>Hi
Thanks for popping in and please remember to check out the other links on this page. We have a few prayer points and a photo album with much more photos! Also you can get some info on our work here in Papua New Guinea.
We recently had the opportunity to survey one of the tribes in the Eastern Highlands. We had a great time with Jim Tanner, one of the leaders here and Simon Flanagan, my coworker. Surveys like these always provide great time for fellowship and sharing. Here we are standing with the guys who carried our bags and guided us through the area.
We stayed with the people in their houses, and here we are visiting an EBC church pastor in the Tynoraba village in Awa. We stayed three days and two nights in this area and visited one other village. During this time we would take word lists and complete questionnaires which can help us compiling a report on this area. While we were in this area we were doing some serious hiking. We would average about 1000 meter climb a day and often we would drop 1000 meters again in the same day. I really enjoyd the beatty of the area and could not get enough of the scenery and waterfalls and streams!
When we arrived at Tynoraba we were welcomed by some villagers with flowers and food. They expected us coming. We have received several invitations from this tribe to locate missionaries in the area and this will be researched in the future.
We filtered most of our water even though we believed it to be relatively clean. It is better to be safe than sorry! We cannot afford diaria, dehydration and emergency evacuations.
Here is one of the villages in Tynoraba. About 1000 people live in this area and the whole tribe is about 4000 people. They already have an EBC church functioning in the area, but this is done in a language that many don’t understand. SIL has also translated the NT many years ago, but we need to evaluate the translation due to the fact that people are not using the translation and find it difficult to read. About 85% of the people can not read and write.
A great advantage is that the people themselves have already build an airstrip. This took them more than 10 years to build and the first planes will land on the strip in the months to come. The Government also has an aid post, but there is no school. Both the strip and aid post is less burdens for missionaries locating and will create opportunity to focus on church planting.
Grub worms is some people’s favorite meal and I took a skip on these!
Some of the kids in Wasara village in the Wasara language group. Many of these kids have never seen a European and would often touch our skins and hair and look at us intently. They would follow us for long distances and watch what we are doing.
This is how we slept each night. Malaria is a serious killer in PNG and we are trying our best to stay away from it.
We eventually ended up in Aziana, where we spend the weekend with believers. This was a great encouragement to us to see the believers and to hear their testimonies. Missionaries from New Tribes phased out of the work a few years ago and the church is standing strong today!
Thank you very much for your prayers and letters of encouragement. Every day we understand even more the need for continual prayer support. As we face these people and the situation they are in we realize than only God can make a difference, through the working of his Spirit!
Therefore pray with us for miracles!
Thanks for giving, writing and praying, may God richly bless you!
And as the Papuan’s would say:
‘lukim ju sampla taim’
Most People are brought to faith in Christ, not by argument for it,
But by exposure to it.
Please follow the link to our photo album for more photos.
DTH says
>Great pictures. I was watching a national geographic special on tribes like that, just the other night. That lifestyle is just so much simpler it seems.