Dear Family, Friends and Supporters,
Happy New Year! How this past year has sped by and leapt into the “holiday season!” and now it’s gone. Here is a brief review of how things are going in our lives at the beginning of this New Year of our Lord, 2025.Though officially retired, we are still only semi-retired, still seeking to be a blessing at a distance to some of our Hamtai believers, especially the 4 men working with me on the Old Testament translation project. We are known as the Hamtai Translation Team. Malcolm, our former translator, still helps sometimes.
Our only daughter, Judy, and Jim are sharing their home with us, in the house they are purchasing. Their only daughter, Heather, is living here with them for now, so she is helping Judy look after Corinne, and all that is a real blessing to us. It’s so good to be with family. Our son David was here for 2 years. While he was here, he became eligible and retired from truck driving.
Judy and I celebrate on the same birthday, January 7th. Unbelievable that 2 of my kids have reached retirement age. The sound of that makes me feel all the older, but I’m still only 91, as of last week. Seriously, I’m thankful for the years God is giving me. (Judy and Jim are not retired yet). Corinne was 95 in August.
In February we started what has turned out to be a long series of trips over the months to the Dermatologist. And a full body check last month showed more spots that need treatment. We still might have more precancer or even basal cell carcinoma to get removed.
Otherwise, Corinne’s health right now is stable, with the help of a few medicines. I have had to have far more doctors’ appointments than she has. I have had two cases of colon cancer and surgeries, and so I keep having to be checked to make sure cancer is not developing again anywhere. Several months ago, an endoscopy showed that I have Barrett’s Esophagus, a disease which they say can advance and turn into cancer. A recent endoscopy showed no change since the last one, so no sign of cancer. Praise the Lord for that. Pray for the same result from the upcoming colonoscopy. My left knee really needs replacing, but they, and we, hope that good PT will control the looseness and pain enough to avoid that surgery.
March brought the surprise visit of our other 2 boys, Joel and Duane with their sweet wives, Ruthi and Lori. We had a nice 3-day reunion, all 6 of us; first time since 2015. With Spouses and Heather, 10.
Some of us had time to take a car tour to St. Augustine. I called Kathy, a current supporter, because that’s her hometown. She met us, had lunch with us downtown, and gave us tour ideas. Some years ago, she attended the Interface Course in PNG, and visited our Hamtai tribal location. She returned home challenged and inspired. When her church moved and sold the building, and were praying about what to give the proceeds to, she suggested that they put some of the funds toward the printing of our revised Hamtai New Testament. They agreed, and it paid for most of it. How God works in different ways to supply our needs! And at the same time, He answered their prayer for direction.
Anyway, now the church needs the Old Testament. The recent long pause in translation production was caused by Jim Jora’s fall into adultery with one of the believers there. I have shared how the Hamtai church elders dealt with him in some good ways but disciplined him in some unbiblical ways. To bring it up to date, this December Jim called me and said that the leaders requested that I stand by in What’s App. What a privilege to be able to talk with 20 leaders! They wanted to talk about Jim and about the translation project!
When the church leaders first heard about the sad situation they decided, rightly so, to remove him from spiritual ministry in the Hamtai local churches. That meant no more teaching and no more translation work. This was agreed on by the majority of leaders and encouraged by Bill, the missionary liaison between them and Ethnnos360. Jim repented of that behavior, but this stymied the translation work for two years. So, I and some leaders suggested he continue to be separated from teaching, but could resume translation work, which is not a public ministry involving church leadership like teaching does. It can take place in more withdrawn, more private situation. Only two out of the many church leaders and elders opposed his resuming translation.
And they have held out, until now. At that meeting, after Jim again publicly apologized, everyone agreed that Jim had proven himself as being faithful and that they would like to see him resume the translation work. They called to tell me about it, and I thanked them and exhorted them to continue to work toward unity among their 50 some local Hamtai churches. Praise the Lord!
Thanks for praying, and please continue to do so, because I must keep busy. Now that we can go ahead, I will check the initial draft of the first 6 chapters of The Book of Joshua and send it to them there in Lae, PNG for them to work on. Then, if everything continues well, it’s on to the Book of Judges, etc.
Details & photos later.
Love you all, Tom & Corinne Palmer
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