CALLED to Papua New Guinea: Your Generosity, Multiplied!

Kudjip Tea Fields

Dear Friends, coming into our last week at Kudjip we are eager to share with you all that God is doing here. The Lord has multiplied our time and has given us a great many opportunities to be invested and involved in His work, and we want to thank YOU for making all this happen through your generous financial and prayer support.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, Jesus shares "The Parable of the Talents," revealing the essential importance of believers to invest and multiply the gift of Salvation. In the parable, those servants who wisely invested and grew their Master's deposit were told "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master."

As with past visits to PNG we arrived to Kudjip "overfunded" (praise the Lord!), meaning our generous supporters gave us more than we needed for flights, room, board, insurance, etc etc. What this creates in us while we serve at Kudjip is a spirit of abundant generosity, always on the lookout for the Lord to lead us in supporting local needs. Well, for this trip in particular we have been overjoyed to invest in quite a number of projects/people, and we hope you enjoy reading through the following accounts, accepting the Lord's "well done!" for your part.

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You may recall on our last trip we helped our dear friend John Opa leave behind a lifetime of dental pain and obtain dentures, and on this trip we have been able to support his family with purchasing materials for the concrete foundation of a new home. (They have been sleeping in a leaky grass-thatched home for many years.) Another missionary had purchased building materials for their new home a couple years ago but they have been unable to build without funds to make the concrete slab foundation. A few weeks ago on our Mount Tabi hike I was able to see the slab being poured, and then with our recent visit to Konduk church (very close to their home) we rejoiced to see the house framing already going up! As a blessed side note, the carpenter Ombus, (pictured with blue cap smoothing concrete in the first photo) will also be set free from dental pain as we have provided funds for his dental care.

Another wonderful friend and brother in Christ, John Gari, is a frequent companion during our visits to Kudjip, and you may recall I wrote about him recently in a Blog titled "Love Thy Neighbor." Well we have been very thankful during our stay to have his handy expertise with a number of yard and garden projects (building a couple sheep fences, weeding, planting a new garden, etc), and we were VERY excited to bless him with the gift of LIGHT - in the form of solar-power. John sends to you his deepest thanks for this rich blessing which now allows him to read the Bible after the sun goes down.

John Gari's brother Elijah is on the NHM Maintenance Team and has been a faithful "wasman" for the missionary women on Station for many years. When they need to drive into Mount Hagen and shop for groceries, Elijah will accompany them for safety. When he was recently visiting our home we learned that he has been having difficulty reading fine print for a number of years (including text messages), and we were delighted to cover the cost for him to have a vision test and reading glasses prescribed. Lookin good Elijah!

On one of our last trips we noticed the hospital flags were in tatters due to the constant sun, wind and rain, and we sent flags back to Kudjip with another missionary. Well prior to this trip we were asked for another round of replacement flags, and we were only too happy to bring along a fresh set - USA, The Cross of Christ, PNG, The Nazarene Church, Australia, and standing proudly in front the green and yellow flag of our Jiwaka Province.

We have also been very glad to use funds on two occasions for the purchase of groceries for the local Orphanage. Pastor Ruth has cared for scores of children over the years, especially those left without parents due to HIV, and we are always blessed to see their cheery faces!

Certainly the biggest project on this trip has been the planning and partnership with Mise Church for the building of a new church. This amazing family of God truly embodies the presence of the Holy Spirit and so it is no wonder they have outgrown their old building. To ensure we create space for congregation ownership, we have agreed to assist with the purchase of store-bought materials while the church members will invest time, talent and treasure to actually build the church. This project will be taken in four phases with the Foundation being the first phase, and thanks be to God's sovereign provision from saints like you, the materials have been purchased. While we expect it will take quite some time to complete, we are very excited to see this church's dream become a reality!

Mise Board Project Meeting #5

Purchasing Materials with Carpenter, Pastor, and Board Member

The JOY (and back ache) of Loading Cement Bags

Mise Church of the Nazarene

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REACHING THE COMMUNITY

I wanted to also briefly share some great footage from a recent outing I enjoyed with the Primary Health Services (PHS) team. Four days a week this heroic nursing team rotates visiting ALL the local villages to provide FREE Maternal/Child services - prenatal screening, infant growth screening, vaccines, preventive education, and they bring along a small assortment of common medications and supplements to treat common diseases. I was honestly wowed with their efficiency and thoroughness to care for all the needs of these mamas and babies, and they even permitted me the opportunity to give some Malnutrition Prevention education. Go Team JESUS! :-)