Happy New Year!

I am taking advantage of the time difference between PNG and the States to get this last post of the year done. From where I sit, it is already January 1st, but as long as I post this before 4 pm, it will still count as December in the US! Last night we all stayed up until midnight, at which time we lit a few floating paper lanterns and sent them off into the tropical darkness. Most of them didn’t even make it over our perimeter fence, and one even got stuck in a tree, but thankfully we live in a rain forest so we didn’t have to worry about anything starting on fire.

On Christmas Eve our family talked about memories from the past year. Some things were hard – like Chris’ sickness and surgery – but a lot of things were great. The kids were all happy to come back here to PNG and reconnect with their friends, and Chris and I are happy to be back here working not only in our own ministry with the Pal church but also supporting the ministries of other church planters as we plug into leadership and support roles.

But we could use some help, so in this last post of the year I’d like to present three opportunities for you to jump in on the work that God is doing among some of the least-reached people on the planet. First, we need more medical staff. If you are a nurse, we need you. If you are a doctor, we desperately need you! We have lost two doctors in the past two years, and our last one is retiring soon. Because there is no reliable system of medical service in most parts of PNG, our clinic staff have been invaluable in keeping missionaries healthy enough to continue their work and ministry. There are SO MANY missionaries among us who, if not for the medical help our doctors have provided, would have needed to leave the field due to health issues. Please, PLEASE consider coming to PNG and serving God by serving the missionaries. If you are feeling a little tug at your heart, don’t ignore it. Instead of telling yourself, “There’s no way I could leave my practice/work/life here and go overseas,” maybe start taking a few steps in that direction and see if God leads you here. If you don’t feel like God has told you to go, ask yourself if you’re sure that he’s told you to stay. Here’s a link to Ethnos360’s website with job descriptions for medical workers: http://go.ethnos360.org/png-med-jobs You can contact us with questions and we can direct you to the right people.

The second opportunity is to teach at our mission school. Here is the link with those job descriptions: go.ethnos360.org/png-ed-jobs Would you like to teach small classes of children from all over the world who have been taught to be respectful and have greater-than-average attention spans? Would you like your own children to get a high-quality, Christian private school education while experiencing a global culture that will immeasurably broaden their horizons? If you are a teacher, please, PLEASE consider coming and joining our school. Even if you just want to talk about committing to a year or two, get in touch with us and we can help answer all your questions.

The last opportunity is for you to support our family directly. If you have been thinking about maybe becoming one of our financial supporters, we’d like to ask you to start this year. We could use more teammates giving financially each month so that we can keep working here even as costs for everything continue to increase. If you would like some information about giving to our ministry, go to the very top of this blog post and click the ‘give’ link. Or you can always contact us directly with questions by clicking the ‘contact’ link, or by emailing chris_hostetter@ntmpng.org.

As your new year begins, we hope you will be filled with peace in knowing that God is on his throne, and that you will grow in your knowledge of Him and abound in love. It’s gonna be a good year.