20100408 Our April Newsletter

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s 10 am here. This is the first hot dry day we have had for a while so all the meri’s (women) are hanging their laundry outside to dry. Our neighbors are using a long pointed bamboo pole to knock coconuts out of the tree so they can use it for cooking. An 8 year old is balancing on a fence to reach the small round fruit from a nearby tree. You can smell outdoor fires and spices. Alex has had his pancakes and is working on his science test. Victor is in Kokopo town teaching at a Pastor’s meeting. A Pastor stops by for medical advice and prayer so I give her some food and we talk and pray. There isn’t anything I can do medically so I prayed over her. She smiled and told me that earlier this morning she was having pain and prayed and saw a picture of my face and that is why she came to the house. The two of us then worshipped God together and thanked Him for being our Healer. After worship, she told me the pain was gone and she felt healed.

Due to various circumstances, we had to prayerfully adjust much of our planned schedule last month. We had planned to sail down the south coast of East New Britain to do a water baptism and church dedication service and to do a combined medical and evangelism outreach at Pastor Willy’s church, but due to flooding in the area the church building construction was not fully completed. So, we have postponed the outreach until Pastor Willy is ready for us. That didn’t hold us back from continuing our medical ministry, however. We are now in the process of doing a community entry visit in a very poor and dangerous area and are planning a medical and evangelism outreach there later this month. A son of a Foursquare congregation member was murdered in the area on Easter Sunday. So, please pray for us as we prepare and go there to do God’s work. We will be partnering with Pastor Leonard and his wife (see picture from earlier).

God’s healing activity and His miracle work in the medical ministry we do here continues to amaze us. One of our main PNG nurses Jenny recently called us to come to a local health centre to see her gravely ill father. She sailed sixteen hours to go get her father and bring him back here to the health centre. When we saw him he looked acutely and seriously ill and nearly in shock. After a thorough physical examination and review of the medical chart, it appeared that the man had internal bleeding due to a perforated gastric (stomach) ulcer. After making some medication adjustments, we advised that he be transferred to the local government hospital in Rabaul as soon as possible. Before we left, though, we laid hands on him and prayed for a miracle healing of the hole in his stomach. Then we prayed for the other sick people in the ward. Two days later we received a call from Jenny who told us that her father was indeed transferred to the government hospital, but that his condition markedly improved shortly after we prayed for him. After we spoke to Jenny, we went to the hospital to visit her dad. When we arrived, everyone was all smiles (see pictures). Jenny hugged us hard and told us that a miracle had occurred. Her father was almost completely back to normal. We were quite taken back because two days ago we medically felt that the man would most likely die unless God intervened. But there he was sitting up smiling, happy to see us. Victor did a great job of explaining that all we did was to ask God to heal him – It was God who did the miracle and healed him.

There continues to be quite a bit of reconciling work for us here. As you may recall from our last few newsletters, we are working to reconcile with a former Foursquare pastor who caused a church split a while back. At the recent PNG Foursquare national convention in Goroka, we spoke with national executive council (NEC) members about our progress with the pastor and they gave us their input. We will be meeting with the pastor next week for another meeting. In addition to this reconciling work, the leadership here have asked us to meet with several married couples to counsel them and to teach on one particular aspect of marriage next month. One of the couples we are meeting soon are Foursquare pastors. Thanks for your continued prayers on the reconciling work we are doing here.

The leadership in Foursquare PNG Island region is currently in a state of transition. We have a new Regional Foursquare supervisor and member of the Foursquare national executive council will be coming here next month to pastor the Kokopo Town church. It is quite likely too that the current East New Britain Provincial supervisor will be replaced soon. So, needless to say, we have been quite busy the last two months helping the incoming and outgoing leaders with the transition. Most of the transition work we are doing has been mainly in the area of pastoral care-giving. God has used us to bring stabilization to the Town church and to the Province during the transition and to help with administrative details surrounding the transition. Some people here are quite anxious about the changes that are taking place and will be taking place but the Great Shepherd is reassuring them that they can trust Him, even with change.

Regular Leadership Training continues here and the pastors are strongly participating in the teachings (see picture). We continue to follow and monitor the progress of the pastor’s Leadership Training Groups (LTG’s) and we heavily emphasize character and integrity in the pastor’s personal, marriage, and family lives. One of the goals we have for the LTG’s is for the pastors to eventually disciple their congregations and their small home groups through the LTG’s. We also continue to have regular speaking and preaching engagements and our schedule is filled up for the next two months.

We have had some strange electrical problems. The electrical outlet for our washing machine stopped working in mid cycle, the refrigerator outlet stopped working, and the electrical box on the outside of our house quit working. Sometimes, we have no electricity what so ever even though everyone around us has power and at times the clock on the wall goes backwards. We have had some sort of water leak and have dribbles of water running down two walls of our bathroom but we haven’t been able to convince the owners to come and fix it. But in each instance God has helped us and now things seem to be working well. Even on Easter Sunday evening, and after praying and asking God for help, we had two men from PNG Power come to our house at 9pm to connect us to another power line.

Alex and I were recently issued new U.S. passports (as our old ones expired) but they remain in Port Moresby until our PNG visas are processed.

Here are our prayer requests:

1. That people would come to Christ through our work here and be healed spiritually, physically, and emotionally.
2. That the Kingdom of God would move forward in the PNG island area.
3. That there would be a smooth Foursquare leadership transition here in the PNG island region.
4. For Alex as he does his High School work. We are often interrupted by lack of electricity and other distractions persist.
5. For Nathan who remains in the U.S. and is still recovering from knee surgery.
6. That our PNG visa’s would be completed and returned safely to us as soon as possible.

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Blessings,

Victor and Lori and Alexander Obregon

Attempt Great Things For God

Expect Great Things From God

William Carey