I just opened up the latest issue of NTM's magazine, NTM @ Work. The first page conceals the big surprise: the new Ethnos360 Magazine! (Very creative magazine name, guys.)
The outer jacket contains a timeline of sorts, starting with the 1940s and leading to the present.
Man, I haven't even opened up the actual magazine yet. Just reading through the timeline, I have found three errors. I have never claimed to know
everything there is to know about New Tribes Mission. But I do know some things. For sure.
Trevor McIlwain's group is called the Palawanos, not the Palawan people. The Palawanos live on the island (also province) of Palawan, which is in
the Philippines. Not Papua New Guinea. I already count at least 11 references to Papua New Guinea in that timeline. Give somebody else a turn?
NTM does not have a national missionary training program in
Thailand.
Dave Mankins, Mark Rich and Rick Tenenoff were kidnapped in
1993, not 1992.
If one reading by one person reveals that many inaccuracies, would that make one question the reliability of other things one might read about the organization as well?
Oh, and I would be careful about all those pronouncements of a particular date when the gospel was presented to particular people groups. "1999: Gospel presented to Isnag of Asia-Pacific Region ... " The Isnag are a large, spread-out people group of 40,000 in northern Philippines. There have been Christians in that group since before many of your readers were even born.
Now I am wondering if this might be the last issue of this magazine that Ethnos360 ever sends me ...