Tyler and Emily in PNG

Tyler’s Story

When do I feel my heart come alive? I feel my heart come alive when I am serving Christ outside the bounds of this culture. When God takes me to inconvenient, uncomfortable places this is when I feel I am being the hands and feet of Jesus. The concept of missionary has been a thought in my mind for the past four years. This concept started small and God kept growing His vision as I struggled to push it back. I heard a message while I was in Papua New Guinea during a short-term trip that God is calling His people to step out of the boat and walk on the water, as the apostle Peter did. My struggle has been letting go of these earthly riches and letting God reign in my life. I know I am walking on the water as I step out on faith and obey His call in my life. My prayer is, Let the Lord lead you and trust Him to help Ps 37:5 (CEV).

I have been on numerous short-term mission trips (less than 2 weeks) and I feel God is calling me to act on faith and trust in Him. God is drawing me to the conclusion that I need to seek a longer commitment in missionary service.  God has a mission and I believe part of that mission is to reach the bible-less people groups of the world. God is in the business of transformation and I want to join Him on accomplishing the mission.

How God Led Me to Pioneer Bible Translators

About four years ago God put a vision in my head about becoming a missionary. I’ve always loved missions and traveling cross culturally. I silently kept pushing this vision of missionary back in my mind until recently God opened the door for me to go to Papua New Guinea in 2010.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to Mt Hagen in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) for two weeks in Jan/Feb 2010. The Alaska District of the Church of the Nazarene planned a Work and Witness trip to help build a men’s dormitory for the Melanesia Nazarene Bible College. We also visited the Nazarene Hospital in Kudjip, a short 15 minute drive from the Bible College. There I felt God calling me to pray for the hospital and patients in the four hospital wards. The team also had the pleasure to visit bush churches on two different Sundays. This was an eye opener to see how authentic the Melanesia culture worships our God and King. At the Tuman Church the ladies group sang a special song to us, the missionaries. How honored I was as I began to fully realize that yes, I am a missionary.

Before I left for the short term trip I had a thought that this could be a life changing trip and I was praying that God would show me his will in my life. Once I got home I started to act on this call that God laid on my heart for missions. I contacted my home church in Brazil, IN. First Christian Church mission committee sent me a list of four organizations. I expressed that I wanted to use my skills and talents in Information Technology to serve God in missions. One of the mission organizations was Pioneer Bible Translators (PBT) in Dallas, TX. PBT is a mission organization that seeks to translate God’s word in their mother tongue language for the Bible-less people groups around the world. In late March, I wrote a general inquiry email expressing if they had any needs for an IT person. A few days later I got a reply back from a PBT recruiter. Amazingly the recruiter told me that the team in Dallas was praying that day for God to send IT workers into the harvest. After prayer that morning the recruiter opened this email to see my email asking about a need for an IT worker. This was definitely a God thing as the recruiter went go to explain that the #2 need was an IT worker in Papua New Guinea. Was God provincial or what, I just visited PNG about 2 months before and loved it. The recruiter encouraged me to pray and seek His direction with a team of prayer partners. A few weeks later, God revealed to me that yes this is the direction I am leading you.

In June, I flew to Dallas for their Pioneer Mission Institute 2010 Discovery recruitment event. This is where PBT showcases the need to reach the Bible-less by transforming lives through God’s word in every language. I attended introductive classes, worship, and witnessed the need across the globe for missionaries called to serve God.  God again affirmed to me that yes this is the organization that I am leading you to.

In September, I went to Dallas for five weeks of Short Term Assistant (STA) training. This was for preparation to serve as an STA in PNG as an IT Specialist. I left for PNG in January 2011 and served through March 2012. During that time, I was offered the position as full time missionary as the Administrator of Information Technology for the PNG branch. I accepted the position and look forward to many years of faithful service with PBT in PNG.