Saying Good-bye, Celebrating a Task Completed

Papua New Guinea – The Glefe (Kwomtari) Scripture portions are on their way from Korea to PNG. What a joy to hold a finished copy of the Glefe scriptures! They look beautiful—no sneak peaks though. You’ll see them in October, along with the Kwomtari people.

Praise the Lord with us! The Glefe scripture portions were safely transported by road. We just heard that the boxes of scripture portions have arrived in Ukarumpa.

The Glefe Scripture dedication will take place October 17 to 19. We plan to return to PNG in August, for about 2 months. We’ll spend most of that time in the village, working on the dictionary, encouraging our friends and saying good-bye.

Both we and the Kwomtari people would dearly love to have some of our adult children join us for the dedication celebration in October. They have been an important part of our years among the Kwomtari. The Kwomtari people see them as their own. Please pray with us that it would become financially possible for them to come. Let us know if you would like to help.

Once again we ask you to pray regarding the Guriaso airstrip maintenance. Pray that Dickson will be able to get government funding so he can pay the workers to clear the air strip of the high grass so the planes can land. We will be needing to use this airstrip when we fly to the village on September 8 and then again for the dedication weekend October 17 to 19.

We are now working on updating the dictionary. Many example sentences contain old spellings that need to be corrected, and entries need to be edited for consistency and conciseness, to make it easily usable for the Kwomtari people. Pray for focus on the essentials. It is easy to get distracted by interesting details.

Prayer & Praise

• Please continue to pray for increasing stamina for Murray. He is seeing the benefits of the cardiac rehabilitation program.

• Carol gives thanks for your prayers for energy and focus. In April, she went to PNG on her own. She was able to complete packing up the house at Ukarumpa. We are very thankful for our friends, who helped to make this possible. Join us in praying that another family would want to purchase our home there.

• Praise the Lord! Our village coworkers advised us that they are working to finalize details on their end, regarding the dedication in October. Pray that God will be glorified in all the details.

• Please pray that we will be able to finish well. We begin to feel torn between our life and work among the Kwomtari, and the pull of being here in Canada with our kids and grand kids. We anticipate that our last time in the village will be difficult, September 8 to October 20.

• When asked about retirement, we always said that God had proved Himself faithful, so we were sure He wouldn’t have us living in a tent in Manitoba. Over this past year, we have seen God looking after us in the many gifts we’ve received towards the purchase of a retirement home. We don’t know who most of the gifts were from, but we thank you. May God richly bless you! July 1st we will begin to make the home our own, before we return to PNG.

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens . . .

A time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance, . . .

God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 3, 11 NIV

We are blessed to have you as partners in our ministry among the Kwomtari people.

Wycliffe Bible Translators, Kwomtari and Yale Language groups

Home church: Altona EMMC, Manitoba

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This article was originally published

in The Recorder Vol 62, No. 3