Coming Home, and then Coming Home Again

July 25, 2022

For almost the entire month of June, we were touring the country in our van to see family, supporters, and churches who have loved us and prayed for us and supported us financially for many years. We started off in Missouri, then swung down to Louisiana, then stopped in Mississippi, Kentucky, and Ohio and finally […]

A Missionary Childhood

June 15, 2022

This month’s blog post is a chapter of a book written by Cole and titled How to Be a Missionary Kid. He wrote it for an English class assignment, and the title of this chapter is “Run Around in the Mud.” It’s impressive how much fun we could have with merely the space around three […]

Words are Important

May 23, 2022

When we teach and translate in the Pal language, we have to be very careful as we choose the words to use. A deep understanding of the language is necessary because a simple transfer of words from English to Pal will sometimes result in unintended meanings. We often remind ourselves that it doesn’t matter what […]

What’s Coming Up

April 27, 2022

Dear Minnesota, You are a pretty nice state. Lots of trees, great people, the right amount of lakes… And I’m not complaining about the white Christmases. I love those! But don’t you think it’s time? Just let go of the wind. And the cold. And the sleet. Just let it all go and give us […]

CPR

March 29, 2022

The first and only time I have ever done CPR on a real person was shortly after we moved into the Pal tribe. Isolated as they are from medical care, death was common for people from every demographic. At the time, we had seen a rash of women dying in childbirth, and since we were […]

The State of Things

February 22, 2022

While we wait out the winter, our coworkers have returned to the tropical breezes of Papua New Guinea and are plugging back into their ministries there. Nate was able to take a trip into the tribe to visit the Pal church and do some digging on some issues that have come up since we all […]

It’s been a good year so far!

January 20, 2022

Furlough is half over. As I sit here overlooking the frozen wasteland that is central Minnesota in January, I can’t help but think about my coworkers in PNG with their flip-flops and sunglasses, going along their merry way with no snowpants on. The grass is always greener. Sometimes literally. God has been so good to […]

Knitting

September 1, 2017

The ball of yarn sat on the shelf, taunting me each time I passed. I had started a piece of knitting months ago and would usually pull it out for something to do with my hands as I sat on the porch with visitors, but with my recent loss of muscle strength I hadn’t exactly […]

A Step Forward

May 16, 2017

You know those moments when you realize something big, something important, has just occurred and so a shiver runs through your body? Yesterday, I enjoyed one of those moments. A young Pal believer directed the Church meeting immediately following the teaching. He asked the congregation if they agreed with the proposal set before them, and […]

God’s Word in Action

April 5, 2017

On Sunday our coworker taught the Pal church about Jesus’ last mandate to his disciples: They should wait in Jerusalem to receive power through the Holy Spirit to go out and preach God’s Word. Now, our friends here in the village have always chased after power – power to make their gardens grow, power to […]