THE LATEST NEWSRELEASE FROM KUNDIAWA PAPUA NEW GUINEA Dec. 13, .1976

 

Dear Brethren;

 

Greetings in the name of the Lord. This is 94011 bidding you a 80023.

 

This is weather code saying: "Kundiawa says good day". Through Dec. and Jan. we are looking after the weather station here in Kundiawa while the regular lady Is on vacation. Down under here school is now out until Jan. 26th for "summer vacation".

The enclosed pictures show our family, preaching in the market place and the men who gathered for our recent village leadership school in Nov..

 

This school was held at Dumun village here in Papua New Guinea. The congregation at Dumun was begun with a campaign in May 1975. The men pictured came from various village congregations in the area. Those represented were: Watabung (30 miles); Kumogoko (20 miles); Bima Piau (10 miles) and Dumun. Andy Scott (lives in Watabung) and myself taught morning and afternoon classes. The subjects taught were: 'Klinpela sios" (clean church, disfellowship); "Lotu" (worship); "Sios bilong Kraist em i wanem samting" (What Is the Church of Christ?); "Laip bilong Kristen" (Christian Life). We had 35 who attended the 5 days. The school ran from Monday to Friday. We find that this type of school is working better than If we took these boys and get them down and held school for some period of time away from the village. This type of training school leaves them in the village life and still under the scrutiny of their village peers. We have seen that when one leaves the village for town that they usually don't have much discipline. The purpose of our school is two fold: 1) to strengthen existing congregations by strengthening the leaders; 2) to have fellowship of the various congregations. The people here in Papua New Guinea are very clannish (attested to by the more than 750 different languages) and it is hard to get them to trust other tribes. These schools were begun last year because of a void we could see In our various village congregations of trained leaders. Our plans call for these schools every six weeks with the location at the various villages where we have congregations. During our last school in November we had a Lutheran preacher from Watabung in attendance. During the test of Friday (given to see if our teaching was effective) he answered that sprinkling was not scriptural baptism and thus salvation was not possible through the Lutheran church. He went back to Watabung to discuss this Biblical discrepancy with his higher-ups. Pray with us that he will decide to forsake traditions of men to follow after the Lord.

 

In the evenings during this week we showed Jule Miller film strips by use of a battery operated projector. Even though it rained every evening we averaged 85 in attendance. That was all we could squeeze into the house.

 

During this week of school Kathy and Catherine Scott had planned to teach ladies class but Kathy came down with a severe case of malaria and was bedridden for two weeks. Catherine stayed with Kathy allowing me to teach. After Kathy recuperated from her malaria Jason came down with the measles.

 

We have mentioned in previous newsletters the problem we have here with thieves. Well...last week at 6:00 in the morning while taking weather readings I discovered that someone had helped themselves to one of the tires and rims off of our car. They had blocked the axle up and removed the tire. The car was parked just outside the house under two lights (the better to see). It cost us $95 to replace It. Merry Christmas!!!

 

Please pray for our faith in and patience for these people. If I could have caught the fellows then and there they probably would have been in pieces. Grrrrrrrr.

 

During the last leadership school Andy and I decided that we desperately needed a duplicator to enable us to run off literature in the local language after we translate it for our congregations. We also needed one to run off such newsletters to help keep everyone informed of our work. So we ordered one from Port Morsby and I got the bank here to loan us the $830(K670-N.G.) needed. This machine is electric (for our need) and hand operated (Andy's bush house) thus fulfilling our combined needs. If you would like to help us pay for this duplicator would you please send your funds to: New Guinea Fund % Church of Christ Box 231 Joplin Mo. 64801.

 

Our family would like to take this opportunity to wish Season's Greetings", to you and yours.

 

In the Master's Service

 

The Huff's Box 69 Kundiawa Papua New Guinea