Wayne & Gail Chen Bringing the Gospel to the Biem people in Papua New Guinea Staying in touch – subscribe to our regular email updates
There are tremendous difficulties in maintaining a blog from an remote bush location in Papua New Guinea. We desire to stay in constant touch and share with all of you guys what God is doing on this volcanic island in the middle of the South Pacific. After trying out different ways to stay in touch, we have found emails to be the most effective and easiest way to send updates out from the bush.
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Pictures, videos and other misc. information will still be updated in this blog. Many thanks again for your partnership in missions!
The Biem Team
This week marks the first time all three family on the Biem team are together! It is hard to imagine how God has brought all of us from different parts of the world (Germany/US/Taiwan) and put us on a little island.
First Team Dinner by the Beach
Thomas on the left and Brandon in the middle…he’s a Lakers fan so please pray for team unity.
The Ladies…Petra, Rachel and Gail.
The Biem Kids!
Clearing Ground for House
It took us two days to move this big rock…
Traditional Biem Outfit
This is the traditional Biem clothing. They no longer wear them on a daily basis but save them for festivals and special occasions.
The drums are all hand-carved and lizard skin are sewed in.
Too Many Funerals – May 12th, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
We have safely returned to BM for a week now. Wayne came back with the boat while Gail and the kids took a ride on the float plane. Kala’s leg infection is completely healed now. We are so grateful for all your prayers and encouragements during this time. We as a family experienced God’s grace and protection through this ordeal. We trust that God brought us to this island and He is able to keep our family on this island for His purpose despite sickness or any other difficulties.
We jumped right back into language and culture study since we came back. Gail hiked up the volcano with some BM ladies this week and she came back aching and exhausted after six hours of straight up and down trekking. The ground near the top of the volcano was quite hot but a big thunderstorm cooled it down. It was a great time of establishing relationships as well as getting a glimpse of BM culture.
You can pray for some upcoming events for our ministry in BM
- In about a month, we will receive our first language evaluation. It is not a test but a tool to see how much progress we have made. We still have a long way to go but we are staying encouraged and making progress. Please pray for a proper perspective in language study. Sometimes language study can feel like an academic exercise. Memorization, mimicry, listening to audio recordings, breaking down grammatical parts…they are repetitive, laborious and sometimes even boring. Please pray that we will not lose sight of the end goal of being able to communicate the gospel clearly in their language.
- We will start building our house in July/August. We have purchased some of the building materials and drawn up a house plan. We’ll be making quite a few runs between the mainland and the island in preparation for this. Please pray that the building project will proceed smoothly and safely.
- Our team have started discussing the possibility of purchasing a bigger boat due to safely concerns over our little banana boat. A more sea worthy vessel will allow us to travel during all seasons and shorten our time on the water. This is still in the brainstorming stage but all three families feel a bigger boat is needed for our ministry in BM. The Depners (on furlough in Germany now) will return in late June and we will be holding a week long team meeting to address many long term ministry plans and needs.
This morning, we attended another funeral here in the village. There have been six deaths already on the island since we moved in three months ago. Every time we hear a funeral wail is a reminder of the urgency of our task. As we witnessed another soul heading into a Christless eternity, our hearts ache with the finality of heaven and hell. It is not something talked about often in our western churches but it is surely felt here on BM every time a person dies.
A few weeks ago, a BM man came to our coworker and asked…”When you guys first came here, you said you will bring God’s talk to us. You have been here for over a year now. When are you going to tell us about God’s talk? All the religious talks here on BM…I know it’s not the whole truth. When are you going to teach us the true foundation of God’s talk?” Please pray for us as we continue to dig into their language and culture in preparation to share the Good News with BM one day.
Privileged to be serving Him with you,
Wayne, Gail, Abby and Kala
Going Tomorrow…
Just a quick update…the sea has calmed so we are planning on leaving tomorrow. We’ll try to update the blog from the island. Thank you all for lifting us in your prayers.
Pressing on with Jesus
Wayne, Gail, Abby and Kala
Awayo – Fear to Faith
In the remote corners of the world, people groups have existed for generations.
They live in fear of the spirits.
They die without hope.
This is Awayo’s story.
Expand Your Prayers
Many of you have been regularly praying for us and we cannot repeat too many times how important and crucial your prayers mean to our family life, our health and our walk with the Lord.
Every time we shared about malaria, skin infections, homesickness and many other difficulties via email, we usually get replies within hours, letting us know that you are interceding for us. This means so much to us and we are honored and privileged to know that we are constantly being lifted up by so many of you guys.
Emmanuel – God Is With Us
Greetings from Papua New Guinea! Our family has been in PNG for over five months now and it just dawned on us during the holiday season that PNG feels like home now. As we look back in the last few months, we are absolutely certain that all of your prayers and encouragements made a HUGE impact in our ministry and family life. We truly treasure this partnership and want to thank you once again for being part of the team.
My dogs are going to feel cold
A few weeks ago, a tribal man came and sat down in front of our house in the bush. This was our conversation.
Man: I am so tired…
Me: Why are you so tired? What did you do?
Man: I spent the whole morning butchering a pig I shot last night. I am really tired now.
Me: Wow, that’s great…how did you shoot it?
Man: I went with my dogs…the dogs surrounded the pig and called for me. I heard their voice, went and shot the pig. Man, I spent the whole morning butchering that thing. I am so tired.