Thank YOU for praying for our return travel | Nov 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Please pray with us for these last few days we have here in the US. We are getting the last minute things packed and preparing to leave. We leave on Monday, November 15th… in less than one week! Our itinerary is as follows so you can pray for us a we travel (all times are local):

{1} Monday, November 15th | Leave Dallas for Los Angeles at 12PM – 4 hour 20 min flight

{2} Monday, November 15th | Leave Los Angeles for Brisbane, Australia at 11:40PM – 14 hour flight (we arrive Wednesday, November 17th)

{3} Friday, November 19th | Leave Brisbane, Australia for Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea at 10AM – 3 hour 10 min flight

{4} Friday, November 19th | Leave Port Moresby for Ukarumpa (as soon as we clear customs and board SIL Aviation’s plane) – 1 hour 30 min flight

Please pray that we will make all the connecting flights and pass through customs without any issues. We also ask that you pray for our family to stay healthy as this is a big transition for us.

  

Thank you for praying!

Blessings,

Kurt (for Johanna, Kassia, Lukas, and Matthias too)

Read More

Thank you Lord!!! We are at 100%!!! | November 2010

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. - Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)

Dear Loves Ones,

God has been faithful as always and given us above and beyond what we asked for or imaged. On Thursday, October 28^th, we received Matthias’s passport with his Papua New Guinea (PNG) visa inside. That afternoon we purchased tickets to return to PNG. And, as of Friday, October 29^th, we were pledged 100% of our field support quota. Praise God for being our provider and the one that moves hearts!

   

(Pictures of the kids! | left to right: Kassia; Lukas; & Matthias)

 

(Kurt has been working with the Dallas SIL Network Team while we were here in Dallas | left to right: adding a fiber channel card to an existing server; installing VMware ESXi on a new server)

Thank YOU for being a faithful part of our ministry.

In Him,

Johanna (for Kurt, Kassia, Lukas, and Matthias too)

Read More

“God is a Miniafia Man”

Papua New Guinea

“God is a Miniafia Man,” the loincloth-clad speaker exulted! “Before He was English, and American, and Australian. But today He has become Miniafia!”

A steady beat of drums and trumpeting of conch shells gave voice to the excitement that everyone felt as the 1st of the Miniafia-Oyan New Testaments was carried into the village on a model canoe. Traditionally dressed dancers proceeded and followed the bark cloth wrapped New Testament, their voices thundering praise: “Orokaiwa, Regah Keriso! O a merar ayiy! (Greetings, Lord Christ! We greet You!)”

Walking in front of the “canoe,” Fran and I laughed and cried our way up from the water’s edge, through Utukwaf village, to the especially prepared veranda and speakers’ platform where the Dedication service would take place. We laughed with joy over the obviously enthusiastic reception of the Scripture: 750 copies of the 1000 printed had been purchased before this first had even arrived in the village. We cried in memory of our friends who had died without seeing the Book we were now celebrating. Among them was Utukwaf village chief Gideon Yowen. Not long before he died he said, “My son, you have lived with us now for many years. I love the stories you have translated, but I am now an old man. Soon I will die. My heart is most sad about this: I will never hold the finished Book in my hands.”

The Book that Gideon Yowen died longing for, his children and grandchildren now hold in their hands. It was a day we sometimes despaired of ever seeing. We had begun the project on December 7, 1973, but had to leave it barely half done in 1993. Thanks to the perseverance of national translators Stanley Oyabuwa and Josiah Javeve, translation was finally done and we were able to return to the project and help complete final editing and typesetting early last year.

Miniafia Church leaders, though, were anxious about one thing. “David,” they said. “When you speak, please be sure to let the people know that our work is not finished. As soon as we have rested from this celebration, we need to finish the Old Testament, and we need their continuing support.” Indeed, Stanley Oyabuwa has drafted 70 chapters in Psalms already. He and his wife, Ethyl, have committed to finishing the Old Testament.

Even before the echo of celebrating voices and drumbeats had faded from the air that weekend, the Translation Committee reported that the 900th copy of the New Testament had been sold. “How can we get more?” they asked in alarm. I couldn’t help but smile. What a wonderful problem with which to end a most memorable weekend!

by David Wakefield

This story can also be found on TheWordisLife.net

Ethnologue entry for Miniafia | Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world’s 6,909 known living languages.

Watch the Jesus Film dubbed into Miniafia

Read More

Faces from Papua New Guinea

“Remember to pray for our friends” collage by Vico Solano

Read More