Please Pray:
– That we can continue to persevere in learning language
– That God will give us comfort and encouragement as we are missing our family and friends
– That God will provide the right partners for us and that He will give us wisdom and peace in the process
– That we will have hearts to love others well even amidst a lot going on in our own lives
Praise God:
– He more than answered your prayers for Ty to do well in bush orientation
– We are continuing to make progress in language learning
– Our boys seem to be handling transitions better and better
– God is continuing to provide for our house fund
– We have seen lots of answered prayer recently
“How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” – Isaiah 64:5b-6
In case any of us would like to think that our good works can get us to heaven or earn us points with God, the Bible makes it clear that we are utterly hopeless. Our best acts are nothing but filth in comparison to God’s standards. How then can we be saved? As Romans 7:24 says, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Praise God, He sent Jesus to die for our sins, so that if we believe in Him and His provision for us, we can be saved. It is through faith that Jesus alone paid for our sins that we can be saved.
We just always want to remind ourselves of the gospel. That’s why we’re here. When we miss family or face trials and unknowns, we remind ourselves that telling people about Jesus is worth it. Let’s all try this week to tell someone about Jesus’ work for them!
We just completed our “bush orientation.” For five weeks, we lived in a tribal location where there was a local church already established by New Tribes. We got to live by a missionary there and learn about more remote living, see what an indigenous church can be like, and learn about living and interacting with the local people in a village.
We loved our time there, but no one loved it as much as Ty did. Every morning, he would go out to greet all his local friends who were waiting at the gate and invite them in our yard to play. Whatever they were doing, he wanted to be doing, whether it was gathering water, cooking fish, swimming, playing ball, picking mulberries, or sliding on the old satellite dish. He even started trying to speak Tok Pisin. He embraced what we call “becoming PNG.” The rest of us enjoyed it too. It was cool to get to see the local church and spend time with the missionary there. Karissa improved one level in Tok Pisin and Matt improved two!
Now we are at a New Tribes center in the highlands. We are continuing our Tok Pisin study and waiting until we can start our western region orientation. Till All Know, Matt, Karissa, Ty, and Wyck Long (Tribal Church Planters in Papua New Guinea)
