Sharing a Need…

Thank you all for praying for our crates to arrive safely. As far as we know they are safely in Lae. And now they are waiting for a truck to take them up the mountains to Goroka. We are excited to get them any day! Please keep praying for their safe arrival!

Since we are talking about moving and crates, we are also thinking about a need for finances, as there are no quick and easy UHaul services here. 🙂 So we feel the need to share with everyone something that we have been struggling with for a few months. We have been praying and asking everyone to pray over the last few months that God would provide money. But we have been challenged to give a few more details of our financial situation so that everyone can think and pray with more knowledge, about how they might be able to help. We have been slowly going into debt since we went to Brisbane, Australia for Naomi’s medical needs in May. We unexpectedly had to pay for all of our plane tickets and accommodations due to a switch in Ethnos Canada’s Medical Insurance company. A few months later we unexpectedly moved from the coast to the mountains after we felt God directing us to fill a huge need at the NTM Home Center in the Guesthouse ministry. Our need to pay for our Brisbane medical trip took all our savings and put us into debt. We never did get out of debt before moving here to Goroka. We want to share with you a few numbers, as the cost of Airfare, building of crates and shipping via shipping container has been expensive in our move…

-In July we shipped Jacob’s four-wheeler, needed for ministry, some household goods and our whole family flew up on a NTM Kodiak plane, which cost us $2675.

-In October we flew to the Sepik for two weeks, with Jacob’s dad, to build two crates and pack up our house to move to Goroka. The cost for our family to fly there and back on an NTM Kodiak plane with some cargo was $2010. And the cost of building and shipping two crates from the Sepik to another port, Lae, was $1460.  So that is a total of $6145, which is what we have paid so far to move from the Sepik to Goroka.

-We have not received our crates yet, which will come from a trucking company. We have been given an estimated price of $910 for the cost of trucking the crates from Lae to us here in Goroka.

We also wanted to mention our current recommended support level. There are many mission organizations who give their missionaries a salary, a set amount of money per month. But Ethnos Canada and Ethnos360 do not function in this way. Instead we tell people about the ministry God has for us and then people pray about it and decide whether they would like to help support this ministry financially with a one-time gift or monthly gifts. God provides for us differently every month depending on how people feel led to give. We are currently at 80% of our recommended monthly support for a missionary living here at the support center. In order to stay out of debt and function well we would need to be at 100% and we would need another $1050 per month. This means we just need 21 people to give $50 a month.

We want to ask if you could pray about giving to help us cover this cost and bring us out of debt and keep us at a healthy financial state. Thank you so much.

Praises!

• Stanley Devine, Jacob’s dad, got to visit for 7 weeks!! A huge help & encouragement!
• Jacob’s leg is sore after some Physical Therapist work, but almost back to normal strength!
• Our trip to the Sepik went well and we were able to pack up our house in the two weeks’ time frame.
• We are enjoying our ministry at the guesthouse serving many different missionaries as they come and go.
• 70% of the $83,000 for our centre’s water project has been raised!!
• Jonathan and Naomi have done well with the transition and big trip to the Sepik to move our belongings here.
• 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!

Prayer requests:

• Jacob’s leg– for complete healing…. Very close!
• Provision of funds as mentioned above.
• Additional financial partners to bring our support up to 100%.
• That we would remember that God holds everything together including us! And He is working all around us!
• Wisdom in daily life of running the guesthouse.
• Rest in God as we enjoy being parents!
• God would continue to raise up more missionaries to come to the PNG 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 continues to teach the Bena, where David and Wendy Lee used to live, pray for more Bena brothers and sisters in Christ!

Thank you for all your prayers and Support and encouragement!