Dear Family and Friends:
Hello. As some of you know, we took a short family break in Australia for relaxation, medical care and yes, once again relaxation. The airport here in East New Britain was closed down due to ash fallout from the volcano almost the entire time we were gone (see picture). Then it opened up for a couple days and we flew back and it is once again closed down. The ash covers everything inside and out. You have to clean dishes and utensils before you can began to try to cook or you will end up eating grit. Every time someone comes into or out of the house a trail of black ashy footprints follow them. Nasty stuff. My PNG neighbor, Joanne, surprised me with planting some little blooming flowers in my garden and in front of our house while we were away. I had admired them once in her garden. It meant a lot to me and now I am trying to keep them alive! Everyday, we rinse all the vegetation and wash the car and boat to keep the hot acid ash from burning and killing everything. Please pray for us and the people here. It is a big health concern and without God’s protection asthma and all sorts of lung conditions are only going to continue to increase in this area. The PNG people live their lives outside and it is difficult to see the little children breathing all that sulfuric ash. We are praying that God would have the winds blow it out to sea or just plain put a cork in it. God can do anything.
People often ask us what a typical day looks like so I thought I would describe some things that happened yesterday. We got up in the morning with about 1/2 inch of black ash covering everything. So the first thing was to rinse off everything before the hot tropical sun baked it into place. Then at breakfast a Pastor came over and stayed about 4 hours. Meanwhile a young PNG girl came with her rake and asked if she could rake my back yard. I knew her Mom was having back pain so the little girl and I made a deal that if she raked my lawn I would give her some pain medicine for her Mom. She was smiling a big smile as she shook my hand on the deal. Then laundry was done but hung inside for minimum ash infiltration. It is so hot here that even inside our house all of the laundry dries in 2 hours. Sort of a natural built in dryer of sorts. During all this Alex is doing school and Victor is writing a term paper. Then I accidently cut my finger on a can while cooking, Victor prays over it, and the wound closes up without stitches. All of this before 1pm. We are busy like you- just in different ways.
We have started the preparation for community entry on the next medical/evangelistic outreach. It is an area that the Pastor’s have a heart for and the home village of one of the PNG nurses (Jenny) who helps us on the outreaches. Jenny’s dad has been dreaming of a Foursquare church plant in the area for some time. We will go by banana boat as it is 5 hours down the coast in the Pomeo district on the east side of our island of East New Britain. This area lacks medical care due to the isolation and difficulty of traveling there. We are very excited to have the Pastors take the lead in choosing the area as this is an answer to prayer for the people to take ownership of the ministry. We will be going on the “community-entry” visit next week.
Also at the end of February, the annual national Foursquare Pastors meeting is held in Goroka and Victor is planning to attend and then travel to Enga Province with Pastor Timothy Tipitap for a week to work in his clinic in the remote area of USK. Alex and I will stay here in East New Britain as Alex is back in school and it is easier for one to travel in the Highlands (see picture). Of course, that is all subject to our island airport opening up. It has been closed for four out of the last five weeks – yes, that is right, we are “land-locked.” To leave here now, we would have to take a boat to New Ireland and fly to Port Moresby and then out of the country.
Finally, we remain busy with Leadership Training. Victor is teaching the pastors about home churches and home-church based congregations. Next up, will be a series of teaching on the process of crisis intervention (see picture). We are also on the newly formed Foursquare East New Britain Province operational Board. We are helping the Province to set up an operations manual for the churches.
That is it for now. Please pray that our volcano will settle down and for the airport to open up again. We also need prayer coverage for the upcoming trip to Goroka and for the community-entry boat trip next week. We will be hugging the coastline the whole way and won’t have to do a big open seas crossing, but we are praying for calm seas nevertheless. We thank you very much for your support. One last thing is that Alex’s arm that was broken still doesn’t not have full range of motion - please mention this before our Father.
Blessings,
Victor, Lori, and Alexander Obregon
Attempt Great Things For God.
Expect Great Things From God.
William Carey
Hello. As some of you know, we took a short family break in Australia for relaxation, medical care and yes, once again relaxation. The airport here in East New Britain was closed down due to ash fallout from the volcano almost the entire time we were gone (see picture). Then it opened up for a couple days and we flew back and it is once again closed down. The ash covers everything inside and out. You have to clean dishes and utensils before you can began to try to cook or you will end up eating grit. Every time someone comes into or out of the house a trail of black ashy footprints follow them. Nasty stuff. My PNG neighbor, Joanne, surprised me with planting some little blooming flowers in my garden and in front of our house while we were away. I had admired them once in her garden. It meant a lot to me and now I am trying to keep them alive! Everyday, we rinse all the vegetation and wash the car and boat to keep the hot acid ash from burning and killing everything. Please pray for us and the people here. It is a big health concern and without God’s protection asthma and all sorts of lung conditions are only going to continue to increase in this area. The PNG people live their lives outside and it is difficult to see the little children breathing all that sulfuric ash. We are praying that God would have the winds blow it out to sea or just plain put a cork in it. God can do anything.
People often ask us what a typical day looks like so I thought I would describe some things that happened yesterday. We got up in the morning with about 1/2 inch of black ash covering everything. So the first thing was to rinse off everything before the hot tropical sun baked it into place. Then at breakfast a Pastor came over and stayed about 4 hours. Meanwhile a young PNG girl came with her rake and asked if she could rake my back yard. I knew her Mom was having back pain so the little girl and I made a deal that if she raked my lawn I would give her some pain medicine for her Mom. She was smiling a big smile as she shook my hand on the deal. Then laundry was done but hung inside for minimum ash infiltration. It is so hot here that even inside our house all of the laundry dries in 2 hours. Sort of a natural built in dryer of sorts. During all this Alex is doing school and Victor is writing a term paper. Then I accidently cut my finger on a can while cooking, Victor prays over it, and the wound closes up without stitches. All of this before 1pm. We are busy like you- just in different ways.
We have started the preparation for community entry on the next medical/evangelistic outreach. It is an area that the Pastor’s have a heart for and the home village of one of the PNG nurses (Jenny) who helps us on the outreaches. Jenny’s dad has been dreaming of a Foursquare church plant in the area for some time. We will go by banana boat as it is 5 hours down the coast in the Pomeo district on the east side of our island of East New Britain. This area lacks medical care due to the isolation and difficulty of traveling there. We are very excited to have the Pastors take the lead in choosing the area as this is an answer to prayer for the people to take ownership of the ministry. We will be going on the “community-entry” visit next week.
Also at the end of February, the annual national Foursquare Pastors meeting is held in Goroka and Victor is planning to attend and then travel to Enga Province with Pastor Timothy Tipitap for a week to work in his clinic in the remote area of USK. Alex and I will stay here in East New Britain as Alex is back in school and it is easier for one to travel in the Highlands (see picture). Of course, that is all subject to our island airport opening up. It has been closed for four out of the last five weeks – yes, that is right, we are “land-locked.” To leave here now, we would have to take a boat to New Ireland and fly to Port Moresby and then out of the country.
Finally, we remain busy with Leadership Training. Victor is teaching the pastors about home churches and home-church based congregations. Next up, will be a series of teaching on the process of crisis intervention (see picture). We are also on the newly formed Foursquare East New Britain Province operational Board. We are helping the Province to set up an operations manual for the churches.
That is it for now. Please pray that our volcano will settle down and for the airport to open up again. We also need prayer coverage for the upcoming trip to Goroka and for the community-entry boat trip next week. We will be hugging the coastline the whole way and won’t have to do a big open seas crossing, but we are praying for calm seas nevertheless. We thank you very much for your support. One last thing is that Alex’s arm that was broken still doesn’t not have full range of motion - please mention this before our Father.
Blessings,
Victor, Lori, and Alexander Obregon
Attempt Great Things For God.
Expect Great Things From God.
William Carey
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