A closed door and a new beginning

--- CLOSED DOORS IN FIRST OUTREACH ---
Do you remember when we updated you about the possibility of the teaching of God's word returning to the village where the first outreach happened? There are a fair number of believers there (about 70 based on what we can tell). Yet a number of years ago one person in particular ended up leveraging his influence to put a stop to any further teaching. Recently some concerned folks from Mibu went there to scope things out and see if there was any possibility of bringing God's word back to this village. It turns out that many folks, including that influential individual all wanted God's word to come back.

However, just weeks after we updated you on that development, and as things were gearing up for the teachers to go and begin their sacrificial work there, that most influential fella there who had put a stop to the teaching began insisting that he do the teaching. Because of how he was seen to mis-handle God's word in the past the church in Mibu wasn't comfortable putting him in that role of responsibility... not till we could see a more sustained willingness to submit to God's word in his life. We told him to hold on, that maybe we could talk about it again in a year or so. This gentleman's heart began to show through right there when he began insisting that this teaching wouldn't be successful unless he was the one doing it. He has declared that the teaching won't happen unless he is the one doing it. Even more so now, the Mibu church sees the need for this gentleman to sit under the teaching for a while, see his own self-worth crucified, and out of that begin showing himself faithful with the things God is revealing to him through his word. This would need to happen before any consideration is made which would allow him to take up a teaching role again. At this time, he remains stubborn. And as such, he again is effectively closing the door on any teaching that may happen there.

Lord willing, when we return to Mibu in July, we'll be discussing different possible strategies that would allow those in Tariknan who wish to continue being fed by God's word to do so. Accompanying those strategic discussions may need to be some preparation for the possibility of dealing with persecution by those opposing God's great message. Please be in prayer for the believers in that village who are being kept from being fed by God's word. Also pray for the church in Mibu that they'd have the wisdom and discernment to be able to effectively shine God's light over there through teaching of his word and living lives that shine God's mercy and grace.

--- NEW OUTREACH; NUMBER FOUR ---
Now, if you've been looking at the attached diagram, you may be seeing something you're not familiar with yet. That's right... a FOURTH outreach. This recent outreach effort has just recently begun in a nearby village. The little bit of information I have so far says that there are about 50 people attending the initial evangelism lessons right now. The people there have been waiting for the gospel message to come their way for some time now. The church in Mibu is pleased to be able to accommodate! Please keep the people of that village and the Mibu folks who are teaching there in your prayers!

Stateside Update

It's hard to believe that we've been back in Arizona for nearly a month and a half already! I was just realizing the other day we're LONG overdue for an update!

Our travels went really well. The kids behaved excellent on those flights, which makes all the difference in the world. We were so thankful for that on this trip. After arriving home, as usual, we were 'reacquainted' with American germs. Seems after the first month, everyone got what everyone was going to get and we're all feeling good for the moment.

Shannon has begun her regular doctor visits for the new baby and we've been blessed to find out that we're going to have our first boy in the family! We're really excited about that! Now we're just duking it out over what to name this young person. Shannon's health remains good. However, she is now feeling a fair bit of discomfort that limits her a bit and has made sleeping difficult sometimes. We have scheduled the c-section for April 20th. That date is coming up fast!

The kids have been enjoying being back too. They love being able to spend time with their grandparents. They've had lots of special time together. They've also been attending school. Madelyn is in preschool at the Bethany Learning Center, and Skyler is attending first grade at Bethany Christian School. Both are doing so well there and have teachers who really care. Highlights for the kids include things such as playing in the snow up north, Skyler going to see the spring wildflowers in the Superstition Mountains, Maddie getting music lessons from grandma and through a 'musikgarten' class, and Abigail getting a whole lot more daddy time than she's used to.

I'm still amazed that this can even happen, but I've received a number of phone calls from Sesi in Mibu since we've gotten back. No, that doesn't mean there are phones there now. But cell phone signals are just a few hours away from Mibu now and so when Sesi is out and about he makes it a point to give me a call. This way he's able to give us some periodic updates regarding how things are going there in Mibu. There are some exciting things as well as some tough things going on right now. Among the items which are more exciting are the rebirth of efforts to build an airstrip and also the startup of evangelism lessons in Mibu and in a nearby village called Dagave. Then among the tougher things that challenge the church in Mibu are resistance to the planned startup of bible teaching in the village of Tariknan and some difficult and possibly divisive issues that have come up in the outreach areas.

Regarding those things we'll provide more details in the coming weeks so that you can better know how to pray.

As to the rest of our time home (scheduled to return to Mibu on July 20th) we're planning on doing several things. First and foremost is taking care of all things 'baby'; delivery, healing, and all the paperwork required to bring the new Husa back with us. We also want to spend this time catching up with our friends and family. Finally there is a need to broaden the base from which prayer and monthly finances come which help us serve most effectively in Mibu. Interspersed with all that, I'll be hoping to fill things in with a little bit of work furthering our translation efforts in Mibu.

Thank you all for your much needed prayers and support. Thank you for being a part of the team!

Hope for Tariknan

Tariknan was the very first place the Mibu church decided to start an outreach back in 2006. The teaching went well with a great response to the gospel message. Like Mibu most of the village who heard the gospel message came to believe that Jesus paid the price of death for their sin, thus restoring a broken relationship between them and their creator.

But relatively soon after that, as the bible teaching began to progress toward the growth and maturity of these new believers, something happened that has been a heavy burden on the heart of the church in Mibu ever since. Several key influential people there joined the opposition that came from the predominant religious system in that area. These influential people made it difficult for the teaching to continue, even frightening much of the rest of their community away from continuing to hear God's word. As a result, the teaching in Tariknan fizzled out with no one left to continue it.

Since then, over the years, there have been a number of folks in Tariknan who have said that they want the teaching to come back despite the opposition. The church here in Mibu has shared this burden with them and has tried to find a way to get the teaching jump started again in Tariknan. But each time the church found that they just didn't have the people in place to send. But this didn't stop them from revisiting the idea again recently. A couple months ago an exploratory visit to Tariknan was made by a small delegation from the church here in Mibu. They wanted to assess whether or not, after all this time, there might be some way to bring the teaching back. They needed first to find out who all is interested and where the teaching might be able to happen. What they found there was amazing! Publicly, a huge number of the people of Tariknan were asking for the teaching to come back. This includes those influential folks who originally led people away from the truth in the beginning. In fact, the one person who exerted the most negative influence back then publicly admitted that he was wrong for doing so and that he too wanted the teaching to come back. The people there said that they know they heard God's truth, but pulled away from it. Over time, they realized that their continued commitment to that other religious system was a mistake, and they thought they might not ever have the chance again to hear God's word. The overall sentiment was of great gratitude for God not having given up on them and continuing to pursue them through the efforts of the Mibu church!

The problem still remained though. Who would the church send to continue teaching in Tariknan? The solution; The church in Mibu has begun a new round of teacher-training. About 10 guys are being trained and discipled in their desire to be a part of the ongoing teaching needs both here and in Tariknan (and possibly other areas someday). Please be in prayer for these gentlemen as they are groomed for service by the church here in Mibu. Pray for their ongoing persistence in being faithful with the task that is being entrusted to them.

Quick update on Geoff's illness: Geoff returned yesterday (wed) to Mibu since being medevac'd last week. He seems to be completely recovered and we're not expecting any more complications. We're all super glad to be back together as a family! Thank you all so much for your prayers for us during this last week!

Slight medical scare

You may have heard through our family that I (Geoff) was medevac'd out
of Mibu early Tuesday morning with symptoms that were consistent with
meningitis. Since all this happened so very rapidly we really only
managed to keep in contact with our family and pastor John. We know that
you may have already been informed of these details and have been
praying for me. For that I want to extend a huge thanks! What a blessing
to have such a wonderful group willing to maneuver their already busy
lives in such a way as to come together out of concern for us and to
pray! But just in case you may not have gotten the information and now
that things have settled a bit I'm wanting to update you on what happened.

Monday morning I woke up with a really bad headache that continued to
get worse through the day. Later that afternoon, the pain was much much
worse and also accompanied by fever and a stiff neck, typical signs of
meningitis. We contacted our doctor on the radio and asked what he
thought. After asking us more detailed questions he said that I needed
to get out to the clinic as soon as possible. He had Shannon give me a
number of injections and other medicines (which we were thankful to
actually have in stock in our little 'Husa Medical Cabinet'). We were
going to have to do what we could to get through the night when the
helicopter could come get me.

The next morning the helicopter flew me to Lapilo where our clinic is
located. By then I was starting to show some signs of improvement. But I
guess you don't mess with meningitis. The medical staff worked rapidly
to narrow down the possibilities. Everything continued to point to
meningitis. A spinal tap sealed the deal, showing that it was a viral
meningitis (rather than the much more dangerous bacterial meningitis).
That's what we really needed to rule out was the bacterial kind. So,
though I've still got a few more days of discomfort left, things are
looking like they'll continue to improve on their own and there's no
significant danger. Whew!

We're always amazed to see how things can come together during scary
moments like these with logistics and the skills necessary to discern
what's going on and people praying... even though we weren't able to
keep up with our normal means of communicating with you! We see this
fine tuned machine all come together and make it happen and you can just
see that God has all the right people in the right places! Awesome. Body
life!

At this point, Shannon and the girls are super thankful to have the
Osborns with them in Mibu (don't know how we'd do it without you,
Osborns!) and they're looking forward to my return hopefully in the next
3 or 4 days. For now, the doc wants to see things continuing to get
better and make sure we're in the clear. I'm still getting frequent
headaches through the day, but overall they seem to be getting better
and better; it kind of cycles though.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers during this! You can especially
pray for Shannon, the pregnant mom, taking care of 3 energetic little girls!

Geoff for the Husas

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Husas in Mibu

Welcome Osborns

It all came together kind of last minute, but we've been able to welcome the Osborn family for an extended stay of six weeks here in Mibu. The Osborns (Joseph and Elizabeth, along with Belle (4), Lucy (3), and Everet (1) ) are here staying with us in Mibu for what is called 'bush orientation'. They arrived in Papua New Guinea in August, have been getting acquainted with things here in Papua New Guinea, and have also been working hard to learn the country's trade language, Pidgin English. They arrived here in Mibu last Wednesday, the 14th and are planning on heading back out to town with us on January 25th.

Bush orientation is one of the final steps of preparing a family for ministry in a remote location. The idea is to finalize their study of Pidgin English language and to gain their first longer term exposure to what life is like living in the bush. This also affords them the opportunity rub shoulders with the believers here in Mibu as they spend time in their world. One more step toward preparing the Osborns to begin serving wherever it is that God directs them. So please be in prayer for their time here, that this exposure would give them wisdom and insight and that they'd sense more of God's direction through this experience.

As for us, it's been a blast getting to know Joseph and Elizabeth and the kids. We've been enjoying helping them get settled in and giving them the 'lay of the land' as it were, showing them how life in the bush looks for us.

Update on travel logistics

(Our apologies for the random picture that just showed up in your inbox yesterday. Here is the text that the picture was supposed to accompany. Our email system sometimes tears our emails apart and decides to send just one little part. Ironically enough, the content of the picture is still rather random :)

Over the last few weeks, our busyness seems to have gotten in the way of keeping you updated. There are several things that we'll be trying to catch you up on here over the next several updates. So stay tuned!

For starters we wanted to inform you about where things are at with our plans to return home for Husa baby number four. We're super thankful to see that so far about $8300 of our needs for this trip has been graciously provided! The total needed for travel and medical expenses is estimated around $15,000.

Currently the plan is to be returning home on January 27th, sometime in the afternoon. The baby is due around the end of April. Then we'll give enough time to process paperwork, entry permits, passport, etc and return to Mibu on July 20.

Please continue to pray with us regarding the health of the baby and also for Shannon who typically experiences a great deal of discomfort and pain associated with pregnancy. Please also be in prayer for our housing needs when we're home. If anyone happens to know of a house that needs house sitting during our time home, we're still looking for something that fits our small budget within reasonable proximity to the Tempe/Chandler area.

As the time for travel approaches, we've got much work to finish up here in Mibu as well as packing up our house which will sit unoccupied during the months that we're home. It's hard to believe that the time is so close already! We're really looking forward to seeing you and hopefully having a chance to visit and share about the wonderful things God continues to do in Mibu!

(here's a random, fun picture of Skyler, Maddie, and Abby all enjoying some imaginative play time)