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Breaking Through the Barriers–Day 3

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Breaking Through the Barriers Day 3 Graphic

“For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” –Romans 6:14

In the years following the publication of The Gospel According to Mark in the Somau Garia language, one of the more skilled Somau Garia workers, S.K., took a moral detour from the straight and narrow. His fellow workers banned him from the team. Ask God, by his grace and patience, to bring S.K. to repentance and renewal. Ask God to work powerfully through the published Mark to cut S.K. to the quick, that he might serve God with his whole heart. Pray also that, when he turns back, he will be restored to the translation team. Pray that God will break through S.K.’s heart barriers, that he might be fully God’s servant.

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Breaking Through the Barriers–Day 2

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Breaking Through the Barriers Graphic Day 2

“Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.” Philippians 4:14

Paul was writing the Philippian church, commenting on their faithful partnership in ministry. They were at times the only ones concerned with his physical needs. Physical needs are more than just money. In the area of Papua New Guinea where we serve, tuberculosis is pandemic, as is malaria, amoebic dysentery, etc. Our Somau Garia co-workers are frequently at risk for debilitating disease. One of our Somau Garia co-workers, E.P., was afflicted with tuberculosis in his bones and was hospitalized for five months a few years ago. It has affected his mobility. Pray that God will protect and sustain the Somau Garia nationals (and their families) who have given themselves to the work of New Testament translation. Ask God to grant them strength and sound health so that nothing will hinder the Somau Garia from gaining access to the Word of God in their heart language. Ask God to break through the health barriers that hinder the work of transformation (through the Word) among the Somau Garia people.

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Breaking Through the Barriers–Day 1

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Breaking Through the Barriers Graphic Day 1

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33.

“You do not have because you do not ask God.” James 4:2.

The first verse is a precious promise given those who follow Jesus without reservation, the second a rebuke to those who quarrel and fight to selfishly acquire more. Somewhere in between we find the need to approach the throne of grace with full assurance of faith—trust—in a loving Father who provides for our needs as we serve Him.

Ask God to break through the barrier of financial need in order that the translation of the Somau Garia New Testament might resume soon–that Jesus’ name might be exalted in the nations.

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Temptation and Prayer

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One habit that Angela and I picked up when we moved to Papua New Guinea in the 1990’s was to always watch the path at our feet when we walked anywhere. Paths in rural Papua New Guinea are not wide, cement sidewalks or elevated boardwalks through wet areas. Because we lived on a very steep-sided mountain, our paths were (and are) narrow, stony, slick, steep, and snaggy. A person tends to watch the path rather than looking around at all the scenery. The scenery is taken in when drinking water or sitting for a bit of a rest.

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Jesus’ followers watched him walk the snaggy paths of temptation. He handled people who hated him, doubted him, those who tried to manipulate and use him, and tried to try and trick him into doing something that they could use against him. The disciples watched him handle both popularity and rejection with unshakeable character—and without sin.

Read the above texts. What do they say to you about temptation and prayer? Very early in Jesus’ three year ministry, he taught his followers to pray, concluding with, “And lead us not into temptation.”

On the other end of those three years he gave a similar directive—on the night he was betrayed. Entering the Garden of Gethsemane he instructed the disciples: “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” Walking several yards further, he dealt with his own temptation in prayer. In prayer he chose to make the horrific journey to Golgotha. Returning to his followers, he found them sleeping, “exhausted with sorrow.” He knew what was about to happen. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” They would need to have been strengthened in prayer to endure the coming hours.

Stress, fatigue, and sorrow can all take their toll on our ability to resist the temptation to fall into worry or anger or hate. Western culture cultivates these three realities. We are pushed to excess in all. It is a diabolical strategy to break us down and make us vulnerable to sin—to push us over the edge. Missionaries face these realities in a rather magnified way on a daily basis.

How do we overcome, friends? “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” Notice Jesus does not exhort his followers not to fall into sin. He exhorts them not to fall into temptation (the gateway to sin). There are three main sources of temptation: the world, the flesh, and the devil. As we live in the context of the world, within our own skin, and in an adversarial relationship with the devil, we must continually be in prayer. One of our ongoing prayers must be that we will not fall into temptation. If we find ourselves in the place of temptation when we are tired, stressed, and perhaps sorrowful, if we have not lived in an attitude of prayer, we are more likely give way to sin. How do we overcome?

  • Go, sometimes alone and at other times with like-minded believers, to a solitary place of prayer.
  • Determine not to leave that solitary place until you have surrendered your will to the will of the Father. Your flesh will oppose you. The world will oppose you. The devil will mock you. Don’t give in!
  • Call on God to work his will in your life at the crisis point.
  • Receive God’s grace and sufficiency to overcome.

By God’s grace, by his Spirit, by his Word, by his power we will shake the gates of Hell!

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Twenty-One Days in Prayer

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They are not of this world, even as I [Jesus] am not of it. –John 17:16

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I [Jesus] have overcome the world. –John 16:33

 

 

A World Apart

A few minutes spent twittering through the headlines is a sobering experience. I read of youth ministers being arrested for distributing child porn. Today I read of a minister who was sentenced to life in prison for murdering not one, but two of his wives. Then there are the stories of the hucksters, the “evangelists” who seem to be in “the business” to make a quick buck, actually lots of quick bucks–and seem to be very effective doing it. All of these kinds of headlines grieve me deeply. I am ashamed when I think of how these people drag Jesus’ name through the mud and give a watching world occasion to ridicule him freshly.

The world understands that we don’t belong to them. They understand that we are to operate with a different Spirit. Do we?

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

–I Peter 4:17, ESV

Living in a Time of Judgment

Daniel (of dream-interpreting and lion-mouth-shutting fame) lived in a time when Israel was oppressed and scattered because of her sin . Daniel’s heart was for her to display God’s glory to the nations. When he understood that according to Jeremiah’s prophecy the “desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years”, he responded by humbling himself in prayer.

So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke your name to our kings, princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

–Daniel 9:3-6, NIV

Daniel acknowledged Israel’s sin, including himself in the indictment. He acknowledged the character of God as a promise keeper, a covenant keeper, as all powerful. God loved Daniel’s humility and brokenness before Him. Daniel didn’t try to dart away from his own culpability, his own role in Israel’s demise. God sent Gabriel, the messenger angel, to answer Daniel’s concerns.

In another instance, Daniel received a revelation from God.

At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.

–Daniel 10:2

As you read through Daniel 10, you see that once again the Lord honored Daniel’s humble attitude expressed through acts of contrition and self-denial. He was so fixed on God’s message, on gaining understanding, that he laid all the normal stuff of life aside to pursue God.

“Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before God, your words were heard, and I have come in response the them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”

–Daniel 10:12-14, NIV

Cosmic Conflict and Answered Prayer

This is a somewhat cryptic account which peels back the layers of the heavens and gives us a momentary view of the invisible war. We are at war. When we pray there is action in heaven. When we humble ourselves there are ripples in the heavenly places. When we demonstrate our desire to understand, to know God, to overcome in this cosmic conflict, God hears and responds.

  • Don’t give up when your prayers are not immediately answered.
  • Take heart. You are engaged in the conflict of the cosmos. Every day the conflict becomes a little more intense. Everyday we are closer to the goal of our faith than we were the day before. Everyday we push harder into enemy territory.
  • Set yourself aside for Jesus–he has sent you into the world to live as Light and Life.
  • Humble yourself before God–His grace flows to the humble.

Prayerfully go forth and shake the gates of hell!

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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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Please Pray–May 20, 2014

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There is movement in heavenly places, as there has been for some time in regards to making the New Testament accessible to the Somau Garia people of Papua New Guinea. There has been more visible evidence of that movement in our lives lately. Momentum is building and things are starting to move forward at a healthy pace here. It is more important than ever that we bring prayer to bear on this season of ministry–as we ramp up to moving overseas.

Sunrise, first day of the week, Atlantic Ocean, Florida coast, rejoicing in the Lord.

Sunrise, first day of the week, Atlantic Ocean, Florida coast, rejoicing in the Lord.

  • Pray that God will continue to make us aware of churches or groups of people that He wants to join us in this historic opportunity to make the New Testament accessible to the Somau Gare people.
  • Pray that we will exercise wisdom and discernment in knowing how best to convey the blessing, opportunity, and benefit to the Kingdom of God in seeing this through.
  • Pray that there will be no hindrance to getting on the field this year.
  • Thank God for allowing us to see the movement in the heavenly places and to be encouraged by it.
  • Thank God for moving in the hearts of men and women, in churches and families to provide for this vital need.
  • Thank God for showing us the full extent of his love in both the death of Jesus–and his resurrection.
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Please Pray–April 29, 2014

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Please Pray April 29 2014 Header

Imagine being stranded on a desert island in the middle of the south seas. You find two crates ashore. One contains three years’ worth of MRE’s (Meal-Ready to Eat: self-heating, preserved complete meals). The other crate contains only Bibles.

You have nothing to do but make your hut, build a signal fire, and wait for a rescue. You rip open an MRE, activate the little heater in it, and find some shade. You’ve never read the Bible before, though you’ve heard of it. You figure that it is good to simply start reading what appears to be the main text. Page 1. “In the beginning . . .”

The story grips you and you hang with it day after day, sipping coconuts, reading the Old Testament. Malachi ends the section marked “Old Testament.”

Do you think you’d have any idea that 1) the Lord would send a rescuer to his people? 2) that the rescuer would not be a political rescuer, but one who would rescue people from death itself? 3) that this rescuer would restore the relationship clearly broken between Adam and all his descendents and Jehovah?

If not, then check out this verse recorded by the prophet Isaiah:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.  – Isaiah 25:7-8, ESV

The imagery used here reveals generosity, compassion, commitment, and ability to right our wrongs and restore to perfection what was broken by our sin and rebellion. He even goes so far as to get involved personally–swallowing up death. Death! What smothers all of mankind our Father is able to remove! Hallelujah! Furthermore, He has spoken to us by His Word and His Word is final. Death is removed, its sting no longer potent.

How fitting that God should turn our eyes to this passage in relation to missional prayer. In the Old Testament, God promised to swallow death up and wipe away every tear. Amen! In the New Testament, we see the fulfillment of that promise in Jesus, the Final Word. Notice:

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. –Revelation 21:3-4, ESV

Please pray with us with this aspect of God’s character firmly in our spirits.

  • Ask God to open the eyes of the Somau Garia speakers who do not know him to the reality that He alone can take away their fear of death and the realm of the dead that so many fear.
  • Ask God to open the doors for the completion of the translation of the New Testament in the Somau Garia language. The Gospel According to Mark is in use, the rest of the NT remains to be translated.
  • Ask God to provide for our return to PNG in His time, in His power, for His purpose.
  • Thank God for people who are hard at work drafting and preparing further books for translation.
  • Thank God for mission partners who currently support this ministry.
  • Praise God for his compassion, for using his power to reconcile, heal, comfort, and establish his followers with life.

Many thanks to those of you who are moving with us into the trenches, standing in the gap, making intercession for a people whom God loves and desires to redeem.

Blessings!

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Prayer Update–April 22, 2014

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There is so much to sort out in the mind, heart, and spirit when considering the resurrection of Jesus. Without it our faith is futile. Without it we have no hope. Without it we are to be pitied above all men. There are other aspects of His resurrection that are less discussed generally. Try this one on for size:

for God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self control. (2 Timothy 1:7, ESV)

In the resurrection of Jesus:

  • we have been given the Spirit
  • we have been empowered
  • we have been equipped to love
  • we are able to control ourselves–living beyond our passions

Furthermore,

If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful. (2 Timothy 2:11-13, ESV)

What must we fear if we have died with him? We have victory over death through Jesus Christ: the sting of death is removed and is not the bitter pill it once was. We are no longer obligated to slavishly obey every whim of our bodies–whether that be lust or gluttony or laziness or gossip or fear or arrogance . . . We are free!

Why share these thoughts in a prayer update?

When I write the words “Pray With Us” I’m inviting you into an activity that marks you as dangerous to entities in heavenly places. The oft quoted passage is appropriate here:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God . . .  (Ephesians 6:12-13, ESV)

Believer, you must understand that Jesus has made a spectacle of these spiritual forces when He walked out of the grave. He rules at the right hand of Almighty God, riding the white horse to victory, treading out the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God. We are sent forth in the name, authority, and majesty of Jesus Christ not to kill and destroy and subdue, but to conquer evil in love, purity, and spiritual power.

When you pray in alignment with the Father’s heart, you are wrestling against echelons of evil, arrayed in the whole armor of God, marching to victory.

We together must pray, must call upon the name of the Lord, must leap into the fray in the name of Jesus Christ the Risen One and shake the gates of hell in Jesus’ name!

As you pray,

  • Thank God for imbuing us with the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin and death in Jesus’ name.
  • Thank God for His compassion and longsuffering patience with the nations; that He has provided a means for them to come into relationship with Him.
  • Thank God for calling us out of darkness into His wonderful light.

Pray specifically for Bible translation efforts in Papua New Guinea:

  • Pray that there will be unity across ethnic boundaries–that Christians of different people groups will work together in Jesus’ name and for his glory.
  • Pray that expatriate missionaries will exercise great wisdom and discernment in serving both Jesus and the peoples of Papua New Guinea–that God’s word will be made accessible to all.
  • Pray that the Father will protect and provide for the teams that are intensely involved in the Bible translation ministry.

Mount your white horses, take up the weapons of your warfare, and fearlessly bring the battle right to the gates of hell!