Blessings in the New Year! Praise God for sustaining each of us through 2021 and for giving us hope for 2022. Our family enjoyed a very quiet and peaceful Christmas and New Year together here in Ukarumpa, our Papua New Guinea mission headquarters. This wasn’t our plan (we had planned on being in the village, but had to cancel our flight due to sickness), but it was what the Lord determined for us, which leaves us grateful.

The Mamusi Translation Committee decided to postpone the Jesus Film Launch until January 30, 2022.  We’ve been scrambling to find a way to get out to Sivauna to attend, but we’ve met with a number of transportation difficulties.  Since school is starting next week, our entire family cannot travel out there right now.  Again, we have faith that it’s for reasons beyond our understanding and can rejoice that we serve our sovereign Father, who holds it all together.

The exciting result of all this is that Aaron and Zeke (10) are finalizing a plan to get them to the village this week. They have to travel commercially instead of with our own mission aviation ministry, so it will take about three days to get there. Please pray with us over these travel logistics, as well as some margin during the trip for the two of them to have fun together. They won’t be able to take as much baggage as normal, but we know our village family will help meet their needs for food. They are planning on returning January 31.

The purposes of this trip are as follows

1. To finish the second Translation Training Course that was cut short back in November by a COVID surge and the restrictions that followed. Please pray the students are all able to gather, attend, and complete the course without much advance notice.
2. To take the next steps in getting their drafts of the Gospel of John tested and refined, so that the text can be checked by a Translation Consultant.
3. To help launch the Jesus Film. The new date is 30 January, and we’re expecting a very large gathering in Sivauna of folks from all over the wider Mamusi community, as well as the presence of some distinguished guests. Please pray with us about communication and details surrounding this. It feels like it’s been such a long time coming, but we trust the Lord’s timing throughout this process.
4. To gather information about the Mamusi social organization and structures, as well as the literacy situation, to complete our next set of academic papers. Throughout the translation process, we are required to continue researching various aspects of Mamusi society and culture, as this helps us understand how to produce the best possible translation that’s accurate as well as adequately contextualized. This is a really important part of the process that we tend to neglect in favor of other tasks.
5. To communicate about and prepare for two upcoming training courses in March: Vernacular Creative Phonics and Guitar/Songwriting Techniques. Even while translation is going on, it’s critical for us to be investing in Literacy and Scripture Engagement efforts, so that the Scripture materials we produce are understandable and usable to the Mamusi population. These two courses, as well as several other activities on the horizon, will help us push forward in these areas. These aren’t our areas of strength, so we’re excited to take out Papua New Guinean specialists from Ukarumpa with us to help lead these efforts.
6. Masters Degree Research! Aaron is studying and earning his Masters Degree so that he can serve other languages besides Mamusi as a Linguistics Consultant to support their translations. His Masters thesis is rooted in the Mamusi language, and he needs to collect more data to process.

This is a lot!  As our stateside assignment approaches in just 6 months, we are feeling the pressure to accomplish quite a lot during this short window.  Thanks so much for your prayers and gifts that support our family’s Wycliffe ministry.  You are a blessing to us.