Jim and Judy Burdett with co-workers with Gerolf and Mailis Wuest have reached another milestone for their ministry among the Dom Tribe, Papua New Guinea.
Four Dom Christian women are being discipled to take over the teaching of the women’s weekly Bible study. Please pray for these four ladies. One lady lives about two hours away so she can only attend if it isn’t raining. She tries to attend on Tuesday nights and Sunday. She is from an outreach that some of the Dom Christian men did several years ago. It has been hard for their guys to get back there to teach so she has to make the journey. They are going through the book of Philippians. Judy loves these times of just talking with the women, as a small group.
The team have started Dom language literacy again. This time they have kids as well as adults attending. Another first for the ministry among the Dom. Many kids have come asking for Dom New Testaments and are eager to learn to read the Word in their own language. Judy is assisted by three literate Dom Christian women. The team hope and pray that they will continue teaching other literacy students on their own after they have left the field one day. Having young kids in the class has changed the dynamics, but they learn quickly and have a lot of enthusiasm.
A Dom believer that worked together with Jim to translate the Dom New Testament has headed up numerous Gospel outreaches in villages near and far. In addition, he is part of a group made up of other PNG Christian men (from churches planted by NTM missionaries in several tribes of the Highlands) who visit by invitation various Christian ministers of other Evangelical groups and present the Chronological teaching method developed by NTM.
The Chronological Teaching method or Chron for short has been highly effective throughout the world in presenting the Gospel to unreached people groups. This has not gone unnoticed by churches and mission organisations outside of NTM and invitations to come and share the Chron method keep trickling in. Just recently, this group spent two weeks at a Bible college in another province presenting the Chron to the facility and students. It was received with great enthusiasm and they have been invited to return. Please pray for them.
Jim and Judy are rejoicing to have their only daughter and youngest child, Heather, on the field as a third-generation missionary! She is teaching five 7th – 12th grade science classes in the same school that Heather and their other kids (and Judy) attended in the past. So, it’s come full circle. The student is now the teacher. A very busy teacher. Please pray for her that she can keep up with the workload.
For a while it looked like they were entering another dry season which is never a good thing for PNG. Many weeks went without significant rain. The people are subsistence farmers depending on their gardens to eat. “Graun em i laip (land is life)” as they say in the Dom. No rain, no food. Praise the Lord the dry spell was short lived and it is raining again. Not good for travel but great for the people of PNG.