I’m sitting on our back porch listening to the sound of the wind blow through the trees. Right now there are these trees all over center that have bright purple blossoms covering their limbs like blankets. When the wind blows, it catches the blossom petals, and takes them dancing across the sky.This beauty draws my heart back home. The whirling flower recital is so reminiscent of spring in Charlotte with all the white cherry blossoms. Just one of 1,000 things I miss. And it’s crazy that there are even purple blossoms on anything because it is still so dry here.
We praise God, our Provider, that we have gotten a few splashes of rain! Please pray with us for more, for so much more. With the rain that we've gotten, our tank is about ¼ full for drinking. The river water (we call the system RAM) is running very low too. This is the water that we use for everything else. Most days we are not getting any RAM water for most of the day, so this means showers about once a week, washing dishes once a day, and letting things “mellow” all day in the toilet. There is less and less fresh produce to buy at the market too. But even all this can only be called an inconvenience compared to what our Papua New Guinean neighbors are feeling. When the ground can't yield food to eat, and the river, water to drink, most of them have no other option like we do, they just go without.
Pray for John as he is away from us till at least the 17th. This is his first big project to oversee off center at a regional center on the coast. He and 4 guys making up his crew left on the 12th to reroof the main structures at the center in Madang. Pray for their safety, for opportunities to let Jesus shine, and for us as we miss him dearly back home.
Pray for God to bless us with a home here in PNG. The choices are slim to choose from but from the looks of things a house will run us between $20,000 and $30,000. A home will offer much needed stability for our family through all the years of transitions ahead and will free up money in our monthly budget for other projects and opportunities to serve here in PNG. The cost, although a lot now, is equal to about 3-4 years of renting here, so after that time we could have more bandwidth for ministry. There are opportunities everywhere here; we are living and working next to people that are always in need. God struck me the other day that I must have avoided these relationships in Charlotte - the ones that are awkward and convicting because you feel like you should give/do something, but you don't know what or how. Well, there's no avoiding them now, and praise God for it! In any case we are praying for God to provide sooner than later, and that we have contentment and discernment as we wait on Him. May we hold fast to the truth that all gifts from Him are perfect, and perfectly timed.
So thankful to be connected to you through our Savior Jesus Christ, that with His blood coursing through each of us we are really not that far apart.
With much love,
John and Kristi
P.S.- Please let us know how we can be praying for you! We would love to hear about your life there back home.