Mesi-land Update, Learning to Serve Well, and More...

Many believers gathered to welcome us during our last, all-too-brief visit into Mesi territory

Mesi Church Update

Mesi Bible teachers are carefully progressing through the book of Acts with the believers – review for those who first heard the Gospel 5 years ago, and brand-new material for those who recently became believers through last year’s local outreach.  This past Sunday, our co-worker Axel shared how Luik and Anivi taught about Stephen’s death.  Like Stephen, believers throughout time have suffered persecutions, sickness, death.  And many ask the Lord ‘why?’ as they struggle with pain.

Recently, a young couple lost their month-old little boy to an illness that didn’t respond to the antibiotics our co-worker, Sandra, provided.  In their grief, they also asked ‘why’ and wondered if their marital discord had led to their baby’s death.

Pray for the church and for our co-workers on the ground as they address these questions of pain and suffering.  Before hearing God’s Word, the Mesi worldview taught that they could control God through their ‘good’ actions to make Him do what they wanted and gain good health and prosperity.  If they sinned, God would of course punish them through sickness or death.  We want to replace the lies of the past with Biblical truth, and our team is praying for careful ways to do that. 

Quick Trip to Australia

Nate and I were able to make a very quick trip to Australia last week for the required endoscopy.  We are thankful that the stomach issues are NOT caused by cancer…just plain ol’ aging.  It’s treatable with medication.  Our boys were cared for and cooked for by friends, and they did a great job of taking on many responsibilities themselves.  Nate and I walked 20,000+ steps daily in the city we stayed in and enjoyed a very brief getaway, even though it had a medical purpose.

Whew!  On the road again...or rather, in the sky again!

Learning to Serve Well

“…But I am among you as One who serves.” Luke 22:27

For many years, our lives have been consumed by the daily responsibilities of tribal church planters: learning culture and language, teaching reading and writing, teaching and translating God’s Word, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with young believers as they learn and grow in their faith.  Now that we’ve settled into a leadership role at one of our mission centers, our daily responsibilities are significantly different:

• Making meals for tribal and support missionaries in need.
• Driving.  Lots of it, on terrible roads, to help wives who are out of the jungle without their husbands for a few weeks get groceries, or to pick up kids and teens from school, or to meet with other leaders to talk through current questions and difficulties.
•  Working through conflict resolution with church-planting teams.
•  Planning meetings with a church-planting team that is ready to move into the jungle
•  Helping find needed items that missionaries placed in storage!
•  Bible study and prayer times with support and itinerant tribal missionaries.
• Taking a share of caring for a security dog here on the mission center.
• “Debriefing” talk times where missionaries are processing through stressful and difficult parts of their last few years on the field, before they return to their home countries for home assignment.

Do we miss the joy of getting to directly teach and disciple in Mesi-land?  Oh, yeah.  Do we struggle with how inadequate we are as we try to meet needs for the 45 church-planting families here on the field in our area?  Oh, yeah.  Pray for us, that we will reflect the character of the ONE who came to serve.   And pray that we will have vision and purpose to lead well...as servants.