First People Group Survey Complete | The Clonches in Papua New Guinea

We mentioned in our last newsletter that we were hopeful the men would be able to do a survey assessment into a people group in late September.

Well it happened!

Kind of.

It was actually into a different people group than we had planned for. God worked out some details to visit the G people. The G people are not part of a “new” people group that has not had missionaries, rather they have had missionaries, but the work is unfinished. Back in the 90s a missionary team moved into the G people group. Unfortunately only one family was able to stay. They have worked tirelessly in this people group as the only missionaries for the majority of their 30 years on the field, but health problems and isolation have left the work among the G people only partially complete.

The husband was able to teach what we call “Phase 1” to the villagers after learning the language. Phase 1 is the initial gospel presentation. It consists of about 70 lessons and spans creation through the ascension. Praise the Lord that after Phase 1 was taught in the people’s mother tongue, several came to know Christ! The husband and wife were able to translate a few books from the New Testament and the husband was able to disciple the church for a little bit of time and train a couple G men to teach. Because of the small number of believers and the limited learning they’ve had, the believers in the G people have never been able to start an outreach campaign to the other G villages that are scattered around the area.

The church has been asking for more missionaries for a few years now to come and continue to teach them the Word. They’re hungry to know more about God and want to spread the gospel to others in their people group, but they have no one else that knows their language and can teach them. A couple weeks ago, the guys on our team were able to visit the G church and spend some time with them. One of the believers then hiked with the guys to a few other G villages in the area where they were able to spend a couple days. The goal of a church plant among a tribe is maturity: self-sustaining (led by the PNG believers in the people group and not reliant on the missionaries), reproducing (parents teaching their kids the teaching and discipling them and those kids growing up and teaching their kids etc) and engaged in outreach to other areas. Please pray for our team that the Lord would make it clear if this is where we should go. Right now, we feel conflicted.

At the end of this month, the survey to the Y people we were hoping to visit last month is happening! The fuel crisis is still ongoing, but the mission has been able to acquire more fuel to keep going for another month. The men will fly in on October 21st and back out on the 25th. Please pray that this survey will help clarify things for our team - if we should move to the G people group, the Y people group or if there is another area we should consider.

Here are a few pictures from G land.

While visiting a G village that has not heard the clear gospel message, the guys were able to talk to some people and ask them questions. At the end of the conversation, the man in the middle said in the trade language, “It’s clear that we are all confused and don’t know the answers, but now we are all wondering, how can we go on this way forever not knowing the answers? Are you going to tell us the answers now because otherwise how will we get the answers?”

Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ in people group G. Here they are singing a song during a sweet time of fellowship during the last night together. Without intervention, the church will die out, and they know it. One of the believers described the church there as a tree that's dying and falling, and once it falls it's over.