Troozshoes

Dear Friends and Family,

It's a chilly and rainy morning here in Ukarumpa, which is a radical temperature change from the warm Buan village weather! We've been digging out our long sleeve shirts! :)

We drove out of the village on Thursday last week, and after dropping off an empty propane gas bottle at Madang, drove all the way up to Ukarumpa. The last three weeks have been busy, and we feel satisfied with how they went. We were able to conduct:

• two anthropology interviews
• observations of two cultural events dealing with giving pigs and other things to a) one's cousin and b) one's in-laws as part of bride price
  
• a translation workshop (Part 1 of 6) for the five Sam translators and two NEW recruits! We're excited to have these two new men join the translation team!

While up at Ukarumpa for this next month, we will be sorting through our anthropology data and finding out what to research in our next village stay (Sept. 2 - mid-Dec.), hosting two Sam translators who have come up to Ukarumpa for an intensive time of rough drafting portions of Genesis and John, and writing our next prayer letter, among other things. :)

Could you please pray for peace and being able to find margin in our schedules? We have been pushing hard and now we still find ourselves with way too many things on our plate and only a limited time in which to accomplish them. Also, we are ever more aware, from our last village stay, of the way this work really needs God's presence and enabling, and for us to be faithfully praying for his will to be worked out on earth as it is in heaven!

God bless you,
Dave and Sarah, and Joanna, Samuel, Matthew, and Rebekah