Family News!!

It has been a long time since we sent out a family update – as usually we are writing about different aspects of the ministry - so we thought we would send you some up to date news about ourselves personally.

Jubab had his 12th birthday on Sept. 7th and here in this photo you can see him getting a birthday hug from his sister Jen, and a cuddle from his niece Charly-joy! Clint who is 5 looks pretty bemused and brother-in-law Udi is enjoying the whole family birthday gathering!

Can you believe we have a 30 year old daughter now?! Jen just turned 30 last week and is expecting their 3^rd baby in May, 2011, Udi is 32 and keeps very busy tending their farm, looking after their cattle, and functioning on the leadership team of the church in Cauyunan, Charly is in Gr 3 and loves to sing and dance, and Clint is in kinder and is still a real Mama’s boy! Jen and Udi just had their 12^th anniversary last week. They arrived here in Lapoc this morning and we will be enjoying lots of family times and cuddles with our grandkids this week!!

Jubab is 12 going on 14!  We wish we could keep him our ‘baby’ but there is no chance of that! He is almost finished Gr. 6 and has had a good year being back in Lapoc. Adjusting to life back in our remote village and back to homeschooling has been smooth and fun for him. He misses Ballina but loves it here, has enjoyed being able to spend times with his sister and brothers and all the rest of our family, friends and missionary team here, and he loves playing basketball and being back with his dog Sparky. Jubab has had 2 attacks of his sinusitis and one attack of tonsillitis this year but apart from that, his only other health issue has been his braces and that can sometimes be a pain as it is a long trip out to the orthodontist in town (has to be an all day thing) – and the brackets for the braces are different here than in Australia which is a pain if one of them falls off.  It’s working out okay though. 

 

And then there is Dad and Mum.....that’s us......(this photo was taken in June during a family outing.)  We are both doing great – are very proud parents and proud grandparents – we’re making sure we put time aside for family times:  not just family night every week, but times together with Jubab every day and a family time in the Word and in prayer most every day. God has been teaching us as a family lately about spending time worshipping Him and glorifying Him rather than just mostly praying about needs and about the work.

Life in Lapoc can get very ‘heavy’ so we make sure that we don’t let ourselves get too stressed out and we take a few days out in Cagayan every 6-8 weeks for a break.

We are quite thrilled with the progress we are making this year on Translation and really thank you for your prayers for this and for continued prayers as we have such a huge desire to see the translation of the New Testament completed into Tala-Andig and hopefully into Higaunon as well.

Health wise we are both keeping well apart from some normal issues for our age (in our middle years J) like Paul having some prostrate trouble and both of us noticing occasional new aches and pains.

Thanks so, so much for your prayers for us and for your love and partnership and support!!!

Love Paul, Deb and family XXXXXXX  

Introducing Ben and Leonie!!

Hundreds of prayers - maybe thousands - have gone up around the world

for a teacher for Jubab, for someone to co-worker with us in the work of

translating the Bible into Tala-Andig and Higaunon.

Behold God’s answer to these prayers!!!

Ben and Leonie.....

They come from Ballina,

have the full support of their elders and their church -

the Ballina Christian Assembly,

have had years of experience working with kids and young people,

are planning to arrive here in the Philippines about the 22^nd of January,

are excited about joining the work here,

will be arriving here as newly-weds,

were commissioned last Sunday to the work here,

are already known by us and by Jubab,

and they have a lot to do before they come over........

......so PLEASE PRAY for them!

Pray them over here

Pray for their wedding

Pray for all their preparations

Pray for them as they say goodbyes,

Pray for a smooth adjustment to a new culture and new way of life

And we want to thank YOU for praying!!

God says we don’t have because we don’t ask.

You asked and we asked for co-workers,

AND GOD ANSWERED!!!

P.S. Please pray for us as tomorrow we start the consultant check

on Romans ch’s 1-6.

On This Journey.....!!

On this journey there are many gifts that God gives us!!

Among these gifts are the precious children we have met over the years whose

lives have become intertwined with ours.....

The picture above is of the children who lived in Cauyunan when we first arrived there.

All of them are adults now and most of them are married and have children!!

The boy in the blue shorts on the right side of the photo is 
Ryan Duwang,

known as ‘Ayan’ to his family and friends,

and he was about 1 ½ years old when we first arrived. 

He was our first patient and was dying and we were young, new missionaries with

no idea what to do. Thankfully we had God working on our behalf and Ayan recovered. 

 

This is Ayan’s family: his Dad, Bugsuk and Mum, Elsa and his little sister Aybi.

After Ayan recovered, they left the village upriver where they had been living

and came and lived right next door to us.

And they have been with us ever since!!

God saved them by His Power and Grace and some years later, God sent them out to be missionaries,

and brought them and us here to Lapoc as co-workers together!

And during this journey Ayan grew up and is now 23 years old.

And God has placed in his heart a desire to train to be a

‘Mother-Tongue Bible Translator’! 

This is a recent family photo of Bugsuk and Elsa and their family.

This month, they had to say goodbye to their son, Ayan.

It was a familiar scene to us:

 the airport doors,

the hugs, the tears, the last wave goodbye, heading for the unknown.

Ayan left to go and start training to be a bible translator on Sept. 8^th.

He will be in Manila for a couple of years,

will need to achieve a high fluency in English,

will have to study very, very hard

and will be very homesick.......

but it is for the goal of having a part in translating the Word of God

into his mother tongue!!!

Please pray for Bugs and Elsa, and their family and especially for Ayan far away at this time.

Pray that he will have courage and the tenacity to keep going through the hard times.

Pray for more mother-tongue translators to help in the huge job of translating the

Word of God into

Tala-Andig,

Higaunon

and into the many other languages that still do not have the Word of God!

Other prayer points for us are:

o   Strength and endurance for us. Since Jubab’s teacher, Mrs. B, had to return to Australia for medical reasons,

we have been starting at 5:00am to make up time we are losing on the translation work when we are teaching Jubab school.

o   Keep praying for a teacher for Jubab for 2011.

o   Pray for Mrs. B this Friday as she has a surgical procedure.

o   Keep praying for the translation of the book of Romans! It is the hardest book we have ever had to translate!

o   Pray that we will finish Romans by the date set for the Consultant check which is in Mar. 2011.

An Army!!

What do YOU see?

Do you see a group of men singing?

Do you see a motley crowd?

Or do you see a group of strangers?

What does GOD see?

He sees His army of Bible teachers in the Lapoc and Cauyunan areas!!

He sees His beloved servants who are being used mightily by Him!!!

He sees the labourers who He has sent out to fields white unto harvest!!!

He sees the fruit of YOUR labours as you partner in missions!!

Keep Praying!!!

These men were here two weeks ago for a seminar on the book of Mark which was organized and run by our co-worker Josh, and co-taught by Josh and the leadership of the church here in Lapoc. There were about 55 bible teachers and church leaders from many different places who came and stayed here for a week. During that time we were able to have some great meetings and great fellowship with church elders and leaders from Cauyunan and Tumpagon.

The harvest that they are reaping and the power with which God’s Word is going out through these servants of His is just amazing!! They are the fruit of your prayers and of your support and of your partnership with us.

It gave us such great joy to see them gathered here and to listen to their reports on what God is doing through each of their lives and to hear of the groups of people they are teaching each week in many different places!

Love Paul, Deb and Jubab

Please Pray For The Children In Lapoc

There is a Measles Epidemic here.....it is a killer of many children. The parents are afraid of ‘lonod’ – a condition where the

measles spots are trapped inside the child and don’t come out and this condition kills the child.

At least this is what the belief is here. The only way they say to prevent ‘lonod’ is to wrap the children up in

thick blankets and keep them away from any breeze, give them hardly any water to drink and especially not

to bathe them.

So our job is to try and teach them - to convince the parents that what their sick child needs is lots of water

because their fevers are dehydrating them and that they need cool clothes and baths to keep them well.

We have a team involved in doing this job, the clinic workers, and Elsa and Bugsuk, our co-workers, who have

all been working tirelessly. It strikes the fear of death into the hearts of the poor parents to take our advise

but those who have tried it, have had no deaths from the measles. Two children have already died here in

Lapoc because their parents wrapped them up and didn’t give them water.

In this house lives a family with six children. Poverty......darkened minds.......and a Dad who doesn’t like to work

all combined together means that the six children in this family don’t have enough to eat, and that this five year old

in the photo below, who is sitting beside her Mum, looks like a two year old. 

Their ‘bed’ was the torn remains of an old grass sleeping mat and their ‘bedding’ was floor sacks that were thin and

grey with age. We sent them food, medicine, blankets and a new sleeping mat.....and today the little one was

treated at the clinic for pneumonia which is often a complication here from the measles.

But this sort of help, although it will get these children through the measles alive, will not fix the fears and misery

they live in because of the spiritual darkness that is over their household.

So please pray for this family (call them Lisa’s family: that is the name of the young mother of six in this picture)

and the many others like them who we live amongst who have no hunger for the Gospel. Pray that maybe through

the love and care we have been able to show them, that they will be drawn to come and listen to God’s Word.

There are so, so many here whose lives are like this family’s and who are hard and resistant to the Light

because they prefer darkness.

Thank you so, so much for being part of the team with us reaching out to these people!!!

Lots of Love......

Paul, Deb and Jubab xxxxx

Ladies' Retreat

How many highlights can this year have?

It has been a glorious year so far of seeing HUGE things that God is doing!!! 

In March it was 193 baptisms!!!

In April it was the finalization of the book of Luke!!!

In June it was the Ladies’ Retreat!!! 

So......let me tell you about the Ladies’ Retreat which took place last week from June 10-12:

I had the privilege of teaching about 180 ladies from the book of 1 John!!

They arrived on trucks, on motorbikes, and on jeepneys from fourteen different villages.

Gathered together for 3 days and 2 nights, we studied the Word, we had discussion groups, we shared and we prayed.

As ladies opened up their hearts together, they prayed for one another, fervently and often with tears.

Our prayer requests to one another started with the words, “My deepest spiritual need is.....”

Some wept openly as we prayed for each other to grow in these areas of our deepest needs. 

1 Juan 2:10-11 says:

“The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness......”

Lisa (above right) is one who has reason to hate, but walks in the Light.

The young lady in the picture with Lisa, has caused Lisa tremendous grief.

There are times in the past that Lisa has made plans to kill her.

This woman stole the affections of Lisa’s father and when Lisa’s mother found out, she committed suicide.

Motherless, Lisa was faced with even more grief and hate when her father married this woman.

Today, Lisa’s young step Mum is a new creature in Christ and Lisa has found the strength in Christ to forgive.

Is there ever a more beautiful picture then the Grace of our Lord Jesus outworked in our lives?!

Forgiveness and Love in action. 

Since The Luke Check......

As you know, the Luke Check finished on April 25th, and we wanted to fill you in on what the ensuing 3 ½ weeks have held! So in a nutshell:

A Rest – We had to have a few days rest when the check was first finished as we were exhausted so we went to Cagayan for 3 days, caught up with some friends, went to the dentist and got purchased food and supplies as we normally only get to do this every 1-2 months.

More Checking – The team of translation consultants are very experienced in doing translation and they went through our translation of Luke with a fine toothed comb, and at the end of the check they had come up with a list of things that they wanted us to consider and look at some more – mainly in the area of the use of figurative language. The work of going over each of the suggestions and considerations that they asked us to and also writing a report about our findings to the consultants has taken us about 2 weeks to complete. Part of the checking process that we did was to make up a questionnaire which we sent out to a wide variety of people – from 10 – 60 years old, schooled and unschooled, saved and unsaved – with extracts from the book of Luke and then questions on the particular areas we were checking. A sample of the questions we were asking were:

“What did Jesus mean in Luke 9:24 when He said that whoever will save his life shall lose it?”

“What fire was Jesus talking about in Luke 12:49 that He said He had come to cast on the earth?” .......and many others like these.

We are now almost to the end of the whole checking process – maybe one more weeks worth of work left – which includes running the whole book of Luke through a spell checker one last time to make sure the spelling is all correct, getting it in the right format and proof reading it and then sending it off to the Printers for publication.

Globals – there are words used throughout the scriptures in the Tala-Andig translation like ‘chief priest – adagiyon ha tigpapamuhat’, ‘glory - himayà’, ‘worship - simba’.........and on and on, hundreds of words......that compile our key terms list. As we translate we keep learning new words and some of the new words we learn are actually a better match meaning-wise then another word we have previously used. As we have worked through the book of Luke, our Tala-Andig vocabulary has grown and we have been compiling a list for over a year of words that we have to globally search for through the Tala-Andig translation and to change or update. This is what we have been working through this week and it has been most tedious but we finished it today.

Midwifery Seminar – Belinda and I recently taught a midwifery seminar here and have worked on a midwifery manual and we have a few more days of work on this to complete the final draft of this manual so it can be printed and distributed.

Schools and Church Buildings – Paul has 1 school room and three church building that he is in the process of building. He has been very busy getting all the materials on site and with all the other preparations involved. It is important to get all of the materials on site before the rains come as it will possibly close the road down to an extent.

Teaching the book of Acts – While we were in Australia, Josh was teaching the book of Mark along with the other bible teachers here. He finished that series just last Sunday so Paul is now going to continue his series on the book of Acts, teaching chapters. 17-28. A lot of preparation goes into this and also into writing a commentary/study guide on these chapters as a resource for the church to use as they do not have access to any English commentaries due to them not being able to speak English.

Teaching Maths – Jubab’s maths curriculum is getting more and more difficult and Paul having the most mathematical mind on the team here, has now taken on teaching Jubab’s Maths Class which takes a couple of hours each day.

Leadership Development – Paul continues to have imput and teaching times with the elders and leaders of the church and is currently developing leadership development studies.

Ladies’ Retreat – June 11-12, we are having a Ladies’ Retreat at a Bible Camp facility a couple of hours drive away from here. I am leading a study on the book of 1 John during the retreat and have been preparing and studying for this. This study has to be written so it can be printed and re-produced and used as a study guide in the outreaches.

Book of Romans – this is the next book we are translating. Last week we started working on Chapter 1 but our proposed schedule for starting full-time work on this is mid-June.

Visitors – hurray!!! A visit from precious friends from Ballina who are coming the end of this week!!! It will be so wonderful to be with them again as we have been homesick and have been really missing them.

A typical day........there is not really such a thing here. This morning started with an early visit from a grieving brother whose father died unexpectedly last night. Awhile later, there was another problem (of much less importance) when we discovered there was no water for a shower or even a bucket-bath as the water had totally run out in our tank. The deep-well is producing no water as the water tables are so low, and we are dependant right now on rain water. Thankfully we have started to get some rains.

We have worked all day on finishing the Globals (explained above), our heads feel like they are about to burst from concentrating so hard on such a tedious task, and we are working now on getting some dinner ready for our co-workers Bugs and Elsa, who just returned from a visit to Cauyunan.

Tomorrow will bring a totally different set of happening that all compile to make up our lives here in Lapoc and every day is challenging, busy, sometimes heartbreaking, often stressful but also full of joys and in the midst of every crisis.....is the undergirding peace and strength from our Heavenly Father.

Please keep praying........ there are days (we have to admit) when we feel homesick for Ballina, and there are days we feel overwhelmed, and there are times when we are faced with a request and we just don’t know what the right answer is to give, and there are times we feel so exhausted, and we make mistakes, and there are the days when we cry silently “rescue us Lord”.....but we keep pressing on for the joy set before us and because of the verse God has been laying on our hearts: “For the love of Christ constraineth us.....”

This is our sister Jenita.......the Lord brought us here because she is one of His chosen ones that He wanted reached.

This week she has been crying, her heart is heavy

with struggles but she has One who is saying to her,

“Come unto Me........and I will give you rest.”

So for our Lord and because of His sheep that have yet to be brought into the fold.....we press on! 

                    Love Paul, Deb and Jubab