Our daughter, Naomi, has learned a couple new phases this week, “Oh, yeah” (meaning, oh, yes, now I remember) and “Nein, Mom” (Nein is the German word for “No”.) We are thankful for our neighbors, Christopher and Lilli Meyer and their two children Linda and Silas who are from Germany. Every day our children play together and Beth and Lilli chat about all kinds of things. Friends to go through life with, they are definitely a gift from God! Linda and Jonathan are close in age. And Naomi and Silas are just weeks apart in age!
So, we want to ask if you could pray for the Meyer family as they will be moving into the Kaje tribe in the next few weeks. They will be joining a Church Planting team, Jon and Jen Myers & 3 children and Taylor and Abby Goheen & 3 children. Jon and Jen, as well as Taylor and Abby have finished learning the Language and Culture of the people! And now they have moved on to literacy teaching and writing lessons and translating portions of the Bible for the teaching of God’s Word in the people’s own language! Christopher and Lilli Meyer and family, our neighbors, will be starting the house building process as well as starting Culture and Language learning as they slowly establish relationships with the people and build their home for the ministry in the Kaje tribe.
We always enjoying hearing about all that God is doing all over Papua New Guinea. And this month we are going to actually highlight another tribe as well in another province, the Madang Province because Jacob has the opportunity to go in and help out with the building of two new missionary homes in September! The Tanguat tribe…Here is an excerpt from Derek and Chantal Chen’s newsletter…
NTM PNG missionaries began partnering with the Inapang church in 2011 to reach their neighboring language group, the Tanguat people. In 2015, a baby church was born among the Tanguat. However, the missionary family who spearheaded this partnership had to leave soon after the Gospel was presented—way before the new baby church could stand on her own. The Inapang church, along with Promise Vaughan, struggled to carry the workload by themselves for the past three years. Last year, the elders of the Inapang church wrote a letter asking NTM PNG for help in finding new missionary families to join them in bringing the baby Tanguat church to maturity so that they, too, will one day be able to minister cross-culturally.
Promise Vaughan has learned the Language and Culture and continues to work on translation and discipleship. And now the Chen family and the Swenson family have joined the Tanguat work! They will begin cutting down trees and building their homes starting next week! Jacob will get to help with the framing of the house and possibly the roof and water system when he goes in to help out for 1-2 weeks on Sept 19th. After the Chens and Swensons build their houses they will start learning the language and culture with a goal to teach the people how to read, write lessons and translate portions of the Bible for the teaching of God’s Word in the people’s own language and eventually translate the New Testament! The end goal being an established indigenous church in Tanguat!
Praises!
-Update on Maliyali tribe – The Earl family and Rimestad family are plugging away at learning language and culture! The Mueller family is home enjoying their 6 month home assignment.
-Update on the Pei tribe – Chris Jones has had a successful surgery on this foot! The Rees family and Candace Swift are heading home for a home assignment this week.
-Naomi, is now 22 months old, she is healthy: walking, running and talking like crazy! No side effects from her NCM condition!
-Addition of more subjects, as we start more homeschooling for Jonathan… and he likes it!
-Opportunity to be involved in all that God is doing in the Sepik region of PNG!
-Opportunity for Jacob to go into a bush location to help build two missionary homes.
-Opportunity for Jacob to help build the new Sunday School building at the National Church we attend in town.
-Opportunity for us to have a break in Goroka at the NTM Center, flying on Sept 10th!
-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!
-God’s continued provision for our needs moment by moment!
-There are more believers among the Bena Bean people in the Highlands close to Interface where we work!
Prayer requests:
-Chen family, as Gail Chen battles cancer.
-For all the Sepik missionaries involved in language and culture learning, literacy, Bible lesson preparation and Bible Translation.
-The Jones family, part of the Pei team, currently at home in the US due to a very bad cut and infection in Chris Jones’ foot, he just had his Achilles tendon surgery, pray for quick healing so they can return to PNG in the new year!
-The Meyer family as they plan their house building project and start language learning in Kaje with their team mates, the Myers and Goheens.
-Jacob at work… ability to balance work with rest, and prioritizing all that needs to be done as he is now overseeing the maintenance department.
– Jacob as he heads to the bush working with the Derek Chen and Paul Swenson and many nationals, to build their houses with no electricity or running water.
-Beth, Jonathan and Naomi as they stay at the NTM Center in Goroka while Jacob is away for 1-2 weeks.
-Jonathan, as his best friend, Linda Meyer, will be leaving to move into Kaje. He will miss her!
-Beth’s mom as she had to postpone her trip to visit us in Brisbane, due to her heart and pacemaker issues. Pray she will be back up to full health and be able to visit us in May next year in Brisbane.
-That we would remember that God holds everything together including us! And He is working all around us!
-Rest in God as we enjoy being parents of two children!
-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 laborers to minister to the Bena people.
-David Lee and Heti (Bena believer) continue to teach the Bena, where David and Wendy Lee used to live, pray for more Bena brothers and sisters in Christ!
ONE SMALL NEED: If anyone is interested in helping out the children here at the National Church, they are in great need of crayons! They do coloring almost every week, if they have the crayons. Jonathan and Naomi love singing and hanging out with the children there!
Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement!
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