Umatə gəv evena vio ələvan. (The person came to get us back.)

Here some kids wait for their turn in line for immunizations. Most of them do not know what they are getting into.

 

Christmas tradition.

Although we have not put great emphasis on the fact that others have tried to bring the Gospel to our Pal friends in the past, it is true that there was some exposure to the name of Jesus long before we set foot in our first Pal village in 2008. What became of that effort was that the Pal people combined their traditional cosmology with the newer 'Christian' names. They also have adopted some interesting traditions related to the church calendar. One in particular is related to the celebration of Jesus's birth.

 

Our friends here in Pal have believed (at least for the last 20 years) that Jesus (an ancestor spirit) came to earth to give gifts to men at Christmas. If the village was prepared to meet him (i.e. clean and in order) then he would take a good report of them back to God on New Year's Day. In their thinking, when God gets that good report he puts in a good word or two to the ground (Hooray! Big gardens, lots of food!) and he makes sure that the bad spirits don't come and attack the health of the local children. Our friends were also told that should they fail to attend a candle-lit ceremony or if they should fail to give good gifts (money and meat) to local leaders, then those local leaders would not pray for them and they would be doomed to sickness and hunger all year long.

 

As we have been teaching them the truths of God's Word, these old beliefs have really taken a beating. One of my favorite moments of the last two weeks was when Liuk, our village headman (who had been one of the main guys asking for the money and meat in the past) stood up and said, "All that old stuff, it was a lie! I did wrong, I don't want that false talk anymore." Right after that meeting he came and talked with me on the porch for two hours. It turns out that there are other guys who are still wanting to go around asking for offerings from people in return for praying for them. Those men are trying to pressure  Liuk into participating. He has been threatened that the other villages will start talking about us as a cult and bring in the police to arrest us (an absolute falsehood – but really scary for an uneducated man of the bush). We as a team have spent hours walking through with Liuk and others what a godly response is to these threats. Please praise God with us that he has chosen to take a stand and not go with the other fellas. Get this, today at our Sunday meeting, he got up and said, "I'd sure rather you guys talk to those guys first and explain why we aren't doing those things anymore, but even if you don't, I will stand up and say to them; 'I am underneath God's Word, I will not go back to the false ways.' If they take me to jail, so be it."

 

God's Word is strong, but the believers are very young in their faith. Please pray with us for strength and peace in their hearts. We are spending hours just shoring up their understanding and encouraging them to just cling to the truth that they have heard.

 

We were very blessed by the donation of vaccines from the PNG government, and the participation of NTM medical personnel that made it possible to vaccinate 542 people last Monday.

 

Service

We don't often do big practical service projects here in Pal. The reason being is that in PNG people often see missions organizations as public service groups. That is to say, they expect service for nothing. There is often little personal investment in what is going on, just the expectation of service. That is about the opposite of what we are hoping to build in Pal. We have been fighting for personal investment and relationship and so we choose the things that we do carefully. I (Nate) don't fix flashlights or machetes unless a Pal friend can come and help (and learn how to do it himself). We provide literacy school for our friends, but have required that they provide the structure and people to help us run it. Don't get me wrong, it is a joy to serve our friends, we just always are fighting to keep the main thing the main thing (that is, people brought into eternal life).

 

It was a pretty neat opportunity then to practically meet their felt need of vaccinations last week. Actually, we just provided some ground support, the finances and expertise came from the PNG Government and from our own NTM medical clinic. Please thank the Lord with us that our friends are now more protected against the common sicknesses that plague our community. (In case you are wondering, we do provide limited health support here in Pal when there is no aid worker at the nearby clinic… we just are not normally able to take on something this big.)

 

We wish you all a very blessed Christmas,

Nate for us

 

PS. If you were wondering how the meetings with consultants went last weekend, they were great. That said, we have lots of work and planning to do here. Please continue to pray with us as we seek the Lord in how He would use us to build His church.