Angasik Lavu means “big help” in Tigak and is what we are looking forward to receiving in July of this year! Mid-July is my sister-in-law Debi (Tom’s sister) and her husband Russell will be making the oh-so-long treck here to our world in PNG to offer us this very wonderful thing: BIG HELP! We are very excited!
As most of you know, we did not build our house here in village. It was built about thirteen years ago by the people who served here before us. They left and now we live here. Needless to say we have no end of reasons to praise the Lord for this house! When we joined this church planting team we did not have any funds for house building in the tribe and God in His wisdom and faithfulness made sure that that would not be a problem. So we “inherited” this house.
In the last two years of living here we have definitely “settled in” and the house is already almost unrecognizable from when we arrived. *This is a good thing* 😀 Although there has been a lot of things done already to allow us to live here, there are still seemingly countless things that still need to be done. Some days it feels like every time we turn around we are dealing with yet another little problem (and big problems, too) that make living in the house just more time consuming than it should be, inefficient and frustrating.
This is why my sweet SIL & BIL have taken it upon themselves to whip together a mission trip all on their own and come to the rescue! They are currently raising support to come out here and help us out with a large range of problems with our house. Everything from putting extra bracings on the posts holding our house up, to fixing plumbing problems, building much needed shelves, and on the list goes! They will be busy and will no doubt sweat a lot!
I am excited for a few reasons…
Firstly, I cannot deny that I am glad for how we will be blessed practically by Russell & Debi’s help when they come, it will be wonderful. In addition to this though I am very excited for how the Lord will stretch them and grow them while they are here! I look forward to how their understanding of church planting and this kind of ministry will grow and how it will only help to increase their passion and dedication to God’s heart beat, missions!
It will also be a HUGE blessing for the Tigak church to have them visit. It will be such an encouragement to the believers to see two of the many many believers who are part of the team of supporters who allow us to be here, ministering to the Tigak people. Even though they will not be able to speak the same language they will undoubtedly shake their hands, stare at them, not be able to keep the smiles off their faces and be stretched with thinking how big our God is that He could bring us all together like this! We are one body truly because of Christ and whenever one part of the body can have fellowship with another part there is joy and growth! That part will really be amazing!
We really appreciate the sacrifice Russell and Debi will be making to come out and help us. They will be leaving behind our two nephews and one niece to step out on faith and take the craziest trip they have ever made! They are raising support to do this mission trip and that in and of itself is a big step of faith. They are trusting the Lord to provide for them to do something they believe He would be glorified through. It will all be worth it we are sure!
Please consider PARTNERING with Russell & Debi! Their mission trip to come help us out it will a HUGE blessing to us! Check out their fundraising page to GIVE online HERE!
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UPDATE (June 23, 2013): Unfortunately, Debi & Russell were not able to raise the needed funds in time to come out in July. They have tentatively rescheduled their visit for January or June 2014. Please continue to pray with them about the timing of their visit!
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