How to build a stone oven
Based on a stove built by New Tribes Mission missionaries.
There are those who argue—sometimes with good
reason—that the whole concept of running off to
distant lands to "convert the heathen" has created far more
suffering than joy in the world. Maybe so, maybe not. But
no matter what you, personally, may think about the
message carried by missionaries . . . it might pay
you to take a closer look at some of the low-cost living
and survival methods pioneered and employed by various
members of the breed.
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by David Wilcox
If you wanted someone to teach you homesteading skills,
would you think of asking a missionary? Probably not . . .
yet if he'd ever served in a remote part of the world, such
an evangelist might be a very good instructor. After all,
long before the back-to-the-land movement got started, many
dedicated men and women of various faiths were already old
hands at setting up housekeeping with scanty supplies,
local resources and their own ingenuity.
Though some ministers abroad now enjoy modern facilities
and equipment, the "do it yourself" tradition is
still—necessarily—very much alive at New Tribes
Mission . . . a nondenominational, evangelical Protestant
foundation. The 900 NTM field workers specialize in
carrying the Gospel to the most primitive peoples in the
wilds of New Guinea, South America, Africa and the
Philippines. Their work, in fact, is so demanding that New
Tribes' five "boot camps" (in Pennsylvania, Florida, Canada
and Wisconsin) teach the apprentice missionary basic
skills, not only of ministry, but of survival.
An essential part of this training—"jungle
camp"—takes place every spring when each NTM student
goes out into the woods near the school and begins to build
the house in which he and his family will live for a period
of one to two months.
During the several weeks it usually takes to clear a site
and erect a shelter, the missionary trainee tries as much
as possible to simulate jungle conditions and to do as he
will have to do when he finds himself actually living with
a native tribe far from "civilization". Since it's very
difficult to send building supplies to the interior areas
where the new evangelist will be working, he knows that
he'll probably have to make do with what's available. This
means, for one thing, that if the missionary and his family
want to cook and bake on something more advanced than an
open fire, they must learn during the training period to
build what they can with what they have: earth and stone
and what grows.
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