Even though the Mengen church remains Lourens and Marie Laureti’s main responsibility, they also recognise that God’s church consist of many parts that needs to be healthy and connect well. The churches in Papua New Guinea are now at the point where they are functioning together in reaching their own in PNG. Lourens has been closely involved with key elders from these different churches and they are working together in equipping churches to reach out across their own language borders into other people groups that have not yet been reached. This marks the beginning of a new phase of church planting in PNG where the national church is now being equipped and so are the ones sending out missionaries. Thanks, so much for being part of this team!
Now Simon and Annika Flanagan are living fulltime in the tribe and working with leaders as well as many young people who have become believers over the years and are now being discipled and equipped into leadership. It is sad, that they are still dealing with one of the leaders who has fallen in sin and he has not yet been reconciled with the church, nor has he humbled himself before the Lord. This has broken the missionary team’s hearts and caused many problems in the area. Simon and the Mengen leaders have done well in restoring the church after this fall, but there is still a lot of work to be done!
Simon has been working on continuing to equip the leaders using these inductive tools, and he has also produced Bible studies that track through certain books they are studying at the moment. For example, they recently finished teaching the book of Ephesians and in an effort to reinforce the teaching through the book of Ephesians and strengthen literacy amongst the Mengen church they have produced daily Bible studies. He hopes to produce these daily bible studies for the all NT books using the inductive study format. Please pray for the Mengen believers as they learn to not only read God’s Word superficially, but actually grasps its meaning and apply it in their lives!
Annika meets with the ladies regularly and they read through the Bible studies that the men are developing. They split the work of leading the Bible study up between the Mengen ladies, and so the ladies are being equipped to lead these studies themselves. Pray for three ladies as they lead the ladies Bible studies on Monday nights. Pray that the Mengen wives will understand they are valued and an essential part of the team for the building up of the church!
One literacy teacher, has been faithful to continue teaching these skills to believers and recently a class of sixteen students graduated.
They are thankful for many young people growing into maturity. One of the Mengen Bible teachers is currently teaching the young believers through Acts and recently many young people in the church were baptised! They are the future of the church and hungry for God’s Word. They hope to start youth meetings with them this month. Pray for these young folks to grow and become strong believers and leaders.
Thank you for praying for the Mengen New Testament translation over the years! The first print has been completed and there will be a Bible Dedication ceremony mid-June. Thank you so much for being part in bringing God’s Word to the Mengen people in their own language! Pray for the ongoing work of translating more Old Testament books.
Recently another Mengen church had its first baptism during which 20+ people were baptised. This was an amazing opportunity to testify of God’s grace and it is already causing more people to show interest in hearing the truth.
The Mengen team appreciate your prayers. They want to remain focused on this goal, and be good stewards of this huge responsibility.