The club heard from Brad Richert, who recently returned to the U.S. after serving as a missionary pilot in Papua New Guinea.Announcements
- The Rotary Christmas Party has been set for Tuesday, December 10. Contact Scott Smith for more information.
- Rotary will be providing Festival of Light volunteers on Wednesday, December 18. Contact Lewis Knisley to participate.
Program
Rotarian of the Day Christy Martin introduced the speaker. Brad Richert is a CFI A&P pilot and has served the last few years in missions in Papua New Guinea with Ethnos360.
Richert explained that he had to complete 11 years of training in order to go overseas, but he is now "qualified for 3 different jobs"--a professional pilot, a mechanic and flight instructor, and a Bible teacher/missionary. He is from the area and did flight instruction training at Chickasha Wings.
Richert works for the Ethnos360 network, formerly New Tribes Mission. Ethnos360's mission is "to reach the unreached". Papua New Guinea alone has hundreds of people groups with their own languages. "The places that are unreached are unreached for a reason," he explained, describing the cultural, linguistic, and geographical/environmental barriers in the country.
Rather than doing direct outreach, Richert serves in a supporting role, delivering supplies and people to various missions across the entire country. "I'm there to help the people who do share the gospel," he said. "I take them in, then months or years later I take them out."
It typically takes 3-5 years for a new missionary to learn the language of the people group they live with. As they learn and can begin to communicate, they begin to teach others how to read and write the language, culminating in the creation of a Bible translation.