Sticking It Out in His Strength

May 16, 2015

There are many things I don’t understand about how the Lord works in my life and the things He allows. Among those many things, I do not understand why the Lord has seen fit to have me (us) go through this process of language and culture adjustment… AGAIN. Well, here we are, though- starting again […]

Tigak Ministry Update Video

December 4, 2013

Tom and Beth PNG Report FINAL from Jeff Schaap on Vimeo. This video was made by request by our home church mission team to be shown at the most recent Missions Emphasis. It was filmed by our good friend Jeff during his visit last summer. The details of the video are still generally accurate, but […]

A Difficult Trek

October 1, 2013

This is hard. Easily one of the most difficult things I have done in my life. We believe strongly we MUST do it, we are passionate TO do it and we WILL NOT give up, BUT, learning the Tigak language and culture is still very very hard. We were told early on in our language […]

An Underwater Adventure

August 9, 2013

Language & culture study can be a drag sometimes. The daily routine isn’t always exciting and new like it was in the early days when we first began. Its a lot of hard work and takes lots of prayer, dependance on the Lord and personal discipline. On the flip side, the culture aspect of study […]

Regional Conference 2013

June 22, 2013

“I guess I’ll eat this…” I said holding out a candy bar, a container of cole slaw and some cheeto-like chips. Beth laughed of course, but we both knew it was time to head back to our island so we needed to “go big or go home” in terms of eating all the junk food […]

Your Questions Answered, Pt. 2

March 17, 2013

A few months back we posted on facebook that we would be answering any questions YOU have about our lives over here in Papua New Guinea. As a result, we received many great questions and are excited to present to you Part 2 of Your Questions Answered! (Check out Part 1 HERE!) We both answered […]

The Need to Read

February 19, 2013

I do not remember the last time my hands got sore from writing. Since computers rule the world and my hands are used to typing I gave them a real good work out last week by writing more by hand than I can remember in a long time. It was for a very good reason […]

A Very Good Place to Start

August 31, 2012

Maria was right. The beginning is a very good place to start. “Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do” were the first musical notes the Vontrap family children needed to master to become the talented group of singers they would later become. In the classic film The Sound of Music, Maria knew that before […]

Check it.

June 21, 2012

For the last month or so we had been making frequent jokes with our Tigak friends about the impending “TEST” that was coming up for us in our language study. We were able to make our friends laugh as we jokingly talked up being “terrified” of how we would do when our Culture & Language Acquisition […]

Coconut Culture

June 20, 2012

Its tempting to look at our time in language and culture study as mainly about getting the Tigak language. Culture study seems less tangible and less impressive than speaking a new language. However, we firmly believe that language should be learned in the context of culture, therefore, our language & culture study among the Tigak […]