Moving Mountains...

Nate is freshly back from our first building trip into Pal. He and Mason hiked around 80 miles round trip to get to the site where the helicopter pad will be. While there they worked with the Pal people to clear bush and to flatten the 80' x 80' area required for helicopter landing and unloading.

The work went well, but was not quite completed before the guys needed to hike back down the mountain. The Pal guys promised that they would finish the leveling and get some posts (for our houses) in time for the September building trip.

Overall we were very encouraged by the trip. The Pal people are all very excited to see us build houses and begin to live life with them. They especially enjoyed sitting around the fire with us at the end of the day and teaching us some of their 'tok ples' (language).

We are truly grateful to God for safety in our travel and work, for good relationships with the Pal guys, and for the excitement that He is building there for the work to begin.

Things you can be praying for this week:

• Recovery - Nate and Mason hiked the 40 miles out in one day (did somebody say pizza?) So they have blistered feet and very sore legs.
• Family time - with lots to do (and only a month to do it in) Nate needs to keep working hard on house building preparations. At the same time, Elizabeth, Noah, and Tim will be heading back to California for two weeks for her sister's wedding. We'd really like to balance wisdom and urgency.
• The Pal people - even though they are excited about us coming to live and work with them, the Pal people really have little idea of what it is exactly that we are bringing them (and we have *clearly* communicated what we are going to do multiple times). Pray that their imaginations of sudden wealth, fame, or power do not cloud their minds to the message that we will bring.
• Kogomunga and Liguras are two Pal guys who decided to build us a little hut to stay in for our building trips. It is just about right for us and the 5 guys that we'll bring in September. Praise God for prompting them to that work.

Well, as soon as we convert some of the video (including the time we got lost in the bush) we'll post it for you to enjoy as well.

The Claasens