PNG Starting a New Year - Day 2 (of 8): Fiji High Commission

We are sending the PNG missionaries to Fiji this year.  It will probably weaken our movement on campus a bit, but it's a risk we are willing to take.  The main reason we are sending them is that we do not have any trainers in the country to train our staff (we have young missionaries).  Lillian, for example (in the orange below), is in her 5th year as a missionary and has only had 1 year of training.  We are sending our missionaries to Fiji so that by the end of this year Lillian (and possibly Elton as well) can be fully trained and then be trained as a trainer - then any new staff women that join can be trained by Lillian.  

This year is also good because the vast majority of our movement are students in their 3rd year - and they will still have one more year (2017) before they graduate to reap the benefit of a better trained Elton, Lillian and Dianne.  We also have no STINTers (from another country) coming to help this year (and we should have several in 2017).  So, this year is the only possible year.

Part of my trip here is to help Elton, Lillian & Dianne to think through what the students need to learn (or practice) before the 21st of February.

Another part of my trip is to help Elton, Lillian & Dianne to get everything ready like their Fijian visa. So today we went to the Fiji High Commission and spoke to the First Officer there and received the correct applications.  The are getting their Police clearance and their medical report and hope to submit the application my next Friday (the 5th of February).  They are getting excited about going to Fiji (again) and being involved in a large movement (our Fiji ministry has about 25 Fijian missionaries and are growing every year).

Thanks for praying for these three wonderful people (Elton, Lillian & Dianne)!

PNG Starting a New Year - Day 1 (of 8): Getting ready for 30 Jan and 21 feb

Hello again!

I came a bit early to Papua New Guinea this year.  We have the opportunity (& the funding) to send our 3 PNG missionaries to Fiji for the year (more on that later), so my schedule of trips to PNG this year will be different. There are 3 major times in the next 5 weeks (4 major in the next 7 weeks), but instead of coming here for 5 weeks (which would wipe me out), I'm here for only 1 week, then home (New Zealand) on 2nd Feb for 2 weeks, then back here (PNG) for 2 more weeks - with Kaylynn :-).

Elton, Dianne & Lillian - our 3 PNG missionaries

My goals this trip are to: 

1. Help Elton, Lillian, & Dianne, our 3 PNG missionaries, to get everything ready for their 8-month move to Fiji;
2. Help Elton, Lillian, & Dianne form goals for how they want to coach the students in the next 4 weeks - before they leave for Fiji on 21st of February;
3. Help help to get things ready for the project coming up on the 30th of January with 6 Australians and 8 (hopefully) PNG students (more on that later).

Thanks for praying for the Gospel to flood Papua New Guinea!  I'll write again in a couple of days...