So what is a survey?

"I wonder?.."  - Mibu boy May 2008

Have you been wondering what all the fuss is about? What is this survey business anyway?

Here is the key: in order to best use our time and resources here in PNG, we need to identify people groups that would most benefit from a church planting work. Information is gathered in seven different categories for a people group and then each of those categories is given an urgency score (1-3).

Due to the remote nature of the places that we work, it is virtually impossible to gather the necessary information from town - so we go to where the people are. Ideally, multiple people from each village in a language group are interviewed with basic facts being cross-checked with neighboring tribes.

The things that we would like to be fairly certain of before we commit to a work are:

• Long-term language viability. While there are more than 800 language groups in PNG, that number is decreasing rapidly. We have been to several places where the children of the village use only Tok Pisin rather than the original tribal language. (Imagine working for 15-20 years on a Bible translation only to find the last of those that can understand it are dying off...)
• Openness to missionary involvement. There are a multitude of reasons for which a people group might want a missionary - perhaps they had a bad experience with another organization, perhaps they are in the middle of intensive rites and spirit rituals and are afraid of the consequences were a white missionary come in...
• Population and dialects. There are a couple of idea going on here; first that we want to reach as many people as possible. Second, that we want to be sure of who can understand whom. We have seen missionaries placed in dialects that are very closely related - spending years developing a translation from scratch when an adaptation would do fine. We have also seen folks placed in a group that seemed at first to be one dialect but was discovered to be three (and very loosely related at that) which effectively reduced their target audience.
• There are several other factors like inter-tribal relationships, expectations of the mission organization (no we cannot put in a real hospital or an asphalt highway), and generational gap phenomena that we will be looking at as well.

So, what is the plan?
Well, Nate will be leaving for Madang on the afternoon of the 12th of November. He will spend the 13th finalizing plans and gathering last minute supplies with our partners, and then early on the 14th Nate, Mason, and Dave (an experienced missionary who will be representing NTM leadership) will be picked up by a helicopter and dropped off in the village of Hinihon, about 3-5 hours of hiking from the Pal people. They plan on spending a little time in each village talking to the leaders and understanding the relationships between the people groups up in the top of the Adelbert Mountains. They hope to make it to one of the 5-7 Pal villages that are grouped under the name Abasakur that afternoon. The next two days will be spent hiking around what was explained to us as the loop of those villages meeting people and doing interviews. Beginning the afternoon of the 17th, they will begin hiking out of the mountains, hoping to meet up with another NTM missionary with a truck on Wednesday the 19th in the evening.

Prayer requests for the week:
-Pray for Emily Reed, Elizabeth's sister who will be visiting us for 2 weeks - she is to travel the 4th-6th. Pray especially for her transition here at the Port Moresby airport.
-Pray for Nate as he prepares lessons for the substitutes that will be teaching his classes.
-Pray for Elizabeth and the boys as they are working through school and trying to help Nate get ready.
-Pray for Elias - trying to deal well with life as the littlest and slowest- he is often frustrated and takes it out on his brothers.
-Pray for us as we disciple our children - we desire the Lord to continually be working in their hearts.
-Pray for Elizabeth as she is doing evangelistic bible study with a friend here. That friend has expressed several times an excitement for the clarity of the material.
-Pray for awareness and tenderness to the Spirit as we seek to minister effectively here at the school base
-Pray for Nate as he has had some good time to connect with 8th grade boys - especially that they would grow in their faith.
-Praise God with us that He has declared that He has provided everything we need for life and godliness! He alone is sufficient.

P.S. We are sorry that we have been sloowww in responding to emails lately - lots on our plates.

Also: Tune in next week for our PNG Survey Special: Whats in the pack, Nate?