Well gang, its been a long time since I last put pen to paper or finger to key. I’ve struggled to formulate my thoughts on what I wanted to say in this post. I guess the first thing I’d like to say is thank you to all of those who have been with us from the beginning of this journey into missions. Your thoughts and prayers are an encouragement to us. The Lord has lead us on a path through many trials and forks in the road which have tested our faith and motives. Melody and I have been drawn closer to the Lord through these experiences and although we wouldn’t wish to endure them again, we believe they were necessary for us to come to the point in our lives where we desire only to please God. We also realize that God doesn’t need us to achieve his goals, but He allows us to be apart of His amazing effort to open the eyes of humanity to his promise. As Paul Fleming once said,” God + Nothing.”
As many of you know we have decided to shift our ministry focus from Missionary Aviation to Tech Specialist. During my brief Pilot Training at NTMA in McNeal, AZ God began to reveal to me that I wasn’t going to be a missionary pilot. You might think this would have come as a shock to me, however it felt as though I already knew and just needed God to confirm it for me. Nevertheless, this was a hard thing for me to digest. After seven years of pilot and mechanic training all leading up to this moment …and it was not going to happen. My dream of becoming a missionary pilot was erased in an afternoon. Its true, God does work in mysterious ways, and He does have our best interests at heart, and His ways are not our ways and most importantly God is Good! Mel and I prayed about what our next move would be and as we did God graciously revealed what appears to be His dream for our ministry. Exchanging my dream for my life for God’s dream for my life has proven to be a blessing. All along the way one of the things I desired was to be involved with the missionaries themselves, rubbing shoulders with them, sharing their burdens and their successes and just fulfilling the role of an encourager to them. It turns out that God has opened the door for just such a ministry for my family in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea!
For many years missionaries have endured the hardships of life in the remote jungles of this world in an effort to reveal the light of the Gospel to the least reached tribes. To do this they have chosen to give up the creature comforts many of us consider necessity’s such as unlimited running water, electricity, Air conditioning and our favorite food to name just a few. Tribal missionaries live in modest homes built by hand with materials available to them in the jungle. They also have to become their own power company and Water treatment & Sanitation providers. As you can imagine missionaries could spend the majority of their time just trying to keep these basic needs met thereby keeping them from the task of language learning and Bible translation. This is where I come in. As a Tech Specialist my goal will be to come up with solutions for their technical problems. When a missionary is having problems with his Solar electric system, water filtration or sewage treatment I will be just an email, phone call or plane flight away. This would also give me the opportunity to encourage them in the importance of their work, thereby building relationships with them and helping them with the struggles they endure.
We are currently in training at the Missionary Training Center in Roach, Missouri at the Lake of the Ozarks. I am involved in a Tech Internship with NTM’s Tech Center that lasts until the end of May at which time we will be involved in full time Partnership Development where we will be sharing our ministry with those who are interested in becoming our financial and prayer partners. This team of supporters will play an important part in our ministry as we will be depending on them for prayer support and decision making. We are trusting that God will continue to bring faithful people who want to see the Gospel penetrate the darkness in the remotest parts the earth bringing Gods truth to the hearts of the lost tribal people we seek to serve. Please contact us if you want to be part of what God is doing through prayer or financial support. We can’t wait to share with you. At this time we are currently at 55% of NTM’s required monthly support level of $6900 for a family our size. Lord willing we would like to be at 100% by December so that we can depart for Papua New Guinea to begin our ministry by January. There’s much to be done and time is ticking away, so if you would like to get involved contact us anytime. You can contact us by navigating to the “Contact” tab on this webpage. If you’d like to start giving immediately you may also navigate tot he “Give” tab on this webpage. Thanks for reading and praying. Until next time.