November - December 2005

Dear Loves Ones,

We are finally back in Texas after being gone for three months. We are glad to be back and we have been able to visit with many of you already! Our first month away from Texas was spent in Colombia visiting my (Johanna’s) family. In August and September, with your support, we were able to attend a Spiritual Discipleship (SD) course and an Intercultural Communications Course (ICC) in Waxhaw, North Carolina! The last two weeks in NC Kurt attended orientation for computer hardware repair and language software that is being used by translators. These three training courses were required for us before we can go overseas.

During our four week ICC we learned much about conflict resolution, forgiveness, culture, and language acquisition, and more. I know God wanted us to attend those courses so that He could show us areas in our lives in which where He wants to mold and make us more like Christ. It has been exciting and challenging to be able to apply what we learned in those courses in our lives today!

(Kassia in her crib)

How can we pray for you?

We are greatly thankful to God for placing each one of you in our lives. Your love and words of encouragement are such a blessing to us!

Please email or call us and let us know specifically how we can lift you up in prayer. We would love to know how we can intercede for you and minister to you just as you have ministered to us. Thank you again for the impact you have had and continue to have in our family!

(Kassia with 3 of her 12 cousins and her Metzger grandparents)

Frequently Asked Questions: a) What are we doing now?

Now that we are back in Dallas, we are focusing on building our team of prayer and financial partnership development. Wycliffe has practical formulas they use to calculate what it will cost us to live and minister effectively. For us it will be about $2,814 a month, and we need to be assured of that amount before we will be released to go to a full-time assignment. I know that sounds like a lot of money and it is, but it is based on what Wycliffe believes we need to be involved in ministry full time. This includes Social Security and Income taxes, Wycliffe’s administrative fees, health insurance, housing, common ministry expenses, retirement savings, tithing and living expenses to name a few. We know that God will provide for our needs in His timing and we thank Him for those he has already brought along side us in our ministry. Currently we are receiving 30% of our monthly quota. Please prayerfully consider what part God may want you to play in our ministry together.

We are also in the process of applying for a work permit that will allow us to get visas to live and work in Papua New Guinea. This process usually takes at least six months. In the meantime, Kurt has been able to return to his job to work part time while we work on raising our prayer and financial support team. We thank God that Kurt has been blessed with an employer that has allowed him to work on and off around our work with Wycliffe, knowing that eventually he will be quitting for good!

Kassia and I are enjoying our time together at home. We have been blessed by being able to stay at a missionary house that a gracious family at our church owns. I have enjoy writing our newsletters and corresponding with our partners. I have also been attending a ladies Bible study on Tuesday mornings and have also been mentoring a young girl from our youth group. God continues to teach me many things through ministering to others!

(Kassia with her red hat)

b) How Long Will We Be in Dallas?

Lord willing, we will be here in Dallas until next August. When we arrive in Papua New Guinea, we must attend the Pacific Orientation Course (POC). It is offered twice a year, in January and August. We would like to be able to be there for the August of 2006 session.

c) Can You Help?

YES! First of all you can pray for us. Thank you for lifting us up in the name of Jesus Christ. We are also trying to fill our calendar with speaking engagements. We are excited to share our desire to see God’s Word brought to those who have still never heard it in their heart language. We would love to share in Bible studies, Sunday school classes, church services, AWANA meetings, Life Groups, and so on. Please let us know if you want to hear about the work we will be involved in or are interested becoming a part of our team!

Always in His precious hands,
Johanna for Kurt and Kassia too!

Praise God...
· for raising up faithful partners to support us both in prayer and financially.
· for Johanna’s US citizenship.
· that we are at 30 % of the monthly financial support that Wycliffe requires before releasing us to take a full-time assignment.
· for His faithfulness in providing for us to go to Colombia at the end of the year.
Please pray with us...
· for our ministry here at our church and with friends and co-workers.
· for a strong team that will pray for us and support us.
· because we still have a long way to go to meet our field’s support quota.

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September 2005 Update

Dear friends and family,

The last time Kurt wrote you in July, Kassia and I were in Colombia and he was getting ready to meet us there. We had an amazing time with family and friends while in Colombia. My parents and my sisters with their respective families met Kassia for the first time! As you can imagine, they were thrilled to see her and very sad when we had to say good bye. God is so good to us. He is good all the time!

While in Bogotá, we were able to visit the church where I grew up. We had the opportunity to give a presentation and share what God has been doing in our lives and how He is shaping us and molding us for what He has in store for us. We had a wonderful time and the church staff was able to pray for us and to commend us to the ministry.

(Speaking at Johanna’s home church in Bogotá)

We took a couple of trips during the time we were in Colombia. We were able to travel to Cartagena (which is on the North coast of the country) and spent 5 days there with one of my sisters and her family. It was really fun for Kassia to go to the beach and play with the sand! At first she was a little scared of the waves, but later on her daddy showed her how it was possible to play with the sand and in the waves and from then on she loved our trips to the beach. Our last weekend in Colombia, we were able to travel three hours away from Bogotá and spent those days with my entire family. There were 17 of us total, because one of my brothers-in-law could not be present because he was preaching at church that Sunday!

(Johanna with her parents, three sisters and all the grand children in Bogotá)

(Kassia with her Penaloza grandparents in Bogotá)

We flew back from Bogotá to DFW and were in Dallas for two days. Then we began our journey to Waxhaw North Carolina! We have been here almost four weeks now and are truly enjoying this time. Our first week here we took a Spiritual Discipleship (SD) course and are now attending an Intercultural Communications Course (ICC). In the SD course we covered who we are in Christ, breaking strongholds, and most importantly worship and intimacy with God. During ICC we have covered quite a few topics ranging from relating to nationals and those in authority over us to language leaning and adapting to other cultures. We have learned many things, but above all we can recognize that God is stretching us and molding us to become more like Him! We praise Him for this time of training and for the facilitators that He has placed in our classes and their wisdom and care for us. What a mighty God we serve!

(Our ICC class at the JAARS center in Waxhaw, NC)

After ICC is over, Kurt will be going through some technical training specific to his work in computer services in Papua New Guinea. When that is done, we will head back to Dallas and we are looking forward to seeing many of you at this time! We miss our church, family and friends, but we thank God for this time of learning and growth.

Praise God:

• For travel safety and financial provision for our trips to Colombia and North Carolina (NC).
• For the time we were able to spend in Colombia with family and friends.
• For the opportunity we had to share about our ministry at Johanna’s home church in Bogotá.
• For the training we are receiving in NC that will prepare us to be better equipped when we go to Papua New Guinea.
• For the increase of our financial support to 25% of the quota Wycliffe requires us to obtain prior to leaving for Papua New Guinea.

Please pray with us:

• For travel mercies as we return to Dallas sometime in October.
• For wisdom as we speak in churches and share about our ministry.
• For God’s continued blessing in raising our prayer and financial support team.
• For God to give us wisdom and patience in raising Kassia.

Always in His precious hands,
Johanna for Kurt and Kassia Metzger

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July 2005 Update

"It is not hard, you find, to trust the management of the universe, and of all the outward creation, to the Lord. Can your case then be so much more complex and difficult than these; that you need to be anxious or troubled about His management of you?" - Hannah Whitall Smith

Just like this quote I find myself worrying about things that are totally out of my control and completely in God’s and yet he continues to show himself faithful over and over again. We want to give God the glory for the things that he has been doing in our lives and learn to trust him more completely everyday.

Now a quick update on how God has been answering our prayers and taking care of our ever need. Just this last Monday we closed on the house in which the Lord allowed us to spend the last four years in here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. What an incredible answer to prayer just one day before Johanna and Kassia left for Colombia. We have also seen the Lord provide for us financially as we are now completely debt free and several of you have partnered with us so that we can be available to God’s calling in this new chapter of our lives. We are so excited to see what God has in store for us in the months and years to come! In our last newsletter, April, we told you about how the application for Johanna’s US citizenship had fallen through, well we reapplied and several weeks ago Johanna received her new appointment for interview for August, 19th. We are going to be in Waxhaw, NC at that time but we were able to redeem some of our reward miles on Continental for a free flight - just another example of God’s provision.

As I write to you, Johanna and Kassia are visiting with Johanna’s family in Colombia. Johanna said that they both did really well traveling down there but that both of them are coming down with mild colds. Please pray for us as I will be flying down to Bogotá tomorrow and we will be visiting with her family and church there till August 8th. We will return here to Dallas for several days to pack up our things and then drive to Waxhaw, NC to spend the next several months training at the JAARS center. The Inter Cultural Communication and Spiritual Discipleships courses that both of us will be taking are prerequisites for going to the field. I will also be doing some technical training toward the end of our time there. Pray too for Kassia as we will have to put her into child care for the first time so that both of us can attend the courses.

And now what you have been waiting for; some pictures of Kassia. Can you believe she is six months old now?!



Kassia after eating one of her first cereal meals and playing with her cube!

Always in his precious hands,
Kurt for Johanna and Kassia Metzger

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May 2005 Update

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for praying for us and supporting our ministry. We have many things to be thankful for this month! As always, God has been faithful. His character never changes and His love for us is unconditional.

God has provided enough for us to by our tickets to go to Colombia. We will be visiting my (Johanna’s) family and we also hope to be able to speak at Johanna’s home church. We will be leaving to Bogotá in July and will come back to Dallas in August. We are thrilled about our trip especially since Kassia will finally be able to meet my family!

In August we plan to travel to North Carolina. Our Intercultural Communications and Spiritual Discipleship Training courses start on August 15th, so we plan to be in Waxhaw, NC a few days before those courses begin. At the end of those two courses, Kurt will go through some computer technical training needed in preparation to serve in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The need for computer technical support at the Wycliffe center in PNG is great. We are constantly hearing about the shortages of personnel. Please pray with us that this need will be met.

We put our house up for sale less than two weeks ago, and several people have come to take a look at it. Please continue to pray for the sale of our home. We know that it will be sold in God’s perfect timing if that is His will!

My citizenship application has been re-filed and we are waiting on it to come through. We know that they are probably processing the application since the checks we sent in have been cleared! We would appreciate your prayers for that as well.

We are grateful to the Lord for his provisions. Our financial support is at approximately 15% right now and we know that God is the One touching people’s hearts to take part in His ministry! We need to reach 100% of our support quota before we can leave to PNG. We are hoping to leave sometime in mid 2006!

Johanna for Kurt and Kassia Metzger

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God Answers Prayers

Dear Friends and Family,

Praise God, He has answered our prayers! We had asked you to pray for the safe delivery of our baby. And Kassia Adriana was born January 4th, 2005 at 9:00 a.m. after approximately seven hours of labor! Kassia weighed 6 lb. 9oz. and was 19 ¾ inches long. Both Johanna and Kassia are doing really well. Johanna has been blessed by being able to stay at home with our daughter and she loves it. She is learning how to be a mommy!

Another prayer request from our last newsletter was for our assignment with Wycliffe. Recently, Johanna and I were officially asked by the Papua New Guinea Wycliffe Branch to fill support roles at the Ukarumpa Center in the eastern highlands. I will be serving in the Communications and Technical Services Department (CTS) and Johanna will serve at the mission school; focusing on Elementary education. God has given us a peace about His leading in this direction. We look forward to these wonderful new ministries!


Please continue to pray with us especially for Johanna’s application for US citizenship. We had an appointment for the final interview and test for her citizenship, April 11th, only to learn that she was not eligible at that time. We will have to re-file her application; however, we were told by INS officials that it should not take long for it to be processed. Pray that she will be able to receive her citizenship soon so that we can pursue our ministry overseas!

So What’s Next for Us?

Lord willing, from April to July:
We will be in Dallas where I will continue to work at Ace Engineering, but be available to visit churches and individuals interested in our future ministry.

We will pack up our house and get it ready to sell (we would like to see it sell before we leave for Colombia and Waxhaw this summer).

I will do preliminary software training specific to my Wycliffe assignment.

Johanna will sort though things to sell, store here in the US, or pack to go with us to PNG, correspond with our constituency, and continue to be a mom.

In July:
We will travel to Colombia to visit Johanna’s family, who have not met Kassia yet, and we hope to speak at Johanna’s home church in Bogotá.

From August through November:
Johanna and I will attend the Inter-cultural Communication and Spiritual Discipleship Training at Wycliffe’s JAARS Center in Waxhaw, NC.

I will receive computer hardware and software technical training at JAARS.

After Training in Waxhaw:
We will travel back to Dallas and apply for work permits and visas for Papua New Guinea.

We will also work to raise our financial and prayer support to 100% —a Wycliffe requirement— so that we can leave for the field.

Then, Lord willing, sometime in the summer of 2006…
Leave for Papua New Guinea!

What will we be doing in Papua New Guinea?

I have been assigned to work at the CTS (Communications and Technical Service) department, which has many functions; some of them include: maintenance of the HF (high frequency) radio network, which allows translators and their families in remote locations to communicate with the outside world; maintenance of the Ukarumpa center telephone network, which enables both on-center communication as well as e-mail, Internet and voice access with the outside world; maintenance of the center-wide LAN and business programs; computer helpdesk support and hardware repair—my primary function—which keeps the translation process rolling along smoothly. Parenthetically, prior to the advent of personal computers, the translation process would usually take more than 30 years but now that time has been cut in half. CTS also contributes to the maintenance of photocopiers, fax machines, solar equipment (for translation teams), printers and other electronic equipment.

Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea is Wycliffe’s center of operations for a country with more than 800 language groups and about half of those have yet to have a Bible translation completed in their language. You can imagine what would happen if there was a shortage of personnel in the CTS department! Well, there is a shortage and the situation has been described as “desperate.” Would you be willing to partner with us so that together we can see this need be met; so that “all the ends of the earth will fear Him”?

In His hands, Kurt (for Johanna and Kassia)

Praise God...
· for our official invitation to serve in Papua New Guinea.
· for wisdom and patience in raising Kassia so that she will serve God her whole life.
· for receiving a number of pledges for the financial support we will need to serve in Papua New Guinea. Each one counts!

Please pray with us...
· for the sale of our home in the coming months.
· for safety and provision for our trips to Colombia and training in Waxhaw, NC this summer.
· for God’s continued blessing in raising our prayer and financial support teams. We still have a long way to go to meet our field’s support quota.

- Please let us know how we can pray for you and your family. Also, let us know if you would like to receive regular email updates—write us a quick note or email us! We would love to hear from each and everyone of you!

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Here she is! Kassia Adrianna Metzger

Name – Kassia Adriana Metzger
Date and time of birth – January 4th, 2005 at 9:00 A.M.
Weight – 6 lbs 9 oz Length – 19 3/4 in

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