Like many of you, we’ve felt like our lives have been tossed and turned upside down lately. We are safe and well here in Papua New Guinea, and while there have been only 8 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country, restrictions on traveling and gathering in groups have greatly impacted our ministry.
We were planning to celebrate with the Nukna people on April 4th the dedication of the translation of 10 epistles (Galatians through Philemon), in both print and audio versions. The books were printed, the solar audio players were loaded with the Scripture recordings, and the Nukna people were busy preparing for the big celebration, when word came that the government of PNG had declared a national state of emergency, and we would not be able to fly out to the Nukna area. The dedication is now postponed indefinitely. This time with the Nukna people was also going to be our 12th grade daughter Kaitlyn’s last visit to the village that has been such a big part of her life since she was one year old. Now we are faced with the possibility that she won’t get the chance to say goodbye to the Nukna people.
However, despite the grief we feel over these and other losses, we see God’s faithfulness all around us. We know that his timing is always perfect, and we look forward to the day when we can once again be with the Nukna people and place these 10 books of God’s word into their hands.
Holding our plans loosely
We’ve been planning to return to the United States for a six-month furlough beginning in June of this year, but now things are up in the air. Our flights to the U.S. have been canceled by the airline. And we wonder if will we be able to travel around, speaking in churches and visiting friends and ministry supporters (one of the main purposes of furlough) if we do get to the U.S.? So we are waiting, watching, praying for wisdom and holding our plans loosely.
We are pleased that Kaitlyn has been accepted to Malone University in Canton, Ohio, with plans to study zoology. But for some time now (well before the COVID-19 crisis), she has been planning to take a gap year first. That plan is now looking better and better, as she (as well as our entire family) has more flexibility with when she should travel to the U.S. We don’t have the pressure of getting back in time for her to start college this fall.
Back in the old days…
Before this new reality arrived, work and family life were keeping us as busy as ever. Matt continued in his role as a translation consultant, checking Colossians for the Tami language and John, Titus and Jonah for the Adzera language. The translation adviser for the Adzera team, David Howard (photo above), then turned around and checked the book of Matthew for our own Nukna translation program. In January, two Nukna men, Muransi and Yana, came to Ukarumpa to record Galatians through Philemon. Once that was completed Matt was involved with seeing those 10 books through the typesetting and printing process, as well as getting the solar audio players ready. January through March were a whirlwind of Scripture checks and preparations for the April 4th dedication.
While Muransi and Yana were working with Matt to record the 10 epistles, they told him that the Nukna people had recently taken up an offering to support the work of Bible translation – however the people wanted the money to go, not to our own Nukna program, but to the support and encouragement of another language’s translation efforts! We felt so proud of them, a people with so few material possessions, that they would take such a generous and faith-filled step. A few days later Muransi and Yana presented the offering to Jon and Jenny Moe, translation advisors to the Domung people, a group about three languages over from where the Nukna live.
Because the families of some of Kaitlyn’s 12th grade classmates were leaving PNG early due to the COVID-19 situation, the 12th grade parents, with just 24 hours’ notice, threw together a surprise formal dinner for the students. It even included a small graduation celebration for those leaving early. The special evening became even more poignant when two days later the PNG government announced social distancing guidelines, throwing the rest of the 12th graders’ last year in PNG into uncertainty.