Meet Wana tribal members...

Esron and Nita Panius family

Esron and Nita Panius family

This month we would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to another of our Wana Tribal Missionaries. Just this past month the "Panius Family" - Esron, Nita, Geby, & Selah, joined our translation team. When we first moved into the Wana Tribe back in the summer of 1979 Nita and Esron were just small children about age 3 or so. Nita is from the village of "Uebone" where we missionaries were located, and Esron is from the village of "Paramba", one of our outreach areas. Both of these children heard the gospel very early in life and accepted Christ as their Savior when they were children. Both of them attended grade school in their perspective villages so had little contact with each other in their growing up years. Not having a Junior High School in our village, Nita went to the provincial capital of Palu to attend both junior and senior high school. She lived & helped out at our Mission Home in return for the missionaries putting her through school. During her time at our mission home Nita was a blessing to each of us missionaries and always did her work with a smile on her face. After finishing high school she and her close friend, Rone, entered our Mission training center in North Sulawesi. After graduating from the Mission Traning Center both Nita and Rone joined our team then serving in the Wana Village of Pada Lempe. There both Nita and Rone set up a simple grade school for the children, taught ladies Bible studies, and taught health classes. During this time Nita met and fell in love with Esron who was living just down the valley in the village of Paramba about a 4 hour hike away. They were later married in Nita's home church at the Wana village of Wo'o nTowu. Both Esron and Nita had a desire to serve the Lord as missionaries so once again headed back to our Mission Training Center in North Sulawesi so her husband Esron could also take the missionary training course. They have been there for the past two years and just graduated on June 17. Our former co-workers and translation helpers, the Bowa family, have gone back to Papua as missionaries, so Esron and Nita along with another of our Wana Missionary families are stepping into this position and will be working together with us in the coming years to see the translation come to completion. We feel it a privilege to have them a part of our team and are looking forward to working with them. It is a special blessing to us to see our Wana children like Esron and Nita, grow up, want to serve the Lord, and now serving together side by side with us.

Other tribal members...