End of School Year and Film Recommendation

It's the end of the school year here in Ukarumpa. 

This means:

*Friends are leaving, some of them for good.
*Other friends are returning from home leave.
*I (Clare) have finished my semester of teaching Kindergarten part-time (phew!)
*Levi and Heidi are enjoying a five week school break before starting Grade One and Preschool in July.
*Andrew's various jobs continue to keep him busy.  This week his work has included Executive Committee business, rescuing a vehicle that broke down an hour away from our centre, ordering parts for motorbikes, helping newcomers learn about life in PNG and a two-day trip to the town of Lae on Autoshop business.

We have often mentioned the Aitape West Translation Project, which we help to support in different ways.  Wycliffe USA has produced an excellent documentary about this multi-language project, including the moving story of how it got started.  The video can be found at www.wycliffe.org/arop.

And finally, here is this month's photo. Eowyn now loves to join in fully with our daily walks.

A Not So Typical Day After All

What's in the Box?

The box below is carried on the back of the 'Jesus Video Bike', a motorbike that Andrew often works on.  The Papua New Guinean book-salesman has travelled over 50,000 miles in the last few years distributing hymn books, Audibibles and school supplies to speakers of the Kamano Kafe and Agarabi languages.  Recently a waterproof Kamano Kafe New Testament has also become available to purchase - with a banana leaf design on the cover.  (It's been discovered that if Bibles are simply given away they tend not to be valued; so they are sold for a subsidised fee, which also helps to cover the printing costs.)

We are having a very busy year so far.  Andrew has been attending many meetings recently (last week he had one set of meetings in the mornings and another set in the afternoons!).  Next month, we also have the biennial conference for all members of our organisation here in PNG.

I am enjoying teaching Levi's Kindergarten class.  Heidi and Eowyn are being well cared for by our cleaner/babysitter one morning a week and at the Ukarumpa daycare on the other morning that I teach.  I'm also keeping busy with teacher recruitment.  Recently this has involved facilitating trips being taken by student teachers and other visitors who want to investigate opportunities to teach here.

Eowyn and I will be back in Brisbane from 11th - 16th March for a check-up with the the kidney specialist.  I'm looking forward to that little break!

We greatly value your prayer.  Here are some pointers:

* The Jesus Video Bike travels on lots of remote dirt roads. When it rains these roads quickly become dangerous mud pits. Pray for safety for Franky our book salesman and wisdom and creativity for Andrew in finding parts to maintain the motorbike.

* Pray that those people who are hungry for God’s Word would have the money and see the motorbike as it travels to 22 different open air markets.
           

*Pray for wise decisions to be made at our conference, including the decision about whether to re-elect Andrew to the 'Executive Committee'!

Recruiting Teachers

My official work assignment here in Papua New Guinea involves recruiting teachers to come and serve at Ukarumpa International School (UIS).  We have a huge need for more teachers, so this role is keeping me busy! 

Although I've been involved at the school for nine years, I have even more appreciation for the teachers now that Levi is a pupil there.  We're very grateful that he is able to get a good education at UIS that will prepare him as well as possible for his future.

Part of my work involves writing to teachers who may be interested in teaching here; another aspect is making the needs of our school known as widely as possible. 

One thing I've been working on lately is sending out weekly prayer requests, asking people to pray for various teacher needs.

This week I'm asking people to pray that we'll have all the teachers we need for the next semester, which starts after Christmas.  One of the classes we still don't have a teacher for is Kindergarten (roughly equivalent to UK 'Reception').

If you recognise the boy standing next to the teacher on the back row, you'll understand why this is of particular interest to me!


We're always grateful for your prayer.  Here are some things you may like to pray for with us:
* Please pray that God would provide a Kindergarten teacher for Levi's class next semester.
* We also are in need of several new teachers for the 2015-16 school year, as many of our current teachers will no longer be here.
* Pray for wisdom for me as I work out how best to use the time that I have available for teacher recruitment.
* Andrew would appreciate prayer for wisdom as he takes part in the next Executive Committee session from 19-28 November.