New Year’s Mud
On January 1, Luke and I are out the door fairly early to start driving from where we live in Goroka to a city called Lae, in order to purchase building materials, arrange a container being placed at the airport, and organize our flight loads in order to move a bunch of stuff from the airport out to the bush.
We wanted to get an early start for security reasons. With this in mind, we are a little cautious as we see about 30 people gathered in the middle of the road while driving. As we approach them, they have yet to move out of the way. They are excited! “Hey, it’s our friends,” Luke says. “Our Upegu friends! “Happy New Year!” They tell us, as one guy, Samson, climbs on our car. They rub mud all over the car, they smear some on us too, and they leave their mark with handprints and UPEGU in bold letters down the side. In PNG Highland’s culture on the morning of January 1, they run around and rub mud on each other to celebrate and welcome the New Year.
We continued on our drive to Lae thinking about how much we love our Upegu friends. We love doing life with them and being involved in the community here in Goroka. We generally feel very safe because we know people in the community and they know us. Most of the time when we go anywhere in Goroka we see a familiar face, whether it’s our Upegu fam or new friends from the local church we have been attending.
We are going to miss living in Goroka, but we are also hopeful and expectant as we begin moving in among the Uruwa people. We work hard as we so highly anticipate the day we get to share God’s Word with them in their own language. We anticipate the days we will get to see the lightbulbs turn on as they hear and understand truth, and to see people brought from death to life as they trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior.
In December, we went into Uruwa with our co-workers the Brendles. We had two of our organization’s leaders accompany us as well. They reiterated to the people what we are coming to do - learn their language and culture, teach them how to read and write, teach them God’s Word, and translate the Bible into their language. We also signed land agreements and began building our team office.
For most of the month of January, Luke and I have been in Lae purchasing materials, weighing timber and house building items, organizing the flight loads, and loading the plane when it comes. You would be surprised at how incredibly inefficient some of these hardware stores in PNG are. One time we went in to purchase 7 items and were there for like 3 hours! The inefficiency of PNG culture can sometimes clash with our American mindset, but when we start to get irritated we remind ourselves of what Luke’s mom always says, which is to take things “one day at a time.” We are relieved as we remember that some things are just completely out of our control. We are called to just be faithful each day and to do what we can. So far, it’s all been worked out and we know it will because it’s all in the Lord’s hands. It’s His work and he is sovereign over the timing of it all as well. Some of the Uruwa people have actually been out at Lae and have come to help us some shuttle mornings as well which has been so kind and helpful! Our co-worker Nathan has been in Yawan to receive everything and has been starting on some ground work for the house building process. This past weekend we went into Uruwa, marked where our house will be, helped make cement for our co-workers’ house, and continued getting to know people. Luke brought in spike ball and taught some of the guys how to play. They loved it!
February 1 - Our co-workers the Weavers will be arriving back in PNG from their home assignment.
February 14 - Our first official house building trip. That’s when things will really get cranking! So stay tuned!
Land Agreements
Team Office Build
Flight shuttles from Nadzab (Lae airport), a 15 minute flight to Uruwa.
Prayer and Praise
Praise the Lord for God’s provision in providing the funds for our team office! We are blown away at the generosity of our churches and supporters God has given us to partner in ministry with. THANK YOU! What an encouragement. We will do more finishing touches on it such as installing a solar electric system, but for now it’s a place for us to sleep and store our things before our houses are built.
Praise the Lord for many incredibly hungry hearts among the Uruwa people. It truly is amazing to see how God has prepared these people.
Please continue to pray for our team as we navigate many logistics of building houses in a remote location.
Pray for our co-workers the Weavers’ as they say some hard goodbyes in the states and begin their travels back to PNG.
Please pray for our team to remain strong and unified in the Lord as we work together and make many decisions.
Pray for good weather on flight shuttle days. We know it’s all in God’s hands, but we also know there is an enemy who doesn’t want us to move in among an unreached people group. Pray God enables everything to be moved in and our houses build in his timeline! As well as for our patience, endurance, and reliance on Him through it all.
Pray for the continued strengthening of our walks with the Lord as well as our marriage.
