Category Archives: Ministry News & Opportunities

Ministry of Todd & Angela Owen News and Opportunities

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Hello, Dear Reader. Perhaps you noted that there have not been any new posts for quite a while. It has been a hectic few years, to say the least. Back surgeries, the COVID pandemic, and a return to Papua New Guinea to resume translation of the Somau Garia New Testament have all squeezed our time and resources, leaving little for keeping the website current.

That said, it is time to take up the digital pen and begin scribbling again. It is an important season for recruiting prayer partners and to keep you abreast of each stage as we close in on completion of the New Testament. It is also a time to continually turn our attention to the Lord and his provision.

My prayer is that the coming posts will be informative, motivational, and useful to you and your walk by faith. In order to help make your prayer more informed and specific, I’ll be writing a series of articles about how translation is done, what the aims are, and to what end we are laboring.

I look forward to dialoging with you along the way, hopefully inspiring you to love Jesus more deeply, to know more about how He is providing for the needs of Somau Garia speaking people, and inspiring you to act on what you have either learned or had reinforced.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by and spend a few moments here.

Blessings!

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As the pandemic continued to interrupt international travel and the months dragged on, Angela and I had some weighty decisions to make. When should we attempt passage to Papua New Guinea? What risks were involved in returning to a developing nation amidst a global pandemic? How could we help when we did return?

James says this of weighty decisions:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

James 1:5, ESV

Ignore this exhortation at your own peril. We gave it due diligence. After prayer and discussion, we decided that our daughter should remain in the States and that Angela and I should return to Papua New Guinea.

We juggled translation responsibilities (including final exegetical checks of Acts via video-conferencing), preparation of the stacks of documents needed for travel during the pandemic, purchase of necessities for the move, and, of course, moving out of our house.

As our To-Do list dwindled, our excitement (and silent dread?) swelled. The silent dread was for all the good-byes, the inescapable change, adjustment, and the deep dive into the unknown. Our excitement? We were returning to friends, co-workers, and worthy work.

I will spare you the finer details of the trip. It was 50+ hours, involving five major airports and a few hours in a bush plane over jungles, oxbow lakes, and rugged mountains. Then there was the 14 days of quarantine at a mission base above 5,000 feet in the New Guinea Highlands.

View from the Kassam Pass into the Ramu Valley of Papua New Guinea
The view from the Kassam Pass into the Ramu Valley, at the junction of Eastern Highlands, Morobe, and Madang Provinces.

Crossing the Planet

Hopes and Plans for 2022

Proverbs 19:21 reads: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” The person seeking to follow in the footsteps of Jesus must pray, plan, and push on toward the upward call to which they’ve been called.

Henceforth, we’ve put some major way points on the calendar for 2022. We invite you to pray with us as we attempt to achieve these things in Jesus’ name.

  • Comprehension check of Luke’s Gospel
  • Comprehension check of Acts of the Apostles
  • Train translators and pastors on the translation of and pastoral application of Hebrews
  • Consultant check Luke and Acts
  • Train translators and pastors on the translation of and pastoral application of Revelation

Pray with Us

We invite you to pray with us regarding moving this proposed milestones ahead. As you pray, consider the reality that the completion of work on Luke and Acts constitutes 27% of the New Testament. By the end of 2022 it is possible that over a quarter (more) of the New Testament will be accessible to Somau Garia speakers!

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Get Your Prayer Guide Here

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Prayer is a vital activity in advancing the Kingdom of God. Christians are called upon to be constant in praying for enemies, for governments, for authorities, for fellow believers, for open doors, for boldness, etc. Christians are called upon to be devoted to prayer.

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Even with all the Bible passages that direct us to pray, many of us struggle knowing how to pray enemies or governments or fellow believers or, as in our case, missionaries. Not knowing how to pray often kills motivation to try. Don’t give up! One helpful means of discovering how to pray is to use a prayer guide. Click here or on the image to download a prayer guide to assist you in praying for the people involved in the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament.

 

Thank you for joining us in making the scripture accessible to the Somau Garia people!

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The Long Awaited Update

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Uria Mopo Road Repair-2I have a confession to make. It has been months since I’ve posted here. OK, so you already knew that. Whew! I’m glad we got that out of the way!

I last posted a few weeks after we arrived in Papua New Guinea. Our initial weeks here were spent in the provincial capital, and then we transitioned to Uria Village, where we live most of the time.

One challenge of living in Uria Village is that, while there is a cell tower nearby, its data transfer rate is very slow. Most of the time it is impossible to upload blog posts to shakethegates.org. I’m currently looking for an elegant solution to allow me to upload from Uria.

We invite you to pray with us regarding a possible solution to the challenge. The current tower is owned by a company called Digicel. While they provide excellent service in the urban centers, their rural service apparently hasn’t been upgraded since the original towers were installed in 2008. Digicel’s competitor, BeMobile (partly owned by Vodafone) is erecting two new towers, one to the north of us, the other to the south. I’m guessing that the BeMobile towers have upgraded equipment (3G or 4G LTE). If so, it is likely that we will be able to get data speeds fast enough to keep up with the website and social media. Please pray that we will be able to get increased access while in the village.

Pictured above is a portion of the track we hike on into Uria Village. Fortunately for us, there is a lot of work being done to improve physical access to our area. It is likely that by the end of rainy season (toward the North American summer), we will be able to drive into and out of Uria–something that we’ve not been able to do for a very long time. Pray that increased physical access will be a blessing and not a curse. Much is changing in Papua New Guinea, much of which is being used for evil.

Finally, we invite you to pray with us as we launch a very busy 2016. Our part in shaking the gates of Hell involves translating the New Testament into the heart language of the Somau Garia people of Papua New Guinea, a people created for God’s glory. Among other things, we are conducting a translation workshop (beginning February 8), a preaching workshop (later in the year), and a spiritual retreat for Somau Garia translators. Pray that the Holy Spirit will stir the hearts and minds of the participants, bringing transformation and renewed passion for Jesus Christ.

Thanks for stopping by shakethegates.org–and thanks for praying!

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Close the Gap

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Uria Village, Madang, Papua New Guinea – Rainy Season, late 1990’s.  It was a season of tragedy. Among other things, the wife of one of our dear friends died in childbirth. The hike to the village where she was to be buried was three hours’ hike away, across a couple of ridgelines, and I (Todd) was sick with what I thought was malaria. Angela would stay home in Uria with the kids and I would attend the gathering.

storm clouds gathering

Storm clouds were gathering as I prepared to leave with my Somau Garia neighbors. I stared at the dark clouds and into the dark jungle and prayed. The bush treks around Uria are stony and slick, narrow and uneven. About an hour into the hike, I was feeling nauseated and dizzy and became disheartened by what I saw ahead.   Before me was huge gap in the path—six feet wide and a hundred feet deep. It was beginning to rain. I stopped in my tracks and considered what to do. It was either turn around and add hours to the journey or take a leap of faith, as it were, and keep going.

Angela and I are in the process of resourcing the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament. We have been hiking this path for a few years now. We’ve just come around a corner and are staring at a gap in the path—just wide enough to be scary, just short enough to be doable.

Fortunately, we don’t travel alone. When I was hiking the path to the funeral, one of my friends leapt across ahead of me in order to “catch” me on the other side. In resourcing the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament, we need ministry partners who will either repair the path or leap across and “catch” us.

During the remainder of 2014, we are asking the Lord to close the gap between the current commitments that have been made toward resourcing the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament and what is still needed.

Would you consider being one of those God is calling to close the gap?

If you are interested in joining the prayer and provision team click here to join the provision team or click here to email us with your name and email address to join the prayer team.

Thank you for prayerfully considering your part in making the Word of God available in the Somau Garia language.

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Lifestyle of the Unexpected

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Two slender Melanesian men stand side by side, one holding a chicken. They wear traditional clothes, heads decorated with dog’s teeth and hibiscus blooms. They live on the side of a mountain in Papua New Guinea, speak a language few have ever heard of, and extend incredible hospitality, Melanesian-style, to those who come to visit. As with many other pictures like this one, it could be captioned: Papua New Guinea, Land of the Unexpected.

Stanley and Sominak Welcome Reeds
There is another picture. An American couple. Dressed modestly. Signs of wear showing around the corners of her eyes; snowy white beard covering his face. They are younger than they might look. A pig’s tusk necklace hangs about his neck.  A string bag graces her shoulder. Across the bottom of this photo we find these words: “Missionary: Lifestyle of the Unexpected.”

Seven years ago when we boarded the flight home to furlough, to endless church dinners, thousands of miles on the road, we had little intention of remaining in the U.S. beyond the months allotted for visiting churches and friends and taking care of the usual stuff–doctor visits, dentists offices, a few weeks for vacation, a little support raising. Then . . . the unexpected.

We did not return. We moved to Iowa and got involved in local church ministry for a few years. We moved to Florida and worked on the home-side of missions, providing administration for missionary care and crisis management. Month to month and year to year God, in his abounding love and plan for our lives continued to nudge us little by little to a little village nestled on the side of a mountain in New Guinea. Unexpected.

This month we’ve been rolling continually northward throughout the Midwest sharing the vision God has placed before us and pointing the saints toward Jesus’ majesty. At each stop we’ve met people who love Jesus and have showed our family tremendous hospitality and the vast generosity of hearts surrendered to Him. Yet, we have met much that was unexpected.

Unexpected: we met a man in a Florida church who was living in a tent in the woods, dreaming of helping others and asking about how to become a missionary.

Unexpected: a shade tree mechanic in Texas who, while not regularly attending church, took time to visit with us and to fix a problem on our very high-mileage SUV.

Unexpected: a joyous evening spent in an upstairs apartment singing and dancing to a familiar song, while cooking dinner with our son who is interning in youth ministry this summer.

Unexpected: seeing friends not seen in 23 years, sharing a meal, laughing about old times.

Unexpected: 3,500 miles in two weeks (it ain’t over yet).

Unexpected: Dodging EF4 tornadoes, floods, rain, and hail for 200 miles while trying to make it to our next overnight–and coming through it all with no damage, no injury, no death or dismemberment!

Unexpected: Praying for an October 2014 return to that little village on the mountainside in Papua New Guinea. Praying for the hopes and dreams of an entire people and an almighty God to be brought to fruition in finishing the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament.

You, too, can join the adventure of “Lifestyle of the Unexpected” by praying with us day by day and by partnering with us financially. If you are interested in financial partnership, click here. If you’d like to become a prayer partner, please click here to drop us a note.

 

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Hope Amidst Chaos

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God, from ancient times, has done unusual, unexpected, and sometimes unwelcome things in order to draw the attention of mankind to the fact that is is the one and only God and that He is at work in the affairs of mankind.

Isaiah 41:19 – 20 reads:

I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

Cypress is something that we have a lot of here in Florida. When Isaiah writes that God will set the fir and the cypress together in the wasteland, he is indicating that God is about to do something spectacular. Cypress is the quintessential tree of the vast swamps of Florida (OK, they call them hammocks down here, but that is for a different discussion). The cypress is the buttress-rooted tree that requires vast amounts of water to stay alive and grow–not something you find in the middle of the desert.

A blue heron among the cypress trees.

A blue heron among the cypress trees.

Easter Sunday 2007 the Gospel According to Mark in the Somau Garia language (Xoiteupo Asinaku Kuna Makie Xayawoki) was dedicated to the Lord and distributed. This book has been in circulation for seven years. Our family has been away almost as long. The desert has come in those seven years.

A major player on the Somau Garia team became gravely ill a few years ago with a medical condition that left him weakened and virtually crippled. There was a resurgence of animistic practice among some of the villages. Satan unleashed his forces, lashing out at those who would be changed by the Word of God in the heart language.

Yet God delights in planting cypress in the desert. He is a good Father who listens to the prayers of his children and leads them in the way of blessing. Last year the very team member left weakened by crippling disease continued to work on drafting books of the New Testament in the hope of help from the mission community. He dropped by the Pioneer Bible Translators office in Madang and asked, “Did you see the Owen family when you were in the U.S.?” The response dripped with the oil of the Holy Spirit. “No. I don’t think that they will be back. But, go back to your village and pray and see what God will do.” This friend did that very thing.

God did something completely unexpected. About the same time, I set aside a day for prayer and reflection, not knowing anything of what was happening on the other side of the Pacific. I was finished with the day and packing up my things to go home when, as clear as day, God impressed upon my spirit, “It is time to return to PNG and finish what you started.”

It has been an arduous journey, yet God continues to work. The wheels are coming off of the bus of this world and yet God is still concerned with the poor and forgotten. He still loves and cares for those whom the world despises. Here in the middle of the tempest of 21st century life, God moves, God loves, God plants cypress trees in the desert.

What an opportunity lies before all of us.

Our prayer and our hope is to be on the field again by October 2014. God is working. God is raising up partners. God is answering prayers. He loves to surprise us, “that the people might see . . . that the hand of the Lord has done this . . .” Wow!

What an amazing joy there is in participating in what God is doing in this generation!

How Best to Partner:

  • We are in need of monthly ministry partners. You can click here to go to our Donate page to find instructions on how to get involved financially.
  • We are in need of special donations to cover expenses like airfare, set up costs, and the purchase of a four-wheel drive.
  • We are in need of intercessory prayer partners to take the needs of the Somau Garia people and our family before the throne of God. You can download a 31 day prayer guide by clicking here.

Please feel to drop us a note by clicking here with any questions, comments, etc. We’d love to get better acquainted.

 

 

 

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Incredible Opportunity!

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Kakeri ipaki kanikina, “Tini sanawa sanawa xounari xokupa xuiapu Xoiteupo kuna meru utei kanika.”

These words carry profound meaning and deep impact to about 4,000 people on this planet. You see, these words are old, some of the last words that Jesus spoke on this earth. As He was getting ready to ascend into heaven, He took care of a few last but very important things. He uttered to his followers: “και ειπεν αυτοις, πορευθεντες εισ τον κοσμον απαντα κηρυξατε το ευαγγελιον παση τη κτισει.”

Do you feel the absurdity of trying to understand the Word of God when it is thrown at you in languages you do not speak or understand? Do these words communicate love and mercy? Judgment or call to repentance? Do they give you instructions on what to do in order to be a good servant of Jesus?

How about this?

“And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation.” Mark 16:15, ESV.

This command is unambiguous when put simply in your heart language. There is no wiggle room here. It is uncomfortably direct for some. For others, it stands before us a door that Jesus himself has opened–and therefore no one can shut.

There are times when an open door is  inviting. The door is cracked, light pours in, a glimpse of blue or even slate gray appears, piquing our interest. Step to the door and look out onto . . . opportunity–incredible opportunity.

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Jesus invites you to step into the doorway and look out onto vast jungle covered mountains, creviced with deep valleys and spring-fed streams, foot paths, gardens, and a people plying a cash market trade between their cacao groves, coffee orchards, stands of vanilla and the road winding northwest to southeast to the major coastal ports of Madang and Lae. He invites you to interact with a people created for His glory; a people in need of a Savior and in need of His life-giving Word. Come, step through the door with us and help us laugh and cry with them, walk and work with them, and live life with them.

Lim Auwi and Todd Owen talk as they walk to a village meeting.

Lim Auwi and Todd Owen talk as they walk to a village meeting.

During April and May we are praying that God will greatly increase the provision of resources needed to place my family and I back in this incarnational ministry, living and loving through life lived out before the eyes of a watching people. Bible translation by nature is incarnational, it is transformational, it is multi-generational.

Won’t you join us in this great venture? Want to know more? If you’d like to hear our story and why this is so very important, click here. If you’d like to step into the doorway and get involved, click here to learn how. If you’d like to start a conversation about partnership in ministry looks like, email me by clicking here.

Before us stands a door that Jesus has opened and no one can shut. Come on in!

 

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The Time is Now . . .

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When I (Todd) was in Papua New Guinea last September, I spent time with people for whom God has given me a deep love, connection, and calling. He has inscribed them on the pages of my heart in a spiritual ink that will not fade with time and cannot be erased by the distractions or worries of life. As often as I’ve been tempted to turn away from this calling, God brings them to me in dreams, in reading, in off-hand comments made by people who are unwittingly used by God to remind me of this people made before time for God’s glory.

Getting the Word Out Somau Garia Style

Getting the Word Out Somau Garia Style

When I am weary and fearful, God calls me to strength and courage and continually draws me to the place of remembrance. I cannot escape it. He calls me to a mountainside in Papua New Guinea and he floods this theater of the mind with faces etched by the tropical sun, voices of children and grandmothers calling after them, with the musty smell of the jungle in rainy season, with the course feel of calloused hands hardened by day after day of back-breaking labor. He reminds me of the high stakes of this calling by bringing visions of shamans making sacrifice for the recently dead, of faces covered in hot tears streaming down their chins, fear-ridden wailing as another young person has given way to tuberculosis or murder or any number of tragedies. Oh God, do not delay . . . allow us to be with them soon . . .

Treasure . . .

Treasure . . .

Angela and I feel that the Holy Spirit has kicked it up a notch in returning us to Papua New Guinea to finish the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament. The urgency we feel is almost painful and we are noticing that every week we are having more dreams, more tears, more internal pressure to get there this year. The time is definitely now. There is no mistaking it.

We’ve prayed. We’ve talked strategy. We’re looking to God to move mountains to make this happen. In response to all this, we’re prayerfully laying an opportunity before you. We’re calling it the Spring Forward campaign and here’s the idea. We are at about 1/3 of the monthly pledges we need for Pioneer Bible Translators to allow us to return to Papua New Guinea. We are asking God to increase those pledges within the space of the next two months to 2/3 of monthly pledges needed to land us on the field. Here’s how you can participate in this campaign.

spring forward campaign week 1 graphic

First, talk to God about it. Ask Him what He would like you to do to make the completion of the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament possible. Second, if He leads you to join the provision team, visit the “Donate” page by clicking here and decide which kind of donation you’d like to set up. Third, drop us a line to let us know of your intention to support Pioneer Bible Translators so that we can add you to our email updates, prayer updates, etc.

Thank you for prayerfully considering God’s desires for your involvement in this ministry of getting the word made available to the Somau Garia people in their heart language.

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Day 40: Blessings in the New Year

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This post concludes 40 days of awareness, calls to prayer, and encouragement to get personally involved in transformational ministry with the Somau Garia people of Papua New Guinea.

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2013 closes with these very real needs unfulfilled, yet with an overwhelming sense of anticipation, wonder, and confidence that God’s desires for these people to be supplied with His word in their heart language, our call to return to Papua New Guinea, and His glory to be shown will be fulfilled.

To those of you who have participated in this ministry through your prayers, financial gifts to PBT, or with notes of encouragement (or all of the above) I say, “thank you”.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and give you peace.

Happy New Year and blessings for 2014!