We hope you are encouraged in your walk with the Lord. We are excited to see how the Lord is continuing to work among the Tigak tribe.
Land issues and disputes are a constant battle for many missionaries in Papua New Guinea. We have had our share of issues with one of our land owners.
He gets it in his head that he wants something and if we are not willing to provide him with “his heart’s desire” – we are suddenly told we must leave the tribe. It is a bit intimidating at times. This past month we dealt with one of our land owner’s demands with a “no”, but we were encouraged when the entire community immediately went into action letting him know he was wrong.
There are several cultural reasons we have the right to remain on this land. One is that we have built several coffins for family members that have died. In the Tigak culture, if you are asked to build a coffin for a family member your payment is land! Therefore, all of the threats for throwing us off the land are now null and void. We wish we had known this several years ago when we have gone through some trying times.
We wanted to let you know we will be in the USA from June until the end of the year. We hope to visit with as many of you as we can. Please let us know if you would like for us to share with you or your friends or your church what is going on among the Tigak people.
Ned is going to be spending most of his time on home assignment working on exegesis for translating and writing Tigak Bible lessons – but we want to see you if we can.
