Missionary Update From Papua, New Guinea.

 Good morning to our Readers.

I received an update from another dear missionary family supported by the church I attend. These folks minister in Papua New Guinea under extremely difficult and often hostile circumstances.

Please carefully read their update and add them to your prayer list, so that we may lift them up to the Lord as we pray for their protection and needs. 

Bob

The Berbins Serving in Papua New Guinea   Dear Co-Workers in the Gospel We are very thankful for the work the Lord is doing through your faithful prayers. One blessing is the number of men and women who enrolled in the baptismal classes. The confusion surrounding water baptism in PNG is incredible. Most of these folks have heard that baptism is a requirement for salvation. Even those who have a clear testimony of belief in Christ often feel that they are not quite safe without baptism. It is a joy to see the truth clear away much of the false doctrine in their hearts. However, with over forty in the class, we will have to break the actual baptism into two or three sessions due to the possibility of hypothermia for the baptizer. Pray that as Pastor David and I hear the testimonies of salvation of these folks, the Holy Spirit will make clear to us who are truly understanding salvation and baptism. Regarding our youth camp, after prayer and perplexity, the leadership decided to delay the youth camp until next year. This was a hard decision based on many unknowns regarding some of our co-worker’s health and recovery and ability to take a leading role in the camp. It is now clear that the Lord was clearly in this decision as these co-workers have had many physical trials over the last months. Too, the need to remodel (re-build) one of our nurse practitioner’s house has required much time. This house had been cobbled together over the years, starting as a small building with two bedrooms and a bathroom for some short-term ladies. Then an extension was added on to allow for cooking. The house was built on wooden posts which had rotted over the many years to the point where the floor was sloping about two inches in 8 feet! The lighting and wiring were also cobbled together with periodic additions. Since this was temporary housing, it didn’t seem pressing to make major changes and repairs. However, when Cynthia McQuire began using this house as her permanent abode, we realized that it was high time to put some time into her house. She left for a 6 or 7 month furlough, and so renovations are underway. The house has been leveled and steel posts have been cemented in place; the entire roof was removed and new trusses and roofing have been added. The old decaying bamboo exterior has been replaced with metal siding, and a small addition has been added to give Cynthia more storage. A lot of this work has been accomplished by a visitor, Luke Boyer. He has many skills and enjoys working by himself, and so I was able to give basic assignments, and he was able to get much accomplished. Pray for safety and wisdom as we continue this major project. Regarding Luke, he actually came as an intern due to his interest in deaf ministry. PNG has a relatively high number of deaf but has only recently published a book to begin developing a national sign language. There is a deaf school in the capital, Port Moresby, but that is largely inaccessible to our deaf friends in the bush. We have been praying for many years for the Lord to provide a person to teach and minister to our deaf folks and have been very burdened for them to understand the Gospel and receive new life in Christ. It turns out that Luke does not feel led to teach a new sign language to those who don’t have one but desires to teach the Bible to deaf who already know a sign language. Please pray that the Lord will direct Luke and provide someone who can teach our deaf folks. One deaf man named Koi attends our church faithfully. Another named Kubu used to attend very faithfully but, understandably, found little benefit in his attendance. Also, please pray for the trip to take Luke out to Goroka to fly back to America on August 19 (roughly 2:00 p.m., Sunday, August 18, EDT). A group between us and town have blocked the road because they are desiring to get money out of the government. Pray that these folks will allow us to get through. For those of you who are wondering why we don’t fly Luke out, his departure is on Tuesday. Due to the possibility of weather causing a flight to our village to be cancelled, we usually try to fly out of the bush at least two days before an international flight from Goroka. However, since the mission aviation groups don’t fly on the weekend, that would require Luke to fly out today or tomorrow. This is all very last minute as we just heard about the roadblock, so please pray for the people blocking the road to change their minds or at least let the missionaries through. In addition to the work on the house and teaching of the baptismal candidates, the government has given some money to fix the bush road. This work does help the people, and we pray will create receptivity to the Gospel among many villages which rely on the road for their necessities. This of course requires maintenance on the bulldozer which turned out to be extensive including rebuilding five hydraulic cylinders in addition to the usual maintenance. The repair of the road has just begun (I was hoping to get the work done before rainy season starts in September, but the Lord had other plans). I’ve hired an unsaved man to operate the bulldozer and have hired a number of Christian men to oversee the work and transportation of the fuel in order to minimize my time in the work. However, constant problems have taken quite a bit of time. Pray that the bulldozer would operate without breakdown and that the work would be used by the Lord to prepare receptive hearts for His Son. Additionally, this work helps justify our presence in PNG in the minds of the government and so helps with our frequent paperwork renewals. Regarding paperwork, we need your fervent prayers. At the end of last year, the government decided to cancel all existing government approvals for all companies and organizations. They are requiring every organization to reapply for approval, but instead of contacting the organizations, they merely made a statement in the newspaper. Of course, in the bush we don’t have access to newspapers. The information finally got to us through another mission group, but we are already late in the process. Then the government informed us that our “public officer” on their records is a man who was formerly a New Tribes missionary! This was probably done through our former agent in Port Moresby who we found out had no compunctions about shady or even illegal processes in order to get the job done. (Hence, our changing to a different agent). The government stated that without this former New Tribe missionary’s approval, they would not allow us to change our “public officer” and therefore would not process any approval paperwork for us. So, I began trying to track down this gentleman and after much communication with New Tribes Mission finally heard from this man’s wife that he has severe Alzheimer’s disease and can’t help us. We have submitted a letter to this effect to the government, but if they accept it, it will only be the beginning of the approval process. This places all the GFA missionaries in PNG in the position of having to leave the country when our various work permits expire as they will not renew any permits until our mission’s paperwork is approved. Unless much gets done very quickly, the first of our missionaries will have to leave PNG in January of 2025. Pray that the Lord will show His might in getting the impossible accomplished. Of course there is also the normal ministries of the churches. Janice and I continue to minister in the village of Amia. On our last visit two young people, Jon and Valentine, professed belief in Christ after a Sunday School invitation. Pray for their growth in grace. It has been nice to hike to Amia in the relatively dry season as the numerous streams we have to cross are lower and therefore don’t require us to remove our boots. Also pray for a problem that has arisen between Amia and the next village toward us to be resolved. The last time we went, the enemy village had tried to kill some of our Christians. And when we came back from Amia, they had guards posted to prevent Amia people from using the bush path which goes through their village. Janice had a special blessing in that a young man, Nicolas, professed belief in Christ at one of her Bible clubs. Nicolas came to prayer meeting just last night with one of our faithful young men, Jerry, who had invited him. It turns out that they are in the same class in the public school. Jerry has shown increasing interest in ministries including walking to Amia with our co-worker Matt Crain. Pray for Nicolas to grow in Christ and Jerry to be increasingly involved in the Lord’s work. Thank you again for your spiritual (prayer) and financial support of the eternal work in PNG. In Christ, Michael and Janice