Please Call
The plane we had hoped to find
A light drizzle slackens down as we sit inside and listen raptly to Mugeto-e, the counsel member of this government ward. It doesn’t seem like our eyes can get any wider as we suspend our disbelief of any possible holes in the story. Honestly, we didn’t pay enough attention in history class to know if his claims about Amelia Earhart are even possibly legitimate, but we choose to just let our hearts follow the excitement.
We have seen deluded excitement before in PNG. More than once people have brought me ‘gemstones’ that look awfully similar to stained glass, thinking that they may have something worth some serious cash. Though delusion is frequent, surely this is not the case now! After all this is an illustrious counsel man; a member of the local level government of the Ungai-Bena district of the Eastern Highlands Province! He MUST be trustworthy! His word, surely, cannot be fallacious! He continues to convince us that we are on the brink of a revolutionary discovery - the crashed plane of Amelia Earhart’s final expedition! I gave him my number and he says to expect a call the next morning around 9 or 10 AM so that we can go and see it together. We waited as eagerly as a child on Christmas eve thinking, “Please call! Please call!” but no call came.
Many of the things the Lord has been doing lately have been initiated by virtue of the ‘please call.’
In PNG, If you don’t have any minutes you can send a free text that says, “please call me: +67572642908” because whoever initiates the call gets charged.
‘Tomorrow afternoon I’ll send a ‘please call,’” Julie says as we make plans for Jess to continue her language study. It’s coffee season here so Julie, like many others, are busy picking coffee most days because it is a conveniently simple way to make some cash. When she is done picking coffee, she often sends us a ‘please call'. When we see the text come through, we call to see where we should meet Julie for a language study session. This will likely still be a form of communication between us and our friends, though we will no longer be planning language sessions because JESS CHECKED OUT OF TOK PISIN!! Woohooo! Praise the Lord that He has helped us get to this high level of national language fluency! Thank you guys so much for praying for this.
Where Julie(bottom right) brings her bag of coffee beans to be weighed
For a while, our team had also been waiting for the call from our contact, Dono. He is a well respected man and former counsel member from the area that our team is interested in allocating to: the Uruwa Valley. We waited and waited, thinking, “Please call!” After many weeks, the response was beyond what we had imagined. Dono had gone above and beyond to make sure that all the bases were covered. He had met with many community leaders and unanimously they had a great desire for our team to come, learn their language, teach them God’s word, teach them to read and write, and translate the Bible. Praise the Lord! The doors seem wide open to where we believe God is sending us. We are so thankful that so far this has not been another Amelia Earhart situation. With things looking very promising, we wait for the right time to conduct a comprehensive survey of the Uruwa Valley while we continue to use our time wisely for the kingdom through preparation and other ministry tasks. That’s all for now. See ya next time.
Prayer and Praise
Thanks so much for praying for the middle school retreat! It went great and many parents were telling us how their kids were encouraged and loved it!
Thanks a ton for praying for Jess as she finished her language study! She had her evaluation recently and passed!
Please pray for a people group in a place called Mibu. In the past a gang had been terrorizing the area and there have been more recent reports that the gang has become active again. Pray God would protect the Mibu, thwart the plans of the gang, and that the Mibu church would stand strong and grow.
Pray that while we wait for adequate timing for a comprehensive survey into our desired area of allocation, that we use the time God has given us wisely.
Please pray for us as we visit an established tribal church that is in the same mountain range as the people group we are praying about moving into. Pray for us as we seek to encourage these believers and begin relationships with them that we pray will continue on as we minister in that area alongside them!
Pray for our co-workers the Weavers who are back in the US for home assignment. We are eagerly awaiting their return and are praying that their family is refreshed during this time.
Please continue to pray for the salvation of our PNG friends Peter, Julie, Josephine, and their family who have become our PNG family.
Pray for the continued strengthening of our walks with the Lord as well as our marriage.