“Bush” is what we call the remote jungle locations that are all over Papua New Guinea. Yesterday, Tom left on his first bush trip for 12 days. It is a very exciting opportunity for him, and he was glad to accept the invitation from one of our Orientation leaders/fellow missionary! The village that Tom and Jan Wols (said “Yon”) will be going to is a very special one because it is a people group that HAS been REACHED with the gospel! Jan was part of the team that lived among the Lamogai and brought the gospel to them years ago! The Lamogai now have several established churches that are functioning without the presence of missionaries and have been for quite some time. If you are a believer, you have brothers and sisters in Christ living in Lamogai! WOW. It will be such a privilege for Tom to meet these people and spend time with them!
The purpose for the trip will be to encourage the Lamogai church leaders and to prepare the Wols’ house (that has stood empty for years) for upcoming “Bush orientation” trips into the village. They will also be bringing some medicines for leprosy patients and other sick people.
Getting to a remote location can be pretty complicated. When there are no telephones, no internet and few roads-getting a ride or letting people know you are coming can take some real creativity! For example, on the hiking portion of Tom & Jan’s journey, they needed to have some help to carry the supplies they were bringing. They needed to contact a village to send “carriers” to meet them, but the village did not have a working radio (the most common way to communicate from remote locations). So, Jan arranged for a letter to be added to a load of supplies that were going to be dropped by a helicopter into the village the day before they left to let the village know! 🙂 When Tom & Jan left yesterday they did not even know if the village had successfully gotten the letter. They were only hoping and praying there would be people to meet them to help carry the supplies and that they would not be stranded in the middle on nowhere without help! I am very curious to hear what happened, and when Tom returns, I am sure he will have much to tell!
Please pray for every detail of this trip, that Tom and Jan would stay safe and get to all the places they need to go without too much trouble! Also, pray that they will be a great encouragement to the Lamogai believers and the Lamogai to them! We will give you an update on how the trip went when Tom returns!
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