Meaningful Ministry Week-end

Sue says:

Each of our student cell groups is assigned to a village church to which the group will minister for a college year. Our group will visit a South Seas Evangelical Church congregation at Popun-Aviamp this year. We had a meaningful time of meeting with youth, adults and children this past week-end. The one young woman who came with me has agreed to lead the women in our assigned church in a discipleship course that our college publishes. We make an effort to train the believers so they can lead each other.

Bung Yut Baibel Stadi Haus Dedication

Jeff writes:

One of our goals as missionaries has been to "get outside the security fence" which surrounds the CLTC to do ministry in the local community. God has answered our prayers by introducing us to a group of "youth" who live in a village called Bung Ples. Last Saturday we dedicated their Yut Baibel Stadi Haus (Youth Bible Study House). We also issued certificates to 32 young (and not so young) people for completing a ten lesson Bible study course on what it means to be a Christian.

This post could easily go on for pages, but to summarize, these youth used to form a much feared criminal gang. They were even despised by their own community because of all the trouble they brought to the area. Most had been kicked out of their churches, who felt they were all lost causes. However, God had other plans for these young men, women and their children. The Holy Spirit has drawn many of them back into relationship with their Lord and King.

For the last three months they gathered materials and built a bush house in which to meet, pray and learn God's word. At the same time, many of them sat under the teaching of a team of dedicated CLTC staff and students, who led them through the ten lesson study. Each lesson had a memory verse, and in order to finish the study and earn a certificate, all ten lessons had to be completed along with the memory verses. In the process many came to know the Lord.

These pictures tell a part of the story. Hopefully, when we see all of you we can share the rest.

It took awhile to get things started, but when they did, we experienced many wonderful surprises. A large sign welcomed us, which read in part, "Pikinini bilong man i kam bilong painim ol man i lus na kisim bek ol" (Luke 19:10). In addition, the youth had made colorful leis for both the men and women guests who came. In this photo Helen, who is our librarian, is being given a traditional Melanesian welcome.



The welcome continued as all the invited guests walked between two lines of villagers, who showered us with flower petals and gladly shook our hands.


We sang several worship songs. The youth presented two in their tok ples or native tongue.


The youth shared their offerings with us. Notice Elijah at the end of the procession carrying the two "ropes" of bananas. In front of him is a woman with a bilum (string bag) packed full of garden produce. The Baibel Stadi Haus is in the background.


The sermon came next, and I preached on Isaiah 56:7. The emphasis was on the fact that this little bush house would be a "house of prayer for all peoples." The idea was to welcome all who wanted to come, be they saint or sinner, regardless of denominational affiliation. Anyone, willing to humble himself or herself, could come to meet with the Lord, to learn from Him, and to experience the joy of a new life.




The youths developed two dramas to present.

This one depicts Jeremiah, and it emphasized his call (Jer 1:4-10). The youths wanted to highlight God's special call in their lives. The drama also depicted the opposition Jeremiah faced, and how the Lord comforted him in his trials.



This is the second drama, and it was entitled "Unity." As mentioned above we have stressed that this ministry is a youth Bible study and not the start of a new church, so the unity drama emphasized the need for all denominations to work together to accomplish God's plans for His people. The ladies, who each represented a different church, are all lifting a burden that not one of them could lift alone.



On the left is one of our teachers, Henry, giving a hug to one of the graduates after the ceremony.



This is Michael, who was the former mastermind, enforcer, and trigger man for the gang. He is now a redeemed sinner, saved by God's grace, and leader of this transformed community of young people. Pray for him, because he has his ups and downs as a new believer. The Monday before this whole event transpired he came to me and said that he wanted to give up and walk away from everything God had been doing in his life, but PTL he did not!



After all the festivities we were all really hungry, and in typical Melanesian style we were given loads of good food to eat. I especially liked the steamed bananas (they look like long sausages)and fresh pineapple.


Here are our 32 graduates, their families, and their friends.


This is a photo of the "Mumu Crew." These men and women got up while it was still dark to mumu all the good food we ate that day.



To God be the glory for the things HE has done!

Planning Schmanning! God is in Control!

Jeff writes:

When you go on a trip, how many of you like to plan everything out like when you will leave, what time you need to make connections, and where you will stay? Or would you rather leave not knowing any of the above?

Well I belong to the former group, but I live in a country where preplanning is not possible. This is “the land of the unexpected” after all, but it does have one huge advantage and that is getting to live the adventure of watching God work things out in marvelous and unexpected ways.

For example, on the day I left for Goroka I slept in late. I needed to leave early in the morning to be able to complete the round trip in one day as I had planned.

Nevertheless, I packed a few things in a day pack in case I got stranded and had to stay over night, and then I set out on foot to catch a PMV (public motor vehicle) to Goroka. Walking down a CLTC road I met a couple of friends who told me that a CLTC family was headed to Goroka and that we could travel together. Great idea and totally unplanned!

However that meant I had to wait for this family to get ready to leave, which I do not like to do, especially when I am behind schedule. The father, whose name is Anton, told me that he knew of a CLTC vehicle that would take us to the main PMV stop in Banz (and thus save us time). Good idea I thought.

Twenty minutes later the van showed up.

We arrived in Banz, but there was no PMV, so I went to the store to buy a card to recharge the minutes on my cell phone, so I could at least stay in touch with my wife. Within seconds after entering the information into my phone, Anton arrived to let me know he had found a PMV. Happy news, and we were on our way.

Almost.

Our plans were to head to Kundiawa, and then change PMVs to go to Goroka. Unfortunately, the driver did not want to risk negotiating a gaping sinkhole in the highway. So he let us all out, refunded part of our fare, and we walked across the rocky divide.

Guess what?

Within minutes we boarded another PMV on the other side. We handed the boss crew (the guy who collects the money in the PMV) our recently-refunded fares plus one kina more and voila we were on our way again.

Changing PMVs in Kundiawa was a breeze, and we were on our way to Goroka. PTL!

On my way I was thinking that if we arrived in Goroka before 2:00 p.m., I could pick up the car (with our washing machine in the boot) and still drive the four hours back to the CLTC before the sun went down.

You’ll never know what happened next!

We got there at 1:30! Ahead of schedule no less!

Then I had a change of heart. My aching back really did not relish getting pounded over the bumpy roads for another four hours, and I had lost any desire to drive in the heavy afternoon rainy-season storms, so I decided to see if I could stay the night.

However, first I had to part with Anton’s family. Before we did he said that he would be happy to ride back with me the next day, which was fine with me as I really did not want to make the trip alone. Another answer to prayer …

So we parted.

I walked to the house where I had left our car the week before, and having arrived later than I said I would I thought no one would be home, but you know what? All the right people were there. I was met by the Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship (CRMF) guesthouse manager, who let me into the compound and arranged a room for me to stay in, and then she found Dan who had my car keys.

Two problems solved transportation and lodging…

Now that I had my car, and a place to spend the night, I was able to go buy gas and visit the grocery store to pick up some crackers, cheese, coffee and a whole box of candy bars. (I did after all need something for dinner and breakfast.)

Speaking of dinner …

When Michael, who had been a guest at our home and who manages CRMF in Goroka, found out I was around, he invited me for dinner with his lovely family. Fun and yum!

Early the next morning …

I took the room keys back to Dan, left him at his home, and found Anton waiting in town. We took off a little after eight in the morning and passed the two places where the landslips had occurred, which had stranded Sue and me the week before.

Whew, but what is that tree doing across the road?

And what do all those people with bush knives and axes want? Oh, some road money is all. “Road money” is paid to anyone who helps to straighten out obstacles on the road be they large potholes or in this case a big tree. The initial request was for ten kina, but acting on Anton’s advice we paid two.

On our way again, but what do those guys with bush knives want standing around the big water hole flooding the highway?

Road money of course. However, these guys weren’t doing anything to earn it. While they were shaking down the truck driver in front of us, Anton told me they were just a bunch of ne’er-do-wells, but what could we do?

Say hello and get out of there quickly as possible is what we did.

The main guy said, “Monin’ boss.” I said, “Monin’,” popped the clutch and drove through the waterhole. All the while I kept a sharp eye on the guys with the knives. I hoped that they would be so stunned or that they would think that I was so stupid to try what I was planning that they would not react in time.

Which is exactly happened. See ya, double-whew, and PTL!

The sinkhole was our next big obstacle.

When we arrived at the site, a PMV headed in the opposite direction had high-centered on some fairly large rocks. In so doing he blocked traffic in both directions. However, a lot of folks pitched in, and after twenty minutes or so, he was able to drive on. After waiting another fifteen minutes to allow all the traffic traveling in the opposite direction to pass, it was our turn.

The sinkhole was a piece of cake in our little Suzuki, but the rocky mounds that followed were another story.

I had to be careful driving because of our washer in the back of the car, so I ended up stalling it once trying to go too slowly over some fairly hefty bumps. More speed would have helped, but more speed meant more crunching, careening, and catapulting ourselves and the washer, so I finally gave in and put our little beastie in four-wheel drive. We eased our way over the bumps, and as the Aussies say we had,

“No worries, mate!”

Anton proved to have a thorough knowledge of the road. He continued to alert me to hidden potholes, severe drops, and other bumps along the way, which made the trip more bearable.

We arrived home shortly ahead of schedule, unpacked the car and set up the washing machine all before Sue returned from church.

Some final statistics …

This trip started out two weeks ago with a visit to the dentist. During that time we traveled 630 kilometers, had a tooth, washing machine and car repaired, and took an unscheduled airplane trip. And oh yes, I had one flat tire. I noticed it in the driveway after we got back.

So you see …

The Lord does answer prayer, and He was watching over us the whole way.

Hey, who needs reservations anyway?

Term Hits Fast Forward

Sue writes:

It's that time again. The time when the term at the Bible college goes into fast forward mode.
Usually it's in the last couple of weeks of a term. But this term, maybe because we missed a week when we were blocked by the landslide, it seems to be "hurry up" already in the third-from-the-last week.

So I haven't said anything about the hospitality night that was last week yet.

It is always a pleasure to have an opportunity to get to know just a few students at a time. Last week we hosted students from three different provinces on one evening. When we ask a question, people from each province will have another custom or experience to report. It was fascinating to hear about hunting cassowaries, birds about the size of emus, but colorful. Evidently they are fierce fighters, attacking those who wound them. On their feet, they have razor-sharp spurs which they use to slash anyone or anything that would hunt them.

Here are our guests for the night.Donley and Reicy and their family

Keleba and Jason from Western Province

And say, I couldn't neglect to salute good ol' Saint Patrick. He really was a person to celebrate--though he would not be pleased with most of our celebrations of him.

Catch-up Week

Sue says:

Jeff has made arrangements for extra sessions with his classes to make up the meetings he missed last week. He's working long days to get caught up this week.

I am trying to squeeze in an extra lecture one of each of the four remaining weeks of this term by streamlining my lectures rather than taking any extra hours.

Friday of this week is supposed to be student hospitality night. But Jeff has three or four extra hours of lectures to catch up on that day. Today we have no extra sessions scheduled, so we are inviting seven from the first-year class over for dinner tonight. Each year the lecturers try to have the first-year class over for a meal in first term and the graduating class for a meal the last term.

It has continued to rain heavily in many parts of PNG. Several areas report flooding this week. Jeff hopes to travel back to pick up our car in Goroka on Saturday. We wait to see what weather conditions allow.

Safe Return to CLTC

Sue writes:

Thank you, team, for your prayers. We arrived back on campus Friday afternoon after Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) added a Goroka-Hagen flight to move several of us stranded folks to the other side of the landslide.Below the wing strut, the open road and a river can be seen. This is the Warabum area near the Eastern Highlands-Chimbu border. The road had been cleared, but the villagers were not allowing traffic to pass.

We had to leave our little car and washing machine in Goroka. Probably Jeff will PMV back to Goroka next week-end to pick them up.

We were certainly thankful for the several mission organizations that helped us in the past week. Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) has a large base at Ukarumpa. The dentist there fixed a tooth of mine that was aching. Another department fixed our washing machine, and a third gave us priority to repair our car.

Christian Radio Missionary Fellowship (CRMF) in Goroka let us stay in their transit flat. It was an affordable place where we could prepare our own meals. They assisted us in assessing the possibilities for returning.

It was a strange situation to have difficulty getting the information we needed to decide how to proceed. The national news on the television never did report that a landslide had occurred. Only one of the two national newspapers mentioned the slide. The one that did report would, of course, have news of the previous day.

The PMV drivers and local police had the most information. Sometimes it was conflicting. A couple of times we were able to talk to people who had been to the slide area. With the different reports, we would make our best guess about what was happening.

It's a comfort to be back to our own place. Next week we will double up on lectures to catch our classes up with what was missed last week.

Still Stuck in Goroka

Sue says:

We ventured out to the PMV (public motor vehicle) stop this morning to ask the drivers if anyone is getting across the slide area. They said there are still seven or more bodies under the slide. Familes with missing loved ones are in anguish. Any living people will be pulled out before the ground is cleared. A newspaper account reported the second slide in the same area is 200 meters long, 20 meters wide and 5 to 10 meters deep.

We called to see if it would be possible to fly back to our campus. The one service that flies there will go Friday. It is already fully booked.

It's raining heavily again tonight. Though we're a bit stir-crazy, we're thankful to be safe and dry.

Stuck in Goroka!

This is a quick toksave (announcement) to let our readers know that Sue and I are stuck on the wrong side of a massive landslip which has blocked the Highland's Highway.

Last Friday we originally planned to drive five-and-a-half hours in our little Suzuki to Kainantu where the SIL mission base of Ukarumpa is located. Our reason for going was to have Sue's aching tooth looked at and to pick up our washing machine, which had broken down again. Our original plan was to leave there on Sunday after church.

However, when I checked out our car on Saturday, I discovered that we had broken the motor mount on the left side of our engine. In other words, our engine was bolted to the frame on one side only, so it was imperative we had that fixed before going back the 250 sometimes really bumpy kilometers to the CLTC. This forced us to leave Ukarumpa later on Monday afternoon than we wanted, so instead of braving the highway at night, we decided to stop in Goroka to stay at the Christian Radio Missionary Fellowhip (CRMF) guesthouse.

We rose early this morning to get back to the CLTC. About an hour's drive out of town, a group of locals waved us down and told us the news of the land slide. There were two. A small one yesterday morning closed the road. When the highway crews arrived to clear it, the local landowners drove them off with axes and bush knives. The landowners wanted to be paid compensation BEFORE they would allow work to progress. Things stayed at an impass until (I think) last night an even more massive slide occured burying many people alive including some in a couple of vans.

The locals told us it was now REALLY unsafe to procede because the affected landowners were madder than the day before. So we turned around and went back to CRMF. On the way we spoke to several policemen, who verified much of what I am writing. One of the officers had attempted to stop me earlier by signalling me with crossed arms over his head. Apparently, that signal means the road ahead was blocked. When we returned we bought a newspaper with a story on the front page describing the first slide.

Here we sit at CRMF. They have been kind enough to loan us a computer and share their internet connection with us, so I can post this message. Pray for the loss of life in the land slide and for safety for the police and highway workers as they attempt to clear the debris. Please pray that we can leave tomorrow morning (Wednesday). I have already missed three teaching days, which will be difficult to make up. Sue has missed two. We thank God for His protection.

Blessings to you all.