House Building in the Village

Building a house in the village has been a trip.

Like a rollercoaster.

I hate rollercoasters.

How exciting, right? To be able to layout your own floorplan and have things just as you want them, customized to your family's needs!

But then it comes time to actually build… and no one shows up…

The biggest issue has been the sickness of my village papa and his death. There's bad "ju-ju" in a place with a sick man and no one wants to be doing the already dangerous work of construction when there's bad "ju-ju". Those times that Nikloas was in town, his son Justin would be struck down with something or another and it was just bad "ju-ju" all up in that place. 

So work was minimal at best and usually only done by my village brothers, uncles, and cousins. So like 5 guys.

Then Nikloas died and the contractor was genuinely terrified that if he did work that it would be dishonoring to the deceased and he would be struck down and die and he had a family to worry about so that wasn't going to happen for the whole two weeks of the time of mourning. And my village family couldn't continue their efforts because they were under the prescripted time of mourning the dead during which they had to abstain from work.

So FINALLY all that was over and people were coming EVERYDAY to work on the house. But we're dealing with bush materials so every bit of frame work had to be cut down in the jungle and left to dry out and brought into the village and have all the knots whittled off of it BEFORE it could be cut to size and nailed into place. It was a week and a half of solid work before our helicopter came to take us away. By then the frame was pretty much done and half the rafters were up.

I have NO idea what's been going on for the past month but I have some suspicions based on the fact that my roof isn't up yet.

Today, Monday June 12th, they're supposed to finish(?) putting up the second half of my roof and communities are supposed to come to cut down bamboo from the jungle and weave our walls. (We're scheduled to go out June 16th)

So tonight, we'll get a phone call with a progress report and an evaluation on whether or not this is going to be done by Thursday. Then we have a decision to make.

So hopefully, when they put their hand to the work, they'll realize, "oh most of the external walls are windows and most of the internal walls are doors and there's actually a fairly modest amount of wall space that needs to be worked. Whoa! Look! We finished!"

Update: Yeah… No such luck. The roofing iron is supposed to go on Tuesday, June 13th and the community is supposed to come Wednesday June 14th. So we're delaying our trip until we get the word that they're DONE, which SHOULD be within the next two weeks. 

They broke ground on this project in November. It's been 7 months now. 7 long long months.

Please pray for this because the Matthew to the Mum project gets affected by changes to our schedule.

Matthew to the Mum

We're going to be printing Matthew soon!

This is a definite bonus to working on a project already started! The book was pretty close to being completed. You may recall that I helped in village checking in Feb 2016, but I totally had no part in drafting or revising or advisor checks or anything, but it's nearly done and I get the honor of helping it over the finish line!

So here's the deal. The dedication is scheduled for the end of July 2018.

The missionary who worked with the Mum before me has agreed to come be the guest speaker at the dedication! And that's when it fits into his schedule!

Now if you know anything about the printing process (I certainly didn't), you know you should never never set the dedication date before you have the printed book in your hand (whoops!) as that just invites everything to go wrong and stress and freaking out and so on and so forth. (We'll be needing a lot of prayers.)

So here's what needs to get done:

We need to finish the part where the Scripture gets read aloud to the community to see if there are any problems with the naturalness of the language used. We need to discuss all the suggested changes.

We need to check spellings and renderings on the maps, glossary, and list of New Testament Books going in the preface.

We need to pick all the illustrations and caption them. 

That's it!

THEN, we need to get it to typesetting. We're hoping to do this in August. We'll only be spending two weeks in town and it can take a month, so we're shooting for two weeks and will resume in October if we need two more.

THEN, we send it to the printers in Ukarumpa. That could take 1-3 months depending on what other orders the printers have pending.

THEN, we need to get it to Katiati. That could also take a month.

So we have a year to finish a process that could take 5 months! That's PLENTY of time!

Right? Right?

So here are the current challenges.

We need our house tobe done before we can go back to the village and it's NOT!

The PLAN was to get our pre-typesetting to-do list done in 4 weeks, before the translators went out to celebrate the Mborena Kam dedication during the last couple of weeks of our village stay. (Which is awesome! They should totally celebrate and be encouraged by the completion of the Mbore's New Testament!) But the delay on our house will put a delay on the trip which will trim that 4 weeks down…

Are you starting to feel the panic!?!

It's not a deal breaker, but it's certainly cutting into my buffer zone.

So let's be in prayer about this going smoothly.

In the GREAT news, the publishing of the Gospel of Matthew, the shipping to Katiati, the dedication feast, the sd cards for the audio recording, the study guides and pencils, the course on Biblical reading literacy, everything has been fully covered by The Rising, a church in Norfolk, VA! Praise God! Now we just need to get to a place to put that money to its intended use. Prayers please!

Also, what's not fully funded is us. These helicopter rides to the village are a pretty penny. Can you help bring Matthew to the Mum by sending us out to the village?

http://pioneerbible.org/give/JacobandElizabethSmith

Helicopters, Finances, and Faith

So the PNG economy was maybe going to collapse last year and the finance department said they were going to put a hold on bringing funds over for a while. They suggested that individuals in the branch could put a hold on their own funds for a while (so it didn't get put into the branch's pot, which was chillin Stateside until the crisis passed) if they wanted to hold out longer than the finance department did. I, however, trusted the finance department would be wise, so just let my money go into their pot until they deemed it appropriate to bring it over.

However, since everyone was getting deeper and deeper into the red, no one was raising red flags. Which is how we just recently came to find out that we were in the red. As it turns out, our deficit is equal to the cost of the helicopters and house we just built. Which is good… If it was more than that, we would need to take a super serious look at our spending habits, which would be hard because we live pretty frugally. It's major expenses that's keeping us from the black. Unfortunately, those major expenses can't be avoided if we intend to do our job…

So that's kinda stressful…

When we came here less than 100% funded, it was hard, but also amazing… It was like, God opened the door for it to happen and so He was going to be taking care of us and we just had to trust Him. Marissa… According to the calendar, it shouldn't even be possible that she exists. So many improbably crazy things came together at just the right moment and while it wasn't in the budget to live in Australia for three months to have her, it just seemed like the Lord's business to sort that out. I mean, there's no way everything would have happened just so if it hadn't been His design.  There's no way she would have come to exist when she did. She is from the Lord and He would make the way for her. Even when our free housing fell through 2 days before departure, I knew that the Lord would sort it out. That afternoon, the free housing fell back in. It's so liberating to just leave everything to Him.

However, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. As evident in my response to our current standing with the Branch. I was not … as full of grace as one might hope.

So I was… tumultuous. We're going with "tumultuous". In my head, I knew I needed to not worry and be chill and let the Lord sort things out, but in my belly, there was fear, and panic, and worry. So let's heap on financial stress: mental/emotional battle warring for dominance. "I do that which I do not want to do, but that which I want to do, I do not do." That applies to thoughts, too. Fury at the ineptitude inherent in my human nature. Yeah, let's add that, too. Why not?

So I did what you do. I piled on the praying and Scripture reading and fasting. (I hate fasting. I avoid it at all costs. There is nothing remotely worshipful about me hangry.)

And I read:

    6 When I was prosperous, I said,

      “Nothing can stop me now!”

    7 Your favor, O LORD, made me as secure as a mountain.

      Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered.

Psalms 30

Um… Yes! Remember that one time, like last week, when I was all busy going on about how magnificently You provide and how we just need to trust in You and it's totally going be awesome. And there I was, totally trusting and praising and glorifying and so on and so forth. And then, what? You're just like nah… nevermind…

    11 Do not strike them dead suddenly,

    because then my people might forget the lesson.

    Use your power to make them homeless vagabonds and then bring them down,

    O Lord who shields us!

Psalms 59

No! I want you to strike financial stress suddenly! I mean, I see… I get it… You look way more awesome every time You save the day… But wouldn't it look more awesome if You were just like, 'BAM! Open the floodgates!' No? no… ok…

    10 For you, O God, tested us;

    you purified us like refined silver.

    11 You led us into a trap;

    you caused us to suffer.

    12 You allowed men to ride over our heads;

    we passed through fire and water,

    but you brought us out into a wide open place.

Psalms 66

I really really hate this. I mean, I get it. Because CLEARLY I had not been totally purified the LAST time You did this. But still, I really really hate this.

    24 The LORD directs our steps,

      so why try to understand everything along the way?

Proverbs 20

9 “But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren.

Deut 4

What have I seen? I remember the last time we didn't have money to move our feet. We were on a PD trip that seemed to be getting us nowhere and we didn't have the funds to continue. There was the obvious next step but no money… And no obvious next step. But we took the next step anyway. And we received a unexpected gift of $10,000. The Lord provides.

23 “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”

24 The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”

Mark 9

24 I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.

Mark 11

    16 Come and listen, all you who fear God,

      and I will tell you what he did for me.

    17 For I cried out to him for help,

      praising him as I spoke.

    18 If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,

      the Lord would not have listened.

    19 But God did listen!

      He paid attention to my prayer.

    20 Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer

      or withdraw his unfailing love from me.

Psalms 66

It was in the 24 hr of my 24 hr fast that peace settled over me. I didn't really learn anything new, did I? But I was reminded. I had asked the Lord for peace and He gave it to me. I had asked the Lord for funds and He's given $250 through His children and I'm assuming He's got a plan for the rest. The how is not my business.

It's my business to take the next step.

And that step is to get on a $1500 helicopter even if I don't know how I'm going to pay for it.

update: $1450 has been provided by the Lord thru His children

Now, while I write this to encourage (in a crazy twisted, look at my agony, doesn't this make you feel better? sort of way…) and I certainly hope you are encouraged (we came out to a side of peace, right?), there's also another bit of this.

See, God can work in miracles. But it's not really His style to drop a huge pile of money into a bank account with no source. Even that $10,000 had a source. He uses His children to give $10,000 and two coins and every figure in between.

God has a plan to get us back in the black and fully funded and I think it involves you.

You, who are reading this right now, maybe because you always read my blogs, maybe because on a whim you decided to give it a click and see what it said, maybe because someone shared it and it ended up on your newsfeed, but you're here. You're reading this. And you can help us reach our goals. Maybe you can't throw down $1500, but you can throw into pot. And that money will be used to get us out to the village to work fervently to get Matthew to the Mum.

Will you join this work?

http://pioneerbible.org/give/JacobandElizabethSmith