August - December 1993

Dear Brethren & Friends;

1993
It has been very difficult to sit down and get this very needed report out. It's not that I don't know that you want to know what is happening with us but with the trip back to the States in August - October my head is still spinning. Like the past trips back to the States for reporting, when we got back home here we had a lot of things to catch up on and have just now gotten on top again. We really appreciated the fellowship and love that we received while there. It's hard to believe that we were back there. (Reality kicked in when I ate my last Tootsie Roll, no Walmart to restock here!)

It was so good to sit down with Ken Beck in Lebanon Tenn and the missions ministry and share our dreams with them for what we see as our involvement in the work here in the South Pacific, especially Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

THE DREAMS
More leadership training is critical at this time because of the diminishing number of full-time missionary families as well as less of a need for full-time missionary families living within cultures of the South Pacific.

It is good to see the receptivity of the Island people and the development and maturity of leadership in some of the island churches.
The printing service that we operate here in New Zealand continues to provide a very vital and central part in these developments. Because of a greater demand in the islands for leadership training we want to become more actively involved in full-time outreach work. A timetable of 12-18 months was seen as a reasonable time frame to be achievable.

We have already been asked to schedule schools in 1994 for Papua New Guinea (2, one village, one at Melanesian Bible School), Vanuatu and a couple of months in the Solomon islands with Jab or Steven Felix from Vanuatu to get the Christians there together and more active and more mature in their service to the Lord.

We have been providing personal support for our work since 1987 when we suffered the loss of our then sponsoring congregation and over half of our support. Even as we desire to become more actively involved we see the realism of retaining the printing service business here in New Zealand to source the needed World Bible School materials and other needed tracts.
To move in this direction we will have to hire a printer who will be paid from profits of the business but then will leave us without the personal support the printing business now provides for us. Therefore for us to go back into full-time we will need to raise more support.

We were encouraged by the response when we outlined our dream this past summer. As mentioned we were looking at 12-18 months. But as in the past the Lord continues to do above that which we ask or think. We weren't back here more than a month when we received a phone call from a young man who is a printer by trade and was looking to move to Tauranga and was just calling around in the off chance that someone might have a job. He starts work for us tomorrow (29th Dec). We are hopeful that he will work out.
This then moves the need for more support up to this next year. We are in need of an additional $2,000 per month. We thank you for the support and prayers you currently give and ask that you pray fervently with us about this need, that the Lord will provide.

VANUATU WORKERS
Steven Felix graduated from the South Pacific Bible College in December and has returned home to work with the church there. I have thoughts of using him in the Solomon islands along the same line that we used Jab and Becky in Vanuatu to help the church there become more motivated to share the Gospel.

Leadership training is not only achieved by holding courses on location in the island churches but also with the training of qualified men and women here in New Zealand at the South Pacific Bible College.

Kathy & I are excited that Paul and Miriam Vuhu will be arriving in January 1994 the begin their two years of training at SPBC to enable them to be better qualified to help their own people. Paul was a teacher in Port Vila and Miriam worked at a bank. This is a positive step as the brethren in Vanuatu take a more definite role in their own growth and maturity in the Lord.

This next year looks to be a busy one and we ask for your continued support and prayers.

In Christian service,

the Huffs