Waiting…

Do you like to wait? Most people would probably answer a resounding “no” to that question.  Even though we often see the value  or benefit that results, waiting for something that you are really looking forward to is often hard.

Well, we are in a waiting phase right now.  For any that are new to reading this blog and as a recap for the rest of you, here’s a short history of the past few years for our family.

– Two years of Bible school
– Two years of missions training
– One semester of linguistics training
– Almost 2 years of raising support
– Arrived here in PNG in December 2009
– Completed orientation and learned the national language (Melanesian Pidgin)
– Went back to the U.S. to have our 3rd son Caleb
– Returned to PNG in May 2011

Throughout this time, we have had the goal of being tribal church planters.  And that remains our goal. However, at this time we don’t know what tribal group we will be working in or who we might have as co-workers.

If you have been reading our updates or following the  articles that we have posted on here, you know that we are in the process of evaluating the newest tribal work in our region.  We have been talking with the two families that are currently working there (they are in the early stages of learning language).  We even took a trip out to California when Caleb was just a few weeks old so we could meet with the team (both families were on furlough then) and talk about us joining this work.  Everyone wants to be sure that moving ahead with us joining the team is a good decision – for us and for the team.  Working through this process just takes time.

So, that’s where we are right now – waiting!!  Currently one family is on furlough in the U.S. and the other family is in the tribe.  The earliest time we can all meet together again is at the beginning of August.

Will you please pray for our family as we wait on the Lord for His direction and guidance? And in the mean time we are keeping busy serving on our NTM center that supports all the tribal missionaries in our region.  We are also working on planning our tribal house and ordering equipment such as solar panels, batteries, etc. that we need to ship over from the States.  We long to get to work in a tribe but until the Lord opens that door, we want to faithfully serve Him where He has us right now.