Jim and Judy Burdett and co-workers Gerolf and Mailis Wuest, minister to the people of the Dom Tribe, Papua New Guinea.
The women’s weekly Bible study has been going on for nearly ten years. For many years, Judy taught the women every Tuesday night. However, the goal has always been to hand this over to the women themselves. Judy has been training and mentoring three Dom Christian women on Thursday nights in order for them to teach the following Tuesday. They take turns so each one teaches every third Tuesday. They are doing a very good job. These three women have already taught the other women through the Book of Philippians and now are teaching the Book of Colossians. Please pray for them.
An outreach to another village has not always gone smoothly for many reasons. However, one of the Dom church leaders has been walking over there every Sunday to share the Word of God with a small group using the 68 lesson chronological – creation to Christ – teaching material. This is the second wave of Gospel outreach to that village. The first outreach resulted in a number of decisions for Christ. Now more people want to hear the Gospel.
One of the believing ladies from the first Gospel outreach has expressed a desire to teach others in her village to read. Judy has given her some literacy materials to use. There is a small local schoolhouse with a black board for this woman to work with. This is the first time this approach has been tried so please pray that it will be successful.
Recently the church leadership in two of the Dom villages decided to speed things along a bit by “team teaching” all day on Saturdays and Sundays. Taking turns teaching the rest of the lessons.
The latest Dom literacy class has ended somewhat sooner than expected. Some students, mostly adults, dropped out before they should have and sadly still cannot read Dom with any fluency. However, others, chiefly the kids in the class caught on so quickly to reading Dom that further formal class instruction proved unnecessary. Jim and Judy praise the Lord for this future generation of literate believers.
Praise the Lord for:
- The continued spiritual growth of individual Dom Christian men, women and children
- The growing interest among some of the Dom Christians to minister among themselves and to take the Gospel to other clans and villages.
- The impact that the New Testament translation in the Dom language is having on those who are reading it.
Pray for:
- The strength and wherewithal for Jim and Judy to balance their ministry and the need to concentrate on getting ready for their home assignment this July. They are not getting any younger and it only gets more challenging.
- The Wuests in Germany on home assignment; they are greatly missed.
- Jim and Judy’s children and grandchildren back home.
- For all the Dom believers who are seriously trying to walk with the Lord and serve Him.
Thank you so much for standing with the Dom missionary team in prayer; you are a huge part of the Dom work.