When we traveled north to visit our team around Washington, DC, in April, we had hoped to pay a call on a group in the Eastern Shore of Maryland. That didn't work out then, but it appears to be taking shape now.
We plan to drive to Easton, Maryland tomorrow and speak at Mid-Shore Community Church on Sunday. Rev. Bill Glass has a special time in the first service each month to pray for missionaries. He has invited us to give a report about our mission, and the members, which have been prayer supporters, are eager to hear what the Lord is doing in PNG. How great! One man served in the US Army in PNG during World War 2.
The drive takes about six hours each way, but on top of that beach traffic from Washington, DC, has been known to back up for literally hours waiting to cross the bridge at the Chesapeake Bay. We're trying to time our driving to avoid the crowds, but we are not sure that is possible.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
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Friday, May 23, 2008
What is your sending mission, and how are you supported?
We are part of a mission organization called Pioneers.
Pioneer's Mission Statement
Pioneers mobilizes teams to glorify God among unreached peoples by initiating church-planting movements in partnership with local churches.
It is worldwide organization with its headquarters in Orlando, Florida USA. Their website is www.pioneers.org. Their telephone number is 1 (800) 755-7284 or 1 (407) 382-6000.
Contributions to Our Ministry
If you wish to donate to our ministry, please contact Pioneers. We are supported through a network of individuals and churches, and we are consequently able to serve at the Christian Leaders' Training College at no cost to the school.
If you do chose to support us with a regular or a one-time contribution, thank you and God bless you. (For US citizens your donation is tax deductible.) Please remember to mention our account number which is 110870.
What do you do at the Christian Leaders' Training College?
College MinistryThe Christian Leaders' Training College is a Bible college, and we are lecturers there. My wife and I teach Bible courses including book studies, theology, practical ministry, church history, biblical ethics and the like. In addition, Sue teaches courses in biblical counseling.
Outreach and Village Ministries
Since the Lord has greatly helped us to learn the local trade language called Melanesian Pidgin or Tok Pisin, we have been able to enlarge our contacts in and around the college. Jeff leads a group of college farm workers in a Sunday Tok Pisin devotional. Sue takes part in the fellowship for staff women, which is in Pidgin. We minister to several local village churches.
These outreach ministries are critical to our understanding of the Melanesian culture. They help us be more effective in all that we do.
Where is the Christian Leaders' Training College?
Where in the World?The Christian Leaders' Training College is located on the island of New Guinea in the country of Papua New Guinea (PNG). PNG shares the world's second largest island with Iryan Jaya, which is an Indonesian province. PNG is a little larger than the US State of California.
PNG is part of a group of Melanesian islands which includes the Solomons, Fiji, and Vanuatu. These islands are in the South Pacific and are located north and east of Australia.
The college is around an hour's drive over sometimes bumpy and flooded roads east of Mt. Hagen in the Western Highlands Province of PNG.
Highlands History and Geography
The highlands of PNG were first visited by westerners in 1933 when a group of Australian gold seekers followed river valleys overshadowed by 4,000-meter peaks into the interior. (The highest peak in PNG is Mt. Wilhelm at 4,509 meters.) At that time people thought the center of the country was entirely mountainous. However, these miners found over a million stone-age people living in the mile-high verdant Wahgi River Valley.
Incredible Linguistic Diversity
PNG is one of the most linguistically diverse areas of earth. There are over 800 spoken languages. To enable wider communication between tribes, the country has two trade languages: Motu and Melanesian Pidgin or Tok Pisin. Motu is spoken in the southern coastal regions, and Tok Pisin is spoken all over the island.Chi ldren who are blessed enough to go to school, learn English from the third grade onward.
The single-women, degree and certificate classes at the college are taught in English. Student wives are able to take classes in Tok Pisin as part of a special wives' program. This program is designed to minister to non-English speakers. However, a few wives, who are qualified to take the English-instructed classes, are welcome to attend.
What is the Christian Leaders' Training College?
The Christian Leaders’
Planting Men and Women in Melanesia
A book was written about the college entitled Planting Men in Melanesia. Forty years ago when the college was founded, it did plant only men. Today it plants men as well as women who serve in churches throughout
The college does its “planting” in two ways. First, it is a working farm where we raise cattle, chickens and all the food the students eat. Farm income contributes 80% of a student’s tuition.
The second way the college plants leaders is by providing the highest level of English-based biblical training in
Student Life
The college educates approximately 150 students at a time. They include single men and women and married couples. There are programs for student wives, single women, and a four-year and a five-year degree track. Students in the four and five year programs spend one internship year in practical ministry.
To augment their classroom training, all students participate in the life of local village churches during monthly ministry weekends. At these times the students plan and lead all phases of a church service including Sunday school and worship. They also plan and lead a ministry week for their assigned village church.
The Faculty and Course Offerings
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:7 and 9a, “So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 9a We are God's fellow workers.”
May this challenge all of us to become God’s fellow workers as we labor together to plant men and women in
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Asking God Questions: Our Missionary Call
Do you ask God questions? We have learned that God’s answers to our questions have led us surprising places.
The Lord's First Whispers
When I (Sue) was in college studying psychology, I asked God how the subject I was learning related to His Word. At the time I didn’t see clearly how the two interconnected. But I married Jeff shortly after I graduated from college, and thoughts about psychology and the Bible faded for a while.
Shortly after our second child was born, Jeff and I attended a missions conference at our church in Oakland, California. We identified with the need for people all over the world to know the One True God who alone gives eternal life. We pledged to God that we would go wherever He wanted us to go to spread the Gospel. Our church leaders directed us in a way we didn’t expect after that. They had us start developing skills and trying out different ways of serving our fellowship. Jeff started leading Bible studies and Sunday school classes. I led the young married women in prayer for the needs of the church and reached out into the community with a preschool moms’ group.
It wasn’t long until Jeff was offered a job at the AT&T National Sales School in the Denver area, and we saw it as an opportunity for Jeff to get further training in teaching skills. While in the Denver area, our first son began having difficulty in school. We were perplexed about it. When our business assignment in Denver was finished we took an assignment in the Washington, DC, area because it looked like Jeff would have a job he liked and the schools were good in Northern Virginia. We thought we would live on the East Coast two years and then return to California.
The years flew by in the Washington area. When Jeff asked God what to do about being unemployed, or “between opportunities” as he preferred to call it, a Christian friend offered to have Jeff teach telecommunications classes, which surprised us by developing into Jeff’s own consulting firm. And when we asked God what to do about the troubles we had with our school, He directed us to home school our children. God was directing us into paths we had never expected!
Leading to Papua New Guinea?
A few years later, a gal from our church, Deb , took part in a short-term mission to Papua New Guinea. When she returned from her initial mission, she felt God was leading her to stop working at her job, and become a full-time missionary with Pioneers. A novel idea! Over time I became the editor of her prayer letter. It was fascinating learning about the nationals Deb was ministering to and their animistic view of life in PNG, and Pioneers, the mission she served with.
As Jeff was approaching his 50th birthday, he started evaluating his life. The goal of the Rotarians he was spending time with was to retire to a nice home overlooking a golf course. It sounded pleasant, but it wasn’t what he wanted. We started asking God if He wanted Jeff to go to seminary to sharpen his abilities to teach the Bible. God answered by giving Jeff the most lucrative work contract he’d ever had. We were able to save up money for seminary.
Mid-life Seminarians
Jeff enrolled at Capital Bible Seminary at the turn of the century. Because our children were out of the home by then, I went along to take a free course offered to spouses of full-time students. What did I find there? The answer to my question 30 years before about how psychology and the Bible fit together. In fact, there was a whole program which explored the question in depth! God didn’t forget to answer! While Jeff earned his Master’s of Divinity, I earned my Master’s in Christian Counseling and Discipleship.
While we were at seminary, we started asking questions again: Where would You have us serve You after seminary, God? God introduced us to people who worked in Papua New Guinea (PNG). A student at our seminary was home on furlough from his teaching position at the Christian Leaders’ Training College (CLTC) in PNG. He brought another family to our attention. They too served at the CLTC and just happened to be on home assignment. When we saw a video about the place they were serving, we were excited to see that CTLC fit our criteria. It trained nationals to reach their own people, so they could lead their own church biblically. It was ministering in a place where there was not much good biblical training already offered for church leaders. We could teach mostly in English. The college had a good library for students to have the resources they need and internet access so we can stay in touch with our family and friends far away. And…our friend Deb told us that the people of PNG honor people with gray hair. God’s sense of humor amazes us.
Continuing Evidence of His Presence
After completing our first term in PNG, two other amazing events stand out.
We asked God to help us to learn the PNG trade language, Tok Pisin, or Melanesian Pidgin. What is interesting about this is we are both in our fifties. Before we left for PNG our mission’s agency gave us a language aptitude test to determine our ability to learn a foreign language. Jeff did not do very well on it. Knowing that language is a bridge to people, we prayed that God would help us learn Melanesian Pidgin, and He did. By the time we left PNG Jeff could preach and teach in the language, and I led a Tok Pisin class for non-speakers!
While we had lived in Northern Virginia we asked God to help us find some country property to buy. A really small farm with gardens and animals would have been ideal. God did not answer that prayer for us in the USA, but he did in PNG. We now live on a 600 acre farm complete with gardens, 500 cattle, and 40,000 chickens! The Lord answered our prayer, but in a totally unexpected way. Instead of a small farm located outside of Washington, DC, He had a large one in mind that was around 10,000 miles from our former residence!
Over the years, we’ve asked God questions. His answers have led us unexpected places, but the blessings of following His leading have been something we wouldn’t want to miss.
The Lord's First Whispers
When I (Sue) was in college studying psychology, I asked God how the subject I was learning related to His Word. At the time I didn’t see clearly how the two interconnected. But I married Jeff shortly after I graduated from college, and thoughts about psychology and the Bible faded for a while.
Shortly after our second child was born, Jeff and I attended a missions conference at our church in Oakland, California. We identified with the need for people all over the world to know the One True God who alone gives eternal life. We pledged to God that we would go wherever He wanted us to go to spread the Gospel. Our church leaders directed us in a way we didn’t expect after that. They had us start developing skills and trying out different ways of serving our fellowship. Jeff started leading Bible studies and Sunday school classes. I led the young married women in prayer for the needs of the church and reached out into the community with a preschool moms’ group.
It wasn’t long until Jeff was offered a job at the AT&T National Sales School in the Denver area, and we saw it as an opportunity for Jeff to get further training in teaching skills. While in the Denver area, our first son began having difficulty in school. We were perplexed about it. When our business assignment in Denver was finished we took an assignment in the Washington, DC, area because it looked like Jeff would have a job he liked and the schools were good in Northern Virginia. We thought we would live on the East Coast two years and then return to California.
The years flew by in the Washington area. When Jeff asked God what to do about being unemployed, or “between opportunities” as he preferred to call it, a Christian friend offered to have Jeff teach telecommunications classes, which surprised us by developing into Jeff’s own consulting firm. And when we asked God what to do about the troubles we had with our school, He directed us to home school our children. God was directing us into paths we had never expected!
Leading to Papua New Guinea?
A few years later, a gal from our church, Deb , took part in a short-term mission to Papua New Guinea. When she returned from her initial mission, she felt God was leading her to stop working at her job, and become a full-time missionary with Pioneers. A novel idea! Over time I became the editor of her prayer letter. It was fascinating learning about the nationals Deb was ministering to and their animistic view of life in PNG, and Pioneers, the mission she served with.
As Jeff was approaching his 50th birthday, he started evaluating his life. The goal of the Rotarians he was spending time with was to retire to a nice home overlooking a golf course. It sounded pleasant, but it wasn’t what he wanted. We started asking God if He wanted Jeff to go to seminary to sharpen his abilities to teach the Bible. God answered by giving Jeff the most lucrative work contract he’d ever had. We were able to save up money for seminary.
Mid-life Seminarians
Jeff enrolled at Capital Bible Seminary at the turn of the century. Because our children were out of the home by then, I went along to take a free course offered to spouses of full-time students. What did I find there? The answer to my question 30 years before about how psychology and the Bible fit together. In fact, there was a whole program which explored the question in depth! God didn’t forget to answer! While Jeff earned his Master’s of Divinity, I earned my Master’s in Christian Counseling and Discipleship.
While we were at seminary, we started asking questions again: Where would You have us serve You after seminary, God? God introduced us to people who worked in Papua New Guinea (PNG). A student at our seminary was home on furlough from his teaching position at the Christian Leaders’ Training College (CLTC) in PNG. He brought another family to our attention. They too served at the CLTC and just happened to be on home assignment. When we saw a video about the place they were serving, we were excited to see that CTLC fit our criteria. It trained nationals to reach their own people, so they could lead their own church biblically. It was ministering in a place where there was not much good biblical training already offered for church leaders. We could teach mostly in English. The college had a good library for students to have the resources they need and internet access so we can stay in touch with our family and friends far away. And…our friend Deb told us that the people of PNG honor people with gray hair. God’s sense of humor amazes us.
Continuing Evidence of His Presence
After completing our first term in PNG, two other amazing events stand out.
We asked God to help us to learn the PNG trade language, Tok Pisin, or Melanesian Pidgin. What is interesting about this is we are both in our fifties. Before we left for PNG our mission’s agency gave us a language aptitude test to determine our ability to learn a foreign language. Jeff did not do very well on it. Knowing that language is a bridge to people, we prayed that God would help us learn Melanesian Pidgin, and He did. By the time we left PNG Jeff could preach and teach in the language, and I led a Tok Pisin class for non-speakers!
While we had lived in Northern Virginia we asked God to help us find some country property to buy. A really small farm with gardens and animals would have been ideal. God did not answer that prayer for us in the USA, but he did in PNG. We now live on a 600 acre farm complete with gardens, 500 cattle, and 40,000 chickens! The Lord answered our prayer, but in a totally unexpected way. Instead of a small farm located outside of Washington, DC, He had a large one in mind that was around 10,000 miles from our former residence!
Over the years, we’ve asked God questions. His answers have led us unexpected places, but the blessings of following His leading have been something we wouldn’t want to miss.
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