A time of change

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men?
If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ. Gal 1:10

Change in anyone’s life can be difficult, but change can also be God’s vehicle to strengthen and establish His Church. As servants of Christ we are called to make difficult changes in our lives that sometimes go against our family and culture. The Tobo church is no exception. The last few weeks the believers have been going through a great time of change. We (us, our partners and the Tobo teachers) just moved our meeting time from Saturday mornings to Sunday mornings. This seems like a small thing and in many cases it would be, but not here in Tobo. There is another mission here in Tobo (that meets on Sundays) who do not teach salvation by grace alone. This mission has been around for a long time and has become, in many ways ingrained into the Tobo culture. At first we wanted to reach out to those people and still make it possible for them to come, so we had our meetings on Saturdays. That was fine at first and some were beginning to come to our meetings as well as their own on Sundays. This sounds good, but in reality the people who where coming were bringing their false understanding of God’s Word into our believers meetings and coming for all the wrong reasons. Despite all the Truth they were hearing, many of them have been so ingrained with false teaching that it was just going in one ear and out the other. A big concern of ours was that the believers would lose their identity as the body of Christ because of this “mixed meeting”. We believe people needed to decide between our teaching and the other, instead of going to both. We realized that this decision was going to be a hard one. Many people, including some of the believers, had still been faithfully attending this other mission’s meetings and by leaving it they were in effect leaving part of their culture and community. Many were afraid of the backlash that this decision would bring. One husband told his wife (a believer) that if she left this mission to meet with us on Sundays then he would cut her throat. Nisae & Janeene (our partner) have been trying to find ways to encourage her. This decision has and still is testing everyone’s faith. We have been meeting on Sunday now for three weeks and it has been a very special time. The Lord is faithfully growing his body here in Tobo as they strive to follow after God and take a stand against their culture. Please continue praying for the Tobo believers, that God would mold & strengthen them.

What is up with us? We are plugging along in language still… we’re both progressing, but some days are more encouraging than others! Nisae meets with ladies every week to learn language. She is also home schooling Kadynn who just started first grade. I have several language sessions throughout the week and am putting in about 40 hours/ week in language. Chad (my co-worker) and I meet on Tuesdays with the men who are teaching to encourage them and go over the following week’s lesson. It has been a real sweet time of one on one discipleship with the teachers. The Lord is really using this time to encourage the teachers to be faithful and to always be in His Word. We’re looking forward to heading out to town at the end of September for our annual conference and for a little break. My parents & brother will be traveling during that time to come see us. We are excited to give them a tour of Madang & Tobo for a good 3 week visit!

Thanks for your faithfulness in praying for the Tobo church and for our family. We will not understand all the power unleashed through your prayers until eternity, but we can see the Lord working here in different ways and we continuously thank God for you.

Your hands & feet,
Jason, Nisae, Kadynn, Judah & Eden