our first tropical Christmas!

Thank you for your prayers for our family during this Christmas season!

We are doing well.  Of course, we miss our family and friends back home, but God has been so good to us here in PNG.  We are coming out of the holidays now, and we aren't feeling sad...just thankful!  (and a bit overwhelmed, but that has to do with our near future which I will be telling you about sometime soon!)

Anyway.  Our Christmas was filled with friends, the beach (that was a first for us! We can't do that in an Indiana winter!), Christmas cookies and other good food, games, gifts...and most importantly, talking to our kids about the REAL reason we celebrate Christmas.  And the fact that Jesus came to earth for ALL peoples--this theme is all throughout the Bible!  So cool and so humbling.

Now for some pictures...

The kids at the church we attend just LOVE to shower our kids with attention...and gifts.  Lol.  I think especially since it's Christmas time.  I love this mask that Daisy's friend gave her!

Our kids got the opportunity to be in a Christmas program here on base!  What a blessing.  We are so thankful they could be a part of this!

The whole cast, along with the amazing Miss Stephanie who directed it!

A couple of weeks ago, we built a "snowman" at the beach!  Or at least, the closest thing we can get to an snowman ;) 

Our Christmas weekend started out with our first Team Christmas.  Have I mentioned before how incredibly thankful we are for David and Emily?  We hit the jackpot with these teammates...we just love them.  Dave and Em, we loved our team Christmas and we can't wait for many more!  Chad and Martha, next year hopefully we can all celebrate together!

After dinner, we headed outside to play a really funny reindeer game...haha!  We laughed so much :) 

On Christmas Eve night, we started doing some family Christmas stuff with our kids.  Nathan created lots of games with prizes, just like my dad does at home...sniff:(   Our kids had a blast, and so did we!

On Christmas Eve we all slept in the living room...even though I so desperately wanted to go up to our bed!  Lol.  I did it for the kids, even though I KNOW that rats come in our downstairs at night.  Thankfully I didn't hear any--that was God's kindness to me!

Daisy broke out our new blowup boat...haha!  She slept great, even though to me it just looks HOT! 

On Christmas morning, we read the Christmas story and had a little church service.  Then we opened gifts.  Both my parents and Nathan's parents spoiled our kids by sending over packages...the shipping on those is NOT cheap!  Thank you to our dads and moms...you made our Christmas very special :)

That afternoon we hit the beach with the Rimestads and some other friends. Again, that was our first time ever going to the beach at Christmas!

Daisy and Lou--the cutest little mermaid ever!

 We took Daisy's "bed" to the beach...the first time we used it in the water!  Of course, it ripped, which isn't a surprise because we got it in town pretty cheap, which is a recipe for disaster here in PNG.  But it's all good... the kids still had such a good time!

Thanks for your prayers!  We really appreciate all of your prayers...and we NEED them!  We have a lot happening in these next few months.  A lot of really good things, but really BIG things.  So keep on praying!  We'll update again soon!

Maliyali Survey #2--Tomorrow!

We have a big prayer request for you!

Remember how Nathan and our partner David went to do a survey of the Maliyali people group?  (I blogged about it here).  Well, we have been praying SO MUCH about all of this (and so have all of you!), and talking to each other, and talking to leadership...so much thought has gone into this.  Our team is excited about the possibility of moving to Maliyali to plant a church!  Praise God, because this is a BIG decision!  However, it's not 100% set in stone.  We have one more step before it's final, and this step is happening TOMORROW.

Tomorrow (our time, so actually Wednesday night your time)...Nathan and David will be traveling back to Maliyali, along with our NTM leadership (his name is Greg Greenlaw--an awesome leader!  He has already been there and done the church planting thing, in another tribe along with his wife Heidi!).  Also, they will stop in Yifki (another tribe, see this blog post if you forget) and pick up Jonathan Kopf (missionary in Yifki) and Faimpat (a strong believer in Yifki).  Lol!  How's that for a ton of info for you to sort in your minds?? 

Anyway, these five guys will fly to a bush airstrip and then hike the 10 hours to get to Maliyali.  The purpose of this trip?  Well, it's pretty big!  Here are some of the purposes of the trip:

1.  To reconnect with the people.  It's been about two months since our guys were last in there.

2.  They will have a big meeting, where they will remind the people of the four things that New Tribes does:  Learn their language, teach them to read and write their language, teach them God's Word, and translate God's Word into their language.  These are the only four things we say we will do.  (note:  many times, tribes want missionaries because they hope we will bring them stuff, or cargo.  We need to dispel that now, to make sure they aren't having false expectations.  Sure, we will probably bring some things that will benefit the Maliyali people, but that isn't the MAIN reason we are going there.  I hope that makes sense!)

3.  To make sure they are still wanting missionaries, as well as:  

• Are they willing to give us land to build on?  
• Trees.  We will need many trees to build our houses, and many times the trees are tied to different clans or sometimes spirits...so we need to ask them about getting trees to build our houses.
• Are they willing to help us build our houses?

4.  In addition to asking the people these things, our guys will be scouting the area to see check out the ideal location to build our houses, as well as a helicopter landing area, etc.

5.  Greg, our boss, has an important role.  He will be very clear with the people, that if we do move into their tribe, it will be their job to take care of us.  Such as, helping us learn their language, as well as protecting us from trouble, etc.  He will even have a contract for them to sign (in the national language).

6.  Hopefully, we will make a decision!  If everything goes well, our guys will most likely be telling the Maliyali people that we want to come and live with them!  This is huge.  It's what we've been training for, for the last five years!  And finally, we're here.  It feels unreal!

We hope you are all excited about this, too, because we absolutely wouldn't be able to do this without you!  Your prayers and support are making this possible.  Would you please continue to pray, and specifically pray for this trip tomorrow?   The guys will be gone from December 1-5.  We will let you know how it goes!  

Here is David and Nathan on the last Maliyali survey.  They make a great team!  We only wish Chad (our third partner) could be with them.  We can't wait for Chad and Martha to join us!

Just for fun, here are Nathan and David during our missionary training in Missouri.  Back in the beginning, before we ever even partnered up together.  Slaughtering chickens together then...who knew they would be hiking the mountains of PNG together someday?  

This is the kind of land our guys will be hiking across (for ten hours!).  Please pray for that hike, too!

Here are the guys from the last survey, so you can put some faces to the names.  On the left is Jonathan Kopf, the missionary from Yifki.  The guy in the hat is Greg, our area leader.  Then Nathan and David.  Faimpat is missing from this picture, so I'll be sure to post one of him next week :) 

Sweet Maliyali people.  They have been asking for missionaries for SIX years! 

Thank you for your prayers!  We appreciate you all so much!

praising God...we are "engaged" again!

Do you all remember two years ago, I posted on my blog that we decided to partner with David and Emily?  (Read about that "engagement" here).  We were so thankful for the way that God provided us with such an amazing family to partner with!  (And now here we are, two years later and we we can confirm that the Rimestads are some of the most stellar people on this planet!)

Well.  

God is so good.  So you know how we had two big prayer requests last year?  The first one was that God would show us which tribe he wants us to go to (still working on that one!), and the second one? That he would provide a third family to partner with us.  Well, once again God has ABUNDANTLY provided!  And I am convinced that He was answering many of your prayers--thank you!

We are so excited to introduce you to our third family:

Meet Chad and Martha Earl!

Here's the back story...

Martha was in our class at the missionary training center (MTC).  She was single at that time, and we and the Rimestads loved her!  She truly is an amazing, fun, godly woman.

Chad came to the MTC in the class after us.  So he started classes during our third semester.  A little back story on Chad...he actually grew up here in PNG.  And he is an incredibly humble and godly guy...perfect for Martha!  They actually already knew each other, and... long story short?  They fell in love :)

Fast forward...we graduated MTC, Rimestads went to California to finish raising support and prepare for PNG while we stayed at MTC and took Linguistics.  Rimestads came to PNG in July 2015, then we came to PNG in January 2016.  Also, Chad and Martha got married in January 2016!  And then a couple months later, they decided that PNG was the country they felt God leading them to!

Well, when we and the Rimestads heard that news, we were verrry excited.  Because you see, our NTM leadership here in Wewak was really encouraging us to find a third unit to join our team.  We knew Chad and Martha pretty well already, and we loved SO many things about them!  Seriously, they have so many awesome qualities...but the main thing was that we were very confident that they LOVE JESUS so much.  They have very strong walks with the Lord, and that is absolutely the number one thing we want in our partners!  Because it is definitely the MOST important thing!

So, we began to pray about possibly asking them to partner with us!  (Later we found out that they had been praying that we would reach out to them and ask them!  Isn't God so awesome?)  We emailed them in August and they prayed about it, we sent a ton of emails back and forth...and they said YES!  Thank you Jesus!

Chad and Martha are still in the support-raising season of life--and really just a good time of connecting with their sending church as a newly married couple.  Their plans are to come to PNG in July of 2017, and they will go through the same orientation program in Madang that we did.  Then they will join us in the tribe after that!  In the long run, we know that those extra months really won't matter.  We will be so thrilled when they are able to join us in the tribe, but we also know that the season they are in right now is such an important one!  They are SO worth the wait!

I cannot tell you guys (all of our friends and family back home)--just how much I wish you could meet both of our partners.  David and Em, and Chad and Martha.  They are some of the most amazing people you would ever meet, and we know you all would just LOVE them!  We are so humbled by the Lord's provision for us.  We know that He will be faithful to keep providing for us in the future as well.

for those who are wondering...

We're still doing well:)   And we are still praying and talking with leadership about which tribe God is leading us to!  Hopefully we can share some details in the coming month...but for now?  Thank you for praying!  We NEED your prayers!

In the meantime...here's what we've been up to:

Trips to town!  We absolutely love the town of Wewak!  And when we take family trips to town it's a very hot, sweaty and somewhat tiring event :)  But we love it anyway!  And the people here LOVE our kids--that's an understatement.  Especially Daisy...she melts their hearts!

We are getting involved in a local church!  I usually end up teaching Sunday School, but I'm okay with that because I want to be in the Sunday school class with our kids, anyway.  So it works out well :)   And after church, our kids always have groups of kids surrounding them!  Our girls love it :)  

Daisy sitting by her friend Shekinah in church :) 

I tried my best to make it feel like fall at our house...haha!  It was worth a try!  It still feels like hot and humid summer :) 

Daisy fell off of Halle's back the other day...poor girl face planted on the ground :(  She went to town with Nathan a couple days after it happened--talk about drawing attention!  All the ladies at the market were so worried about her!

Speaking of Daisy...she (and Layla) continue to LOVE playing with this sweet boy!  My girls love Calvin!

Nathan had a tropical ulcer on his ankle.  He's on antibiotics and it's looking much better now :)  Sorry about the picture, lol!

Speaking of Nathan, he continues to make his parents laugh even living on the other side of the world!

Our crate made it here from America!  Yay!  It was so fun to find some of our things that we had almost forgotten about!

We had a small tub of (more) legos--the kids were so excited because we had totally forgotten that it was on the crate!

Also on that crate?  A rug!  It may seem like a small thing, but having a rug makes our home so much more homey!  And...it totally smelled like an American store!  Emily and Halle loved smelling it...haha, we were all sniffing it :)

Speaking of Emily...she's such an amazing aunt to our kids!  We are so thankful for coworkers who love our kids!  

It's pretty pointless to straighten our hair here...it just get frizzy and it is SO hot that we need to put it up anyway!  But Emily did it for my girls anyway :) 

Speaking of some awesome coworkers...we love these guys!

Even though we haven't decided for sure on a tribe yet, we have been working on tribal house plans.  Thankfully we have an architect right here on our base, who has worked hard to help us draw up the blueprints!  Thanks Jay!

Lately we have been so intently talking with our teammates and leadership about future plans...and we realized that we NEED to be intentional to keep our kids in the loop! We have always said we want to have a family ministry and we still feel strongly about that! So we took Kaine and Halle out tonight and had a good, honest heart to heart conversation with them. We were encouraged because they were very open with us...about their excitement but also fears. Our prayer for all of our kids is they they will have an intense burden for the lost and that they will see that Jesus is so worth it and so much MORE beautiful and appealing than all the comforts in life! Like we learned from some wise friends--we are NOT sacrificing our family...we are sacrificing AS a family! I love that and I pray that our kids will always feel a part of this! #makinghimfamousinpng

Last but not least...we took a five day break up to Goroka (in the highlands...land of cool nights and hot-but-not-humid days!)  It was a much needed break, and I think Halle's face in this picture sums it up:  pure joy :) 

 Layla and Daisy got a chance to go to school up there!  We were staying on NTM's main base called Lapilo...there is a school there, and this was Layla's and Daisy's first time getting the "real" school experience!  Kaine and Halle wanted to stay home from school since they were on a "break"...lol.  Such smart kids :)  They had a good point though! So we let them stay home.

Our kids had a great time reconnecting with some friends from missionary training in Missouri!  The girls all had a blast playing with rhinoceros beetles one day...yuck!  Halle doesn't look too sure about sitting beside them :)

Thank you all for praying for us!  We need your prayers, and we will keep you posted on what the Lord is doing with our team here in PNG!

hello from halle--"A Midnight Adventure"

To see another of Halle's posts, you can click here or here...

Once again, comments from me (Rachel) are in red!  Love my sweet little blogging girl :)

Here's Halle's story...
Okay, I want to tell you about an adventure I had last night...

It happened after I went to sleep, there was a huge thunderstorm that woke me up.  And the lightning was too bright, and the thunder was too loud that I got scared.  So I went to my parents' bedroom.  They were asleep so I woke them up. (I actually wasn't really sleeping, either...it was a big storm!)  Then I told them I was scared so they said I can go in their bed for a little bit.  And after about an hour, the storm stopped and I got out to go back into my own bed.  

Then I needed to go to the bathroom, so I walked to the bathroom...and I heard flap, flap, flap.  I was scared, but I went in anyway (she's braver than I would have been!) and I closed the door behind me, then I saw a thing running behind the laundry basket!  And first, I thought it was a toad, but then I saw its long long tail so I knew it was a rat! (Sick!!!! Come on, rat, why would you need to be upstairs in our house??  Gross.)  So I ran out and said, "Mom! Dad! There's a rat in the bathroom!"  So my dad took a wooden rubber band gun and he went in, and me and my mom heard BANG BANG BANG!  And we heard the rat squealing loudly.  And so about one minute later he came out of the bathroom, and he had the rat in a toilet paper roll, and he went downstairs and threw it away outside.  (Can I just take a second to give a major shout out to my hubby?  For real...he beat a rat to death with a toy gun!  Yep, I'm pretty proud of him!) 

My mom was glad that she didn't see the rat--she told me I was very brave! (Halle WAS brave!  I'm super proud of her, too!)

Me and my mom are sad that we didn't get a picture of my dad holding the rat...so instead, here is a picture of me and my (super strong) dad.  

I think they make a great (and intimidating) rat-killing team, don't you? ;) 

Thanks for reading my blogpost!  I'll write again another time.

Love,

Halle

Our first survey: this is a BIG DEAL.

We want to thank you all for the many prayers you have prayed for us recently!  As most of you probably know, Nathan and our partner David just recently went on their first survey trip to an unreached tribe.  We haven't communicated very much to all of you since they got back...not because we don't want to, but mainly because this is just SO BIG.  It's hard to know how to communicate all that we are thinking and feeling--we have been busy processing it ourselves!  All that to say--we really want to keep you all updated--so here, I'm going to do my best!  (I will tell you in advance that it's kind of long...but we would love if you read it all!  It will help you to know how to pray!)

Okay, so you might remember the trips that Nathan/David, and then me/Emily took into Hewa back in July?  (Read these posts if you forget: #1, #2, #3).  Okay, anyway, that was a village called Yifki.  Yifki is a village in the Hewa people group, and there are missionaries who live in there, and a church has already been planted!  The missionaries are working on translating right now.  

Well, it just so turns out that Hewa is a BIG people group--and it's actually made up of a few different languages.  So, to finish this Hewa work, there needs to be at least two more teams of missionaries to go in and reach the other Hewan languages.  Does that make sense?  I hope so...

After we started learning more about this, God started working in all of our hearts.  He began to give us this vision of seeing Jesus be made famous among ALL of the Hewa people.  Isn't that an awesome vision?  We still need to pray lots about if this is a good fit for our families, but the desire for this vision is there!

The next step would be for the guys to do a survey of one of these Hewa areas.  What is a survey, you might wonder?  Well, basically the first survey has a couple of purposes:  

1. to find out the peoples' thinking (do they really want missionaries?  why do they want missionaries?)
2. To tell the people exactly what we would come to do.

Point #2 is so vital.  Because many times, these tribes in PNG have very wrong thinking about us western missionaries.  Many times (or most times)--the people think that we westerners have some magic formula, and that we will teach them God's "magic" words--and then they would get tons of material stuff.  And become rich.  Things like that.  Which we all know are just lies from Satan, but these people actually really believe it.  So anyway, it is very important for these beliefs to be dispelled on the survey.  The missionaries tell the people very clearly:  New Tribes missionaries come to do FOUR things.  These four things are:

1. We learn their language and culture.  
2. We teach them to read and write their language.
3. We translate God's Word into their language.
4. We teach them God's Word.

And that's it.  Those are the only things that we would actually promise to do.  (of course, we might end up doing some medical work, or other things like that--but that is not the REASON we are coming in.  We don't promise them this).

After the people hear those four things, then we really want to know if they still want us to come live with them!  We don't want them to have unreal expectations, you know?

Okay, so all of that is basically what the survey is.  Does all of that make sense? Sometimes I wonder how to communicate all of this information to you all back home...it's hard!  I just hope it's not confusing!

So.  We decided to do a survey of the southern area of Hewa.  And this was actually a big survey--because the closest airstrip is about a 10 hour hike away from the village!  Whew.  Emily and I are so proud of our men for doing this!  It wasn't easy, that's for sure!

They left on a Tuesday, and first flew to a town called Mt. Hagen.  

While they were there, they met lots of people, made contacts, etc etc.  They had to stay 2 nights in that town because of the way the flight schedule worked out. While they were there, they bought some pineapples--to quote our guys, it was "the best pineapple I have ever eaten in my entire life!" 

Okay, so then on Thursday morning, they flew into Yifki (remember, the Hewa village that already has a church planted in it?  And missionaries live there?)  Yeah, so they flew into there to pick up Jonathan (the missionary) and Faimpat (a very awesome and strong believer in Yifki).  Jonathan and Faimpat were going to go along on this survey, which was a HUGE help to our guys! 

After they picked up those two guys, they flew to the southern area of Hewa, to a grass airstrip.  They were ready to start their LOOOONG hike.  They met a man named Ishmael who knew the way to their destination, which was a huge answer to prayer!  Because our guys sure didn't know the way :) 

 Here is Faimpat, Nathan and Ishmael--with a vine bridge in the background.  I gave Nathan strict orders to take pictures if they crossed a vine bridge!  So he did a good job of following my instructions :) 

So thankful that Nathan can do this alongside David.  They are both godly men who are PASSIONATE for the glory of God and the fame of Christ!

This area is so beautiful!  And it's up in the mountains, which means no humidity!  (Me and Emily were doing a happy dance at this news--if we do end up going to this tribe, we will gladly leave the humidity here in Wewak!  Lol)

Nathan was able to get some good ideas for our house plans--which was super helpful! ;) 

In many places, they encountered these "spirit gates"...which the people build to keep evil spirits away.  They believe the spirits can't go through these gates...

Okay, so after a very intense hike, the guys made it to their destination.  We'll call it Mali for now. As they came up to the village, they were met with...four old people.  And that's all!  The other people were all off at some celebration a few hours' hike away!  Hmm.  But thankfully the council of the village, Sam, had heard along the way that our guys were hiking to his place.  So he ran back from the celebration to meet them--that was super encouraging to Nathan and Dave.  So this was on Friday--and Sam said the people should return to the village Saturday or Sunday.  (A lot of you were praying for the people to come back--thank you for praying alongside us!) Things weren't going exactly the way we had hoped...

God heard your prayers!  The people started coming back the next day, and then on Sunday, our guys were able to give the BIG TALK (also being prayed about by many of you!)  They sat down with all of the leaders of the village and the area, and they presented to the people the four things that NTM missionaries come to do.  The people were all in agreement--they want us to come!  They said if we come, they would all move their houses closer to live by us--which was encouraging to hear, because the people don't live in one village like we had envisioned.  Rather, they are in little hamlets spread out across the mountainsides.  Not super easy to get to!

The meeting went really well and was a HUGE encouragement to Nathan and David.  The next day (Monday), the guys said good-bye and began the long hike back.  The people presented our guys with gifts--you can't really see it, but there is a live chicken in Nathan's bag :)  That was their gift to him!  Lol.  (It was a sweet and generous gift but we can't really take care of it here on the base...so Nathan gave it to Faimpat.)

 They made it back to the airstrip and hung out there for a day, and then on Wednesday morning the airplane picked them up and took them to Yifki.

The guys were able to talk and process with Jonathan at his house in Yifki that night, and then Thursday morning...

They came home!  

There was much rejoicing in the Mueller and Rimestad households that day :) We sure missed our men!  Ten days was a long time!

 I can't express how proud I am of Nathan--and how much I love him!  This life of living overseas, him being away more, etc...it has strengthened our marriage and drawn us even closer to each other!  I praise God for that.  

So...what now??

Well, we are talking a ton with the Rimestads and our leadership here in Wewak.  Also, next week we decided that our guys should go on one more survey-type of trip, to the western area of Hewa.  The purpose won't be quite the same, because it will mostly just be to see it--if we do end up going to Hewa, we will most likely go to Mali (the village our men just visited).  So this will just be a quick 3 day trip--it will feel like a breeze compared to the ten days they were just gone!

We have just a few details about Mali that we are weighing...things like:

• it is a helicopter access only tribe.  Which means it will be expensive.  Anytime we need to leave the tribe, or get supplies...it would all come by helicopter.  Just something we need to think through...
• There is the thing about the people living really spread out...and HOPEFULLY they would follow through and move their houses closer to us.  But if they didn't...it would make learning their language and doing ministry a lot harder.
• At the end of the survey trip, our guys found out some things about a Hewan guy who is going around spreading false prophecies...about white missionaries coming to their area and then heaven would come to Hewa...some very interesting stuff.  More things to think through!

If you read this to the end...THANK YOU.  Thank you for reading it, for caring about us, and for praying for us.  Please keep praying!  Your prayers are absolutely making this possible.  We COULD NOT do this without your prayers!  

We'll keep you posted!  We love you all!