Greetings from Manila! We are visiting Stephen and Ginger along with our precious grandchildren, Rebekah, Abby, Luke and Jonathan. Having a wonderful time here, great things are happening in our village in PNG. Later in June, we will return to our village. We received an email from our partner, Andrew Goud, and we would like to share the excerpts of his letter to encourage you!
Aleks teaches
Winson and Willis teach
Josaak reads Scripture
Excerpts from Andrew's letter:
"Phase One of the chronological Bible teaching has been completed by our Wusuraambya Bible teachers, Willis, Jesi, Aleks, and Josaak. A number of people have responded to the Gospel and are now your brothers and sisters in Christ.We have heard of 13 who have trusted Christ as their Saviour. Some have given testimony since then, but we have not heard how many. Praise the Lord with us for His work. We are anxious to visit with these new believers as well as those who trusted Christ in earlier months.
Now that Phase One has been completed, the Bible teachers will teach Phase Two (teaching new believers back through the Bible, showing them how all the Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled in Christ) They will then teach the new believers through the book of Acts. Some hardships have come into the lives of the believers. Please pray that they will continue to trust the Lord in the things that come their way. Willis has been training new Bible teachers as well. Winson is one of the new teachers. Please pray for him as he learns to teach God's Word. The other four teachers would appreciate your prayers as well. Let me share tidbits from some of the testimonies we have heard recently:
Daniel is about our Daniel's age and plays with our boys. (He is not the Daniel that was saved earlier through checking the Bible lessons with Terry) "..I know I am a bad person. I heard it and understand that I am a sinner but Jesus' blood was shed for me. I was in the darkness and I understand that Jesus' blood was shed. He has called out my name."
Menaak is the girl who has been "marked" to marry Gemos. (arranged by the parents) Gemos was saved some months back. He was not sure what to do about the girl that was to be his wife. Should he break off this arrangement because she was not a believer? He decided to wait and now Menaak has also become God's child. Now when they get married they will have a Christian marriage.
One of the illustrations of our relationship with God that the teachers used in the teaching was the picture of holding hands with God. When you can hold hands with someone, there is nothing between you. You are thinking alike, you are good friends. We as humans cannot hold hands with God. We are sinners and our sin is a barrier between us. Our sin keeps us from being friends with God. God turns away from us in our sin. Then Jesus comes and takes away our sin. Through Him, we are able to hold hands with God. This illustration spoke to many people listening to the teaching.
Menaak shared: "I am not in a position to help myself. Jesus is enough for me...I heard up to the point of holding hands. They said you can't hold hands with God by going to church. I was a lady that talked to others about God but it's not through that. I have done good deeds. Through that, could I hold hands with God? No way!! I thought about this blood of Jesus that was shed for me, a sinful lady. Now I could hold God's hand as a sinful person. Jesus did it for me.. His blood took away my sin. "
Yisamaya, Gemos' sister has also trusted Christ. "You are black, I thought. My thoughts are very bad. I kept listening as they taught about Jesus and that's when I understood that Jesus helped me. This time I felt like crying. Tears came down my face because I realized that I wasn't fit to help myself. I kept listening and continued to come until the illustration of holding hands with God and I realized that I was holding hands with God through Jesus."
Sailas "I am not a good man. I'm a thief, I slept with my brother's wife. I've done many wrong things and thought many wrong thoughts all my bad ways were like a bunch of ropes on me...I saw the drama of Jesus dying on the cross. He could have said to me "You have done all these wrong things" and He could have killed me. When I saw the blood of Jesus shed I realized it was shed for me. When I saw that, I cried. It was like all those ropes (his sin) were taken off me and I wanted to jump." Sailas has been going around the community asking forgiveness from those he has wronged. Praise God with us for these transformed lives and please pray as they take their first baby steps in their Christian walk."
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