Labors of Joy

 

Itub, one of the first ladies to really reach out to Elizabeth is here holding roofing material for her house. I told her, “My dad is a roofer, maybe he can learn something about carrying heavy roofing from your technique.” She laughed.

 

⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵ "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

(Joh 15:4-5 NIV)

 

Bearing Fruit

At our believers meeting today Evetu repeatedly nailed the questions that I was asking. (I’m having a party inside my head.) It’s not as though we have arrived.  There is a long way to go for him. This is the guy who just this Tuesday asked me two questions that I’m sure most of you have never had to answer:

1.    Was Jesus just such the hot stud that all the women and girls of Judah were chasing him and so the other men were jealous and decided to kill him?

2.    Is there a way to gain magical strength for gardening or other pursuits by sending your wife out to sleep with another man?

So you see, there is room for growth here…but the thing that impressed me was that he was listening carefully to the stories and coming back with exactly what God’s Word was saying about it no more, no less.  This is a critical step for our young believers. They have for many years accepted as true information from many sources and thus have allowed themselves to be duped by so many false promises.

Please pray with us for he and his wife Tokos and others as they learn to listen to God’s Word and take that as exclusive truth.

 

Hey Elizabeth, what’s for dinner? Hey Nate, taro is what’s for dinner.  (this is the Chinese version and thus is commonly called kongkong in PNG)

 

The Power of Eating

Before I came to PNG I never had people just show up bringing fresh garden produce with the stated desire to eat some of it with me. Turns out, in our particular neighborhood there is the tradition of me mukuli (new yam harvest) where the first of a crop is set aside to be eaten by spiritually powerful men who will then bless the rest of the crop so that it can be abundant.

So, by virtue of our wealth and education, guess who are supposed to be the spiritually powerful people of the moment in our neighborhood. We’ve had to be pretty clear. “Sorry fellas, us eating your food isn’t going to lead to a sudden bumper crop,” We thought we had everybody pretty much informed about this and so it was a surprise yesterday when some guys from a pretty good distance away came and, in the course of visiting ate some food with us, and then said. “We just ate me mukuli together.” (Hand, meet forehead. Forehead, meet hand)

So we had to explain a little about how we are not helping any gardens grow. At the same time it has been encouraging to see that our young believers are becoming more and more clear about what is false thinking and what is true. (We told the story from yesterday to some folks before our believers meeting today and they said. “Oh yeah, you guys don’t have that kind of power. Only God can do that.”)

 

Pray.

In 28 days the helicopter will come for us, bringing to a close our current time with the Pal believers. There is so much to do and so much to set up with our partners that we are feeling a bit over-whelmed. Then there are the things that we’ll need to do when we hit the ground in the States. Settling in for a year means that we’ll have lots of things to organize in those first weeks of June. Please pray for steadiness and wisdom for us and the health of this baby church here in Pal.

 

Thanks,

Nate for us