Top Image: We had our Lapilo co-workers come back to PNG to do some member care. We miss having our fellowship with Derrick and LaShawn.
Since coming back from my summer trip I have been language and culture consulting every month. All of the locations so far have been in tribes that have not presented the Gospel yet. This month I went in to a where there is a young church and a new couple who have joined the church planting team there. Several years ago I spent time in there with the original team members so it was fun to spend time there with tribal folk who are now believers. That is our goal in everything we do here in PNG and we are encouraged to see God at work.
Once I finished up with that consultant trip I headed to Wewak to join Judith and Timothy for our annual Sepik conference. During our time there we were able to spend time with our Malaumanda teammates for the first time in awhile. John and Christina are just back from their home assignment and Bob and Noby Kennell were just finishing up a trip into the Bisorio tribe where they worked before joining us in Malaumanda. We had three men who shared about Grace during the conference. There is never a day here where we don’t need to live by these principles.
Now the rest of the update is going to be more focused on our issues with getting Judith’s green card. September 12th 2024 I applied for an I-130 which is there to prove that Judith is my lawful wife so that I can sponsor her Green card application. Initially it looked like it might take 5 months to get this approval but two months after we lodged this we saw that the estimate was then 14 months. We contacted an immigration attorney and he told us that 14 months was just the expected time frame for those applications at the moment so we just settled in to wait. Well it has been about 1 year since this delay…and it looks like we are staring at a possible further delay.
Earlier today I logged in to see what the estimate for this first application is and instead of saying 3 months it said 15 months. To say that I was distressed by this change would be accurate. I have seen on one website that the gov’t approved next to no 1-130 applications in September and none in October so this may in part be a reflection of the current US government shutdown. It is hard to say.
We have initiated contact with the same immigration attorney that we talked with last year just to make sure that there are no other factors that we need to be aware of. We don’t know where this is going and that does make it hard. We do still believe in a Sovereign and Gracious God. Please keep praying.
In Him,
Eric and Judith, Stephen, Daniel and Timothy
Prayer and Praise
- Praise for the opportunity that Eric had to visit the Maliyali people group for a culture and language consult. Three families are already done with language study though one of them had to leave due to health problems. The family that I was working with came in to take their place.
- Pray for Eric as he is in the midst of adjusting his ministry responsibilities here at Lapilo. He will be stepping out of centre management while continuing on with consulting and Malaumanda ministry. Praise that he will be able to work on some Bible lessons for the Malaumanda church.
- Pray for another trip into Malaumanda in November where Judith might possible be able to join him. Pray also for us to find someone to watch Timothy while we are away.
- Pray for Judith as she balances helping out in the school, helping Timothy with his schooling and her engagement/encouragement with various ladies on the centre.
- Pray for the continued outreach to Minini. They should be starting to teach through Romans in late November.
- Pray for Daniel as he is at Bible school and very busy with a lot of reading and papers to write. Praise that he is doing very well with his classes. Pray for him to find a job sometime soon.
- Praise/Pray for Stephen as he now has the funds for the rest of this semester. Praise that he was able to get his private pilot’s license. Praise also that he was able to find a reliable car.
- Pray for the work of church planting here in PNG. There are a lot of challenges on the support side of things these days.
- Continue to Pray for Judith’s US immigration process. We are not sure how long this process is going to take. Pray for us as we consider trying to re-engage with an immigration attorney.