Ryan & Amy Carpenter 'til all have heard PNG Slideshow
Many of you may have seen bits and pieces of this before, but here’s a little video that gives an overview of what life and ministry are like in PNG:
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Hope you enjoy!
Tags: New Tribes Mission, NTM
We Need A Boot…..
The Lord answered your prayers: We were able to quickly pay off the debt we incurred last year from the non-paying construction job by selling legos and remote control airplanes of all things! Ryan’s shoulder surgery went better than expected–he will not need another surgery. Physical therapy is progressing very well and Ryan has minimal pain throughout the day. All in all we are greatly encouraged. With the guidance of the mission organization, we have obtained our work permits and our visas. We received a large special gift to help with outgoing expenses and another supporter has offered to cover our plane tickets.
Looking back over the past year, God has provided abundantly beyond our personal needs as well. We have already sent over $10,000 in tools and supplies to PNG this past year. We also have been able to put together $300,000 (retail value, not paid) in woodworking equipment and supplies that will enable missionary home construction and maintenance. We also currently have 65% of our monthly budget coming in.
We can’t help but stand back and tell those of you who have been a part of this, thank you. Many of you have given to make this happen and nearly 50 of you are supporting us monthly and for that we are very grateful. Thank you for being a part of this great testimony of God’s faithfulness and provision.
While we are excited to have departure plans in place we need your help to make the final push to leave. We have begun the final pack, ship, and move preparations to go, as well as trying to raise the final funds to go. We welcome your help in these things especially as Ryan is laid up from surgery.
Here is what we still need to go and what you can to do help:
The biggest thing is the funds for all of this, all of it takes money. We are still a ways off, but as I look over this list of people I can’t help but believe we are closer than we think. There are over 350 of you on this list that could fill the gap for us and we are asking you to do just that. We can’t do this without your help.
We need $2500 a month in support and $8000 in moving costs.
If only 100 of you give $25 a month we are there. The same can be said for the $8000 in cash. We are asking all of you to consider giving at least $25 this month for a “kick us out the door” gift. If each of you can do that we can finalize our plans to go. You can go to www.ntm.org/ryan_carpenter/give to do this, or mail a check to
New Tribes Mission 1000 E. First St. Sanford, FL 32771-1487
Make your check payable to “New Tribes Mission” and include a note that says your gift is for Ryan and Amy Carpenter’s ministry.
We also need more supporters!
If you or someone you know would like to meet with us, please let us know. We are trying to sit down with as many people as we can right now and we need referrals.
Can we come to your home group?
Also, we are going back around to home groups at The Village, let us know if we can come to yours, and would love to go to new ones.
We need your time!
We need bodies to get the punch list done any day of the week between now and April. Let us know if you have some time to throw our way.
Our schedule over the next few months…
February 1- April 9th, Support Raising and Packing April 9th- April 27th; Missions training with MTI in Colorado Springs April 28th – May 21st, In Michigan, saying goodbyes and updating supporters; May 22nd – Back in Dallas, May 28th ish, Head out to PNG. ( exact date to be determined )
Bittersweet Affirmation
Right before we left for Michigan, it was made clear to us that a certain customer was not going to pay any of a large outstanding balance for construction work that Ryan did. We knew that it was still time to go to Michigan and went on. As you can imagine, this financial loss caused us to question whether or not NOW was the time to continue on to PNG. However, we know that He still wants us to pursue going to PNG today. God used a series of circumstances, conversations, His Word, The Village Church, your prayers and NTM counselors to affirm this direction. While we do have additional debt to pay off now, we still know that the Lord is leading us to pursue PNG. In order to pay off debt in addition to finish raising our monthly support before leaving for the field, we have pushed back our departure date to April 2012
Support Raising Update
We are currently at 70% of our monthly support. That means we need to raise another $2,000 in monthly support. To put it in perspective, that’s 10 people at $100/month, 15 people at $50/month and 10 at $25/month. We are putting away a chunk of this each month to help cover the cost of shipping expenses in 2012. The rest is allowing us to purchase some needed items for PNG living and covers the fees associated with finishing the process for obtaining visas. To give click on the “GIVE” tab above.
Back from Michigan
We thoroughly enjoyed our time up north. It was a much needed time of living life at a little slower pace than the last several months. We shared at three community churches in southern Michigan. There is such a thing as “northern hospitality”! …we left each one very encouraged in the Lord. We were also so thankful to be able to spend quality time with Ryan’s immediate and extended family. We got to experience a few added bonuses on this trip like catching 30 lb. salmon (yumm) and seeing the fall colors turn (oooh…ahhh).
Results and More
First and I think the best news is that Ryan’s PET scan came back clear and we have been given an “all clear” to head to New Guinea by his doctors. One of the four biopsies did come back positive for melanoma, however the doctors were able to get clear borders on the first try when removing it. Also on a good note both Ryan’s oncologist and dermatologist have partners at a hospital in Australia where we will go for his annual check-ups while we are overseas. Should anything show up there, they will be able to correspond directly with the doctors here in the USA. So we have an all clear for a year on Ryan’s cancer.
On the support raising front, we are currently at 75% of our needed support! Between our home church raising our support level and multiple individuals partnering with us God has abundantly supplied in the past month.
We are currently in Michigan seeing Ryan’s family to spend some time with them before we leave for New Guinea and to say our goodbyes here as well. It is a bittersweet time. We are hoping to spend some good time with everyone while we are here as it will be several years before we can see them again.
We will also be sharing at a few churches here that have played a big part in Ryan’s life over the years, most of whom were the main supporters of his mom and dad while they were overseas. It is good to check back with old friends and for Amy to continue to meet these people. We are excited to see who will be a part of what God is doing through us during this time.
On a timeline note, our New Guinea work permits are in and it will be a matter of a few weeks before we will have our visas! As we are getting everything set to go we are praying through when to head out. As hard as this summer was we are leaning towards mid Jaunary being our departure time. We will be having more conversations with the leadership at our home church and at NTM as we set this in hard mud.
On a needs note, this summer has been a hard one for us both. We are really tired and there are some things in our hearts that really need to be resolved before we leave. Ryan’s last construction job ended up costing us significantly. To finish it we went several thousand dollars in debt. At the time we thought this was going to be paid back at the end of the job. We have since found out this is not the case. This needs to be paid off before we leave for New Guinea. To top off the cake as we were getting ready to leave for Michigan the transmission went out in our car. It is going to cost $2300 to fix it. Through our church and a couple of individuals we currently have $1800 of that. We are thankful for God bringing people around us to help carry the load. Thank you all!
Our plan was to be full time fundraising and preparing after this trip. With the debt being what it is we are praying through how to revise that plan and take care of it as quickly as possible. This could dramatically effect our ability to leave in that next year. Amy’s work has given her a leave of absence to keep her around as long as possible and that has given us some additional income. We are praying through what it will look like beyond that.
We are tired and our hearts are heavy after this last summer. A good kind of heavy but heavy still. God has definitely provided more than we could think or imagine as far as our needs are concerned. He has brought much in for support and for tools and such we would like to take to New Guinea with us. At every turn in regards to going to New Guinea we have seen his hand. We have also heard constantly a resounding yes that this is the right direction. In all of it we are tired and excited for some time to rest in the Lord and seek Him above all else.
Please pray that this time in Michigan would be restful and that God would heal our hearts.
Please pray we would have a good time with Ryan’s family and that the memories would be sweet.
Please pray that God would bring more people along side of us making this ministry a reality.
Please pray God would multiply what we have in such a way that our debts would be paid quickly and in full.
Please pray we would hear from God clearly on what the next steps should look like.
Please pray God would speak through us while we are here, both as Ryan preaches in churches and as we share with individuals.
Pray for more to be stirred to go to reach those who have never heard.
Thank you for reading this and praying with us. The fact that we are not alone in all of this helps make the journey more bearable. God is good and we are excited to see what He will do in everything!
Pet Scan
We just wanted to ask for all of you to pray for Ryan today. He is going in for a follow-up PET scan at 11:20. This is the two year mark from when he had his melanoma removed and we are praying for clear results. The doctor will also be taking blood work and biopsies of two spots that have shown up recently to see if they are melanoma or not. We are really nervous about it all, but trying to rest in Gods hands.
Please pray for peace and joy in all of this no matter what the Lord does. Through a friend at The Village, Ryan was able to get into a new Melanoma Oncologist at Baylor even though he wasn’t the one who had done the prior work. We are grateful and much more confident of this staff’s ability to treat all of this well. Thanks for being our family in this and lifting it up to our Father in heaven. We will update all of you as soon as we know anything.
Psalm 3:3 But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.
Receiving God’s Word, Literally
Tools of the Trade
In addition to our monthly support, we are raising funds for things like the sawmill pictured above and a tractor. These will be used to build missionary homes well and cost effectively. There have been many donations already, although much is still needed, so please email or call us for details. If we all join together in this it will be a simple and amazing thing that speaks of God’s greatness.