With just seven more weeks before we depart the Sepik of PNG for our Home Assignment in North America, we are busy finishing up projects, teaching our ministries to co-workers and thinking about packing up our house for our year at home. We are very excited to see our family and friends at home as we travel and visit churches!
We are thankful that two of our co-worker families have returned to take over some of Jacob’s miscellaneous daily work. So now he can focus on some projects that need to be done. We want to ask for your prayers as Jacob has some major apartment renovations, due to termite damage, to finish before we leave because new missionaries are coming to the Sepik to move into tribal locations to plant churches!! Jacob’s co-worker in the workshop, Bill, is currently at home getting ready to return to PNG. We are excited to hear that Bill and Jen’s son, Jake, is doing very well and settling into life there. But please pray for Bill’s knee surgery to go very well so they can return in November! We would love to leave here knowing that Jacob’s replacement will be coming soon!
We also want to ask for your prayers for Beth as she is handing over her Business office ministry and her supply ministry. Please pray for her to have strength and wisdom to orientate our co-workers as well as start the “packing up the house” process. This will be a bit more challenging for her in the next 7 weeks because she is a bit more tired these days due to some wonderful news…. We are going to have another baby!! Due at the end of April! We are all very excited to welcome a second little one into the Devine family! And Jonathan is excited to share his room with the new baby and help by holding the baby. 🙂
We will arrive in Massachusetts just in time for American Thanksgiving! Then we will be traveling up to Nova Scotia mid-December. Then back down to Massachusetts for a late Christmas celebration before heading back to Canada for 6 months. We will need to stay in Canada for 6 months (Jan – June) in order to establish Jacob’s residency in Canada. But he will be able to take a one month ‘vacation’ to the US for the birth of the baby! Then we will move to Massachusetts in June until our return to PNG in November 2016. Please let us know if you would like us to share about what God is doing in the Sepik of Papua New Guinea in your church, small group or Sunday school in the next year!
Praises!
- A God who sent His Son to die for our sins and rose him up so that we could have daily life abundantly and REST in Him!
- We are all healthy!
- Jonathan is active, growing and asking questions about everything!
- God’s continued provision for our needs moment by moment!
- Return of Greenlaws and Stokes, our co-workers!
- Arrival of Gaetano, a short term volunteer for 3 months!
- Safety at work for Jacob!
- Provision of the rest of the finances needed for our tickets and while on Home Assignment!
- Courtney Shontere, our co-worker, who went to Australia with family for health issues, does not have allergies to mold so she can live in the Sepik!
- New missionaries joining the Sepik church planting team!
- David and Wendy Lee will be returning very soon to ministry to the Bena people in the Highlands, close to where we used to live!
Prayer requests:
- Ability to choose gratitude instead of our default of ingratitude in the circumstances of our daily lives.
- Rest in God as we enjoy being parents each day.
- Continued healing and finances to replace all of the stolen electronics after the robbery.
- Wisdom as Jacob works each day to repair and maintain the NTM Center.
- Bill Morlang’s knee surgery and quick recovery so Bill and Jen can return to the Sepik quickly!
- Wisdom as the Shonteres decide the best treatment for Courtney’s back issues. So they can return to the Sepik quickly!
- Ability to wrap up our ministries here and pass them on to others well, in the next few weeks.
- Healing of our friend, Elissa, so she can work full time in PNG – there has been an improvement in her kidneys!
- Logistics and planning that is involved in traveling around the world and living in our home countries for a time.
- God would continue to raise up more missionaries to come to the Sepik and bring the Gospel to those who have never heard it their own heart language.
- More labors to minister to the Bena people.
Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement!
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” 1 Corinthians 4:17
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