Top caption: Timothy and Daniel getting ready for their Easter egg hunt. Daniel won as everything between brothers is a contest.
Pray for Pastor Jim, and the church
The Malaumanda church and community have been dealing with some struggles of late. On a physical level they have had 2 unexpected deaths in the village. One 50 year old man who I think was a believer died from what they thought was Tuberculosis. A month or so later a 2 month old baby girl from a believing family also died. Sadly this isn’t exactly unheard of in the jungles of Malaumanda. While we mourn with them for this loss of life the struggles go much deeper.
Traditionally the Malaumandans would have viewed any death as having a supernatural reason behind it. Quite often individuals would be viewed as leveraging the spirit world in order to kill someone. Or, if an individual did something culturally inappropriate then the spirit world could kill someone as a consequence. Either way, when someone died the community tried to figure out why so that it could be dealt with.
With the presentation of the Gospel the new believers came to the understanding that life comes from God and our days are numbered by Him. While they know this truth there are a number of believers that for some reason are struggling to walk in this truth. While Jim was out of the village a large group of unbelievers and some believers suspected that one of the Bible teachers and his wife were responsible for these two recent deaths and have kicked them out of the village.
This is shocking, upsetting, and discouraging for Jim and the believers who are standing firm on God’s Truth. We were able to help Jim get a plane ticket back to Malaumanda and trust that he will be able to rally the believers and other faithful church leaders back to a clear view of God. This also makes me aware that I need to find some time to spend some time with the church there once I get back from my trip to the States with Daniel.
Pray for Daniel’s trip back to the US
In just about 1 month Daniel and I will be traveling back to the States. We have a place to stay but we are still looking for a car to use during my time there. If any of you know of a reliable car that we could use from May 30th until the first part of July then please contact me.
Daniel will leave for Bible school in August. We would ask you to be praying for us as we seek to find a good place for Daniel to live and work for the summer. He is a hard worker so I am not worried about him being valuable to whoever he works for. Only being in the States for 6 weeks doesn’t give me a lot of time to help him negotiate through this portion of his transition to life in the US.
Prayer & Praise
- Praise that we are all healthy and doing well.
- Praise also for the great family time that we have had here with Daniel and Timothy. It will be hard to say our good byes.
- Pray for Eric as he is very busy these days managing the centre. We are heading into a major transition as a leadership team with many experience leaders leaving and only a few new ones joining. We trust that the Lord will give us the ability to cover the load.
- Praise that Timothy is just about done with school for the year.
- Praise that Stephen is doing well at Moody. He is flying multiple times each week now and should be soloing soon. Before long he will have his private pilot’s license. He still has 2 years to go so please be praying for the finances that he needs to finish.
- Pray for Judith as she will be heading down to our training centre in Madang at the same time that I leave for the US. She will be helping with cooking for a short term summer missions program for college students. Timothy will be with her as well.
- Pray for Judith’s Green card process. We still have about 9 months before her first application is processed.
- Pray for the Malaumanda church. There are more issues going on then what I mentioned above so pray that the Word of God that we gave them last year will positively impact their lives, marriages and families.
- Pray for Daniel’s transition to Bible school.
- Pray for wisdom as we seek the Lord’s direction for our church planting effort here in PNG as well as the support services that are needed to help this.