Boomerang Volume 8: Papua New Guinea Report

We are recently back from our tour of duty in Papua New Guinea (PNG) having survived malaria and diarrhea (and even a large, pesky crab that crawled into my pants). Thank you for your generous financial support and faithful prayers that have provided this life-changing missions training and ministry experience.

Destination: Kerema, Capital of the Gulf Province on the southern shore of the mainland.

Our Mission: To encourage, train and equip the Kerema church parishioners to proclaim the Kingdom of God to the people of Kerema, the Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea and the ends of the Earth.

As a team we implemented two back-to-back conferences initiated by the governor to instill Godly principles in the area. The 1^st conference was focused on “Transformation” and the 2^nd on “Discipleship,” with subjects including intercession, evangelism, repentance, reconciliation, missions and HIV/AIDs awareness training.

Additionally, we:

• taught, preached and ministered regularly in local church meetings

• encouraged young people at large youth group events

• ministered to women in local women's meetings

• performed illuminating dramas that were the talk of the townspeople

• shared testimonies at large open-air evangelistic outreach events

• prayed regularly with local pastors and parishioners.

We even created a very popular slide show of local photos that greatly inspired the townspeople to see themselves in a new light and shot a video for the area.

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for the harvest. John 4:35b

Praise be to God! The result was the transformation of the entire town. Hundreds of people came to the Lord or rededicated their lives, and many declared their intention to become missionaries. After years of conflict, most of the local churches came together in unity to work on shared initiatives and goals for the future. The credit belongs to God—we merely showed up, served faithfully and witnessed God's mighty hand in action. Thanks for your effective and fervent prayers.

This missions experience has been the most challenging and the most rewarding thing we ever done. Best of all, God continues to bless us abundantly by showing his deep, pursuing love for all the peoples of the earth. The Papuan people are enthusiastically eager to take the gospel to the nations of earth. We are humbled to have played a part in equipping them for their future missions service. And we are also excited now more than ever about our own missionary service. On our blog you can find additional information and photos from our time in PNG.

Our Discipleship Training School program is rapidly winding down. We are writing to you from the Atherton Tablelands near Cairns Australia where we are serving an Aboriginal ministry. We will soon return to Perth for our program graduation in mid-June, where we will be invited to become full-time missionaries officially with Youth with a Mission. However, to serve with Create International we are required to have additional training specific to that ministry.

We have been given an unexpected opportunity to greatly speed up our training timetable by taking the next required YWAM program right away rather than waiting for six months. The only catch is that we will be going to Thailand in late June for the School of Frontier Media program rather than waiting until January 2010 to take this training in Perth, Australia. This presents us with a wonderful and logical next step, for which we require additional funding at this time. Our best estimate at this time is that we will immediately need $5000 for our flights and travel expenses to Thailand, and then we will need an additional $5000 for the school tuition in early July. These expenses are additions to our regular ongoing expenses.

Regrettably, we were only able to go to PNG because of an advance from Ripe for Harvest. Consequently, we are in a deficit while also dealing with a declining dollar. If the Lord places our need on your heart, we would be most grateful for your participation.

Please pray for us during this exciting transition into more ministry responsibility. Our next newsletter will go into more details about our remaining time in Australia and the big move to Thailand.

You may send gifts and donations for our support to our current sending agency Ripe for Harvest and please designate Account #247 in the memo line but please do not include our name on the check. You may then mail the check directly to:

Ripe for Harvest
2824 N. Power Rd #113282
Mesa AZ 85215-1674

Ripe for Harvest is able to issue a tax deductible receipt in the USA, whereas YWAM Perth in Australia is not.

Thanks again for being such an encouraging, faithful and supportive group of people. We are proud to be on your team.