Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Email update: 17 June 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
Dave made it back from the village on Saturday the 14th of June. The drive down and back was uneventful, but unfortunately the PURPOSE of the trip wasn't totally successful. He went with a friend to take the kit house up to the village, but a combination of a bad road, lots of rain beforehand, and a helpful bulldozer that turned the marginal road into a quagmire made it too difficult. The truck was stuck in the muck three times, and they didn't even get half way up to the village. Because the road wasn't going to be any better further up and they were running out of daylight hours, they decided to take the kit house from the beach where the barge was moored to a Sam speaking village on the main road. They worked through the night, stopping with the last load at 4:30 am. Now the kit house is in that village, some under a big tarp and some under a house (that is about 8 feet off the ground on posts). The main road has some serious mud problems further north because of all the rain we've been having, so he and his friend and another friend they picked up along the way decided to go back on the barge. They drove the truck and our hilux onto the barge and were in Madang by 11 am. They drove up to Ukarumpa that same day.
We have decided to go down tomorrow, Wednesday. We'll go to Madang first and then out to the village the next day. Our hilux can haul the cement bags and metal posts for the foundation a bit at a time. It takes approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes to drive between our village and the village where the house pieces are. We are working on a way to get the larger pieces up to the village also, so please keep praying that something would work out.
Please pray also for good weather the next few weeks, safe travel and working, and all the planning for tools, personnel, and materials. Finally, we really want to glorify God in all this, so please pray for good attitudes and a spirit of patience, endurance and servanthood.
We'll be greeting the team from Minnesota on June 29th, and then coming up to Ukarumpa on July 11th. The team will leave July 14th.
Love,
Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew and Rebekah
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Email update: 1 June 2008
Dear Friends and Family,
In a nutshell, we are entering "Crunch Month." All of the last few months has been preparation, getting things ready for the village house, getting prepared for working on translation (by trnaslation training here at Ukarumpa), and the other bits and pieces we have to do.
A) On the house front, we have preparations ready to get the house to Madang by truck, then across the bay by barge, and then up the little road by truck. We hope we won't have to use the helicopter, because it isn't going to be available until July, which means we would have to leave the kit house pieces down on the coast, at the house of a respected church leader, until the helicopter could help us.
Please pray:1) that the kit house company will transport the kit house to Madang THIS WEEK (before we need to load up the barge),2) that Dave will have a safe trip down to Madang and to the village later this week to check out the road situation, and2) that the village people will get excited and successfully fix the road up to the village so a truck can drive up to the village with the kit house.
B) On the translation training front, we have completed the five weeks of training, and the men have learned a lot and are more eager to work together and get going on translating more of the Scriptures! We have translated Genesis 22:1-19 as our training exercise, which is about Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac. We enjoyed finding Sam words for key terms like angel, altar, and sacrifice! The men have arrived back at their villages now.
Please pray:1) that the men will work out a good working schedule so they can translate without taking time away from their gardening or community work, and2) that community will start to recognize the good work the Sam translators are doing and will start to support them in practical ways, like helping them with gardening work.
C) In terms of all the bits and pieces of our lives, we feel like we have been able to get some of those extra things done during the translation training course, but we still have some to finish. We would like to be able to complete a lot of those other things before our whole family goes to the village on June 18th.
Thank you for your prayers!
Love,
Dave and Sarah
