All Posts | BJ and Jill Sanders

#reachWANTAKIA

August 28, 2023

In 2020, by God’s grace, we were able to share the gospel to the Wantakia people in their heart language! They got to hear the good news for the very first time. And praise God many have put their faith in Christ, have come into his family and have begun following Him. Literacy classes also […]

Trusting God with my health

September 21, 2016

Back in December, my faith was tested. I noticed a lump in my breast and of course freaked out. We live in the middle of nowhere and I will have to wait 8 months to get it checked out. Then about a month later I noticed 1, then 2 spots that looked like more basal […]

Happy new year!

January 1, 2016

AUTHOR: JILL This is mine and BJ’s 10th New Year to celebrate together! 2015 has been one of the most exciting, hardest, scary, thrilling, faith-building, uncomfortable, and special year so far! And yet, we see the Lord’s faithfulness at every single step. Here is the year at a glimpse: -BJ was gone a ton so that he could mill lumber and build […]

NOT ABOUT MY NAME, BUT HIS!

September 11, 2015

Hi, my name is Saline….like the nose spray! Our people group that we are working among cannot say the letter “J”. Let me also say that they can’t say final “L’s”. I tried many things to get my name to come out somewhat the same. I ended up trying to get them to say “Jilly” […]

All things wantakia

June 14, 2015

AUTHOR: JILL Some things you might not expect about our tribe: We freeze here! Every morning we get up, we snuggle with blankets and wear house shoes! At night, we make a fire in our wood burning stove! It’s even cold enough to have a poinsettia tree right outside my window. This area is full […]

BIG welcome party!

May 17, 2015

“I can’t imagine a more welcoming place!” I said to Jill when we got home yesterday. It was our official “house opening” and welcome into the village, celebrating the completion of our 3 houses. They decorated our homes, prepared “sing sings,” dressed in traditional “tumbuna” dress, then decorated us too! There were people from many […]

Third Week in Wantakia

May 3, 2015

Tomorrow marks the 3rd week that we will be in Wantakia. We have pretty much finished our houses and are out in the community making new friends! The language is crazy, but the he Lord will help us learn it. Here’s an example: puruganaechido! That means it’s raining hard! Sadly, Our internet is really bad, […]

Last trip!!

March 17, 2015

In October, our team decided to start surveying Wantakia and ask the Lord if this was the place for us. So October started the “trips”. Our men would fly into one village and hike all over the 10 villages of Wantakia. This meant for us, wives, our men were gone a lot. The Lord showed […]

One Year Anniversary

February 3, 2015

Exactly one year ago, we made one of the hardest decision…to leave America, our family, and everything we know and move to Papua New Guinea to be church planters. This year has been full of tears, joy, hard work to learn a language, lots of prayer, homesick, new friends, lots of moving, more tears, and […]

House building has begun!

January 23, 2015

Our friend, Doug Schaible, used to show us pictures of his tribal house on an island and say, “It’s a shame wehave to live here!” We feel the same way! Mountains everywhere and perfect weather…couldn’t ask for more. This picture of our houses is kind of cool because the perimeter almost seems “dark” and it’s like […]