Here is a link to a followup article written by Karina Mills. Keep the prayer coming.
http://maf-papuanewguinea.org/we-run-they-flew-you-prayed/
MAF Marathon PNG
Sunday 7 December 2014
Monday 1 December 2014
The Marathon is over, but hopefully not the prayer!
With November now behind us, the MAF Marathon has come to an
end. It’s been a wonderful time for all involved, and we have been blessed by
all the emails and messages from those of you who have been diligently praying
for MAF (and encouraging our weary legs). As we have read through the prayer
points on a daily basis it has also opened our eyes again to all the amazing
work done by MAF. Please keep praying and we’d encourage you to get in contact
with MAF and get onto their prayer lists.
We were also blessed with a visit here in Kompiam this weekend
by two MAF pilots and their families. Mathias and Mandy Glass, and Michael and
Jael Vogel with their 4 little Kids flew in on Saturday morning and back out
again first thing on Monday. We all had a wonderful time as we ran together and
also celebrated the work of MAF in the community here.
So how did we do? In total, the marathoners ran the airstrip
786 times in the month of November, just over 30 full marathons. They were
about a dozen of the kids who ran the full 26 miles and we achieved a record on
our final Sunday afternoon run of approximately 136 runners including people
from the school, Baptist Church and general community. The school also held its
annual Jumble Sale on Saturday morning with the proceeds of 2,458 kina going
directly to MAF.
Don’t forget to keep MAF in your prayers.
Blessings
The Conwell family and The Kompiam International
School Our wet run on Saturday |
Running in the rain - MAF plane on the airstrip |
Always harder going uphill |
All soaked after Saturdays run |
MAF did a presentation in the Kompiam Baptist Church on Sunday morning and they showed a movie Sunday night |
Mathias who flew out the MAF families and also spent much of Saturday picking up health workers for the hospital |
The start line for Sunday's run |
The marathon is over |
Saturday 22 November 2014
MAF Prayer Points Week #4
We’ve hit the end of week #3 in our marathon and the
momentum is continuing with more and more runners joining in. We had a great
turn out on Friday afternoon with our students as well as some of the hospital
staff joining in for the celebrity run. At the end of week #3 we are up to a
total of 492 miles run for the MAF Marathon. That’s about 19 complete
marathons!
Here’s some more MAF prayer points to keep you going for our
final week:
Week
4 * Monday 24th Nov * CRMF (Technology for the church)
Christian Radio Missionary
Fellowship (CRMF, www.crmf.org) works under
the umbrella of MAF International in Papua New Guinea. Reaching out with
Christ's love to help people in remote communities by; providing a reliable
means of HF radio communication, IT and technical expertise and relevant new
technology such as solar powered light kits.
CRMF has a new ministry 'Learning
Technologies PNG' (LTPNG). It has many roles but primarily we aim to help
pastors and church leaders have access to theological training and discipleship
resources, and also to give people in remote areas access to God's Word via the
printed bible or on audio devices or, with our latest attempt, via WiFi.
The mobile market is growing
worldwide. The increasing number of mobile phones and smart phones is also the
trend in PNG. CRMF is creating a new product to make use of this trend to
spread the Word of God: The WIFIBible! The WIFIBible is a small wireless
device, which provides audio bibles, digital bibles, Jesus film and APPs, free
to download. That means that people close to this device can get a free copy of
the TokPisin bible on their mobile phone.
CRMF will install the first
WIFIBibles in the PMVs, so that people will have the opportunity to explore the
content while they are travelling. At a later stage we hope to install them in
other places as well, like MAF bases, MAF planes and market places, anywhere
people are sitting and waiting. In the end we hope to bring the WIFIBible even
out to the bush. It will be an opportunity for the remote PNG people to get
their own free copy of the text bible or of the audio bible. This is also a
technique to reduce the occurrence of false teaching, which was detected in a
CRMF survey as the number one concern of the pastors. To bring the WIFIBible to
the bush is still in the early stages, but we are convinced that in the near
future even the man from the bush will own a smart phone.
Prayer Points:
·
The
potential for CRMF and LT PNG to grow its ministry presently seems quite large.
However this comes with its challenges. Please pray for these challenges such
as finding the right staff, office space, housing and finance for all of this.
·
We have a
number of HF radio installations that need to be done before the end of the
year. Please pray for wisdom for the management team as they work out the
logistics involved with these installations and that the installations will
occur in the required time.
·
We would
value your prayers for our office staff and for Michael the General Manager as
they are keeping all the accounts and administration tasks running without an
Administrator. Pray for strength and diligence for them all. Praise God for
providing Billy, a PNG national accountant who will join us at the beginning of
next year to become our Administrator.
·
Please pray
for the spiritual protection of all our CRMF families as when you work in
ministry you are often under spiritual attack.
Week
4 * Tuesday 25th Nov * MAF Partnering with Educational Organisations
What’s the precious cargo loaded
in the pod of the Airvan that everybody is pointing at? Why does it make pilot
Andy Little get excited about his next flight?
The bags and boxes are care
packages from parents at Bimadben, a remote community in the South Fly area of
Western Province of PNG, to encourage their children attending the high school
at Awaba. Like at Bimadben, most community schooling finishes at about grade 7
or 8. Students who wish to go further with their schooling board at Awaba or
Daru where the secondary schools are located. “It’s common as I go about my
rounds that some parents will send food to their children,” Andy Little
explains. “It is vital nutrition to supplement the school supplied food which
is often just plain rice. It also connects the kids with their parents during,
what is most often, a full year of separation. Normally I could report the
beaming smiles of the kids at the other end, but in this case the school
airstrip was unserviceable. The children came on the river to collect their
cargo on the weekend instead.”
Flights for educational support
are regular events in the MAF Papua New Guinea program. The delivery of
educational material is remarkably consistent throughout the year, with a
similar number each month, but it is not restricted to any particular weeks.
The true “bush schools” are usually primary schools and generally they use less
material. However, many of the remote high schools need extra support in the
way of books and other supplies as well as building materials.
The Oksapmin High School at
Tekin, Sandaun Province, is another school which gets regular flights from MAF.
Just recently the Twin Otter flew building materials from Tabubil for the
extension of the high school. Our Wewak-based Airvan regularly flies in
supplies for the boarding school. During every term break, Glenda Giles,
founder and teacher at the high school flies with us for a break at Wewak.
HERE is a link to an article about
this year’s Grade 10 Graduation at the Oksapmin High School.
December marks the beginning of
the long school holidays, and the Department of Education as well as parents
request a lot of flights to get teachers and students flown back to their home
villages. In February the school starts again and a lot of students fly back to
the towns after spending Christmas with their families. Twin Otter Captain
Holger Lasi recalls “At Marawaka we had a lot of people to say goodbye to their
kids and to watch what was happening.”
For several days in December and
February our planes are often fully loaded with teachers, students and
educational materials. During the rest of the year the request is more on a
charter basis for transporting educational and building materials or supplies
for boarding high schools and exam papers, which have to be flown out of the
communities in time for central marking.
Prayer Points:
·
Please pray
for safe and smooth MAF operations during the end of the school year as there
are many requests for students and teachers to be flown to their home villages.
·
Pray for the
students and teachers that they can have good rest during the upcoming holidays
and that they have a good time catching up with family and friends while home,
before heading to school early 2015.
·
Think of all
the graduates as they now wait for their results, which are vital for their
further education – either continuing year 11 and 12 and finishing high school
or for applying to university or other further education.
Week
4 * Wednesday 26th Nov * MAF Partnering with Churches and Bible
Schools
One of the most important types
of flying that MAF-PNG does is that of subsidised flying for Church and mission
groups. Many remote churches in the country have access to subsidised flights
because their Church Organisation is registered with MAF. The same applies to
Mission and Bible Colleges.
MAF-PNG partners with 81
churches, missions and Christian organisations including, i.e. Anglican Church,
Assemblies of God, Association of Baptist for World Evangelism, Christian
Brethren Churches, Church of the Nazarene, Salvation Army, Bible Translator
Association, South Seas Evangelical Church, United Church, World Vision
International, and Youth with a Mission, to name just a few. The total of
subsidies paid by MAF in the year amounts to over 1million Kina.
Colleges like the Christian
Leaders’ Training College and the Melanesia Nazarene Bible College outside Mt.
Hagen both focus much effort on training up young men and women to be pastors
and teachers at remote churches, schools and bible schools. Each year hundreds
of pastors graduate from these and the small isolated student bible schools in
remote PNG communities. They are still unable to meet the huge need for trained
and informed pastors to lead the churches with strong biblical teaching. For
these churches to grow they need to be led with wisdom and honesty in order to
address the many challenges and pitfalls of false teaching, fraud and
corruption. It is MAF’s goal to make travel available for these new pastors to
get back to their home communities where they can value-add to the struggling
churches.
MAF recently flew ex-missionary
Les Loader to the Guala bible school to install solar panels for lighting at
night for students to study by, and to have power during the day for their
training sessions. He has also held a Bible Teacher In Service Course at Kelabo
for previously trained teachers and pastors.
Another
ex-missionary, Dan Anderson, went out from CLTC to run English refresher
courses at the small Kelabo bible school. Without MAF these trainers would have
to carry heavy loads and walk, or withstand hours on bumpy roads in trucks that
cover the distances between towns and these remote communities to give back-up
and support to isolated pastors.
Please pray for
this huge part of MAF work in PNG:
- Give thanks that MAF leadership is encouraging the call by staff to be involved in personal ministry work in the remote churches where the need is great.
- Pray that MAF would be able to raise sufficient funds from overseas donors to continue supporting strategic partnerships with the churches and missions of PNG in the work they are doing to extend the Kingdom.
- That more PNG men and women would respond to God‘s call to become pastors and teachers and be available to go back to their communities to take the Good News, to dispel false teachings and strengthen the church with God’s truth.
- That the remote churches will listen to those strong enough to stand against the introduction of cargo cult tendancies and other occult practices.
Week
4 * Thursday 27th Nov * MAF Partnering with other Missions
Love letters are easiest to
understand and most effective when written in somebody’s heart language. It’s
the same with God’s Word. The Bible is God´s love letter to mankind. After
about 30 years of hard work the Tay people at Yimnalem, a remote village in PNG
and only accessible by air, now have God’s love letter in their own language
thanks to the work of missionaries of Pioneers Bible Translators. Read
the full story HERE.
After publishing this story on
our MAF PNG website Gerald and Ruth Denny, Directors of PBL’s Care Department
left a comment saying “We are also so grateful for the way MAF has blessed the
Haywards but also so many others in our organisation there, as well as in other
countries. May God continue to bless you and your service to the Lord and His
servants world-wide.”
MAF connects with over 60
Christian and humanitarian organisations in PNG. Our flights and other services
help to keep them running so that more remote people can receive the help they
need and, most important of all, hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Just recently MAF was able to be
part celebrating another two Bible dedications. One with Summer Institute of
Linguistics (SIL) – click HERE for the full story – another one with New
Tribes Mission (NTM). Celebrations like these in the end have just been a
reflection of what happened many years ago leading up to this special day: men
were travelling long distances to ask for missionaries to come into their
village, to learn their language and culture to finally tell them the Good News
in their heart language as well as of many flights into remote areas to enable
the missionaries to do their work.
Another of MAF’s key customers is
New Tribes Mission as they are short of pilots so the MAF planes are loaded
with cargo to support their missionaries out in the villages. NTM has up to
three families based in one tribe. Often the missionaries are MAF’s passengers,
sometimes accompanied by local language helpers or NTM staff going to visit the
villages for language or translation checks. Sometimes it’s family and friends
from home, or people of the supporting churches who fly out there to encourage
their friends.
HERE you can read of a mission trip
by a young American who came to PNG for a look-see trip to find out more about
mission work.
The following quote gives quite
an impression about how MAF and NTM partner together:
“We, Frank and Mirjam Tertel from
Germany, were living in Sinow, a village in the jungle. Sinow is in the
Saundaun Province of PNG. We have now completed the translation of the New
Testament and the discipleship work with the community leaders. Our mission
organisation currently has no pilot on our supply base in Wewak and so we are
deeply grateful that MAF jumps in for us and many other missionaries who live
cut off from civilisation. That means we get food like rice and pasta, fresh
vegetables, toilet paper and much more. We also see another white face every
few weeks and can even discuss news with some pilots in German. That's good,
because all of our other language helpers have a different skin colour and
language. We are so grateful to God for the MAF staff to support God's work in
the tribe in such a practical way.”
And of course,
there are flights for building materials as well to support other missions. For
example: A team from SIL/Wycliffe is stationed west of Aitape in Arop,
living with the people of the Sissano language group, working to study their
language and translate the Bible. This area was badly destroyed after a severe
earthquake overwhelmed it with a tsunami in 1998, in which about 3000 people
were killed. For this project a lot of building materials were flown by MAF to
Tadji, which is the nearest landing place to Arop. From there, they still
travelled for half a day by truck and canoe.
HERE is a link to watch a movie about this language group.
Prayer Points:
·
Please pray
for the missionaries based out in the remote villages of PNG. Pray for good
health, for good relationships within their team and the local people.
·
Pray that
the missionaries are a good testimony for the locals and have wisdom to
understand their language and culture to be able to translate God’s Word into
the different heart languages for the tribe they are working with.
·
Pray for the
small churches planted in isolation by missionaries that they grow strong in
their faith and the believers can completely let go of former beliefs, fears
and customs.
·
Pray for a
good partnership as MAF is serving other missions.
·
Please pray
that people listen to the call coming and serving in the mission field – as
Bible translators and church planters, as maintenance assistants, accountants
or whatever profession is needed to support the local churches here in PNG.
Week
4 * Friday 28th Nov * MAF Joins the battle against Ebola
MAF is supporting efforts to
combat the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Our aircraft have been involved
in transporting medical personnel and supplies into the remote Boende district
of the DRC. According to the DRC Minister of Health, cases of Ebola have been
confirmed in the area, including deaths.
MAF has nine aircraft based in
DRC—in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Bunia, and Nyankunde. From these bases we fly to
remote regions of the vast country, using small, rugged airstrips to serve
isolated communities. In the DRC MAF supports the work of 170 churches, medical
organisations, relief agencies, and others seeking to make life better for
those who live in the DRC’s jungles.
Last year MAF conducted 1,151
medical-related flights in the DRC, including emergency medical evacuations and
delivery of vaccines and medicines.
This is not the first time that
MAF has responded to Ebola threats. In the 2007 and 1995 outbreaks in the DRC,
our planes and people played a key role. We are experienced in such situations
and have a plan in place to minimise the risk. MAF’s Ebola Pandemic Management
Plan contains procedures for safely carrying people, materials, and specimens
to and from Ebola hot zones.
The Ebola response in the DRC is
wrapping up. According to Nick Frey, West DRC program manager, no new cases
have been reported since early October. If no additional cases are identified
by Saturday, November 15 (42 days since the last confirmed case), the outbreak
will be considered to have ended.
- Please join us in giving thanks that this outbreak in the DRC is ending, also giving thanks for our staff and the medical personnel who have faithfully served. Continue to pray for those who have lost loved ones to Ebola, as well as those suffering through the ongoing Ebola crisis in western Africa.
MAF is
trying to set up a new operation in Liberia, but the Ebola outbreak slowed the
process down.
- Praise God that it would appear that the number of new cases of Ebola is decreasing in Liberia. Pray that this will continue.
MAF still does not have all the
paperwork needed to start flying there and there is no reliable information on
when the government workers will return to their normal activities and when we
are likely to get the necessary approvals etc.
- Please continue to pray for this situation and those people in Liberia assisting us with this process. Please pray that the Ebola crisis will reduce to the point where we can complete the permissions, process and then safely assign staff to Monrovia.
Emil Kündig, (Country Director
& Chief Pilot) & wife, Margrit, (Finance & Admin) are currently in
Uganda where Emil is waiting to sit his Uganda pilot and engineer exams so that
he can fly the Uganda-registered plane and do regular maintenance on it when we
begin operations in Liberia. Margrit has just returned following her shoulder
surgery and is arranging the ongoing physio-therapy she will need.
- Please pray for her and for a full recovery.
- The other pilot family, Arjan & Aartje Paas are on a temporary assignment in South Sudan. Do pray for these two families who have to cope with these frustrating delays before they can re-locate to Monrovia and begin the flight programme there. They are in a very temporary situation without their personal effects (which have been shipped to Liberia) so life is not easy for them.
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