Prayer Requests

We need your support, PRAYERS AND FINANCIAL
This Mission does fantastic work in a place where there is little else but fear and hopelessness.

Please pray:
· For Tristan as he finishes year 10 in Ballarat Grammar Boarding School in Melbourne
· For Aaron as he waits for his Year 12 Results from PLC College
· For Imogen as he starts her nursing career at Mt. Isa Remote Hospital
· For Kiri who has started a Post Grad Dip in Nutrition at Deakin Uni in Melbourne
· Clare and Paul continues life in Goroka with our children in Australia
· Paul continues to expand his flying in PNG
· For family learning of TOK PISIN (Pidgin, Local PNG Language)
· For our family to continue together in faith despite being scattered geographically
· For our health which has been under attack since being in PNG

Monday, January 17, 2011

Laynha and MAF Christmas 2010 Outreach







A great big thank you to everyone involved in this years’ Christmas outreach 2011.
Praise the Lord for the success, safety and provision of the flight.
As is usual in this remote part of the world, visiting 20 homelands has its challenges.
This year the monsoon season started in earnest during the week,
Yet our Lord could not be stopped.
A special thanks to Laynha Air who financed additional flights to overcome the adverse weather conditions.
More food and provisions were needed to cope with the monsoon conditions.

A special thanks to Gerard Marika and Kevin Sigai, who lead the team along with Eunice Marika, the MAF pilots and others.
As well as delivering a Christmas Gospel message, over 1000 presents were distributed to the homeland children. Each location was visited for three hours or more and several overnight stops, including one unscheduled overnight at Dhalinbuy where the aircraft could not depart as rain poured for 24 hours. For the more distant homelands, this would be the only flight and contact the Yolŋu would have with anyone over the Christmas period.
The program of flights took longer than expected to complete, two weeks in total, due to the monsoon.
Everyone in the homelands would join in with praise and worship. A Christmas Gospel message was delivered along with community prayer for the needs of each person.
The bonus handing out of presents, donated by Laynhapuy Homelands Association, created a very special family atmosphere.
The last event concluded just in time - on Christmas Eve, when I flew back from an overnight at Bremer to conclude a difficult year on the island where the anniversary of two local tragic deaths a year ago was remembered that day.
We concluded with communion and song and word about assured hope for the coming year!
Here is a short report from Bret Nel who flew the first segment of the outreach.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Praise the Lord, the Laynha Air/MAF Christmas Outreach to the Laynha Homelands to share the “real meaning” of Christmas was well received, with most communities requesting that they return regularly (please see attached photos). As expected, there were some setbacks with logistics, bad weather and some smaller communities being deserted for Christmas, but overall it went really well. We had an assumption that Arnhem Land was mostly a “reached” people group who had all at least heard of Jesus, but we were shocked to hear from Gerard (Bunumbirr) that NONE of the kids at one fairly big homeland, Dhalinybuy, had heard of the name Jesus or knew who He was! This further highlighted the dire need for regular outreaches and discipleship/teaching in the homelands, so Gerard and Kevin are planning to return regularly to these homelands next year to follow up and share the Good News, which MAF will be able to help with. Please pray with us as we help them with organising this.
On the Monday that I flew the team around (13th Dec), we went to Bukudal, Garrthalala and stayed overnight at Baniyala. Bukudal is home to Lulpangi, Brett’s “uncle” who asked him for a Bible back in Oct 2009 and has been asking repeatedly for us to go and sit with him at his community and read the Bible with him. For a number of reasons we haven’t been able to meet up, but in November we were able to get him a heavily subsidised Bible Society wind-up rechargeable MP3 player that has a mix of Christian Yolngu songs, some Scripture, sermons and the Gumatj Good News audio, all in Yolngu languages they understand. He was very happy to see us arrive with the Christmas message at his community. At Baniyala, Gerard got to sit and talk with the community elder, Djambawa (the man who adopted Brett) and he has invited Gerard to come back. Djambawa and another elder, Waka, both shared a testimony how they had a real “power encounter” with God two weeks earlier when their car broke down in the middle of the night crossing a river, and how God miraculously rescued them (long, but amazing story!). Please pray for these two men, that they will turn from their traditional syncretistic ways and follow Christ wholeheartedly and that Gerard & Kevin will be able to speak into their lives.
Gerard is in the process of starting a new ministry called “Yolngu for Jesus”, formalising a vision God gave him earlier this year to set up a “ministry campus” on his land and start reaching out to the rest of Arnhem Land. His family is right behind him and as mentioned in our last P&P, Kevin Sigai has moved here permanently to work with him. Kevin is currently living in a tent under Gerard’s house, but desperately needs a more permanent arrangement, with a quiet room to plan and prepare outreaches and discipleship material, etc. Please pray for Kevin to find somewhere suitable and affordable, as accommodation is very scarce and expensive, and that he will find support for his ministry here, as he is not yet “supported” financially (if you are interested in supporting Kevin financially to stay here, please drop us a line).
We thank Bret and all the other pilots, Craig, Rachel, Nevin and Lisa who spent time in the field and overnight, showing ministry films and ministering in a very special way to the Yolŋu people.
In Him – Paul

Thanks for your interest and support during this year. Please continue to pray for the Yolŋu people of East Arnhem Land and for the MAF staff here who serve them so diligently.

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