Paul's PNG Mission Trip - Ep 04

[pandrews]

(November 8th, 2009)

Well, I didn't send out any email last month because there was very
little news to update everyone. We didn't get a Moose (though it was
a
great mini-vacation watching a real fall in Alaska), and there was no
new news on my paperwork last month.

This month, however, has quite a bit of news on the paperwork front.
We
were trying to submit another set of paperwork through another avenue
to
see if it would come through quicker than the first set, and it was
discovered that the first set of work permit papers was never received
by the Labor Department in PNG. And that is what should have happened
back in April or May. Maybe there was an issue with the paperwork,
maybe it got lost, but the 'agent' never let us know that. Even the
"resubmitted" paperwork never made it that far.

Here's the really interesting part: the person that found this out for
us happens to be the mother of a girl that is currently going to
school
at Concordia Seward with my sister, and I met this gal in March when I
visited my sister! Small world hu? Perhaps there are no such things
as
coincidences... good thing I've never really believed in them anyway.

So, the short of it is that I'll be in Alaska for the holidays as we
await the "first" submittal of the work permit paperwork to Papua New
Guinea.

God must have some reasoning to keep me here for so long. That reason
may be Open Arms, and the relationships with the kids there. The
after
school program is starting to take shape, and we're getting better at
having devotions and quality lessons to pass on our own relationship
with Jesus to build the faith of the little ones. However, it feels
like there's a long way to go.

Please keep the kids at Open Arms in your prayers as they grow and
develop into stronger, more independent people who will be prepared to
share their faith with a dark world.

Paul