First and foremost, we are rejoicing to have our only daughter and youngest child, Heather, here on the field as a third-generation missionary! She is teaching five 7th – 12th grade science classes in the same school that she and our other kids (and Judy) attended back in the day. So, it’s come full circle. The student is now the teacher. A very busy teacher. Please pray for her that she can keep up with the work load.
Another milestone for our ministry here is the discipleship of four Dom Christian women to take over the teaching of the women’s weekly Bible study. Please pray for Silia, Agnes, Keti and Marian. Marian lives about two hours away so she can only come if it isn’t raining. She tries to come on Tuesday nights and Sunday. She is from an outreach that some of our Dom Christian men did several years ago. It has been hard for our guys to get back there to teach so she has to come here. We are going through the book of Philippians. I love these times of just talking with the women, as a small group.
We have started Dom language literacy again. This time we have kids as well as adults attending. Another first for the ministry here. Many kids have come asking for Dom New Testaments and are eager to learn to read the Word in their own language. Judy is assisted by three literate Dom Christian women whom we hope and pray will continue teaching other literacy students on their own after we have left the field one day. Pray for Keti, Agnes and Marian (same Marian as above). Marian sometimes does not make it due to rain. Having young kids in our class has sure changed the dynamics of the class, but they learn quickly and have a lot of enthusiasm.
You all remember Gena? He worked together with Jim to translate the Dom New Testament and has headed up numerous Gospel outreaches in villages near and far. In addition, he is part of a team made up of other Papua New Guinea Christian men (from churches planted by Ethnos360 missionaries in several tribes of the Highlands) who visit by invitation various Christian ministers of other Evangelical groups and present the Chronological teaching method developed by Ethnos360. The Chronological Teaching method or Chron for short has been highly effective throughout the world in presenting the Gospel to unreached people groups. This has not gone unnoticed by churches and mission organizations outside of Ethnos360 and invitations to come and share the Chron method keep trickling in. Just recently Gena and this group spent two weeks at a Bible college in another province presenting the Chron to the facility and students. It was received with great enthusiasm and they have been invited to come back again. Most certainly there will be other invitations in the future. Please pray for them.
For a while there it looked like we were entering another dry season which is never a good thing for Papua New Guinea. Many weeks went without significant rain. People here are subsistence farmers depending on their gardens to eat. “Graun em i laip (land is life)” as they say here. No rain no food. Praise the Lord the dry spell was short lived and it’s raining again. Not good for travel but great for the people of Papua New Guinea. Just weeks ago, this newly planted garden right outside of our fence was dying. Now it is beautiful to watch as it grows and flourishes.
We had to switch to a new program to edit the Dom New Testament for printing the final copy. One of its nice features is that it will compile a total word list and show you where each word is. So Jim has been going through the list checking for spelling errors and inconsistencies. He has also been doing the Philippians lessons for me. He is better at it than I am so he does them. But they are time consuming. But will be done so that is good.
He recently had to go to Goroka to have some work done on our truck. Easiest when he goes down and it isn’t a supply run. He was gone from Monday to Saturday. Barely got home due to rain and our roads but he managed. He had to put chains on at the top of our long road in. So he got in ok.
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