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Team PNG!
Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been a central part of my life for the last 13 years, though I’ve never been there physically. Sounds strange huh? I first heard of this small island country when I was 15 and on a trip in Mexico. While down there I met a man who had planted an indigenous church among the Iteri people in the Sepik region of PNG. He left the U.S. with his wife when he was in his 20s and spent the next two decades living and working among this remote tribal people to give them the gospel, plant a church and eventually translate the Bible into their native language.
I had never really heard of a follower of Christ doing something like this. It seemed crazy. It seemed dangerous. It seemed like I had to be a part of it.
Since then I’ve gone to Bible college, gotten married and had two kids, but tribal missions has always been there, waiting in the background. My wife and I didn’t know how we would fit into missions work and that is why this trip is huge for us. We’re hoping to see firsthand what life is like for a cross-cultural missionary and, through that experience, gain a better understanding of what God might have for us as we think about becoming missionaries ourselves.
There is a lot of work left to be done in this world, and specifically in PNG. New Tribes Mission, the agency we will be going with, is involved in countless tribal villages there to bring the gospel to people who have never heard it before. Literally, these villages have never heard it before. The people there live lives dominated by fear and hopelessness. Then they die without ever hearing the name of Jesus, the only name by which they can be saved (Acts 4:12).
We need to stop that cycle. God has left us instructions (2 Cor. 5:18-19) on what we, as His children, need to be about. So let’s obey them.
As our team prepares to go, can you pray with us? Pray that we would gain a better understanding of how God made us and how he has designed all of us to fit into the work of bringing the Best News to every tribe on the planet. Also, that we would raise the finances we need to be able to go on this Exposure Trip. And finally, and most importantly, that we would trust God and not ourselves. I have a strong natural desire to rely on myself but we want to rely on God. Pray for us to trust God wholly, in whatever He does and in whatever direction He leads us.
Follow our updates here and on twitter: #prayforPNG.