We are so excited to introduce you to our new team members! When we returned in January from the USA we were met by Tom and Beth Carlton and Aimee Hedrick. They have been living with us in Tigak land the last two months working on improving their Melanesian Pidgin (the trade language of PNG) and learning how to survive in a bush location. As a result of this time they have spent in the tribe and spending lots of time talking about team strategy and getting to know each other, we all feel the Lord has led them to join the ministry here among the Tigak people!
I thought you might like to know some of their background. Beth spent her early years as a MK (Missionary Kid) in Indonesia and then her family returned to the USA where Michigan is home. Tom grew up in Oregon but they now claim Michigan as their home base. Aimee is a California girl. They all met through the NTM training and came together to PNG last fall. They are currently sharing our past partners’ house. The Carlton’s son, Jude, will be two in April and they are expecting their 2nd child in June. They plan to return to the USA in April to have their new baby and return to PNG in September to begin language learning. Aimee will be here with us during this time. She plans to have a couple of building teams come to help her build a house so that she will be ready to begin learning the Tigak language and culture around the time the Carltons return.
We appreciate all your concern during the tsunami warnings. We had someone monitoring the wave that evening and giving us updates via our HF radio. We did have some very strange tides but nothing that was dangerous – just about a 2 foot tidal change every 30 minutes for 24 hours. On our sand island there is not really anywhere to run and hide except the roof of our house!
Please pray for Ned as he is under a big time crunch finishing up translating the book of Revelation. We found out that the consultant checking his work will not have email access after the beginning of April due to being in a remote bush location so Ned needs to be finished by then.