Greetings from Papua New Guinea!
“The Word” is a weekly photo and caption detailing the impact of Bible translation.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Monday, July 04, 2011
The Word | Learning Hebrew
Greetings from Papua New Guinea!
“The Word” is a weekly photo and caption detailing the impact of Bible translation.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
The Word | Hearers of the Word
Greetings from Papua New Guinea!
“The Word” is a weekly photo and caption detailing the impact of Bible translation.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
{Metzger Ministry Update} April 2011 | "An eternal prize"
Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. -- 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 (NLT)
Dear friends and family,
Thank you for being such an encouraging team to us as we serve here in Papua New Guinea (PNG). We have been busy the last several months.
Kurt had the opportunity at the beginning of March to travel to Port Moresby (the capital of PNG) for his work. There he was able to help at the SIL regional center with their computer and internet connection needs. The kids and I (Johanna) missed him greatly, but we were thankful to know that he was able to support the Port Moresby staff.
Kurt was also able to help here in Ukarumpa to install network access, via fiber optic cable, to our new National Training Center (this is where SIL’s Translator Training courses (TTC) and Strengthening Tok Ples Education (STEP) courses are taught).
(National Training Center dorms, dining hall and fiber optic cable install)
Kassia (6) is enjoying her time in kindergarten and has taken off reading and writing in English. She loves to read in her bed on her own and likes for us to read to her as well. Lukas (3) continues to grow and make us laugh daily with his Spanish accent as he speaks in English. Matthias is seven months now and is trying to crawl and smiling constantly.
The kids keep me busy at home but I also enjoy being able to help our Latino colleges translate their newsletters from Spanish into English or edit their letters in Spanish. I have also been able to help translate a new document that our SIL PNG branch is producing called “The Word”. It is sent to many weekly and gives a glimpse of what the work of SIL is in PNG. SIL PNG has been publishing this document in English and in Spanish. If you would like to take a look at it, check it out on our blog: www.kurtandjohanna.com
(from left to right: Matthias; Kassia)
As we write we are in the middle of our biennial SIL PNG Branch Conference. We are working through how we can best get the Word of God translated into the 300+ languages in PNG that as yet do not have it. Please join us in prayer as you think of it how we can effectively do this task.
Praise:
- For YOU our great partners who pray and support us so faithfully.
- Our health has improved much since we last wrote and we have adjusted to the food and water here in PNG.
- Kurt’s trip to Port Moresby to help at the regional center with his computer skills was much appreciated.
- Kurt’s involvement in installing network access to the new National Training Center.
Prayer:
- For the upcoming New Testament Bible Translations here in PNG in 2011.
- For Kurt as he makes more trips in the country to help regional centers with network access, and for Johanna and the kids as they stay home.
- For our biennial SIL PNG conference.
(Lukas loves playing with Matthias)
Thank YOU for being a faithful part of our ministry and the work that God is doing in Papua New Guinea.
Blessings,
Johanna (for Kurt, Kassia, Lukas, and Matthias too)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Word | Encouraging Scripture Use
Greetings from Papua New Guinea!
“The Word” is a weekly photo and caption detailing the impact of Bible translation.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Immeasurably More
Papua New Guinea
It’s fascinating the way God plants a vision in people’s hearts and moves heaven and earth to fulfill His purposes.
Steven Hong’s family moved from South Korea to Los Angeles in 1973. Steven was 19 years old and still not a Christian. Before long, he was working full time, pumping gas at a local filling station. After graduating from college, Steven worked as a computer engineer for Hughes Aircraft company for six years.
{Holly and Steven Hong in Papua New Guinea | Photo by Alan Hood}
Back then, could Steven imagine that God would bring him to Papua New Guinea (PNG) to serve the Mandara people? Or that he would one day be honoured as a chief of this isolated language group?
Probably not, because our God is the one who is able to do immeasurably more than we can imagine (Ephesians 3:20).
Back in Steven’s homeland, God had drawn another Korean, Holly Park, to Himself through a college Bible study. The daughter of a pastor, Holly also committed to become a missionary. However, she moved to the U.S. in 1976, to work as a computer programmer.
But God had something very different in mind. In 1980, Holly had a chance to visit the Wycliffe Bible Translators office in Huntington Beach, California. As Holly heard about the Bibleless people, she recalled how her grandmother became a Christian through the Bible written in Korean, her heart language. She also remembered her grandmother’s prayer that someone in her family would become a missionary.
Holly shared the news about Wycliffe with her fiancé, Steven Hong (now a believer). He also began sensing God’s calling to serve with Wycliffe. Their new journey began.
God knew the Mandara had no written language, and no translation of Scripture they could clearly understand. Out of His love for them, and His intimate knowledge of Steven and Holly, God called the unlikely missionary couple—who never even intended to translate Scripture when they moved to PNG—to change careers and move to an island with their four young children.
Because they did, the Mandara Church now has God’s Word in its heart language. And He is changing lives in some remarkable ways.
Immeasurably more—that is what our powerful God is all about. So often He smashes through our low-ceiling expectations with His sky-high results. Should we really expect anything less? After all, our God is the creator of the universe.
Adapted from the Foreword to the Spring 2011 issue of Word Alive (a publication of Wycliffe Canada), covering the Mandara language project in Papua New Guinea.
by Dwayne Janke {Dwayne Janke is Editor of Word Alive magazine | Wycliffe Canada}.
This story can also be found on TheWordisLife.net
Ethnologue entry for Mandara | Ethnologue: Languages of the World is an encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world’s 6,909 known living languages.
Where do the Mandara people of Papua New Guinea live? Here’s a Map.
