As Christians we often speak of God’s blessing, but what does that really mean? The first thing that comes to most peoples mind is some type of material benefit. We speak of a pay raise or a gift of some kind as a blessing from God. While all that we have and receive is truly from God’s hand, this misses the significance of what it means to have God’s blessing. The best way to figure out the meaning is to let the Bible define the term. A common Hebrew poetic device to give a statement emphasis is to express the same idea twice using different words. In Numbers 6:24-25 we find the following:

The Lord bless you and keep you

The Lord make His face shine upon you

Peace Child… this book was originally published in 1974 and it chronicles the breakthrough that Don and Carol Richardson experienced in evangelizing the Sawi people of what is now West Papua (part of Indonesia). This book and its story have always been close to us. The area the Richardsons worked in was just 375 miles southwest of our first home on the same island. Additionally, Don Richardson was a long-time board member of Pioneers, and their son, Steve – whom we’ve worked with for several years – is a member of Pioneers and served as CEO.  Pioneers has produced a mini-movie to answer the question, “Is what they are doing really worth it?”

…In that order. The last time we went through this process, it took nine months to obtain the documents needed to live in Papua New Guinea. In 2008 we had planned to return to PNG in January but my work permit took almost six months by itself.  So, this time we are starting nine months early. This time around we have several things in our favor…

One of the perennial problems for missions in general, and CLTC in particular, has been finding the personnel to get the job done. It is typical for CLTC to be scrambling to line up instructors to teach all the classes. Additionally, one goal is to have as many Papua New Guineans fill those positions as possible, but typically there are simply not enough nationals with master’s degrees to teach all the classes. So, when we received an email saying that all the teaching positions at CLTC were filled, we were stunned…

One of the larger items on our ‘To Do’ list for home assignment (previously known as “furlough”) is “doctors’ visits.” We know of no optometrists or dental hygienists in PNG and specialists don’t often hang out a shingle over there! While I was taking classes the tuition payments absorbed all  available funds with only enough left for the absolute necessities. This summer we finally broke down and tried to get a few of the necessities taken care of and almost every doctor we’ve been to has referred us to another!