A couple weeks ago I took my first trip ever as a CLA consultant in training. I spent a couple days with the Swensons and Chens among the Tanguat people group of Papua New Guinea. CLA stands for culture and language acquisition, and I had the privilege of accompanying Aaron Weatherl as he kicked-off the Tanguat missionary team on their CLA journey. Aaron and I shared from our own experiences and our own CLA journey as we worked at equipping these two new families who are just in the infant stages of learning the Tanguat language and culture.
Now the Chens and Swensons are toiling away at the daily grind of learning language and culture. They need your prayers as they will most certainly face troubles and trials along the way. Learning to fluently speak a new language and adapt to a very different culture is no small task, and we know that the forces of evil would love to see them fail. So please pray for Paul and Ellen and their children, and Derek and Chantal and their children.
Not only are the Chens and Swensons working at language and culture study, more importantly they are working at getting to know the Tanguat people and building relationships with them. Through these relationships they are modeling Christ and already showing Christ’s love to the people. We hope that before too long they will be able to share Christ’s message to the Tanguat people in their own language. There is a young church among the Tanguat people, but the believers and the community have only a small part of God’s Word in their language and they are in need of mature believers who can teach, disciple, shepherd, and lead them. The Swensons and Chens CLA journey is only a small step in the greater plan of seeing the Tanguat church grow towards maturity and continue the work themselves of seeing God’s Word go forth to those still unreached.
