What does it mean?

Howdy all, sorry that it has been so long since we posted here. We have been stalling a little because of some uncertainty regarding our potential ministry in Papua New Guinea. (No, not anything on our end...) Anyway, last Sunday, we got the an email from the field of PNG (below). Please take the time to read it and pray for us. We have asked many questions this last week and have yet to receive responses due to the short-handedness of the folks over there. What we hear unofficially is that there is a huge need for more people to work in support of the tribal missionaries. According to a friend, many of the support staff folks over in Papua New Guinea are doing two, three, or even four full time jobs at once (click this link for a list of positions to fill). We wanted to have more to say before we put this information out there, but it looks to be a couple of weeks or more before we will know what effect this will have on our plans. As always though, God is in control and He certainly hasn't taken away our heart for the people of Papua New Guinea. We will be sure to write more as soon as we know anything.
If you have any questions for us, please ask!

Here is the letter that we got:

Dear fellow laborers near and far,

These are again challenging times. We met together as a field committee to discuss the issues we are facing today and where we are headed in the future with the work of NTM in PNG. What a blessing it was to have a group of men who were single minded and focused on the task of seeing tribal churches planted and come to maturity here in this vast country. It has been wonderful to see how the Lord has brought us all along in our understanding and we have been able to make some very practical decisions that will help to reach our goals. We were also able to confirm the things we are committed to here in PNG.

1) We are committed to establishing local tribal churches and seeing those tribal churches come to maturity. We believe that mature tribal churches are the crucial vehicle God will use to reach all the tribal groups of Papua New Guinea.

2) We are committed to finishing well the tribal works God led us to start.

3) We are committed to providing the resources necessary to accomplish these goals.

We have put a lot of effort in reaching strategic new areas and starting new works. A comparable effort is now needed to see these churches come to maturity. We have been praying much and seeking the Lord as to how we can best accomplish this. As we have continued to expand into new areas, our support infrastructure has needed to increase as well. Instead, what we have seen is that our infrastructure support team is shrinking and also that we are not able to supply reinforcements for incomplete/depleted church planting teams.

Consequently, we are going backwards in certain areas: church planting teams are not receiving necessary timely assistance in culture and language acquisition, Bible translation and discipleship of church leaders; practical assistance with care and education of missionaries' children is impacted by lack of boarding home parents and teachers; delivery of vital services is compromised by lack of skilled personnel in finance, communications, equipment maintenance, etc. While we have always had some gaps in our support infrastructure, we are now at a critical point. We must address this issue now.

In order that we might be strengthened by pulling together from all corners of PNG, God has given us one heart and one mind in making the following decisions.

1) We are consolidating our various local strategies into a unified field wide strategy for church planting, member care and administration.

2) In order to make better use of the human resources God has given us, we are streamlining administrative services at our mission headquarters.

3) After completing their orientation, in consultation with leadership, new missionaries to the field will be asked to give a year to support work before consideration is given to joining an existing work or starting a new work, subject to skills available and current needs.

4) To allow us to fortify our existing works and our various support teams (in order to be able to finish well what we have started), for a time we are focusing our resources to this end. Until we can adequately support more growth, we have put a hold on starting new works. This hold on new works will be reevaluated in April 2008. [This will not affect our teams that have already been allocated for a new work. There are three works that are far enough along in the process that we do not want to change their direction now. These are the North Waghi team, the Siar team and the possible Nakanai work.] Current missionaries who have completed their orientation but who have not yet been allocated to a work will be encouraged to consider joining existing works or to temporarily fill in vital gaps in support roles.

We see these as very positive moves designed to help us complete the task of bringing the churches we have started to maturity. We have gotten a glimpse of what is possible through the efforts of a tribal church that is brought to maturity and has a heart to reach out across their borders. There is great potential to reach the rest of PNG through these dedicated brothers and sisters in Christ.

We have been considering and praying about this for nearly two years and we have come to the conclusion that it is time to make this change in focus.
While these have been difficult decisions to reach, we are excited that God has confirmed this in our hearts by the unity that He has granted men from across our field, men involved in all areas of ministry.

We trust that these decisions will be understood by the missionaries in training and by those enroute to PNG and by their home church partners. We will endeavor, as needed, to further communicate the intent and reasoning behind these decisions. The implications of these decisions are significant and impact many. However, we all know that success is not effectively measured by what is started but rather by what is completed. We invite you to join us in our commitment to establish local tribal churches and see those tribal churches come to maturity.

We apologize for what may seem like a sudden shift on short notice but we make no apology for our desire to fully support all our tribal church planters and to do what we can to see tribal churches brought to maturity.
Excellence is one of our core values. Whatever we do, we desire to do well.

We trust that you will remember NTM-PNG in your prayers as we move to position ourselves to be able to complete the purpose we believe God has given us in this country. This is God's work and it is only by His strength and His wisdom that this will be accomplished.

Yours in Christ,
Bob Rempel
For the PNG Field Committee