2016 5th Annual NIP Conference

Another successful New Ireland Province (NIP) Church Conference is over. This year there were 6 churches/language groups represented. That is two more language groups than were at the very first NIP conference. Some are brand new Christians attending for the first time. There are 23 language groups in the New Ireland Province – so there is still work to be done. In order for all the churches to meet together it required several days of travel by boat and by truck. The “L” church hiked for 6 hours, traveled by boat 2 hrs – spent the night with the Tigak church – traveled another 30 mins by boat and 6 hours by truck – spent the night with the “P” church – then another 2 hrs by boat to reach the “S” church who was hosting the event this year! Each church spent weeks doing fund raisers to pay their way to the conference. It is very encouraging to see the excitement and motivation of the believers to make this happen every year. Each year more and more of the planning, fund raising and teaching is organized and carried out by the national churches. This is our goal – to work ourselves out of a job – so we rejoice as we see them taking ownership and leadership responsibilities. The teaching for the conference was on Romans 12 to 15 and was encouraging to the believers. Pray for the believers as they are back home and putting into practice what they learned during the conference.

Ned is getting into more of a routine for teaching which is allowing him to spend more time on translation. This is a blessing! We are looking forward to being back in the tribe as a family for Christmas. Since the kids are in “real” school this year, they have to go to school on Thanksgiving Day! (And Ned has to teach on Thanksgiving too. L ) That is a hard one for me. In the tribe we can celebrate American holidays and skip the PNG holidays but in a school with students from many different countries they can’t give holidays for every country, so they just take the PNG holidays.

Linn was able to help with meals for the high school Spiritual Emphasis Week (SEW) this past week. It was a real privilege to be a part of an annual event that has been so instrumental in challenging and growing up our teens spiritually over the years. We cooked for almost 90 people each day.

Please be praying for Linn’s mom as she has a biopsy on Thursday. We are praying that all will be clear. Thank you! We appreciate the way each one of you stands with us in ministry!