Dear ones,

Our departure for furlough is coming up quickly. Our granddaughter, Grace 23, arrived on Kathy’s birthday (February 23rd) and will be traveling back with us. Our itinerary looks like this: Departing Goroka to Port Moresby March 13, Port Moresby to Brisbane, Australia March 15, renting a car and driving down to Sydney March 17-21, Sydney to Singapore March 21, Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 24, Kuala Lumpur to Zurich, Switzerland March 26, Zurich to London April 2, London to Dublin April 4, Dublin to Charlotte, NC April 9 and driving down to Greenville, SC. We’ll be there a few days and then head up to Michigan.

 

You probably won’t hear from us until we get settled and are able to get set up with internet and a new printer.

One of the highlights of Grace’s visit was to drive up to the Elimbari tribe to visit many old friends and the church there. We took some pork and chicken up for the steam cooked meal and after the morning service, which included a tribute to us for teaching them and translating their New Testament, we had a great meal together. A ladies’ group sang for us and gave us an offering as well. Grace got to sleep in a hut, but fortunately it was a fairly new one without an open fire, rats, roaches, fleas or bed bugs.

Steam cooked meal

Our host and hostess, Elijah and Rose

Four teachers including me (Jim) flew to the West Sepik Province to teach a group of 40 pastors from Feb. 5-18. There were lots of things going on to distract us, but we were able to stay focused and finish off all 68 lessons.


The group in West Sepik


Enoch, Jim, Dean and Wade

On previous furloughs we were able to pack up our private things into one bedroom and leave everything else out for people to use as a guest house, but this time we had to store our things. We liquidated most of our furniture and appliances and stored the rest. Then we cleaned out the house and moved to two small apartments downstairs to enjoy some time with Grace and to tie up loose ends.

Copies of our simple English lesson books for PNG Courses 2 and 3 arrived recently and it was great to see them available now. We had hoped to have two more volumes ready to send for printing, but they are not quite ready yet. Pray for their completion and for the funds to print them.
We are not quite sure where we will minister when we return to PNG next year. We’d sure appreciate your prayers in making that decision. We would like to shift a bit from translation to more teaching.

In His love,

Jim & Kathy