Hello friends!

*Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at
hand...
James 5:8

--It is the goal of missions to bring the nations into the
enjoyment of God's glory.

Hello Friends,

Great things are happening in PNG! Mostly, God is working
among our team of students and changing our worldview. The
people live on so little here and the surrounding Bena
tribes have yet to respond to Christ's message that the
missionaries have presented atleast once now
(chronologically from Genesis to Christ). There are 2
families living within the Bena tribes and a group of
support missionaries living next to the tribes on a campus
called "Interface", which hosts students like me year
round, and serves as a backbone resource for the
church-planters.
Because syncretism (mixing former animistic beliefs with
teachings about God's word, creating a new distorted
belief) is seen quite often here, it's important for us to
be cautious in talking about spiritual things with the
Bena. There's only a handful of believers in the 5 tribes
we visit each day, most title themselves "Christian" but
there is no change from their former lives. Also, the
missionaries here have found it necessary to learn the
language and culture first to share Christ to eliminate
misunderstandings- the trade language we're learning
(Melanesian Pidgin) used in PNG has no words for love,
heart, sin, etc...
We went to a tribe market this week and on my birthday our
team took a 3 hour hike to a high rapid river and went
swimming. It was a special birthday!
Ways to remember me in prayer:
1) Psalm 27:8- When you said "Seek My Face", my heart
said to you, "Your face, Lord, I will seek." Activities
start everyday @ 7:30am and go until about 8pm. Pray that
God would keep me steadily seeking knowledge & wisdom of
Him from His word....
2) In order to discover my role in missions in the future.
Pray that He will strengthen my faith to follow Him.
3) Also, pray for humility, and against people pleasing
and busy-ness, for my time here and for when I get back to
the states. God is showing me how I often find worth in
"doing" and accomplishing things (ministry) instead of
"being" a child of Him. Also, He is beginning to break me
of saying things to please people around me instead of
living out of who I am in the present.
I love you all. Let me know how your lives are going as
well, please. Time to go to the villages, talk to you next
week.

Lukim yu bihain,
Kirsten Wingate