CHRISTMAS & NEW YEARS!

Hello Everyone!

Where to begin! Our original plan was to visit a village up in the mountains over Christmas, but doors kept closing for us so we ended up going to a different village inland in stead. We traveled 6 hours by "car" (on the back of a truck sitting on top of each other and other Pgians) Then we traveled about 1 hour by banana boats through thick jungle to get to a small village called Lelefiru. We can`t even begin to tell you how happy we are that God changed our plans. There was about 400 people living in this village, there was no electricity, no shower, weird and interesting foods and they drink rain water. The people of the village share everything and all have different roles in the community.It was so unreal for us to actually experience this kind of living and we have learned so much from these people. We were the first missionaries to visit their village and for many of them we were the first white people they had ever seen. They were a bit scared of us to begin with! During the 2 first days of our stay we tried building relationships with the youth of the village, we gardened with them, went fishing, made weird food, chased funny bugs, ate lots of coconuts etc. The village had a church community, but only old people were involved. They asked us to run the whole christmas service on the 25th which was such an honor and extremely challenging (and fun) for our team. After christmas we had a week to do whatever ministry we felt like doing for the youth so we created a mini DTS. We had lectures every morning that week. We had split up the main topics that we learned about in DTS and we all taught on different subjects. This was an amazing opportunity for us all and we all grew and learned so much. At night we also put on night meetings where we shared our faith on a more personal level. During the day we would spend time getting to know them and teaching them more about our faith and the love of God. We had a very busy schedule, basically doing ministry 24/7, but we know that we are backed up with lots of prayer and we really appreciate that! One night we did communion in our night lecture and we invited people to get prayer. More than 30 people decided that they wanted togive their lives to Christ and have a personal relationship with Him. It was a beautiful night and our team was in such awe of God`s mighty power and love. The next day (after a lot of convincing the religious elders of the church) they allowed us to offer baptism to anyone who really wanted that. The next day after our last day lectures we explained and offered it and 9 people ended up making the decision to get baptized!

We had 12 UNDESCRIBABLE days in the village that we will never forget. We have seen God move in such AMAZING ways and we are still in awe of what just happened in that village. I have little time to go into detail or even read through this so im sorry for all the spelling mistakes!

Now we are back in Port Moresby for 3 days of debrief and rest and we are heading to the Philippines on the 4th. I am SO proud of this team. They have been going strong every day of this outreach and they have put their whole hearts into every ministry we have done. Our days have been super long and draining, but we have had no complaing of any kind. I can`t even begin to tell you parents how VERY proud you should be of your kids. The stuff that we have seen and participated in is extremely challenging and our hearts have been touched deeply in so many ways. Please keep praying for us, your prayers really is our fuel and we appreciate it so much!

We will have more time to get online in the Philippines so we`ll tell yous more then! We hope you all had a very good Christmas and New Years! Greetings from the jungle!