Tag Archives: Somau Garia

post

Day 3: Alphabets and Alphabet Makers

Posted on by
Sominak Yuna

Sominak Yuna

I have a friend named Sominak who lives near Uria Village. He is gentle, intelligent, thoughtful. He has a charming way with people and immediately puts children at ease. He is a school teacher, a leader of teachers. When Angela and I first moved to Uria Village in the late 1990’s, Sominak was working with several other teachers to develop reading primers for Somau Garia speaking children. The idea was to develop a whole library of simple story books, introducing letters, vowel sounds, and simple words along the way–richly illustrated so that young minds could connect the images with the words on the page.

Sominak is gifted at taking the 16 letters of the Somau Garia alphabet and making them interesting. He is an artist who did most of the artwork for the primers, so he can draw a lot of fun cartoons on the board. Imagine having a teacher draw an amazing picture on the blackboard and letting you come forward and write the name below the picture. He knows how to draw the best out of people.

Vowels: A, E, I, O, U. Consonants: K, L, M, N, P, R, S, T, W, X, Y. These are the elements of written Somau Garia. These letters can be combined to make a story about a snake in the jungle or a man who takes off his arms and legs and head to warm them in the sun (weird) or to write Bible verses like the following, “Yesusue pa kapia xekerina kisamaira wati, nupo tatiwopi kanikina, ‘Tini nonomi weinikitari kouwa. Kakixanari taiyeri nikaku. Xuwe. Xoiteu Waiwai Purotai Wese paiya, muanum nono nikau.’ ” which in our mother tongue reads, “But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.’ ” Mark 10:14, Somau Garia translation; ESV

While Sominak’s primary role over the years has been literacy, he has given much of himself to the translation of the New Testament into the Somau Garia language. The Gospel According to Mark has been in use since 2007. The remaining 26 books await translation. Men like Sominak await their translation. The Word of God in the language of the heart has the power to transform a people.

Angela and I long to be in Papua New Guinea again soon, working alongside friends like Sominak, getting the Word out to a people needing the power of the gospel at work in their lives.

Will You Join Us?
Now through the end of 2013 we are asking God to raise up 40 new monthly financial partners, 40 new special gifts partners, and 40 new intercessory prayer partners to see the Word of God be available in the mother tongue of the Somau Garia people. If you’d like to partner financially with us in this venture of faith, you can click here to visit our Donate page where you’ll find instructions on how to do so. If you’d like to join the cadre of prayer partners, click here to drop us an email informing us of your commitment.

Thank you for reading this post. Thank you for praying. Thank you for giving of yourself to get the Word out to a precious people whom God loves very deeply.

 

post

Day 1: Dream Becomes Vision Becomes Reality

Posted on by
Dreams can by misty and formless when they are becoming visions.

Dreams can be misty and formless when they are becoming a vision.

I look back and I see the dreams of yesterday, though mostly formless, possessing enough clarity to bring excitement and motivation to the dreamer. I look in the mirror and I see a very, very clarified dream, energetic and motivational and orderly. I see a vision worth living and dying for. Reflecting on the dream and living in vision, I try to picture the future–how it will all play out, what it will look like when the vision is embraced by others, transformed into something of its own by a community of fellow visioneers.

God’s dream of people from every nation, tribe, people, and language, before the throne worshiping God in gratitude for salvation, gave us our vision of going in response to God’s dream and doing our part to empower one tribe, one people speaking one language to be part of the festive throng. God-willing this vision becomes a reality for a people working and waiting for the New Testament to be available in their language.

The present reality is that the Somau Garia have only the Gospel According to Mark available to them in their mother tongue. Important, but incomplete, this is only the beginning. These dear friends need the Scriptures in their heart language to be able to grow, be transformed, to win the battle over sin and death.

I was talking with someone yesterday about how important it is to our country than men like Martin Luther and John Wycliffe and William Tyndale risked their lives to translate the Word of God into the language of the common people in their respective countries. How different all of our histories would have been had these men been to afraid to risk all to get the Scriptures into the hands of ordinary people.

Today you have a chance to participate in changing the future of an entire people through getting the Word out in their heart language. Would you join us?

How to Partner
If you’d like to be one of forty new monthly financial partners, click here to go to our Donate page. If you have any questions, you can drop Todd an email at towen@shakethegates.org. If you’d like to make a year-end, one-time special gift to help PBT get our family to Papua New Guinea, click here. If you’d like to be one of forty new intercessory prayer partners, click here and we will get you set up.

We are praying for forty new financial partners, forty new intercessors, and forty one-time gifts to help insure that the Somau Garia people will not have to wait any longer than is necessary to have the Word available in their heart language.

Thank you! and Blessings!

 

 

post

His Dream, Our Vision

Posted on by

If our dreams are intensely personal, they are also intensely fragile. But whisper a dream and the whisp might snuff it out. Our dreams are choked by the weeds of life: health or sickness, good relationships or bad ones, opportunity or lack, that which we can control and that which we cannot. Our dreams are intensely fragile.

His Dream

His dream–singular, piercing, soul-wrenching, awe-inspiring–is woven with different fabric. His dream evades capture, overcomes obstacle, penetrates enemy territory and liberates the heart of man, freeing it from enslavement to sin and self, offering life and love, even power, in its place. His dream is revealed little by little from the earliest syllables of Genesis through to the end of the Book.

It is John’s uncovering (Apocalypse) of God’s dream that speaks most powerfully to me, revealing ultimate things. “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ “

In that day, man in all his variety and uniqueness, will be represented before the throne–praising God for salvation. Not for money or ease or convenience or entertainment. For salvation.

His dream pierces my right to be selfishly indulgent. His dream rips me from my excuses and forces me to consider the 6,877 languages and language groups of the world. His dream fixes my gaze on today’s 209 million people speaking 1,967 languages that do not have adequate access to the Bible in a language that speaks to them. If only His dream allowed me to look at faceless masses representing vast numbers of people–then I could ignore it, overwhelmed by the size of the group–but NO!!! His dream paints familiar faces on the canvas of my mind. This canvas is alive. These faces are tribal people, uttering exotic words in the mountain jungle where they live. They are our friends with whom we’ve had many adventures, joys and sorrows, victories and losses. They are our loved ones with names like Lim and Torenimas and Natika. The are people without the Bible in their heart language. They grow the coffee you drink in the morning and the chocolate you eat at Christmas. They cultivate vanilla which goes in all those wonderful holiday treats. They are people that God dreams of standing around His throne–wearing white robes, clean before his eyes. Their eyes are fixed on the Savior, on the throne, on Him.

Following the Dream

Close friends from Uria Village, Lim Auwi and his family.

Close friends from Uria Village, Lim Auwi and his family.

His dream compels us to do the same, to step forward in promise, eyes fixed on the Lamb that was slain, wavering between falling like a dead man or crying out with the throng, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. . . Here we are, Lord, send us! We will go!”

Ahead is forty days, friends. When you drink your coffee in the morning, think of the Somau Garia people, without the Word in their language. When you eat your Christmas chocolates, dream His dream and see those people gathered around the throne, eyes fixed on Jesus. When you mix up a cake or bake cookies for your loved ones, remember our loved ones on the side of Mt. Somau. When you celebrate family during these remaining forty days, take your buoyant celebration before the throne of God and cry out for the people of God’s dream. As you pour out your love to friends and family over these forty days, remember us, too. Forty new financial partners. Forty new prayer partners. Forty special gifts for getting the Word out to the Somau Garia. Pray. Love. Give. Dream. Envision.

To respond in some tangible way to this challenge, click here to visit Donate page on this website or click here drop us a note at prayer@shakethegates.org and let us know of your prayer commitment.

Blessings!

post

Please Pray — 24 October 2013

Posted on by

Thank You for Praying

Many of you prayed along with our family through 40 Days to Freedom. I can’t thank you enough for the commitment, the kindness, and the impact you made in making that sacrificial journey with us. Since returning to the States I’ve taken time to process and reflect on the lessons learned and to thank God for his kindness in taking me on that journey with Him. He helped renew many things, one of which was joy, the kind that is born of purpose and in walking consistently with the way He made me. This rediscovered joy has ignited fresh passion and vision for God and his Kingdom.

The 40 day season of prayer has come and gone. (For an audio update, click here .)  Now it is time to do the harder work of asking God for power to complete the passion, to drive the vision, to bring us once again to Papua New Guinea for service. Would you pray with us regularly toward this end? If you pray for us regularly or would like to do so, would you drop me a line at prayer@shakethegates.org ? In the mean time, would you lift these things heavenward?

Ask God

  • Ask God to provide many, many opportunities for us to share the story, invite others to join the team, and to encourage the saints.
  • Ask God to raise up partners for Bible translation among the Somau Garia people of Papua New Guinea.
  • Ask God to ignite our passion, empower our spirits, and catalyze our actions in order that we might get to the field as soon as possible.
  • Ask God to provide for our physical, social, spiritual, and financial needs.

Thank God

  • Thank God for going ahead of us in all things.
  • Thank God for providing each month for our needs.
  • Thank God for his provision of righteousness through Jesus Christ, without whom we would have no opportunity to be reconciled to God.
post

Impact: 40 Days of Prayer

Posted on by

Prayers Over the Pacific

The airplane was somewhere over the Pacific. It was dark, we were into the tenth hour of a fifteen-and-a-half hour flight and I was restless. Running through my mind  was this notion of 40 Days to Freedom. I was thinking of the prayers that had been lifted heavenward on our behalf and were being lifted even as sped across the Pacific at 500 knots. How would God answer these prayers? Would we see immediate impact or would this be a season of seed planting? What did God have in mind for this time, this journey, this group of praying people?

I slid the questions into an unused corner of my heart and went to sleep for a while. I would grab them later when I could put them to use.

Prayer Along the Road

Fast forward to a bumpy road in the mountains of Madang Province. Though it was early the sun was already hot. The greenery whizzed by on both sides of the truck as we made our way toward Uria. The questions started jiggling loose and flopping around in my consciousness as we bumped through potholes and rough spots in the road. Memories flooded my mind at every turn in the road and through each pass in the mountains. “How will you answer these prayers, Father?” Kablooey. Flat tire. In the middle of nowhere. Probably wasn’t my idea of answered prayer. A group of road workers happened by a few minutes later, jacked the truck up and changed the tire. We started rolling again. Flop. Swish. Flop. Swish. The rhythmic thumping and hissing of another flat tire–no spare this time. We sat on the edge of the road. I whipped out a mobile phone and texted my wife in the U.S. “Have people pray. We are stranded.” The prayers went out. Pray-ers prayed. Along came a truck filled with people who recognized me–they were wontoks (one-talks); Somau Garia friends. They loaded up our driver, our blown out tire, and were off to town. A few hours later we were back on the road to the village.  Those flat-tire prayers were impactful. I believe that the prayers offered gave extra oomph to what was discussed, what was decided, even in setting up conditions so that Jesus’ name will be honored when we return and get moving with the translation again. I also believe that a younger generation of Somau Garia speakers will be engaged and involved in the process of translation and literacy because of answer to those prayers and perhaps even due to the delay in starting the meeting caused by the tires blowing out.

Prayer With Impact

A week later I found myself in Tiap Village, where Aruamu is spoken, talking with the Lord. “Father, how will you answer prayers in this place?” No flat tires here. Events were less mundane. As I was preaching one evening, some young men were sitting together somewhere up the village, away from where we were gathered. They were absolutely astounded at what they had heard. “How is this guy reading our minds?” they were saying to each other. As we prayed and I preached the Holy Spirit was doing his work of conviction. He did this consistently. In four nights of preaching, nine were baptized and over 250 were prayed for as they responded to the conviction and leading of the Holy Spirit. A common theme emerged in the responses: a call to unity of the believers; to stand together and go forth with the Good News.

Thank You

The Father honored your commitment to pray (and some of you fast) for forty days. He responded to your cries by moving in the deep places of hearts and cultures to make an ongoing impact. Thank you for your partnership in these days of wonder.

post

40 Days to Freedom Podcast Update

Posted on by

The 40 Days to Freedom Podcast Update is not only the story of people who prayed for a mission trip, it is the story of a God who answered prayer after prayer after prayer. Please take a few minutes to be encouraged and inspired to engage in the adventure of prayer!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Day 30

Posted on by

September 9 (Day 30) — Monday. The battle is intensifying. Pray diligently for this day. Todd is trying to make his way back to town by Public Motor Vehicle. Marsha and team are finishing preparations. The preparations of months are culminating in the coming journey north on the coastal highway toward Tiap. Pray that the preparations will be completed in good order and that the team will get some much needed rest before tomorrow’s journey. Pray that the vehicles that have been arranged will be on hand and ready. Pray for peace in each heart. Pray that as we travel to Tiap, Aruamu hearts will be prepared and in anticipation of the events of the coming days. Ask God to impart a strong sense of expectancy in the hearts of those attending the events—expectancy that God is going to “show up” and move powerfully.

 

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Day 29

Posted on by

September 8 (Day 29) — Sunday. Things are heating up in heavenly places today. Todd and the Somau Garia guys have been talking by now and things are progressing in getting the translation program back on track. The Spirit of God is working in the hearts of these men and women to establish his plan for this people to be gathered around the throne, before the Lamb, singing, worshipping, honoring the name of Jesus and ascribing power and majesty to him in eternity. The enemy looks at the victory Jesus has and is insanely jealous and angry. The Aruamu team is preparing to travel to Tiap Village for an evangelistic crusade, for dedication of the Word of God in digital audio, making it accessible to those who cannot read or write. The fate of thousands of Papua New Guineans from these two peoples are weighed in the balance today as mild-mannered servants do one thing: obey the call. Pray for God’s servants today. Pray for the warfare that they are engaging in today. Pray that they will be filled with the Spirit in an especially powerful way today, that the enemy will be intimidated and neutralized as they move toward the goal of their journey. Pray for the Lord to go before them, to come behind them as their rear guard, to undergird and overshadow them by the strength of his mighty right arm.

 

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom — Day 27

Posted on by

September 6 (Day 27) — Friday. Pray for heart to heart talks with Somau Garia co-workers and friends to take place. Ask the Father to open Todd’s mind to the things that he needs to speak into with the Somau Garia translators in order to move them toward active involvement in translation again. Ask the Father to open the hearts of the Somau Garia co-workers to his drawing them and calling them back to this special ministry again. Pray that there will be no confusion, no deception, no smoke screens in the heavenly realms to distract and draw these men away from this history altering ministry. Ask God to give these men real clarity to hear and perceive what the Spirit is speaking to them. Ask God to open their eyes to see what he has for his faithful ones. Ask God to grant wisdom and insight into who and when and where and why . . .

 

post

Praying 40 Days to Freedom

Posted on by

September 4 (Day 25) — Jesus promised that in this world we’d have trouble (John 16:33). Those who undertake the work of translating the work of Bible translation place themselves in the crosshairs of the enemy’s efforts to kill, steal, and destroy. Pray for the protection of the Aruamu, Somau Garia, and missionary personnel who give themselves to the Lord through following this call. Pray that Satan’s efforts to discourage and destroy will be fruitless. Indeed, Jesus also promised, “But take heart, I have overcome the world!”