Taylor
Tidings
February 2008
| Return
to Papua New Guinea |
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After
a very productive and encouraging furlough, we were excited to arrive
back in Papua New Guinea on December 7th. We are thankful to
God
for bringing us back to our ministry of Bible translation with the
Nukna people!
Our journey from the Central Coast of
California to Ukarumpa spanned five days (we stayed three nights in
Australia to give our bodies time to recover and adjust to the new
time) and consisted of 29 hours of travel, not counting
layovers.
Boy were we glad to arrive at our house in Ukarumpa! Kaitlyn,
Nathan and Justin were great travelers who took everything in stride,
including playing at the Hong Kong Airport playground at 3
o’clock in
the morning! Thank you for your prayers as we traveled to the
other side of the world – we know they made a difference.
The Nukna
people tried to contact us by radio three days after we arrived in
Ukarumpa, but unfortunately due to a mix-up, the message was never
passed on to us. After we heard of the missed contact, we
tried
in vain to establish communication with them , and finally, in January
we decided that Matt would just travel out to the Nukna area to find
out what was going on.Matt’s trip (January 11-17) was very
eventful and some of the highlights were:
•
Despite several obstacles and disagreements that had to be sorted out,
all four men who were originally selected to come to the Translators’
Training Course (TTC) in April will be coming. Please pray
for
these four men (Simendi, Eddie, Esonu and Muransi) who will be trained
as Bible translators.
• Though plans had been made to continue the
wood-cutting for our new village house while we were on furlough, no
progress was made. This was a disappointment for us, but not
wholly unexpected. Unfortunately, the bush-style house in which we
have lived in the past is old and falling apart, as well as being very
small for our growing family. For these and other reasons, we
and
our supervisors have decided it would be best for our family to not go
out to Hamelengan village for the time being. Matt
is
planning to go there by himself, while focusing on providing the
supplies and fuel for the wood-cutting work to begin again.
Please pray with us that the wood-cutting work can progress in a timely
manner so that our village house can be built and our village ministry
can continue.
In the meantime, we will continue
working here at the missionary center at Ukarumpa. Matt spent
most of the month of January studying for his New Testament Greek
course, and he was very happy to complete the course last
week!
Coming up, he will be working part-time in the language and translation
offices here at the center, as well as beginning the training to become
a Translation Consultant, which is a process that takes several
years.
Kids’
News!
Kaitlyn and Nathan both recently had their first
days of
school. They are attending school in the Ukarumpa school
system,
run and staffed by missionary teachers. Kaitlyn is in
Kindergarten and really enjoys going, though she says she enjoys the
play time a lot more than the work time. It’s been a big
adjustment for her to get up for school five days a week.
Nathan
began three-year-old preschool, which is held two days a
week.
Now that he’s in preschool, he says “Now I’m a big boy!”
We are grateful for your prayers and
support without which we could not be here in Papua New Guinea.
May God bless you! |
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Boarding the plane from
Australia to PNG |
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Spending
time with Nukna men in Komutu village |
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Nathan's
first day of preschool |
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Justin
dressed for the PNG rainy season |
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