Selling, Shipping, and Sailing

We’ve been back in Papua New Guinea for two months now. Thank you so much for praying for our return trip. It was sweet returning to PNG, and in so many ways, it felt like we were coming home.

There is a bittersweet aspect to that, in light of what we are here to do. Wrapping up our work for now and preparing to leave a place that has become home is hard. There’s no sugar-coating that. Still, we’re grateful God allows us to have this time here in a place we love, with people we love.

SELLING

The week after we arrived, we began sorting all of our personal belongings, household items, and housebuilding supplies, and we’ve worked on compiling “For Sale” lists to send out to other missionaries and organizations. We’re thankful that we’ve been making good progress in selling many of our supplies.

There are some moments in the middle of this process of selling our supplies when the emotions can feel overwhelming. We’ve been reflected while here about why that is, and thought we’d give you some insight into what we’ve been processing.

It’s really not about the “stuff.” Honestly, most of the things we have here in PNG aren’t super fancy by US standards. So why is getting rid of them emotional and hard at times? It’s really about the life and ministry that these things represented. The doors Josh built and Autumn sanded and coated for the house we were picturing and planning to build; the chairs and benches that Josh made for under our house where we planned to sit with the Pano people and learn their language; the curtains we picked to hang up in our living room in our jungle home. It’s not a bad thing though to have to learn to let go of these things and the dreams that went with them, but it is hard.

Despite the difficulty of selling off the supplies and items we’ve worked to prepare, ship, and/or build over the past 2 years, it is an encouragement to our hearts to see how God is allowing the supplies we had gathered to be a blessing to other missionaries. So far, at least 9 different missionaries and several missions organizations who are facing supply shortages and the difficulties of getting things here in PNG have been able to get supplies from us, which saves them time and money.

SHIPPING

We’ve also spent some time sorting some of the supplies of our former teammates. In addition to selling some items, each of our team units had a few things we were hoping to be able to ship back to the USA. Initially when arriving back in PNG, we were told there was likely no longer a reliable way to do that post-Covid. However, we recently found an option, and we’re thankful that Lord willing, we can help get a few sentimental items sent back to the USA for the Noyes family, Michele, and ourselves.

SAILING (kind of)

One big thing on the horizon for us right now is our upcoming trip into Pano by dinghy (a small 23 ft boat). We plan to leave the second week of January for the trip. 

We don’t know how long we’ll be in Pano for sure, so we’re taking plenty of supplies in case we need to be gone for several weeks. We want to visit four different areas/villages and meet with the leaders to explain the changes that have happened.

We’ve spent some time asking advice from PNG friends and other missionaries, and we’ve heard repeatedly that it would be helpful and appropriate to take along lots of food so that we can have a large meal with the village where we were planning to live. Culturally, it’s common to provide a large meal for a group of people either to say thank you to them - this is called an “hamamas kaikai” (celebration meal) - or as a way to show you are sorry and want to ensure unity and no hard feelings - this is called a “tok sori kaikai” (apology meal). This meal that we’ll be providing in Pano will be both. It will be a thank you to the village for the ways they have helped us, provided for us on our previous visits, and for the work they already did helping Craig and Josh begin working on the footers for our houses. Obviously, it will also be a way to say we are so sorry we can’t come live with them right now to do the work we said we were going to do.

Please pray for safety for us as we take the 6 hour dinghy ride on the ocean to reach Pano. Some specific ways to pray for our safety are for no boat problems, for calm waters while we’re on the ocean, and for no encounters with bandits or pirates. (One of the reasons we have waited until after Christmas and New Year to go to Pano is because crime tends to go up significantly during the holidays. That has definitely been true here in Madang this year, and every time we drive somewhere out of town and arrive back safely, we’re thankful for God’s protection.)

Also pray for clear communication as we speak with the Pano people in each of the four locations we hope to visit. Pray that we can remain calm even if some people are upset, and that they will see the love of Christ in us, and still desire for missionaries (hopefully us) to come to them in the future.

We greatly appreciate everyone who is praying for us, encouraging us, and supporting us though this time. This current chapter is hard, but isn’t not the end of the story of seeing the Pano people reached with the gospel. We don’t know if God will allow us to be part of those future chapters, but we hope He does. Regardless, we can trust His good and perfect plan.

Click HERE to download a pdf bulletin insert of this update.

Click HERE to find out more about who we are and our ministry.

Follow us on Facebook to get other updates and prayer requests.