Been a little while…

Elias shows how comfortable he is in the bush.

Culture Revisited

If you have been with us for a while, you have been regaled over and over with the many differences that we have noticed between the culture of our homeland and the culture in which we currently find ourselves immersed. While we can laugh and talk about some of the little gotchas that seem to bump into us on a regular basis, we have been keeping our ears to the ground to find out about major differences in thinking that could affect the Pal people’s understanding of God’s Word as we present it.

This week, one (albeit small) such cultural idea came to the fore. It turns out that some of the Pal guys have heard of the parable of the sower. Now you might be asking yourself how it is that we missionaries find ourselves among a people who have heard some of the Bible stories – haven’t they heard the gospel then. In short, no, they have not heard it. A longer explanation is that some have tried to give them the gospel in the national language, but it was not understood and just resulted in mixed up people with really mixed up beliefs. That is why we are being careful to present things in the way that we are.

Alright, back to the parable of the sower. When one of my Pal friends was explaining about the spread of certain kinds of good trees and fruit bearing plants to me, he talked about how when the birds eat a seed, it is carried in their body to another place and deposited with fertilizer. He then made a connection that I never would have thought to investigate: he brought up the parable of the sower, and exclaimed how great it was for the seed to fall on the path and then to be eaten by the birds. Of course seed that was eaten by birds would be the most fruitful and beneficial.

This is just one evidence of how much work we have yet to do to understand our friends thinking and rightly present the truth to them. Please pray for us as we daily seek to know their minds better.

Elizabeth works daily at relationship and is here catching up with some friends who stopped by for a chat.

Its been a while…

It has been a while since we last posted something to the blog. Honestly this last month has been quite a ride. We have finished most of the work on the literacy program (the last revisions and checking are all that remain). We also spent some time out at our mission center for achievement testing for the boys and for check-ups etc. for the family. I (Nate) was feeling so run down that I was ready to just shut the door and not talk to anyone for a month (not my normal self).  It seems that between the many events of the last few months (losing a set of coworkers etc.) and the stresses of deadlines and life in the setting that we are living, I gave myself the gift that keeps on giving – an ulcer. 

Not to worry though, between acid control medication and schedule modification, the symptoms have nearly disappeared.  We have been working through how best to keep healthy here and feel like we are in a good place overall.  That said, during the interim, quite a few non-essentials were lying fallow.

Changing a tire… a friend and I rode this bus for 8 hours from Goroka to Madang a couple of weeks ago.

What else is going on.

We’d love to let you in on another couple of things that have or will happen this month. For one, a family from Germany has expressed and interest in joining the team. We have met with them and are seeking the Lord together to see what His direction will be. We’ll keep you posted.

We are also working with the Pal people on building a school building. It has been a little difficult in that there are a couple of factions that each want the school in a slightly different place. We are having a general community meeting on Wednesday to sort things out. If you think of it, please be praying on your Tuesday evening because tensions could run fairly high…

Please pray too for our translation progress. We are looking to have portions of Genesis ready for checking within the month.

One last thing would be for language progress for Elizabeth and the others – we have another language evaluation at the end of May and it would be wonderful for them all to be finished with formal language study.

Again, thanks for standing with us,

Nate for us 5