion vs. Low Religion

In Animism we also learned the difference between a "high religion" and a "low religion." "High religion" is primarily concerned with answering questions about the purpose of life, what happens after death, and the origins of everything. In contrast, "low religion" is primarily concerned with the here and now. For example, such things as having a good hunt, discovering why someone is sick and other pragmatic issues. Additionally, "high religion" usually has written scriptures, formal training, and provides concrete direction in regards to ethics while "low religion" is primarily passed on orally, as informal training, and is amoral.

There are so many other aspects of Animism that we learned and some that we are still processing. While this class was very good and one of our favorites thus far, it was so much to take in and really showed us a glimpse of the immensity of what we are training to do! This is truly an impossible task without our Lord and His work in our lives and in the lives of the people we will be living among. But God is in the business of doing the impossible and it is with great anticipation to see what He does in and through our lives that we continue on in the training to ultimately serve overseas!

Thank you all for your support and prayers as we train to be cross-cultural church planters!

United in Christ,

Caitlin and Cameron

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