Prayer for a Young Family

This is Jason, Sandy and their little son, Hansley.

They are a young family from our church--and young in their faith too, you could say. Neither of them were raised with Christian parents, but they both want to serve the Lord now, and Sandy's mother also is a member of our church now. They've been married for almost a year, although their relationship did start out on rocky ground. It hasn't been easy for them as their families do not completely approve of their union either. And to complicate matters, they live with her parents, with his parents living very close by in the settlement.

The past few months, Ian and I have been meeting with them regularly to talk about what the Bible says about marriage and family life. In the middle of all of this, they had an argument and both of their mothers got involved (which made matters worse), and they were separated for a short time. Thankfully, they are back together now, but we know that it will take a lot of prayer and the power of the Spirit to keep this young family together and enable them to have a strong family and marriage in the Lord.

Their son is a precious little guy and is of course the one caught in the middle when his parents and grandparents don't get along. We pray that the Lord will guard and keep him and that he will grow up to know and love His maker.

We share all of this with you to simply ask you to remember them in prayer.

Graduation Time

Ian travelled to Port Moresby last week to attend the graduation at the Reformed Churches' Bible College.There were 9 graduates who received a Diploma in Reformed Studies. Three of them are students from Lae, and the two men would like to continue on in their studies and next year begin the three year Diploma program to hopefully become Pastors one day.

The graduating class singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

PNGers love to share stories through drama.
This is Gami, one of the students from Lae. She is a strong woman of the faith and a good leader amongst the women. She shared some words of thanks, especially for the wives of the missionaries (Rita Versteeg, Odette Douma, Cheronne VanderHeide and Sjannette Hagoort) for their tireless work in supporting the students and the college in countless ways.
Here is Jerry Isaac, also one of the students from Lae, as he receives his certificate from Pastor Henry Versteeg with Principal Wayne VanderHeide in the background.
As a representative of the Board of the College, Ian shared a message on Hebrews 13:13--being willing to go outside the camp and bear the disgrace Christ bore.
We praise God for the Bible College. It is still incredible to us that God raised up this Bible College in a few short years and we are so thankful for this place where the Word is taught boldly and clearly and in truth.

One student shared this testimony: before attending the College, the Bible was just like any other book to him. But through his studies, the Lord showed him that it is the Book of Life!

Supporting Yuanna

This morning, we gathered for Bible Study as we usually do, except instead of meeting at the church, we gathered at the home of Jackson's parents, Yuanna and Willy. Jackson, as you may remember from a couple posts ago, was a young man from Biwat Settlement who was murdered just over 3 weeks ago. Since that time, the women from our church, many of whom are related to Jackson's family, have gone every Tuesday morning to be with Jackson's mother Yuanna---to support her and encourage her, sing with her and pray with her.

The young men who they suspect of killing him were taken into custody by the police, however about a week later were let out on bail. Now they are back to getting drunk and causing trouble in the settlement, including attempting to fight with Jackson's family several times. Their quick release is thanks to the 'wantok system', I was told. A 'wantok' is someone who speaks the same language as you, meaning they are from the same area or village. Here in PNG if one of your wantoks needs help, you are obligated to help out. If you don't, there will be no one to help you when you need it. So these young men are out and free to do as they please again. Jackson's family does not want to fight with them, but they would like some compensation money for his death, also to help transport his body back to their village to be buried.

So in addition to grieving the loss of their son, Yuanna and Willy are dealing with an unjust justice system and these young troublemakers who are seemingly showing no remorse for what they did. Yuanna and Willy are bearing a great burden right now, and greatly need our prayers. Only the Lord can get them through this.

It was beautiful to witness Mary, a woman from our Bible Study who had never met Yuanna before, cry with her and hold her in an embrace for a long time. Mary comes across as quite a tough woman; stern-faced and rough, but obviously there is a tender heart on the inside.

Please continue to pray with us for Yuanna and Willy and our justice system, which has failed them miserably. Thankfully, The Judge is acutely aware of all this injustice, and is full of grace and mercy to those who humbly come to Him in faith in their time of need.

The Last in a Long Line of Visitors!

After a steady stream of visitors, our last guest of the year, Keith Bruning returned home to WA a few days ago. He was the ninth person who stayed in Andrew and Natalie's unit since they went on furlough!

Keith was one of the Australian delegates who attended the Conference in Port Moresby with us. He then spent about 10 days here. He has a special connection to the Reformed mission work in PNG, as his parents, Rev. and Mrs. Bruning did some short-term work here many years ago. It was a moving experience for Keith to visit some of the churches in the Port Moresby area that his parents were involved with over 25 years ago. A reminder of God's faithfulness. And then he could see how the work has branched out into the Lae area, also thanks to the Lord.

Saying a few words of thanks and encouragement at church.

We enjoyed Keith's company and having him experience the work with us, and especially appreciated that he was game to drive all over town doing errands for us! Not to mention the delicious croquettes he cooked for us twice! We're sure his family is glad to have him home again though, also just in time to celebrate his and Brenda's 25th anniversary! May the Lord give them many more years together.

Port Moresby and Home Again

We've been back from our conference in Port Moresby for over a week now, but still here's a bit of an update. In attendance were the 5 missionary couples on the field right now as well as 3 delegates from Australia, 3 from New Zealand and 2 from Canada. We had good discussions on the 10-Year Strategic Plan, reports on the 8 church groups, reports on the Bible College and also developed policies, Etc, Etc. The result was an 86-page document containing the minutes as well as many appendices with the various reports and policies! We pray that the Lord will help us to follow through on all that was discussed and planned, and we completely depend on Him for His blessing.

This is the classroom where the meetings were held.

Our kids had a blast with Sjaan, Bryce, Cameron and Joseph Vanderheide. In fact, there was much talk of them staying in Moresby and becoming Vanderheide's themselves:).

On the weekend, we took the kids to this Wildlife Sanctuary

that was recently built close to the Bible College .

Their babysitters (students from the Bible College) kept them busy with all sorts of activities.

Caleb and Dorothy

Best Mates Caleb and Joseph

While we were at the conference, we also got the news that our co-workers, Andrew and Natalie Vanderheide, will not be returning to work with us as was originally planned. This did not come as a complete surprise because we knew that they were struggling with what to do, especially since Natalie has dealt with recurring miscarriages--an even more difficult experience when living in PNG. We deeply respect their decision and understand that it was not an easy one for them to make. Still, they will be greatly missed here--by us, but also by the church community. We look forward to spending some time with them when they come in December to pack up and say goodbye.

A few days after we got back from Moresby, we also received the shocking news that a young man who had attended our church for many months this year had been killed. His name was Jackson Willy and he was a young man that we were worried about--for he had stopped coming to church suddenly and after that we saw him drunk a few times. He was also drunk the night he was killed.

It seems a fight broke out between two groups of drunken young men and Jackson's cousin ended up being cut in the stomach with a knife. For some reason, Jackson stayed behind when his friends went to avenge the cousin's injury, but then later decided to go on his own and was met on the path by about 5 young men armed with bush knives and iron pipes. They attacked him and then left him there on the path where he bled to death. His family members in Biwat community are in shock and deeply grieved. When Ian went there a few hours after his death, his mom was of course beside herself with grief. She was wailing and throwing herself on the ground and could not help but return to the site of his death where his blood still stained the ground.

His death deeply saddens us and also frustrates and angers us. What a senseless and most violent death. And yet, the last few months we have also been saddened and frustrated by the making and drinking of 'homebrew' among the young people, and the parent's seeming apathy to this. Our prayer right now is that the Lord will use Jackson's death to open people's eyes and turn them to Him. Ian had the opportunity to preach the other night at the home of Jackson's family, and there were many young people there, as well as parents and children. We sang songs of worship for a long time and then Ian preached a powerful message of comfort and challenge. Not that he had planned to preach because we thought we were just going to see Jackson's parents, but when we got there they had set things up for him to preach, and more and more people just kept coming! The Spirit was at work that night and I saw on the faces of a few of the young men that they were really listening and being impacted. Please pray that they will completely commit their lives to Christ.

Please also pray that Jackson's family will not avenge his death, but leave it in the hands of the police. We pray for no more bloodshed.