 Supporting Tribal Church Planting in Papua New Guinea |
| “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” -Prov.19:21 “Nooo! Why are you cooking? Now there’s a fire! Ahhh! That’s it; I’m turning off your free will!” When I was in high school, I loved playing the computer game “The Sims.” The game had an option where you could either turn on free will and your people would do what they wanted until you interrupted them, or you could turn it off, and they would stand around, waiting for your orders. Have you ever wished you could control other people? Maybe, like me, you feel like this when you see people not making godly choices or not doing what God says to do, which you know would be for their good. Maybe you worry about their walk with God, and wish you could just make them do what they should. Sometimes I wish I could be in control, but as our pastor said on Sunday, the weight of being our own god is far too heavy. God is in control, and I need to rest in that, do what He calls me to do, pray, and leave the people I love in His hands. In high school when I was worried about a friend and her walk with the Lord, I distinctly remember my mom telling me that God is in control, “and He loves her even more than you do.” Whether we are in the US or in PNG, we have a heart for discipling God’s people, and trying to point them towards Jesus. The temptation is to look at the results, to try to see if what we are doing is making a difference in people’s lives, and to despair if it seems that it isn’t. However, Jesus calls us to look to Him and trust Him. He measures our faithfulness, not our results. So, even if people are starting kitchen fires, God’s got this. Till all know, Matt, Karissa, Ty, and Wyck |
 Karissa’s Birthday Party Praise God: – Matt graduated!!! (More details to come) – Lots of details are coming together for heading back to PNG – Karissa had some good time with cousins – Wyck’s lazy eye continues to improve – God provided $2,000 towards the $10,000 we need for plane tickets back to PNG  Date at the Sculpture Gardens  Lunchtime Fun Please Pray:- that we are able to get our driver’s licenses renewed before we leave (we’ve run into issues with it being too early) – that Karissa’s back will feel better after she hurt it a month ago – that Karissa’s tooth pain can be resolved with minimal expense – that God prepares our hearts to go back to PNG – that God will be at work in the lives of people we love, drawing them to Him |
What are we supporting? This month’s tribal focus: Pray for the Biem church, who recently received the New Testament in their language! Missionary Wayne Chen writes, “This was an evening that all of us will remember for the rest of our lives. The church gathered again. It started out quite boisterous, brothers and sisters talking about the morning community event, folks laughing and talking over each other, just rejoicing in the public testimony the church gave a few hours earlier. But then we started passing out a copy of the New Testament to each of the believers. The whole church quieted down. Each believer came up and grabbed a copy. Everybody stopped talking. Everybody opened up the Bible and started reading… Men, women, teens, everybody’s sole attention was 100% in God’s word – in their own language. This lasted for an hour. And then people started sharing… “God’s word finally ‘sings’ in my language. The meaning is so clear now.” I am rebuked by just the number of Bibles on my book shelf, sometimes read, but sometimes simply a fake token of piety. Treasured? Not as much as I’ve witnessed this night. Access to God’s written word is something I’ve taken for granted for a long time. Sure, I’ve translated the Bible, but do I long for it as if my life depends on it? … May the Lord grant ALL of us a newfound desire to dig deep into His word.” |
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