“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” - Matthew 28:18-20
We took a trip as a family to survey an existing church plant and stayed the night up there in the mountains. Did you know some areas of Papua New Guinea get cold? Haha like really cold. I appreciated their hospitality as two ladies stayed up working a fire throughout the night to keep the girls and I warm. I asked in the morning if they do this for their families, and they do - every night! (Spencer and Brennan slept in a different house with the men.)
Hello,
Our second holiday season in PNG has passed and we have many things to be thankful for. We are both fluent in Tok Pisin (as well as Brennan), God connected us with two other families who are now our teammates, and we finished surveying an unreached people group – all in a year! This year, we are continuing our journey of seeking direction from the Lord as to what our ministry will be with our team.
In late December, it became clear that God had closed the door for us to move forward with the people group we surveyed. In short, this people group was in a strategic location where there is no existing church nearby. They were kind and polite, but uninterested at this point. We had prayed for clarity and God made it clear, so we’re thankful for that. We will continue praying for them because they don’t know God and don’t have a desire too.
After realizing this was a closed door, our team then met with leadership as to what other priority unreached people groups there are in our region. They highlighted 4 unreached people groups that are currently asking for missionaries. Two of these new works have been surveyed and just need missionaries to come. Two others would be starting from the ground up with survey work. Alongside this, we were also presented with a fifth option. Leadership from both NTM and the existing church plants asked us to prayerfully consider surveying the needs of about 25 existing churches. They have expressed their desire for help in areas of discipleship, marriage and family life, more training to exegete and teach God’s word, and to do urban and cross cultural church planting themselves. Our role would be to visit each church, hear from them and observe other needs, and give a report to leadership who then can decide how the mission can best assist the local church.
After a set time of asking the Lord to give us direction, our team was united in the decision to move forward in conducting ‘surveys’ of these churches. Our work for the next few months is to hear what each individual church needs, take opportunities to teach and encourage them, and report our findings with suggestions of how the mission might assist them. As we move forward, we are praying for clarity if this is the work the Lord would have us commit to long-term or at the end of these surveys we move towards church planting in an unreached people group.
Below are some specific prayer requests. After that, I will explain in more detail our survey work and why the mission asked us to do this for those who are interested.
Believers we visited back in July from a West New Britain church, the Ata people, are also asking for help.
PRAISE + PRAYER
PRAISE the Lord with us that He clearly shut the door for us moving further with that people group early on and for the upcoming opportunities.
PRAY that our team gets accurate information and can fully understand the needs of the local churches.
PRAISE God that our family is doing well. Thank you all for continually praying for our marriage, parenting, and for us to humbly walk with the Lord.
PRAY that God would use us to encourage the believers as we will get many public speaking opportunities and small group discussions with the church leaders.
Further Details of Survey Work
New Tribes Mission has planted churches in 21 people groups on the island of New Britain, and 6 on the island of New Ireland. Of the 21 on New Britain, 20 are located in the Western province. In most of these works, churches were established in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Some New Testament translations are still in progress while many have been finished. By 2010, most of the missionaries to these peoples have moved back to their home countries. Around that time, church elders from many different language groups began meeting together for encouragement, Bible teaching, and to seek counsel from each other. They organized themselves by location, and then regional conferences as well as whole island conferences began being held annually. These conferences were, and still are, great for the believers. As they got together in the mid 2010’s they saw common areas that their churches needed help in.
In 2017 a formal request was made from the New Britain churches to New Tribes Mission asking to send missionaries to help disciple their leaders, train them in lesson writing, exegesis, and exposition, develop marriage and family lessons, further help with literacy, assist them in sending their own missionaries to other unreached people groups, and help to establish some urban church plants. New Tribes would help the leaders and they could then help their 90+ local churches. The New Britain churches are still asking for help but like Jesus said in Matthew 9:37-38, the harvest is ripe but the laborers are few. Not only are there still over 300 unreached people groups across PNG without the gospel, the existing churches are in dire need of help. So, our team has agreed to survey the needs of each people group with an NTM church plant within our region and report those back to the mission.
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