Kurt, Johanna, Kassia, Lukas and Matthias

Our family in Papua New Guinea | 2012

Ukarumpa and Aiyura Valley

Ukarumpa is SIL's center of opperations in Papua New Guinea and where we live and work.

Miniafia New Testaments from the dedication in 2010

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

Doini Island

Photo by Tim McIntosh (SIL PNG's boat manager in 2008) | Many of the 100's of islands in PNG can only be reached by boat.

Where do you play when you live on an island?

Children from Nubwageta village playing near the shore.

Miniafia New Testament Dedication

New Testament dedications in PNG usually include elaborate processions to welcome the Bibles.

Tuesday, May 07, 2019

Metzger Ministry Update 05 2019 | "Earthquake"

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. - Philippians 4:6(NLT)

Dear friends and family,

Today we praise God for protecting the country of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and our family as we serve and work here. Thanks for praying and encouraging us daily.


Yesterday we experienced a 7.2 magnitude earthquake and while our house and water tanks shook quite a bit, we are safe and sound. The Construction and Maintenance guys here on center came to try to fix our water tanks (which are leaking quite a bit due to damage from the earthquake) and they said they can’t fix them and therefore we need to buy new ones. Rain water is stored in those tanks and we rely on that water for drinking, washing clothes, bathing, etc. Please pray as we try to replace our tanks.



This month, Kurt has been working closely with the Aitape West Translation Project (AWTP) when their network attached storage experienced a catastrophic failure. At that exact time we were also having issues with our internet connection here in Ukarumpa so helping them remotely was a real challenge. Even through those difficulties he was able to eventually connect to their network (see note below on how the internet traffic flows), repair the disk array and restore all the data and services from a backup device that was on-site. We thank God for helping us to make that happen!



  • How traffic flows from Ukarumpa to AWTP (which is in the middle of the bush). Ukarumpa is now connected to a fiber optic cable which is physically routed to Madang on the North coast of PNG. From Madang there is a submarine cable to Sydney, Australia. Our traffic is then routed to Singapore, up to a satellite and then down to a solar powered VSAT dish at the AWTP site in the Sepik region of PNG.
Love from Ukarumpa, Johanna for Kurt, Kassia, Lukas and Matthias too!