Nice 'n Tender in 15 minutes or less...
“…honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways.” Daniel 5:23
In Brief: Prayer points for the next few weeks
· Please pray for one of our co-worker families, the Lockwoods. They have been delayed from their return and are praying that the Lord will open the door for their return through clear health. Will you please pray with us for this? We are asking the Lord for their return and a full team.
· For multiplied time and clear vision as we get ready for a language check (Aug. 30th-Sept. 3) and get ready to send our two older boys to the U.S. for a visit with grandparents.
· For prepared hearts for our Pal friends and great relationships with them.
For a little more:
Pressure cookers
Did you know that I (Elizabeth) do a lot of my cooking in a pressure cooker? Because we pay to have our gas for our stove flown in on the helicopter, whenever possible I try to use my pressure cooker to save gas (and, of course, money!). We have a newer, safe pressure cooker, but if I forget to move it off of the high burner where it comes to pressure and onto a ‘simmer’ burner, it starts to tell us how it feels about that, hissing with vigor! “Mom, the pressure cooker is going nuts again,” is a pretty common comment from the kids.
These last few weeks Nate and I have been talking about pressure and how we deal with it in our lives. In just over a week, two great friends of ours are coming in to check our progress in language. This will be the first check since last December, so we are both hoping to have made substantial progress. Immediately after that, Nate and our two oldest kids (very soon to be aged 8 and 10) will be leaving to meet up with his mom so that the boys can travel back with her to America to spend six long-anticipated weeks with grandparents in America. They’ll return with my sister and brother-in-law in October.
As you might imagine, we both are wrestling with knowing that we’ll be missing our kids intensely, and yet we’re thrilled that they have a chance to spend time again with their grandparents who love them and miss them so much. Nate and I both are looking for time and opportunities to pour into Noah and Tim before we say goodbye for a bit. At the same time, our minds are full of the upcoming language check and we’ve been looking for extra time to make sure we understand and are clearly communicating. Will you please pray with us that we will balance our time wisely and well and remember that our work is to glorify God in how we live and love? We can’t live in a pressure cooker without “hissing” and God doesn’t call us to that. Pray that we keep quiet and joyful hearts in these weeks!
This baby boy was a second-born boy and was given the name ‘Nathan’…since Nate is a second-born. Birth order factors big here in Pal!
Anticipation
Coming up soon is a 2 week workshop where we will begin to practice Bible translation. We’ll be travelling with 3 Pal men to one of the larger towns in Papua New Guinea so that they can be trained as Bible translation helpers. In the next 12 months, Bible translation will start full-swing here in Pal in preparation for teaching through God’s Word. You can imagine our excitement as we anticipate this!
Please pray that the community will support the men chosen to go. Please pray too that God will provide just the right men to go – faithful men who are quick to learn and understand. We have had many helpers over the last months and there are many men who are eager to go on this trip (Nate said it would be the equivalent for us of someone offering us an all-expense paid trip to Paris for 2 weeks to be trained in some new skill…)
The man carrying the post is one of the guys who will probably be going to the Translation Workshop with us. He’s grimacing because the post weighs 80 pounds. Nate and Chris each carried a post down the mountain as well.
Co-workers
In the midst of all this, we are in full-swing preparations for building a 3rd house here in Pal for the Hostetter family. We’ve had weekly workdays where the community has come to help us cut posts and clear ground for the last few months, and we expect one or two more before 2 builders come in to help frame the foundation on August 30th. (Yes, that’s the same time that our language consultants are coming in to check our language progress!) Please pray for the Hostetter family as they juggle house building preparation, language learning, and getting the Lockwood’s house ready for their return.
The Lockwoods are waiting for an ultrasound scheduled for Sept. 17th to check on an unknown ovarian mass that was discovered in Kim. We are praying that it will show that everything is clear for their return. Will you please pray for this with us?
Elias and his buddy Cole Hostetter being silly
Posted via email from PNG Time
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