Leise Life

Last Sunday Saut preached a very good message about working together. He asked a lady who just started attending a few weeks ago to stand up. He asked if anyone knew her name and only one person did (me). It seemed to really get the point across. The sermon seemed immediately helpful because after the service people not only gave the customary handshake but they purposefully talked to each other.

Perhaps I should clarify things here. There are six tribes represented in our congregation of about 30+ people. These tribes have animosity toward one another. When you are around the coastal people you will inevitably hear about how bad the mountain people are and vise versa. Usually every Sunday people just come and listen to the preaching and then leave soon or almost immediately after the service. Only a few people stick around and talk and it’s usually with Josh and me. Last Sunday, though, more people hung around after church and got to know one another.

Last night was our mid-week Bible study and I was delighted to watch an elderly man and two younger guys sing and play the guitar together before the study began. Each of them is from a different tribe.

Bind us together, Lord!

I just uploaded some new photos of our house. We’ve lived in it for three months now. We really like it and it works out well having church services in it. One of the bedrooms is a Sunday School room. I just took pictures of the part we live in, though. Enjoy!

Just in case you forget how to use your toilet, here is a picture for you:

How to Use a Toilet

By they way, the wonderful Internet we have isn’t so wonderful at times. In other words, we don’t always have access to it. Just in case we ever seem to disappear for a while you’ll know it wasn’t intentional.

It’s that time again…time to upgrade WordPress to the latest version. If you notice any weird characters or if this blog is down for a brief time, no worries, it will just be under maintenance. Hopefully all will go smoothly.

Folks, we are rocketing out of the stone age here…

We now have ADSL (high speed Internet). Our name was the second on the list to get it. The first thing I did was watch a video of my nephew. It’s actually still downloading, but, hey, we are much, much further than we were with dial-up!

Lately Josh has bought some mp3 players to lend to some men so they can listen to God’s Word, as part of discipleship. Josh puts chapters of the Bible being read aloud, preaching, and teaching on the device. Some of them need to hear something several times before they understand it, so this is a great way to allow them to hear it repeatedly.

Some of the men were afraid to push the buttons on the mp3 player, but once they got the hang of it they really enjoyed it. One of the guys said, “This thing makes me crazy!” His point was that the word of God is sharp and powerful. He was being convicted of things in his life by listening to 2 Peter 1.

Lately, a teenaged girl named Naomi has been coming back to church. She was even there for the Bible study on Thursday. I’m not sure of her motive but I hope she is sincerely seeking God.

I asked if she was interested in discussing the Bible with me sometime. She said she was but we didn’t get a chance to set a date until this morning. She almost left without talking about it, but I reminded her and she nervously asked her friend (future sister-n-law) if she would come, too. We agreed to meet on Wednesday. Then, she pointed to her other friend and said, “Can she come, too?”

There is certainly no guarantee that these three girls will show up at my house on Wednesday but I hope and pray they do. Please pray that I’ll have wisdom in answering their questions if they are brave enough to ask any. (They’ll probably just sit and giggle and I’ll have to pry any words out of them.) If nothing else hopefully I can at least become their friend.

It’s hard to believe that we will be taking a furlough in just four months! We’re looking forward to that special time to reunite with family and friends. Although we are working at it piece by piece we still have a lot to do to prepare for spending several months in America.

If you would like us to come to your church and present what God has done over the past few years here in Papua, please contact us soon! We’re looking forward to seeing everyone next year.

I have been encouraged by the participation in the Papuan Prayer Pact. Individuals, Sunday School classes, and even entire churches have gotten involved. Some people have even chosen more than one person to pray for. This is what it is going to take to make a difference here in Papua! Thank you!

Some reminders:

• If you have registered but are still not activated, be sure and look in your junk e-mail folder for the confirmation e-mail.
• If you have chosen someone to pray for please send us an e-mail letting us know who you chose. We ask this for two reasons: 1) In order for you to receive updates on your person, and 2) So we can post the number of people praying for each person. (You can see the number in the comment section of each profile.)

Thank you so much for your participation!

What about you? What is keeping you from joining the Papuan Prayer Pact? The process only takes a few minutes but the results could change an entire life!