Phil and Janelle Sutton Reaching People for Christ in Sanford Florida 
Greetings from hot Port Moresby! December 2008
It has been averaging about 100-102 degrees most every day for the past 2 weeks. This is not a normal year. Usually it rains and keeps the temperature down. Now we have high humidity and it’s hot. Gordon has literally been dripping while he builds the walls.
I hate to keep talking about the building of our house, but I just have to share what it means to get a building permit in Port Moresby. In this entire process we can sure see God’s intervention in the process to make it happen faster. When I was told to get a building permit I had no idea how much time it would take to get it done. The first part is getting approval from the Physical Planning Board. It is a 10 step process. One of those steps is hiring an architect and getting the project registered with the Planning Board. In order to do that, we had to find the title and Lands Department drawings of the plot of land. Thus, one of the stories begins:
God prompted me to go with Manuel to an evangelistic meeting in one of the settlements in POM. I rode along and attended the meeting and got to talking with one of the men (Eli) that was there . He is a surveyor. So I talked with him for about 30 minutes about his job, how he got it, what his training was, etc… I just had a good conversation with him. For a couple of days I was working on the part of getting the certified copies of the Lands Department drawings. I was standing in line at the Lands Department, and wouldn’t you know it, Eli walks in and says "Phil what are you doing here?" I told him they were having trouble finding the plot drawings. Eli said, "I don’t work in this department, but I used to and I know where they are, because I did the survey drawings for your property in 2002." He walked in, found the drawings and brought them back to me. Their plot copier was not working so they handed the originals to me and I went and got several copies made for our project. Right place, right time, right people, GOD!
Eventually after working through getting everything I needed for the Physical Planning Board it was approved. Then the next step has to be accomplished. This one is a 21 step process for the Building Board. Right now I am down to just 2 of those steps needing to be accomplished before we have approval. The third to the last step also comes with a story of God’s intervention in the process. I was at the Lands Department checking on the progress of my approval. The secretary tracked it down to being in the Health Department, so I went over there to see if I could find where it was in the process. One of the workers led me to the person who does the approval for building plans. On his desk I saw about a foot and half high stack of building plans yet to be approved and thought, "Oh no, this is not going to be easy." The guy started looking through the stack and found our plans, (Yeah! I was in the right place!) and looked at each drawing and flipped to the cover, dated the form and signed it. Then he said, "By the way I want you to know that I am on holiday leave for three weeks and just came into the office to check on something and I would not normally be here." Right place, right time, right people, GOD!
So now we are waiting for the last two steps to be accomplished. I was told at the beginning of this process that it would take up to 6 months for this to happen. I have (or should I say the Lord’s) been at it for 7 weeks now. Lots of running, lots of prompting and lots of prayer! Keep praying, I still want the building permit in hand before 1 January 2009. Who knows maybe tomorrow I could get it. I will be checking.
Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.
Phil and Janelle Sutton
p.s.
The settlement with the Bob Arnold family went well. I have not had any family members come back to ask for anything more of us. This is an answer to prayer.
Our new address in Port Moresby is: New Tribes Mission, PO Box 747, Gordons, NCD 135, Papua New Guinea
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