November 1, 2019

laurelannette

6 years ago

Dear friends and family

Last week I took Joel Kemaya with me to Koropa. Joel is a PNG man from a village southwest of here. We have known him since he was just a boy in the late 1980s. He is now an evangelist/Bible teacher and travels quite a bit. We have been concerned about what sounded like a bearing on the way out in the gearbox of our vehicle and praying about it as we didn’t want to spend money on it when we only have a few months left here. Well, as Joel and I were going up to Koropa it was getting worse then I thought, “I wonder if the front wheels are locked and causing the front diff and the four wheel drive gears in the gearbox to turn.” So I pulled over and checked the front wheel locks and sure enough they were locked. I turned them to ‘free wheel’ and after that we had no more problems. The bearing is on the way out but it only turns when the front wheels are locked or when it is in four wheel drive 😊.

Wednesday night I gave the lesson on the last part of Romans ch 6 then Joel gave some words of encouragement to the believers. Thursday I worked with Sevis and checked the Romans translation as far as ch 8 v 19. Thursday night Joel shared from some verses in Romans. I read the verses in the Romans translation and Joel read them from the Buk Baibel and shared from them. Then Joel questioned them about their thoughts regarding the future. Since we will be leaving them next year what were they going to do? They said that they have been praying for other families to come and finish the work that we had begun. They also wanted someone to help them to learn to read. He asked what they intended to do if no other families came, would they be willing to continue past Romans with the Pidgin materials? They said that would like to do that. I then told them that if other families did come it would still be two or three years before they could help them. Sevis gave an appeal for help and said they wanted to come to Sobega some time to talk to the leaders here. Joel expressed his desire to keep in contact with them.

Well, the wet season is here so our car is covered in mud again ☹. This week I taught the first two lessons in chapter 7 about the freedom we have from the law through the death of Christ. The first lesson was verses 1 to 6 that talks about the death of Christ freeing us from trying to keep the law. We could never fully keep the law. This brought us into condemnation so Jesus took the punishment for us. Now God has a better way for us through the work of the Holy Spirit in us rather than us trying to keep the letter of the law. This all makes it sound like the law is a bad thing but the next lesson brought us to the next section of chapter 7 where Paul points out that not only is the law good because it came from God but it shows us what sin is. We thought that we were ok until we found out from the law that we are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness.