So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. – Hebrews 4:16 (NLT)
Dear Friends and Family,
What a joy we have in Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith! We’re coming to the close of our second rewarding term here in Papua New Guinea (PNG). We have been stretched to our limits at times during the last 3 years, but God has been faithful. We have been encouraged by you, our partners in ministry. Thank you for standing beside us through your faithful prayers for our ministry and family and through your inspirational financial support.
Johanna returned from a 5-day retreat (Encounter) with the Ukarumpa International School high school students on September 24th. She was selected as a sponsor by the 12th grade girls she has been leading in a weekly Bible study for the last 3 years. It was a privilege for her to be able to attend Encounter and she will miss these girls!
(Johanna with the Ukarumpa high school students at Encounter)
One of the interesting technologies that I (Kurt) support here in PNG is email via HF (high frequency) radio for village translation teams. HF radio transmissions are what you would normally associate with Amateur Radio operators and for voice only. However, HF radio is great for long distance communications with low power requirements, so most translation teams already have an HF radio for voice communications from the village. Pairing the HF radio with an HF modem has made this older technology indispensable for very remote bush locations with limited or no access to in-country telecommunication infrastructure. Village teams are able to interact electronically with the outside world via email—send and receive translation data, correspond with family, friends and partners, or just update a blog or Facebook. We’re not talking full-blown internet access; it’s only email and it’s actually quite slow (about 100 characters per second). Most clients are set up to only accept emails up to 50Kb in size while automatically moving all larger email to a folder on the server, we host here, until they return from the village.
(from top: Danny DeLoach (a translator) using an HF radio connected to solar power; Our HF Email server)
While we are just getting ready to leave PNG this November, we are already planning for our return at the beginning of next July 2014 because staffing here in the network operations center is critical. Currently, there are only two of us maintaining our entire network. We will be starting our home assignment next month, leaving the other network engineer, Andy, by himself. Andy’s family is scheduled to return to the US at the end of June 2014, so you can see the need to be back here on time is pressing. Many of you already know that Wycliffe requires us to be at 100% of our monthly support quota before we will be released to return to the field. Knowing that, and that costs have gone up—travel, insurance, food, education, etc.—we have been working with our finance office in order to estimate what increase in support is necessary for our family. We will need $634 more per month prior to our return. Would you please pray with us now that God will raise up new support for our ministry here so that we can return on time? We know He is able!
(from top: Matthias; Kassia; Lukas and Matthias)
Blessings,
Kurt (for Johanna, Kassia, Lukas and Matthias too!)