Rated G Update
We have been back at work in Papua for 5 intense weeks and Heidi and Arwen have already been blessed with an awesome ”vacation.” Walker and I drove them to Wamena on the beautiful new road, which only takes 2 hours, on Friday night so they could start their 24 hour trip back to Penang, Malaysia. CMA has a week-long event and both girls are so happy they can be part of that and reconnect with the wonderful friends we made at Dalat.
Walker and I already had our little adventure which he just finished Day 1 of and you can watch below:
After dropping the girls Walker and I spent the morning buying fuel and building supplies. At about $7 a gallon our 3 drums of fuel cost more than $1,000. A bag of cement is $50 and each little frozen chicken was about $5. So we are incredibly grateful for all of you who help us live this high life that in some ways is more expensive than America.
We are settling into a new role here where I am not managing the 4 campuses but just functioning as director, temporary jr/sr high principal (if you know anyone who wants this job please connect us) and teacher. I am so blessed to teach Bible and Life Skills for 7th to 10th grade, chapel and social studies for 9th and 10th. In social studies each student is taking on a belief that causes poverty and in a creative way, through a song, video, drama, story or art, they will seek to change that belief in our villages. For example, a destructive behavior here is “Making a Name” which usually happens through creating a conflict or problem in order to be noticed. As we discussed through it we all realized that this isn’t so much pride based, which is how it looks, but is insecurity based and we ended up feeling compassion for those who have this disease and “were never named.” The solution then becomes finding identity in Christ, a name that satisfies. I love how bright and quick these kids grasp deep pieces of their own culture and how eager they are to bring change to their families and communities. Please pray for them, bringing change can often get one assassinated or crucified.
Walker and Arwen have again totally surprised us and instead of some traumatic readjustment from 5 star living to camping on the beach they have seamlessly fit into this life like sliding into an old pair of slippers. We are extremely grateful for that.
We as a family are doing great, we feel safe and we feel that we are doing what God wants us to be doing. We still face all the problems we had before. The political leader is still gunning for us, the killings/war haven’t been solved, there is still a lot of fear and unrest around us which has caused us to lose a number of students, but we are very aware that God is here and we have hope. Discipleship always means the filtering down to the truly hard core committed. Gideon’s story fits.
One prayer request. As Heidi an I drove out of Bokondini we felt a huge weight lifted from our shoulders. Over the last 10 years God, through you all, has blessed us with 4 school campuses, vehicles, computers, electrical systems, internet, books, tools and and and…. But we cannot maintain it at the level we feel is good stewardship. We have tried everything we know but are failing. We need to be better stewards of what God has trusted to us and what you have sacrificially given. We need help, please pray.
Another request is that we feel a heavy spiritual darkness weighing down on us. Every day Heidi and I are totally spent and exhausted by mid-afternoon. Our work load and adversity is relatively small but it feels like the brakes are on or we are walking in deep mud. With this war all kinds of dark powers have been invited into our area. Last week I asked one of our staff guys why a man had his bow strung. “In times of war we string our bows and ask for spiritual help and cannot unstring the bow until there is blood. If we unstring it there will be a curse on us by the power has been asked for help.” I don’t understand that world, but we can sure feel it. If you could pray for us, the staff and the kids that this dark cloud will be blown off of us and we can see and feel the SON it would be very appreciated.
There is hope, there is life and there are so many little victories happening in the kids right now that I could write a book, but I’ve already written 3x as much as an update letter is allowed to have.
Thank you for having our backs,
Scotty, Heidi, Walker and Arwen.