Psalm 130:5
I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope.
You’re Grounded…
Many people are asking us how the current state of affairs (aka COVID19) are effecting us and our return to Papua New Guinea this summer. We are thankful for your questions and prayers on our behalf.
First, we are homeschooling our kids now and their school is doing a great job of sending assignments weekly and checking in with them throughout the week. They’ve only got two weeks of school left.
As it relates to our return to Papua New Guinea, we’re taking things one day at a time. As of April 22, 2020, PNG has had 8 confirmed COVID-19 cases in country. Some of these cases are in provinces where NTM has personnel. Centers in these locations are now at an elevated security level. Field & area leadership have put measures in place in these locations to ensure the safety & security of our members. To our knowledge, there have not been any more confirmed cases of COVID in PNG. It is an answer to prayer that the virus has not stricken PNG very hard. Please continue to pray for PNG and other developing countries with very limited medical resources.
Our flights have been canceled; we’ve been grounded. We are thankful that the airline has refunded our non-refundable tickets. Praise God for his provision in this way! We are currently in communication with our field leadership and are waiting for them to give us the go-ahead to return. Please pray for us to get our passports back. We sent the kids’ passports in for renewal before everything turned upside down and we are still waiting for them to come back. We don’t know if they’re currently processing passports at the moment or not.
Pray for closure for our kids. When stay-at-home orders started rolling out, our kids were taken away from their friends without the possibility of closure. We understand that this has happened to all the school kids across the nation; however, most of them will see each other once school starts again. It has been difficult for our children to think of not seeing their friends again at all. With our flights being canceled, we are hopeful that we can have time to orchestrate some kind of gathering for the kids to get together and have closure before we do leave for PNG.
From the Wahgi Church…
We’ve received some great, encouraging news from our co-workers who are currently in PNG. Though they’re not able to be in the village at this time, they are staying in contact with the church on a regular basis. There are two men who have been staying faithful in teaching the church and two ladies who are continuing to work with the youth. If I recall correctly, there are about 8 new believers who are currently going through the discipleship class.
As spring here emerges from the winter here in the US we start hearing talk about “hardening” your garden plants by gradually giving them exposure to the outdoors. This current time in the life of the Wahgi church is a bit of a hardening time where the church is exposed to life without the missionaries and must be reliant on the Lord and each other in order to stand strong. Please be praying for unity in the church and that they would stand strong against the schemes of the devil.
Thank you for your continued prayers for us and for the Wahgi church.
Levi, Robyn, Michael, Daniel, Matthew, and Krystiana Lenz