The Hands and Feet if Jesus

The other day we were listening to a speaker who told us a story of a Papua New Guinean who walked onto our center that week, looking for a missionary who could tell him more about Jesus.

The story impacted my heart and got me thinking of several things:

·         How many times, especially in America, are we “too busy” to stop and tell people about Jesus?

·         With American culture the way it is, would anybody be that bold to ask the question, genuinely wanting to find the answers? Or perhaps a better question is, if there be someone so innocent as to ask?

·         With all the political correctness, tolerance and diversity issues, would we even know how to speak the truth about Jesus, or would be too scared to “offend” someone?

It was a great reminder that we live in a fallen world and people desire the truth, and people need Jesus!

Many of you know my aversion to speaking in public. And my gifting is not proclaiming “Jesus is Lord” from the corner market. I would rather build a relationship and plant the seeds. If this person seeking Jes

PNG Update from a Busy Mom

Hi!

Life has been packed full. With me at the school from 8:15 to 3:15 most days in Grade 1, and then keeping up with the girls’ schedules, each day is full of activity. But a definitely positive is that I do get more adult conversation now that I am in the classroom.

I was able to attend a weekend Women’s Retreat a couple weeks ago. We had lots of fun and learned lots of new things. The Lord really spoke to me in those sessions and I am always amazed of how God works. Next weekend I was invited to go to a Professional Workers conference, or something like that. It is for the teachers on both campuses so I feel honored to be asked as I am not technically a “teacher”. 

Meliah was in softball this term and WOW she has come a long way from last year.

A Letter Home

My mom hadn't heard from us in a while so I sent her an update of what's been happening in our family for the past couple months. When I got to the end I figured I should post it on the blog for you all as well! Thanks Mom!

Read on to hear a bit about our trip trip to Mt. Wilhelm.


Here we get a brief rest from the wind and cold as we head towards the summit of Mt. Wilhelm.

Hey Mom,

Things are going well. Ruth’s bruised leg is old news now-a-days. Meliah and her team just finished their softball season with a tournament near Goroka. Their team dominated and won all their games! She had a great time. Thankfully, it was a dry but overcast day. So not too much sun to give people sunburns.

All Nations Sunday

Being reminded once again why we are here in PNG.  Today was “All Nations Sunday” here in Ukarumpa.  Which means we celebrate the work God has done at getting translations into people’s heart languages over the course of the last year.  As we were sitting in church seeing scriptures and part of scriptures come forward from many different language groups, I had goose bumps all over. With technology advances it is so exciting to see that translation work is going to the World Wide Web. To audio bibles, to video for certain books of the Bible (think Visual Bible in people’s heart languages). 

The Last of our Firsts

This is a blog about the “The Last of our Firsts – Our 1 Year mark in the land of the unexpected”

It is hard to believe we have been here exactly 1 year (we landed on PNG soil July 11^th 2011).

 We have done all of our birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and all the community events for the first time now.  Here is a list of some of the firsts over the last year in PNG:

-          The 4^th of July celebrated here for the Americans.  And using brilo steel wool for the fireworks, very pretty and soooo quiet!!!!

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-          We have done the first day of school at the new school

-          The first time playing softball, volleyball, and basketball in PNG

Kiery with friends for Sports Day

-          Sports Day for both campuses

-          Encounter for Meliah and Chad (like a youth retreat)

A skit that was done at Encounter that Chad was apart of (Meliah was very embarrassed)

-          First time flying in a Cessna 206 little airplane (still not one of my favorite things)

-          Have done the parent/teacher conference with each of the girls and realized that they had adjusted well and there were some areas that still needed tweeking.

MIchael Family Picture Update

Here are a bunch of pictures that show some of the main events in our lives over the last few months.

Chad & Ruth giving their testimony during Sunday evening church.

Kiery loves being barefoot and running around.  She says, “she wants to be as dark as a Paupa New Guinean” she gets that dark from mud at times.

Meliah with her Art class showing off there “ceramic” creat

Living Water

As someone who lived in a 1st world nation I didn’t realize how much of my life revolves around water, until I moved to a third world nation. And even then I didn’t realize how precious water is until our water tank went dry!!!  We are living in an old hostel/children’s home so we have a nice big rain water collection tank, (because the house is big there is lots of roof area to feed the gutters which direct the water into the tank).

So with such a big holding tank, no need to worry that it hasn’t rained significantly for a couple weeks, right???  WRONG.  For some unknown reason we ran out of water several weeks ago.  Not sure if there is a small leak in the tank due to some recent earthquakes or what, but we had no water.  So we had to switch to RAM water, which is really muddy river water.  And this water isn’t treated at ALL.  It is used by nationals for washing dishes, clothes and themselves and there is no EPA to decide what gets dumped into the water or the ground. So yes the water is nasty to say the least.