Thank you for your continued prayers for Geoff and Shannon Husa who serve among the Mibu of Papua New Guinea and are currently on home assignment in the USA. They are thankful to you for keeping the Mibu church and the surrounding communities in your prayers too!
The big news out of Mibu has been and continues to be the terrorising gang in the area. It always seems like something might be moving forward, but then it isn’t. It’s now been nearly a year since the first direct attack in Mibu. The short of it is that the brutal attacks all around Mibu continue. The refugee situation continues. Almost daily there are more stories of villages that have been abandoned and where now the jungle is starting to reclaim it. Many have fled to Mibu where the community there is doing their best to serve and provide for peoples’ needs. The difficulty is the lack of food and housing.
However, in the midst of all this turmoil and pain there IS a huge encouragement. Many of the refugees who have relocated to Mibu for a time, are those from areas that have been asking for the Gospel to be brought to them. In the Lord’s excellent sovereignty, he has brought them to the Gospel! The church in Mibu has been teaching through the Gospel lessons with these folks while they are there. Right now there are over forty people who are about half way through the lessons!
While Geoff and Shannon see and feel the evil at work to press and destroy, they see God’s light shining in Mibu, both in the mercy and grace shown by the Mibu people who are sacrificing so much to serve those who have fled, but also now in the teaching and hearing of His Good News for them!
Geoff continues to work on finishing the elder training lessons for Mibu. Right now it sits at about 46 lessons meant to be taught over a one year period. He has drafted quite a few already, which he is now now starting to send through for his Mibu co-workers to read, check through, and correct before sending them back to him. The book is likely to be over 200 pages when done. Geoff is hoping it will be a great standard by which the leaders and elders in Mibu can train future elders! It’s much of the same material he used when training them, but now put in lesson form in a book.
Geoff and Shannon have also been slowly working through some long-standing health issues this last year, and even more so the past several months. Shannon has a pain in her hip which limits her mobility a fair bit, and Geoff had an issue with both his elbows which has continued to get worse over the last two years, which is limiting his mobility, enough so that it demands immediate and full attention. Pray for answers and healing.
Geoff is starting to give some thought to planning a short trip back to PNG for himself in the next four to six months!