Thank you so much for praying for our team during our recent Bible lesson evaluation. Here’s a little update about how that time went and how the Lord answered prayer. And we’ll include some new prayer requests at the end too.
Our consultants Aaron and Brandon (both on their first-time visit to Amdu) arrived safely, and we got right to work. We are blessed here in PNG to have many missionaries who spend part of their time serving as consultants to those of us coming behind them– using the experiences and wisdom the Lord has given them in their respective tribal locations to continue to help the next generation of tribal church planters.
Without going into too much detail, the practice teaching sessions held over two afternoons went very well. Many people in our village were away in another village for a soccer tournament, but the Lord still brought a good group of people to sit and listen as Bart and Benjamin taught. It was very good to see what parts of the lessons were clear and what parts weren’t coming across like we thought they would. Our consultants were able to observe the listeners’ reactions and ask questions in the trade language to gauge understanding. The days were long and full (it’s tiring to teach in another language), but we learned many valuable things as a result of this consultant visit.
One of the main things our consultants shared was that our lessons need to be much more concise and clear. That means that we are going back to the drawing board to rework the Bible lessons that were already ‘done’ and we have been revising the plans for all the rest of the lessons that have yet to be written. That also means that we will not be ready to begin the chronological Bible teaching before the end of this year like we had hoped!
However, we know that the advice our consultants gave us will make the lessons much better, and we trust their experience and judgment. So while we once again have to shift ‘our’ timeline, we have another opportunity to trust the Lord and rest in His timing. We continue to work hard towards the day when the Amdu people will clearly hear God’s message in their own language – something that has never happened before. Our goal now is to begin teaching sometime in the first half of next year.
Many times we get our blinders on and think we see something clearly. It is only when someone else looks at the situation from an outside perspective that we are then able to see areas where we need to make a course correction. We are thankful that the Lord answered our prayers and gave our consultants wisdom to know how to help us in this monumental task of making His message clear in the Amdu language. Thank you for praying along with us.
It’s been almost 6 months since we came back to Amdu after our regional conference and translation workshop. We are feeling weary. And Bart is still recovering from some type of virus that hit him after our consultants left. In just under two weeks, we will be heading to ‘town’. This ‘break’ has several purposes: some rest and refreshment from the isolation and workload, allowing Luke to take the PSAT at the MK school, and allowing our older boys to participate in an annual spiritual emphasis retreat for the high school aged missionary kids.
As you pray for us, you can praise the Lord for the clear results from our lesson evaluation. Please also pray that we would continue to work hard these next two weeks before our break, and pray that this break would be refreshing and encouraging. In the past, whenever we have taken some time out of the tribe, we are then able to come back in with a fresh perspective to continue the work the Lord has given us to do here. Thank you for caring about us and for your prayers for the Amdu people. In Acts 13:47, Paul says that the Lord made him “a light to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.” There are lots of far corners of this earth that still don’t know about the Lord’s salvation, and the Amdu people are in one of them. But soon, we pray that we will be able to say that salvation has come to this far corner of the earth! Please continue to pray that with us.