'Location, location, location'
“We are staying on a mountain ridge surrounded by other mountain ridges,” missionary Bryan Moritz writes from the Papua New Guinea village where he and his wife, Shara, and their family will be located for the next five weeks. They are settling in to learn culture and language by building relationships with the tribal people there.
Bryan and Shara's usual ministry is that of supporting tribal missionaries. But they wanted to experience what these tribal missionaries really go through in order to better understand how to help and encourage them and, writes Shara, "to remind us why we are here."
And so the Moritz family is experiencing the challenges and joys of life as bush missionaries.
For awhile things didn’t go as planned. They recognized the delays and obstacles as part of God’s special preparation, Shara writes.
“We had all our belongings and food packed up ready to go. Then we got the call that there were issues that would make it unwise to travel,” she shares.
Later, there was the rain. The roads were saturated, Shara says.
But finally it was time to go. It took four hours on pothole-filled roads to reach their distant and beautiful tribal location in the mountains.
Shara and the children spend the mornings in homeschooling and the afternoons with the people.
Bryan enjoys finding tribal people who enjoy walking around the area with him, like the Bible teacher and translation helper who recently showed him the sites.
And sometimes, Bryan says, the entire family joins him on these walks. “We attract quite a crowd wherever we go!” he says.
The remote location has its own lessons to teach. Watching solar batteries carefully so they don’t run low is part of the new life. “It’s an amazing system here … we have solar panels and hot water, too. In case we do not have enough consistent sun, there is a generator to charge up our batteries. All our water in the house comes from rain water that is collected in a big tank,” Bryan adds.
The Moritz family would appreciate your prayers for them during the weeks ahead. Ask God to bless their time in the mountain village, learning and growing in understanding of both tribal missionaries and tribal people. Ask God to protect and encourage their family during this important growing stage of their ministry.
“We would like to be an encouragement,” Shara writes. “We would like to be Jesus to the people.”