Happy Thanksgiving from Papua New Guine

Happy Independence day!  

    Jacob building new cupboards and metal counter top

Cooking for Conference 

First Grade Pet Show

Jonathan with friends, Henry and Aaron, on School Spirit Day

                                                                                                                  

Dear Friends and Family,

Fourteen years! That is how many years we have now been married. We are thankful for all God has done! And we look forward to how God is going to allow us to be a part of what He is doing here in PNG in the years to come. We never would have imagined that our life at Interface in the Highlands, would turn into a ministry at the Wewak support centre on the coast of PNG and then later take another turn back to the Highlands again where our ministry is now at the guesthouse. We are thankful for the many years we got to work with college students at Interface. And we are also grateful for the 6 years we got to serve at the support centre in Wewak working with the Church Planters and Bible Translators. And now we get to encourage and serve missionaries of all kinds in many ways here in the Highlands at the center’s Guesthouse.

Since school started in August we have been enjoying many different ways of serving and encouraging missionaries from many organizations here on our centre. We have been doing a lot of cooking, training, building and planning lately at the Guesthouse. Jacob has been busy rebuilding a set of cupboards with a new design against mold and termites. He is happy to try out new methods on a protype that may help out tribal missionaries in the future. He has also been busy fixing tools, fixing the guesthouse golf cart, planning out future projects and setting up a little workshop for himself at the guesthouse. We were also quite busy in September prepping food for our Central Area Missionary conference. We cooked two dinner meals for about 130 people. Then, we drove 20 minutes to deliver the food to a different centre. It was fun to be able to help in this way. Beth used to cook for this Conference every year at the Interface campus for many years because it was held at Interface and the missionaries would stay on the campus. But now that we no longer have this campus, things work a bit different. We are happy to continue to serve in this way and thankful that God gives wisdom to figure out new and different logistics.

We are very thankful for Numonohi Christian Academy where Jonathan is enjoying 5^th grade and Naomi is enjoying 1^st grade. They are learning and growing in so many ways, academically, socially and spiritually! We want to ask if you could pray and spread the word of our great need for teachers for next school year! We need teachers of all kinds! If you know someone who teaches, please tell them about this exciting opportunity. If you teach please prayerfully consider coming yourself. We would love to have friends/family here helping to teach not only our kids but all the students at NCA!

Our needs for the 2024-2025 school year are:

HS Math Teacher – Critical Need

HS English Teacher – Critical Need

HS Math or Science Teacher

HS Spanish Teacher

1 or 2 Elementary Teachers

Watch these video to find out more:

NCA Promotion

Think Teaching Overseas Isn’t Doable?

Our needs for the NTM Clinic – Doctors!

Watch this to find out more: We Wouldn’t be Here

If you are interested in more information after viewing these videos and brochures, please contact the PNG Personnel Director at personnel-director@ntmpng.org.

If you’re ready to apply, fill out the form at https://ethnos360.org/find-your-fit to start the process.

We are excited for the upcoming projects at the guesthouse. There is a graphic designer volunteering at our centre until May. She has come up with a beautiful and creative plan to redecorate the guesthouse rooms and main guesthouse with the theme of the fruit of the spirit. We are happy to be able to provide rest to our guests through scripture and the beauty of God’s creation on canvas around the guesthouse. After about 20 years with the same décor we are happy for a facelift. 😊Please pray for all the painting and designing in the next months, that it would all go smoothly.

Jacob will be involved in a few different projects over the next year. Painting is one of many. Since Jacob has had experience training dogs at Interface and at the Wewak Centre, he has been asked to train three Bull Mastiff Rottweiler mix puppies for three of our NTM centres around PNG. Jacob is excited about this work over the next two months, as it has been awhile since he has had this opportunity. Please pray for strength and wisdom for him during this time. Recently Jacob has had a lot of leg pain related to his injury in 2018. We are thankful for the physical therapist who told Jacob that a small and the deepest muscle near his bone is now becoming strong since he has been using it more. Please pray that the physical demands of training the dogs would not cause a flare up of more pain.

He will also be taking over the oversight of our water system this week as our co-worker will be heading home for 9 months. We also have a big drainage project that we are planning for as well. If you know anything about cement blocks and landscaping, we’d love to have you come over for a few weeks to help out in April or May!

Just a brief update on Beth’s Canadian Permanent Residency card… we just found out that her card is ready for pick up. Unfortunately she is unable to fly back to Canada to pick it up. So she will need to apply again a few months before we return home for our next home assignment in 2026. Thank you for praying. God is saying “wait” to this request.

The Simbari people were able to celebrate having God’s Word in the Simbari language at a Bible Dedication on September 21, 2023.  This milestone represents years of faithful service from David and Shari Ogg and the other families that served alongside them and the Simbari people over the years. The Oggs joined the work in 1991 and were finally able to perform the final consultant check of the New Testament in February of 2020. After they finished translating, there were many steps to checking and proofreading that ensured that there was an accurate final copy.  Praise the Lord, the Bibles arrived in PNG at the same time the Oggs flew in for the Bible Dedication! The Simbari church planned the whole celebration with four speakers and the two following analogies sharing the significance of the Word of God. They shared how the Bible, which has a brown leather-like cover, is like the bark capes they wear. It should be used to cover and be applied to every aspect of their lives.  For the second illustration, some of the Bibles had been hidden inside a simulated mumu, where they wrap food in leaves and cook it in an earth-oven with hot stones. As they uncovered the mumu pit and started to take out the Bibles, they likened them to food which had taken a lot of preparation and now was ready to take and eat. The Gospel was shared and the name of Jesus lifted up in a big way that day.

Praises! 

• Simbari people have the New Testament translated into their own language!
• Jonathan and Naomi enjoy learning at Numonohi Christian Academy.
• Upcoming projects in the works for the guesthouse… Décor change and Drainage project.
• The citizen ladies at the guesthouse continue to learn more computer skills and are all now driving the golf cart with no difficulties.
• A God who loves us so much He continues to guide us in our steps day by day and moment by moment.
• A God who sent His Son to die for our sins and rose him up so that we could have abundant daily life and REST in Him.
• God’s continued provision for our needs moment by moment!

Prayer requests: 

• We need Teachers and Doctors!
• Pray for the Simbari people, that they would continue to feast on God’s Word and apply it to their daily lives. Pray for those who are not yet part of God’s family who heard the gospel that day, that they would seek and find the bread of life.  
• Wisdom & strength & safety as Jacob is now managing the Water System for the NTM centre and the involved in various projects at the Guesthouse.

• Wisdom & strength & safety as Jacob starts training dogs in a few weeks.
• Ability for us both to balance all the different aspects of ministries that we are involved in.
• Provision of the rest of the finances needed for Jonathan’s treatment to correct his jaw.
• Provision of the finances to pay for medical expense for Naomi and I that the insurance won’t cover.
• Finances to become 100% supported… we are in need of only $285/month which is only about 11 people giving $25 a month or about 6 people giving $50 a month.
• Canadian dollar to gain in value.
• 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!
• 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.