Alive and Well

Happy Fall, everyone! We apologize for the long overdue update. We are alive and well and have been busy adjusting to life as a family of five. At the end of August we returned to PNG from Australia and have now been back in the village for a month. Micah jumped right back into language and culture study and Laura has begun homeschooling Addy (1st grade) while entertaining a toddler and taking care of our newborn.

It was so special to have family visit while we were in Australia! 

Colter Timothy

We realize that not everyone has social media or has heard from us about the arrival of our newest addition, so here are some adorable pics of our littlest Myers baby: Colter! He was born in Cairns, Australia on July 2nd at the public hospital. It was a smooth delivery and a great experience there. We were in and out of the hospital in just 8 hours! He is our easiest, calmest baby by far, which is a blessing as his two older siblings keep us busy! The excitement of having a newborn has not worn off and Addy and Declan are both very sweet to their little brother. 

Village Life

It has been a very busy month in the village. After just two days back in our village, Micah, Adam and Jason went on a 3-day trip to visit some of the other Lembena villages they hadn’t yet visited. Part of this trip was to was to tell the people that, although we are based in one specific Lembena village (Yambaitok), we are here to bring “God’s Talk” to all the Lembena people. The teaching will start in our village and move out from there to their villages and all the other Lembena villages. After all, “God’s Talk” is for everyone. Another reason the guys went was to clear up some misconceptions as to why we are here (learn the language, teach literacy, teach “God’s Talk” and translate the Bible into their language) and what we are NOT here for (i.e. to build them an airstrip, to bring goods and services, etc.) It was a very beneficial trip and we thank God for keeping the men safe and healthy during their long days of hiking. 

Trusting God in Dark Times

There have been several deaths in our village and the surrounding villages these past two weeks, one being an older man we knew very well and had spent a great deal of time with. He and his wife were like grandparents to our kids. Although he was a sickly man with chronic severe asthma among other conditions, his death was sudden and shocking to us. The “haus krai” (time of mourning) was done at our neighbor and close friend’s house, so we could hear crying throughout the day and night for several days on end, as family members and others from our village and surrounding villages came to pay their respects through the culturally appropriate way of crying and wailing with the family of the deceased. Heavy times like these are hard for anyone, and this has been no different for us. Our minds can easily wander to thoughts such as “Lord, why are you allowing it to take this long to learn the language?” Or “if only we had been finished learning language by now, so-and-so could have been alive long enough to hear the truth of the gospel.” Or even “if we knew he’d been that sick, we could have gotten him the medicine he needed.” But the Lord is gracious to bring verses to mind, such as Isaiah 55:8-9: “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’, declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.’” Also Proverbs 16:9 “A person plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps.” Things may not always make sense to us, but we can trust that His ways are higher than ours. 

Through these times of numerous deaths, seemingly slow progress and plans going differently than how we’d like them to, the Lord is teaching us patience. We believe that God is at work here, even now. Even now, He is preparing the hearts of the Lembena people who wouldn’t have been ready to hear the teaching if we had begun already. Even now, He is allowing us the privilege to be used as examples of godly, anti-cultural living that will draw others in. He is bringing us to the end of ourselves so that we can fully trust in Him and only Him and not lean on our own understanding or try to strive in our own strength. Perhaps we will never never know exactly what He is doing in these circumstances, but we dare not think that we know more than God, or that our timing and plans are better than His. Galatians 4:4 tells us that at just the right time, Christ came. His timing was and is perfect. He is all knowing, all powerful, and He wants the World to know Him. We are trusting that at the right time, the Lembena people will hear the Gospel that will change everything. And so, we continue on, walking in faith and trust in Him, knowing that He is with us always, He loves the Lembena people more than we ever could, and that He is even more heartbroken by all of these deaths than we are. Jesus wept when faced with the death of his friend Lazarus and so we too weep but not as those who have no hope. Please remember us and pray with us for our people.

• Pray for the Lembena people. Pray that God continues to prepare them for the Gospel, that we can continue to develop deep relationships with our people and show them the love of God even now. 
• Praise: We are all healthy and adjusting well to life with a new baby in the middle of the bush. 
• Pray forour team during this next year as we seek to finish language and culture study and begin preparation for literacy then teaching.
• Praise: the Biem team, another work here in PNG, just completed the final check of their Bible translation! Praise God with us for all their hard work in getting God’s word to their people!
• Pray for the upcoming language evaluation for our team in November.
• Praise: Praise that things went smoothly and quickly during our stay in Australia.

In His Strength and Power Alone,

Micah, Laura, Adalia, Declan and Colter