As we look back on this summer full of travels and look forward to moving to Papua New Guinea in January, we wanted to stop and give you more of the details of our journey this year. Come along with us for a little reminiscing of what God has done and looking ahead with us to what God will be doing on this journey. Our mission, to bring the gospel to where it has never been, is taking form as we get geographically closer to our target audience… a village in Papua New Guinea with no access to the Bible, no Bible teaching in their own language and probably no way of reading a Bible.
This summer we had the amazing adventure of being on the road for almost 3 solid months. We visited a different church in the Midwest every Sunday (sometimes 2 a Sunday) and visited with so many people that I almost wish we had counted! God was gracious and we thank all of you for your prayers. We had a wonderful time as a family, making the most of seeing the U.S. along the way. It was a family building time and a time for our kids to learn more about their home culture, a culture they will not live in for the next 4 years or so. It was a joy to see so many people and even though it may sound like we were nuts to stay in so many places and houses, it was a lot of fun! We thank you all for the opportunity and your hospitality. We have never seen so many friends all in one year before…it was so encouraging! See our update here.
Presently, God is building our support team and we now have passed the 75% mark (currently 79%)… the place NTM would like us to be in order to buy plane tickets and work on the rest of the paperwork to get to Papua New Guinea. This is not to say that our sending organization or home church feel that 75% is all we need to live on in PNG. However, if we wait until 100% support to buy plane tickets, it could delay our departure date by as much as 6 months.
What are we doing this fall? We are packing, supply buying, and listing all items we are taking and their dollar value for customs. We are helping lead a group to WAYUMI (a New Tribes exposure program) in October for a weekend of sharing with our friends and family what we will be doing in a hands-on way. Praise the Lord that 60+ people have signed up! We are homeschooling our kids and getting into a schedule so that we can effectively balance language learning and school once in PNG. We will be buying our plane tickets and filling out more paperwork. With the Lord’s help, we will finish raising our support by continuing to talk to individuals and churches about being part of our financial support team as well as raising a larger prayer support team. And of course, we will be spending time with family and friends as we help our family make a smooth transition to PNG with good memories of home.
Finally, come along with us! Be part of our prayer and/or financial support teams! We are coming closer to our goal of 100% support and we now have almost 250 prayer partners! If you have been praying about joining us, please talk to us soon. If not, would YOU pray about helping complete our support team? As part of our support team, you will be “coming along with us” on our journey to bring the gospel to where it has never been! E-mail us at paul_swenson@ntm.org or call us at 802-624-3368.
Prayer and Praises:
- Praise for the great time we had as a family traveling this summer.
- Pray that our support team would be completely built soon and pray for the Noyes family and our other friends who are desiring to leave in January.
- Praise for the 60+ who have signed up to go to Wayumi in October!
- Pray that we would be able to continue to think, plan, and prepare for our move in January!
Click here to see our kids’ page and take a guess at their trivia question to win a DVD!