Month of October 2018 - My Missionary On-Line

October 10, 2018
Hello prayer warriors!

Susan and I wanted to pass on a little good news as it is developing here in the Hewa tribe.

We told you in our most recent prayer update that an exciting development from our discipleship-toward-leadership classes has been that people in several of the elder/deacon trainee’s homes realized they had been trusting in their attempts to be good rather than placing their confidence in Jesus to pay their sin debt. That gave opportunity for the leader trainees to lead them to faith in the Lord. Since then this realization has spread and many more have come forward saying they want to turn to Jesus to become children of God.

Then we told our village friends that before our elder/deacon “ordination” service we would like to hold a baptism service for the ones who had already given testimonies of faith in Jesus, and wondered if there were others who would also like to get baptized. Several expressed a desire to publically demonstrate their faith in Jesus so we asked them to come meet with the elder/deacon trainees to share their testimonies. On the 5th of October, eight people shared how they were trusting in the death of Jesus to pay for their sin debt, but then more people arrived so we said we would gather again the next evening to hear their testimonies. On the 6th of October ten more people articulated trust in the blood of Jesus to make them children of God. But then more people arrived so we met again on the 7th of October where seven more people shared faith in Jesus. But more people arrived and asked us to gather again the next evening so on the 8th of October eleven more people confessed turning from religious attempts to satisfy their sin debt to trusting in the sacrifice of Jesus! That’s not all. Our own daughter, Mikenna, would like to publically express her faith in Jesus along with the others. We are planning the baptism in a nearby creek this coming Saturday, October 13.

We have been very encouraged listening to the testimonies as the variety of stories have shown that the Lord has used many different ways to plant his seeds of faith over these recent years, many by the evangelistic outreaches of our Bible teachers in nearby villages. Then more recently those seeds were watered with deep conviction of sin through the teaching of Revelation in 2016, and with the visual aid of the Jesus Film, and now with the discipleship course. Praise the Lord with us for how he is drawing many Hewa tribal people to Himself. And please pray for Saturday’s baptism service and for the recognition of the new Hewa elders and deacons on Sunday.

And also, please don’t forget to pray for the health of our co-workers, the Georges, as they would very much like to come back to Hewa to continue with discipleship and teaching ministries early next year. Here’s a link to read more about them.

Thanks for your part in reaching out with the Love of Jesus to the Hewa tribal people of PNG!

Jonathan, Susan & Mikenna