Leaving for PNG Tomorrow!

In a few minutes Donna and I will go teach a staff class on the 3 lists of giftings in the Bible, from Eph. 4 and 1 Cor. 12. It should be a good, interactive learning time, but we do understand that the staff have worked all day and now, in essence have a night class to attend. So hopefully we will keep it ministry focused and not worry so much about all the great content we have!!

 In the evening we went to the home of Tabitha and Daniel Colwell and their 3 boys. I led Tabitha’s DTS some 17 years ago and she and her husband have been on staff here for several years. They are rare, in that they live off campus, and had us over for a nice meal and showed us around their home. Daniel’s sister, Naomi, also joined us. Her husband is Fijian and they’ve only been married a few weeks. Just a week ago, a cyclone totally destroyed her husband’s village and so he’s had to go home, since he’s the oldest son. So she joined us for dinner.

On our way back to the base after dinner, Tabitha took us to the top of Castle Hill, a local overlook that’s just magnificent! First, you can drive all the way to the top and many people walk or run the couple of miles it took to summit the hill and then from the top you can see the ocean on one side and the whole of Townsville spread out for you on the other. Simply spectacular view!

Today has been our last day here in Townsville for a while, tomorrow we’ll fly to PNG. But this morning we went to an 8am staff meeting and then Tabitha took us with her boys to a place called Riverway. This is a free venue for people to enjoy. There are several enormous pools for people to enjoy as well as places to have a cookout, grassy fields and all next to a river! There are many shade trees to keep the sun off and we spent a couple of very enjoyable hours in the pools!

When I leave tomorrow, my ability to stay connected by social media will mostly be cut off. So I will suspend my accounts and rely on this blog to keep you abreast of our adventures! In the first outreach (we are on outreach 2 and 3) the ship ministered to over 3,000 people in 16 days!! Optometry, dentistry, General medicine and Community Engagement were all part of the outreach! We don’t have any idea how we will be employed, but we are excited to find out!

If you’d like to pray for us, pray for safe flights, clarity for the future, energy to work in the extreme heat, health. Thank you very much in advance!