PNG Mission Project Day 14: Come join us!

This morning before I left the guest house (MAPANG), I went online and downloaded all our staff application forms to take to Vision City (the mall) to be printed.  I printed 6 copies to give to 6 of our 4th year students (hoping that God will call them to come join us) .  Since I had to have them printed, I ended up "paying through my nose" (that's a strange saying) for dirty copies, but at least the students will get one.

After printing, I met Jasmine & Lillian (staff) at a great coffee shop/restaurant for lunch to discuss our upcoming trip to Australia next week. The Student Life ministry in Australia is having their Mid-Year Conference next week and they are paying for Jasmine & Lily to come and promote the ministry in PNG to their students!  What an opportunity!  They will have several opportunities to talk about PNG, and our prayer is that several graduating students will come and join us!   I'll write much about that when I travel with them starting on 3 July (July 2 in the States).

I did an embarrassing thing when I paid for the printing.  I have too much cash right now, because I wanted to make sure I had enough cash for an emergency on the mission project - and so I used cash to pay for the printing.   The problem was, that I used exactly all the cash I had on my person. I had most of my cash at MAPANG, but I forgot that I wasn't there - so here I was stranded at the the mall with no cash. In New Zealand I very rarely use cash (once/month maybe), but here, almost everything is cash.  I had printed the papers to take to UPNG, but had to go the opposite direction to MAPANG to get my other cash before heading back to UPNG. So we enjoyed a K50 taxi ride instead of a K1 bus ride :-\   Oh well, I try hard - please don't tell the ministry partner who paid for this visit :-). But I met up with Greg (staff) at the mall and he went with me for the ride :-)  And when finally at UPNG, I bought him a K3 soft drink so that I could have change for a K50!

Anyway, Greg & I had a great time together speaking honestly about life & the ministry - that was very refreshing!  I'm so glad he's on our staff!

I was able to meet with 2 of our 4th year students to discuss the option of joining us after they graduate: Alfred (see 1st photo with a little boy in Hisiu), and then Stanley (2nd photo).   It was a good visit with both of them who both took the application (& 6 reference forms).   I would love for God to call them, but if He doesn't, I don't want them to join us as they will be miserable.   Please pray that God will call some of the 4th year students to join us, and that they will hear God's call.  Stanley walked with me back to the gate to catch my taxi - I really enjoy his company! [He's a physics major, thinking of going into medicine, and I was so glad to have him & other science majors with me during the dancing in Hisiu to commiserate with :-) ].

Stanley told me of a story when he was going house to house in Hisiu - he met a lady from another church (churches tend to stick together) who had a dream after attending our welcome the first day. In the dream, all our project were in the structure (the house without the walls) and it was all glowing white - and we invited her to come up & join us!

There are still remnants here of our time in Hisiu: my grass skirt that the village made for me is stinking up our room, and I still have sand embedded into my big toes despite attempting to clean them this morning :-)

Thanks for praying! Tomorrow is my last full day (hey Kaylynn, I'm coming home), and I plan to spend the most of it at UPNG. Pray that I'll be able to catch up with the other 4th year students.  Thanks!   Dan