“I have never been in a bank before.” Several of our children said this to us the other day. I thought how is that possible, but then, given our lifestyle and moving around, we hardly every take a trip into a bank. 99% of all our transactions take place online these days. There are certain things that we will have to make sure they know before we let them go from home when they graduate. It is hard to believe that we have only three more years for Rachel. Life keeps marching on.
A huge milestone and step of faith for Joel and Grace this year came with their baptism April 2
5th. Rachel and Micah have enjoyed being a part of Track and Field this year. Micah went to districts in 4 events yesterday too. Both Rachel and Micah have made the honor role this year and Micah was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. The Lord has consistently provided work for me to keep me out of Erika’s hair. J There have been very few days where I have not had some work. One great privilege is to be able to have my dad work with me some now that he is retired. It gives us some good father/son time. The ladies Bible study is done for Erika and she has been shopping, sorting and packing for our trip back to PNG. We have really enjoyed getting to know so many folks this furlough. The time has been a refreshing break from the workload overseas.
We are making tentative plans for arriving back in Islands Region Supply Center in Papua New Guinea mid July. The dates are still being worked on as we have not been able to purchase our tickets yet. We are pulling our children out of school early to go up to Canada to see family, friends and supporters. We leave June 7 for a 4500+ miles road trip, and we will be gone for 3 weeks. We plan on stopping in Milwaukee WI, Steinbach MB, Endeavour SK, several places in Alberta, Kelowna BC, and a few more stops in Washington state before coming back home.
In the mean time we are hoping to pack up a crate for shipping some articles back to PNG. People have asked us what we need before we head back to PNG. We are hoping to get a couple more computers for the family. With the older children needing them more and more it almost becomes a necessity to have them for school. Do you remember the day when those things were not a necessity? The rest of the main items would be a stove, vitamins, shoes, and other miscellaneous items. If you want some more details feel free to contact us on our email address found below.
In the recent weeks we have received multiple emails from our coworkers in Papua New Guinea stating the large work load that awaits us once we get back. J The main task that awaits Erika and I will be assisting 25 adults through their National Culture/Language Acquisition process starting right after we are moved into a house. This will be our main area of responsibility. I will be helping train several people to work as language consultants as well.
My prayer is as Jesus commands to be praying for Matt 9:38, “Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth labourers into His harvest.” It has been exciting to see God raising up several within our church and our supporting churches to go forth as labourers. One man will be going to New Tribes Bible Institute this fall with the possibility of going full time overseas. There is a young lady who is in training to be a teacher, who wants to come over in January for 6 months to help out in the school, either on the mainland or where we are. Another couple from a supporting church is sensing God’s call to Papua New Guinea so they would like to come and visit in January as well. We see how God is using the testimony of the believers in PNG to lead others into missions.
Pray that God would continue to raise up labourers for His Harvest field.
Please be praying with us as we are looking to the Lord to see our support level go up. Unfortunately one of our supporting churches had to drop us due to the tough economic times.
Praise God with us: Please pray for:
A good furlough year Safe travels on our trip to Canada
Safety in work for Aaron Tickets for PNG
Children are doing great Shipping a crate – and the items to go in it.
God is raising up more labourers Support level increase