Lori Morley Working with the Simbari people of Papua New Guinea Tough Family Times
Tough Family Times
It’s been far too long since I last wrote. In fact, I was shocked when I realized that my last update was in November! Some of you asked about my Christmas. I don’t have a whole lot to report except that it was nice and included the usual round of Christmas activities. I especially enjoyed having the Oggs’ kids home from school and doing things with them.
There’s really been only one thing on my heart and mind lately. Three weeks ago I received the news from my Dad that his sister, my Aunt Renita, had been diagnosed with lung and brain cancer and the doctors had given her 3-9 months to live. A week later he wrote to say that she had had a stroke and was unable to talk. The news hit me hard as she is one of my closest relatives outside of my immediate family.
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Giving Speeches
Giving my speech about the importance of being able to read God's Word in their own language.
My trip to the other village went very well. We flew down on Wednesday, the 18th, and the graduation ceremony was the following day. Even though the Bible teaching has not been welcomed in the community as we had hoped, the Lord gave us an incredible opportunity to be involved in the graduation of the community school. PNG community events are always accompanied with a lot of pomp and ceremony. Speeches are required and so when we received the schedule that they had laid out, we, as missionaries, were also given time to give our “speeches”.
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Tags: graduation, Hiking, letter, Literacy, outreach, speeches
Fear and Faith
Presenting the gospel to the school students.
Thank you for praying for the presentation of the gospel in the other village a few weeks ago. About 34 students were able to hear the gospel and we are told by the Bible teachers that although many of them profess to believe what they have been hearing, they are afraid.
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Tags: Bible teaching, birthday, outreach
Like a Child
One of my traveling companions and his hat creation which he made to keep the sun off of his head.
Thank you for praying for my hike and for your encouraging notes. There was good weather the whole time. The hike there wasn’t too bad because after hiking 1/3 of the way, the trail begins to slope gently down and down with little uphill climbs in between. I did have some trouble with my shoes. Half of one shoe fell off on the way there and half of the other shoe fell off on the way back. I have some new golf shoes for hiking but I hadn’t broken them in yet so didn’t want to wear them on the hike. I’ll have to make sure to break them in before the next hike!
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Out and About
In my last update, I mentioned that the Simbari Bible teachers had started teaching the chronological Bible lessons and literacy classes in the community school of another village. A few weeks ago, they were giving an update in church and they said, “Don’t think that God is not working there. God is working in people’s hearts so you must continue to pray for us.” They also said that the school had marked a day in November for their graduation and they invited the missionaries to attend. This village is about a 4 hour hike from here and I’ve never been there except by plane. After church, we were laughing and talking about the difficulty of us “fat” missionaries hiking there and how long it would take us. Then my co-worker, David, said to me, “You need to hike down there and check it out.” With a dumb-founded look on my face, I said to him, “You mean, hike down there before the graduation?!!” “Yeah, you need to check on them and make sure that they will be ready to graduate.” I knew that what he said was true so just when I was getting used to the idea of one long hike, suddenly I had to plan for two; one as soon as possible, and another at the time of graduation!
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Tags: cats, Hiking, literacy graduation
Reaching Out
When consulting my calendar today, I was surprised to see that it has only been 5 weeks since I last wrote you! So much has happened in that time that it seemed to me that I had let more time slip away. I usually try to write about once a month so I was pleased when I discovered that I had not been too terribly lax.
A few weeks ago the Simbari Bible teachers started teaching the chronological Bible lessons and literacy classes in a new village. This village is the hub of the Simbari tribe. There is an airstrip, a community school, and a medical clinic there. The Bible teachers were invited there in order to teach Bible and literacy classes in the community school and they also planned to teach in the community market area. This has been a wonderful open door and the school students as well as their teachers have been eating up the teaching and asking for more.
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Tags: Bible teaching, outreach
A Productive Summer
John and Bobby collating and stapling books for me. They were a big help!
This summer has been a whirlwind of activity but not meaningless activity. I think it has been a very encouraging and productive few months. In July a work team from Ogg’s church came to help do some work on the airstrip and on Ogg’s and my houses. I was very pleased with all that they were able to help me with. They installed a new water pump and water heater, put a new solar panel rack on my roof, rotated my batteries, replaced torn screen and put security wire on all of my windows, installed some deadbolt locks, and collated and stapled over 100 literacy booklets. They could probably have done more booklets for me but I didn’t have enough time to stay ahead of them with the printing.
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Tags: summer, translation, work team
Mt. Wilhelm Chapter 2 (aka “The Second Death”)
Natalie, our guide, and I at the top of Mt. Wilhelm.
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I don’t know why I put myself through the pain and agony of long hikes. Either I get a sadistic enjoyment from it or else I’m trying to deny or slow down my aging process. This second trip to Mt. Wilhelm was harder than ever.
Tags: Mt. Wilhelm, Romans, translation
Believing in Miracles
Baby being carried around in a string bag.
I believe in miracles but I must say that I have been more ready to believe in spiritual miracles than in physical ones. When I talk about spiritual miracles, I’m talking about the miracle of someone seeing their own sinfulness and humbling themselves before God, the miracle of changed lives and relationships restored. But I have been, shall I say, more suspicious of physical miracles. After all, we live in a fallen world where death and sickness exist because of sin’s curse. However, I do believe that God has the power to heal and even to raise people to life if He chooses.
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Tags: healing, translation, weather
Baptism With A Difference
Simbari believers that were baptized. (Jason Ogg in center.)
In spite of a week of rainy, cold weather, the morning of April 26th dawned bright and sunny and warm. It was the day that had been marked for the baptism of a second group of Simbari believers.
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Tags: baptism, Bible teaching