It's Begun!

 

 

So today was the first day of teaching!  We’ve waited 6 long years to get here.  With so many people gone, we wondered who would be here.  Five couples came in from the bush yesterday – that we saw anyway.  There were some key players that we wanted to see but we were afraid that they weren’t planning on coming.  But we knew we could rest in the Lord – it’s His plan and His church to build, not ours.  So we met for prayers, hit the first tree gong to let everyone know it would soon be time to gather.  It was pretty soft so most people didn’t hear it – we found out later.  Then after we prayed together, we hit it again.  Then it was time to gather all the last minute things and head to the meeting house. Matt hung the digital recorder while I grabbed Scripture portions to have on hand in case anyone wanted to buy one.  And we waited….the third gong and we still had just a small crowd although we could hear people talking in their houses.  But there were three other families there that had come in yesterday that we didn’t see.  And news of three more coming this afternoon yet!  Thank you God! 

 

We waited an hour before everyone was ready.  Then it was time to begin.  Elias started with pointing out things that had happened in the past to bring us to this point.  Things like their letter asking for missionaries, our first visit and language and culture study – why we didn’t answer all their questions before we could do it in their language – those sorts of things.  Then he talked about how we weren’t going to teach them white man’s talk or another man’s talk, only God’s. We needed to establish ( and will continue doing so in the weeks to come) that although there are lots of stories about creation, for example, there’s really only one true story – and it’s in God’s Word.  He created everything so He’s the only one that can tell us how everything came into being.  He laid out the two canoes that are in the building – one broken useless canoe and another really nice canoe.  The one is to stand for God’s talk – truth and being on “God’s side” while the bad canoe stands for lies and “Satan’s side”.  You’re either on one side or the other, can’t really stand in the middle of the two – you’re a child of God or a child of Satan.  We didn’t establish all that today, just setting the stage for future teaching.  Then he introduced maps and although he started with Wabuku and showed them their houses and moved out to immediate region, to Papua New Guinea and then on to the world, these ethnocentric people were most enamored as they saw a map that had their house on it!  But it was important to establish that the world is bigger than their very small world here in the middle of the jungle.  They still think that when I go to Wewak, a nearby coastal town, I will see my coworker, M’Liss who is in California.  Elias did a good job of teaching and although we covered a lot of material, they tracked with it all well.  The kids did great and it was a relatively quiet meeting for Wabuku! 

 

So keep praying!  God is going to do a work here and it’s exciting to be a part of it!  I’ve attached some photos too – just different impressions from this first day!