LOTS OF BIG NEWS THIS MONTH!
1- We are officially members of New Tribes Mission!
2- We decided on a country— Papua New Guinea!
3- We are back in Minnesota and have started full-time support raising!
Wow~ can you believe it? We are already done with our training and onto our next step before heading overseas. So, we are now doing support raising, also called Ministry Partnership Development, full time. We are working from home- doing paperwork, writing letters, making phone calls, meeting with potential supporters, and overall doing what it takes to invite more people to join us in reaching the unreached. We need to be at 100% support before going overseas, and we are currently at 26%. So, if you are currently giving, please continue to do so- this will enable us to continue spending 40 hours a week devoted to this ministry task. It will also help us to keep going up in our support percentage, and get overseas.
Now that we have completed our training, we are officially members of New Tribes Mission. What does this mean for you? Your gifts to us through NTM are now tax-deductible!
So, why Papua New Guinea? We heard about a tribe there, called the Umeda, that God really laid on our hearts. Papua New Guinea is a country full of villages that are very physically and linguistically isolated from one another. In fact, it is the most linguistically diverse country in the world. One of these isolated tribes is the Umeda, a tribe of about 300 people, that are a nine hour hike away from the nearest town. Most of the Umeda only know their tribal language. Because of these factors, these people have never heard a clear presentation of the gospel! Now, some of you know that Papua New Guinea (PNG) was not always somewhere I wanted to go. However, the reason we are doing missions is because we want to go where there are no Christians, and where people have no chance of hearing about Jesus unless someone goes there. The Umeda are just such a people group- they need someone to tell them about Christ, and so we will be overjoyed to get to share Him with them. (We need to say though, that there is no guarantee we will be able to go to that tribe, but that is the tribe we are hoping for).
Till all know,
Matt, Karissa, and Ty Long
Please Pray:
That “Maria” will continue to pursue getting to know God, even now that I am gone.
That God will raise up more people to join our ministry team.
Praise God:
We are back in Minnesota and settled in our new home.
Ty is enjoying playing with the boy who lives upstairs- an answer to prayer for a friend.