It is a joy and a privilege to be a part of what God is doing here in PNG. Besides engaging with the church in Malaumanda, one of the other ways that I get a front-row seat to His Spirit at work is to spend time helping new church planting teams as they work towards learning the language and culture of the people group that God has led them to. Most of these consultant trips are relatively close; I can get there in a day. This last trip was much farther away and I’ll give you a snapshot into some of the details of this trip.
For most of my trips, I am able to schedule a flight with our mission pilots in order to get to the location I need to go. This time around, the location was so far away, that it didn’t work for me to do so. I ended up booking a commercial flight but I had to overnight in the capital, Port Moresby, before getting to the town of Kavieng at noon the following day. At that time I connected with a fellow missionary, Noe Martinez, and we were able to get on the road about 1 pm for the third leg of my journey. We traveled for about 400 km (250 miles) by road and got to the tribe around 8 pm. Thankfully the road was very good for most of the trip, though the last 3 hours were slow going. Noe and I stayed with one of the families and enjoyed some great times of fellowship.
One of the missionary houses 
A short walk to the village. 
Getting to know Reina who helped us with the evaluation. 
The three of us worked through quite a bit of material during the 2-3 hours we were in the village. 
The three of us worked through quite a bit of material during the 2-3 hours we were in the village.
The next day we had breakfast and then started into the evaluations. For this, I went with one of the missionaries on a short walk to see one of their friends in the village. After spending some time being introduced to the locals we sat down with one lady and started the formal evaluation. Not knowing where her ability level was I asked her to briefly introduce me in the tribal language. She did a good job of stating that I am married to Judith, have 3 boys, and live in Goroka. From there we alternated between more difficult communication tasks (stories and explanations) and testing her knowledge of specific grammar points. After a couple of hours of this, we were able to see the extent of what she knew and thus had a good idea about where she needs to go next. After we said goodbye to her language helper we went back to the house and debriefed through what we had seen during the evaluation. Our purpose in all of this is to help them effectively and efficiently progress as far as they can during the next 6 months; after which we will repeat this process.
After lunch, we went through the same process with the next language learner. It generally takes about 1/2 a day to evaluate each person. At the end of the first two days, we had all 4 people evaluated. In the evenings we spent more time just talking and getting to know each other as I had not met either couple before this visit. These informal times are great for listening to the team’s dreams and aspirations for their ministry with this people group. I can still remember those days in Malaumanda so in some respects I get to be a small part of their journey.
On the third day, we spent most of our time discussing the culture of this people group. All of the church planting teams here have to go much further than a surface-level understanding of the culture of the people group that they are working with. We spent time reviewing their culture summary documents and made some recommendations as to some areas that could use a bit more work. Their next task will be to write up a summary explanation of the worldview themes that are in the culture. This will give them the best foundation by which to start writing Bible lessons once they are done with culture and language study.
On Thursday we finished up the evaluation and had another great evening together with the team. In the morning we were up early, loaded the truck, and headed down the road around 6 am. The roads were clear and we made it back up to Kavieng in about 7 hours with no drama. We enjoyed a good time of fellowship that evening with the 8 other people who are in that center and got a good night’s sleep. My expectation was that the next day I would be flying to Port Moresby and overnight there before flying home on Sunday. Well, that didn’t happen. I went to the airport around noon and after checking in and waiting for an hour I was told that the flight had been canceled and to show up Sunday morning at 7 am.
The next morning I showed up at 7 and was told that it was now going to leave at 9 so I got a ride back to the center and waited for a couple of hours before trying again. We finally left around 11 and got safely to Port Moresby. The airline was able to get me on the afternoon flight to Goroka where Judith and the boys were waiting for me. It was quite the journey and I was glad to be home. Of course, I spent the next day or so writing up the 4 reports for the missionaries but at least I wasn’t sitting in an airport terminal.
I know that this email is a bit longer than most. This was a very memorable trip and God’s Grace and provision were evident throughout. We are thankful for your prayers and gifts that allow us to be involved in what God is doing here in PNG.
Blessings,
Eric and Judith, Stephen, Daniel, and Timothy
The road in this picture was not beautiful but the scenery was breathtaking! Praise the Lord that we had a good Toyota 4×4 to drive. 
I really enjoyed some warm hospitality while at the Kavieng mission centre. 
Jan and Annette (on the right side of the previous pic) took me to a resort for lunch on the first day I was suppose to leave. It was a beautiful place and very relaxing.
Prayer and Praise
- Praise for good health and strength.
- Pray for Eric as he has several trips over the next month. Two of them are consultant trips and then possibly a building trip with a fellow missionary.
- Praise that the boys are doing well in school. We just got their mid-term grades and all is good. That always leads to happy parents. Cokes all around for dinner!
- Praise that we can still function here even while Covid continues to be an issue in some parts of the country. Our province is currently at high risk though we haven’t seen much Covid near us.
- Pray for Judith and I, and our co-workers, the Dobbs, as we are just about done with the current orienation class. This will give us a bit of a break until January.
- Pray for the final formatting work to be done on the Malaumanda New Testament. I am currently working my way through Revelation so the end is in sight.
- Pray for Stephen as he negotiates his way through his Senior year. He will be taking his SAT test in another week so he’d appreciate your prayers for that too.