Waiting and Waiting No Longer

I know I’ve been raving a lot about Sonlight and our kids’ homeschool curriculum.  I guess it’s natural when so much of my day is spent teaching Claire and Isaiah, and Sonlight makes it so enjoyable.  I especially love it when what we’re studying is already so very close to our hearts!

We started using the book “From Akebu to Zapotec” in our home school.  Each week we pray for a Bibleless people group from around the world.  A couple of the people groups are from right here in Papua New Guinea.  I used our organization’s language resource website to find some information about those languages, and sadly I found little.  It’s rather amazing that there IS a map of their locations considering how remote they are.  Nonetheless, they are still waiting for God’s Word in the language of their hearts.

Which reminds me that there is another people group in PNG that waits no longer.

Two weekends ago, the Bariai people of West New Britain celebrated the dedication of the New Testament, Genesis and Exodus.  Enthusiastic processions of people from the community carried the Bibles up to the church on Saturday afternoon.

 

 

The Sunday morning service was packed.  Men and women adorned in elaborate costumes of feathers and flowers participated in the celebration of the vernacular scriptures.

 

 

It is our prayer that the Bariai people will read God’s Word.  That they will “hear” God speaking their heart language and desire to follow after Him.  That their lives will be changed into a greater likeness of our Father.  That is why we’re here!

  Photos by D. Barton

Patchwork Bridge

A bridge on the only road that links our center to the Highlands Highway collapsed last week.  The Highlands Highway is the artery that carries the “life blood” of PNG from the coast through the Highlands.

The PNG Department of Works has been planning a new bridge for quite a while but it is progressing very slowly.  In the photo on the left you can see the current state of the bridge with its make-shift patches.

Fortunately, the Department of Works and our own construction and auto shop teams came up with a temporary fix that involved replacing three broken I-beams with some second-hand beams.  You can just see the broken beams on the underside of the bridge in the photo on the right.  Praise God, after two days of hard work, the bridge is now passable for light weight vehicles.

Please pray that the new bridge would be completed soon.  Until then, it is difficult to get supplies like fuel and groceries to our center since the bridge is not safe for large trucks.

Photos by: B&S Frey

Sonlight at the Ends of the Earth

The day our Sonlight home school curriculum finally arrives is a red-letter day for our family.  Being that we’re within hollering distance of the “ends of the earth”, I’ve wondered if any other Sonlight users wait as long for their books to arrive.  That big white box makes quite a journey….

January 12—I place an order for our 2012-2013 home school material with Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd. in Littleton, CO.

January 17—Boxes of books arrive by FedEx at our mission’s shipping office in Waxhaw, NC.

Mid March—Boxes are packed in a 40-ft. shipping container and head to a port on the coast of NC.

End of March—The shipping container is loaded on a freighter and begins the long journey to Papua New Guinea.

End of May—The freighter arrives at the port city of Lae, Papua New Guinea.

Beginning of June—The shipping container is unloaded from the ship and waits on the wharf to be inspected by customs officials.

End of June—The container is emptied and the contents are put on a truck to be driven 130+ miles up the Highlands Highway (about the equivalent of a neglected county road in the US).  The journey includes a climb of 5000 ft. up the Kassam pass via multiple hairpin curves.  Fortunately, it’s been dry for the past few weeks so there’s less concern that landslides might close the road.

June 29 (approx)—The contents of the shipping container arrive at the Ukarumpa Store’s warehouse to be checked one more time.

Today (nearly 6 months later)—Our boxes of curriculum finally arrive at our front door via the grocery delivery truck and its friendly driver, Willie.

The excitement of boxes at our front door entices even a curious (albeit anonymous) neighbor.

Unfortunately for the neighbor, the lure of new books makes Claire and Isaiah oblivious to anyone else in the room.  <smile>