ONE DAY AT A TIME.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

PHILIPPIANS 4:7

Hi
These last 5+ months the Bisorios and I have shared a lot of life together. I feel so blessed to be living in an answered prayer. None of us knew exactly how it would be for me to be in here without another ex-pat or English speaker, but I can honestly say, I am confident I am where God wants me to be. I know many of you have been praying too and I have felt it.  The leaders here are constantly checking in to make sure I am good, friends drop by food from their garden on their way home, we were able to graduate 35 new readers from our literacy class, I have gone on adventures big and small and I am brought along to learn daily tasks as they continue to teach me more than language.  I am truly grateful.

As friendships deepen so does my heart for them. Life is not easy for the Bisorios and sickness, sores and illness are a constant. In July we had two deaths just 4 days apart and then the following two weeks two more people died. The whole month felt surreal. I was (and still am) learning and observing so much about the grieving process. Life is done in community here and these deaths affected everything. Sitting with the women and having so many questions and wanting so much to communicate and encourage with truth but not having the language to do it has only fueled my discipline in learning.  Soon after this time I got really sick, at first it was a bad case of malaria and then the symptoms didn’t go away with medicine and after 10 days of trying to turn the corner I ended up coming out to our base for about 10 days to heal. It wasn’t until I got to Wewak that I realized how impacted I was by the losses, the guilt over being able to come out, feeling helpless...even as I type this I feel as if I am still trying to process it.

Here are two tents the people set up to mourn. For almost a full month people were here crying together day and night.

My friend Bedemeya grieving the loss of her husband.

After a season of grieving, they ended the time with a huge meal together, 7 pigs and a lot of food from their gardens.

Through all of this, hundreds of hours have been spent learning the Bisorio language and I still have so much further to go. This may sound weird, but some days I am actually grateful for the struggle it is to learn language. It reminds me of the value of the message to be communicated clearly and effectively in their lives. And when things start to click and I hear a phrase or question the first time and then actually have the ability to answer them clearly without stumbling over my words...you have NO IDEA the amount of joy that fills inside me. (that happened today:) ). Thank you for praying for me, I am so aware that this work, this ministry the Lord has allowed US to be a part of is contingent on me being about to communicate and I cannot do it in my own strength. You are a vital part of this team. Please keep praying. Pray the Lord would open up my ears and loosen my tongue, that I would remember the words/phrases and all the insane number of ways the verb changes. Pray I have patience with myself and my language helpers in the process.  I have a culture and language evaluation in a month and would love prayer leading up to that.

Before I wrap this up, I want to circle back to what I said at this beginning of this update. Being in here, living life with the Bisorios (the sweet and the hard)...is living life in an answered prayer. I am experiencing more and more how a spirit of gratefulness is powerful and healing. When I trust -as Philippians 4 exhorts us -that the Lord is at hand, I am not anxious for anything. And the peace of God continues to guard my heart and mind. So in the moments that are hard, as I fixate on what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, anything worthy of praise...I experience the peace of God. This is true for all of us, not just me in the jungles of PNG. I pray this email finds you seeking the One who is the source and giver of peace. It is a practice but God is faithful.

I love you guys. Sorry it has taken my such a long time to update you...please know I think and pray for this team and each of you supporters by name each month. I hope you each had a summer full of experiencing Jesus and as always, let me know if there are specific ways I can be praying for you too!!

xoxo, rachel

"where's waldo?...rachel addition :)

Thankful for this crew that came to Bisorio for a week from Wewak + Madang. They buttoned up some projects on our houses, they lead a worship seminar for the Bisorios and were an encouragement to me.

This group of guys are going to perform for the PNG Independence day in town...I was asking questions about their performance so one random day they decided to get dressed up and give me a dress rehearsal :) Then I was forced to take a pic with them.