'You need to plan every nail'
The Mengen people of Papua New Guinea gave a warm welcome to missionaries Laurens and Marie Laureti when they visited their village for five days.
After several years of training, preparation and learning the culture and the Melanesian Pidgin language, the Lauretis are ready to begin their ministry among the Mengens.
"When you live in the jungles of PNG for six months … without seeing any other civilization you need to properly plan ahead. You can't just quickly fly out for bread or some butter," wrote Laurens concerning their preparations. "We are seriously planning our building project, our move into the tribe, our language learning project etc. You need to plan every nail and screw and every bit of paint and varnish."
While visiting the village, Laurens and Marie began renovating the house where they will live in the village. Laurens installed the power equipment and solar panels, fixed the plumbing and installed the water pump and pressure tanks. Marie did a lot of cleaning, painting and varnishing. They hope to return next month to do more work on the house.
"We also had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the people and start building relationships," Laurens wrote. "You always have people around the house and even in the house. Furthermore the houses are situated on a throughway and many people walk past our houses in order to go to the other family clusters scattered around our area. It is thus easy to have people around and people visiting."
Dave and Judy Wright are teaching evangelistic Bible lessons to the Mengens and have just taught on the birth of Christ.
After their visit to the tribe, Laurens wrote, "In these days [of our visit] I just once again realized that we are pouring a foundation here. I was amazed to see how little these people really know or understand of the truth. They have bits and pieces, but it is as if having a couple of pieces of a very large puzzle and nothing more. We are now … able to present them with the full big picture of God's Gospel."
Pray for Dave as he teaches the Mengens. Pray too for Laurens and Marie as they begin their new ministry. Pray that God will open the hearts of the Mengen people to receive the Gospel of grace.
After several years of training, preparation and learning the culture and the Melanesian Pidgin language, the Lauretis are ready to begin their ministry among the Mengens.
"When you live in the jungles of PNG for six months … without seeing any other civilization you need to properly plan ahead. You can't just quickly fly out for bread or some butter," wrote Laurens concerning their preparations. "We are seriously planning our building project, our move into the tribe, our language learning project etc. You need to plan every nail and screw and every bit of paint and varnish."
While visiting the village, Laurens and Marie began renovating the house where they will live in the village. Laurens installed the power equipment and solar panels, fixed the plumbing and installed the water pump and pressure tanks. Marie did a lot of cleaning, painting and varnishing. They hope to return next month to do more work on the house.
"We also had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the people and start building relationships," Laurens wrote. "You always have people around the house and even in the house. Furthermore the houses are situated on a throughway and many people walk past our houses in order to go to the other family clusters scattered around our area. It is thus easy to have people around and people visiting."
Dave and Judy Wright are teaching evangelistic Bible lessons to the Mengens and have just taught on the birth of Christ.
After their visit to the tribe, Laurens wrote, "In these days [of our visit] I just once again realized that we are pouring a foundation here. I was amazed to see how little these people really know or understand of the truth. They have bits and pieces, but it is as if having a couple of pieces of a very large puzzle and nothing more. We are now … able to present them with the full big picture of God's Gospel."
Pray for Dave as he teaches the Mengens. Pray too for Laurens and Marie as they begin their new ministry. Pray that God will open the hearts of the Mengen people to receive the Gospel of grace.