{"id":618,"date":"2025-10-02T19:04:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T00:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/?p=618"},"modified":"2025-10-02T19:04:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T00:04:50","slug":"five-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/2025\/10\/02\/five-years-in-the-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Years in the Making"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Supporting Tribal Church Planting in Papua New Guinea<\/td><\/tr>
“Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.” – 1 These. 5:14

“Karissa, I’m about to say something to you that I never thought I’d say in my life.”

That is what Matt said to me five years ago, and after I had a moment of panicked anticipation, he finished the statement with, “I’m thinking about going back to school.”

We had just heard about yet another missionary who was struggling and had to return to their home country to get counseling. In our time on the field, we have seen missionaries struggling with all kinds of spiritual, emotional, and mental difficulties.

The picture was clear: God’s workers were struggling. This isn’t surprising- these missionaries are on the front lines of bringing the gospel into dark corners of the earth where Satan has a foothold. Of course he wants to attack God’s people. We started to become convinced that perhaps the best way that we could be a part of bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth was by caring for those bringing it.

This brings us to the aforementioned conversation. Matt decided to begin taking classes online to get his Master’s degree in Mental Clinical Health Counseling from Liberty University. We felt that this would better enable him to care for missionaries, either by providing them counseling or better member care.

It has been a long journey, with Matt doing schoolwork in the evenings and weekends while in PNG, and doing full time school and internships on our last two home assignments. It has been a huge sacrifice of effort and time, and I am so proud to say that he graduated last month! Now he will begin studying for a test he will take later this fall to get his national certification in counseling.

Please pray for us as we prepare to return, that we can care well for God’s people, encourage missionaries, and be the hands and feet of Jesus as we seek to reach a lost and hurting world for Christ.

Till all know,
Matt, Karissa, Ty, and Wyck<\/td><\/tr>
\"\"
Wyck turned 10

Praise God:
– Karissa went to the doctor for her back, and her spine looks fine; she just needs to do some physical therapy
– We had a great time at Camp Lebanon with our church family
– We are enjoying some much needed rest and family time this month
– We were able to see family in Missouri
– God has been richly providing for our needs!

\"\"
Matt’s degree!
\"\"
Family time up north

Please Pray:- that getting our visas will go quickly
– that we would be able to renew our driver’s licenses
– that many details for returning will come together
– that God would be drawing those we love to Him
– for wisdom in how to encourage people towards Jesus<\/td><\/tr>
What are we supporting? \u00a0This month’s tribal focus:\"\"
Pray for people groups yet to hear. Missionary Jason Williamson writes, “We regularly receive requests from different people groups asking for missionaries\u2014but none have been as persistent as the Kominimun people…\u00a0Ever since we moved into the region, the Kominimun have been asking for missionaries to come and live among them\u2014to teach them God\u2019s message.
A few months ago, while I was in Iski, some of them came to see me again. With tears in their eyes, they pleaded:
\u201cWe have asked and asked, and we are tired of asking. I think God has forgotten about us.\u201d
But we know God has not forgotten them…
So why are the Kominimun still waiting? …
They haven\u2019t heard because no one has gone…
Would you pray with us? Pray that God would lay this burden on someone\u2019s heart\u2014that He would raise up laborers willing to go, so that the Kominimun too might be redeemed for His glory.”<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporting Tribal Church Planting in Papua New Guinea “Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.” – 1 These. 5:14 “Karissa, I’m about to say something to you that I never thought I’d say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/matt-long\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}