Beginnings

Laura and I arrived safely at Bancroft Bible Camp last Monday afternoon.  We enjoyed spending some time with our dad, who had been away for the past few weeks helping at the camp and backpacking in the area.  Mom and dad headed home this morning.

Counselor training started on Tuesday.  There are a great group of counselors here preparing for the opening of camp next week.  I've been joining in some of the training sessions, and also working on my missions lessons for the kids.

Please keep the counselors, staff members, and campers in your prayers in the coming weeks.  

On the Road Again

Tomorrow my sister Laura and I are going on a road trip!  Well, sort of.  After church tomorrow, we're going to load up the car and head south.  We plan to spend the night in Virginia and drive on to Kingsport, Tennessee the next day.  

What's in Kingsport, you ask?  Bancroft Bible Camp, where I will be serving as their summer missionary and Laura will be counseling.  

Our family and our church have special ties with Bancroft.  Each spring our church sends a crew to help the camp get ready for the summer by doing construction, maintenance, and other projects.  I had the privilege of going on these trips with my dad four times when I was still in school.  My mom and my sister went along one year too.  This will be the first year I've been to Bancroft during the summer camping season, so I'm looking forward to being there and to sharing with the children and teens about missions.  

Pray for Laura and I as we travel Sunday and Monday.  Pray that the ministry of the camp this summer will have a great impact for Christ and that kids will be called into missions.  Look for more updates from camp in the next few weeks.

Correction: Link for Folopa Website

Tonight, as I was looking through my previous blog posts, I noticed a mistake in the post from April 26, and I'd like to correct that now.

The post described a website from Neil and Carol Anderson about their work among the Folopa people of Papua New Guinea. The website is of particular interest to me because I had the chance to stay with Neil and Carol for a month when I was in PNG in 2005. (You can read my original post here.)

I realized tonight that I did not include the link to their site! I hope you'll take the time now to check out their interesting and informative website. You'll find it at http://folopa.com/.

Visa Approval

As I walked to the mailbox this afternoon, I had high hopes that a special envelope might be waiting for me.  

When I opened the mailbox, I was so happy to find an envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting... my self-addressed stamped return envelope from the Papua New Guinea Embassy in Washington D.C.  

I ripped into the envelope and took out my passport.  On page sixteen, I found my new visa approval.  I've been given permission to enter Papua New Guinea and stay there for three years on this visa.  Praise the Lord!  

Thanks for your prayers concerning this matter!  My visa request was processed quickly and my passport returned to me safely.  

Now that I have my airline tickets and visa approval in hand, I only need to raise my needed last 5% of my support to go to Papua New Guinea in August, as planned!

Visiting Churches

Today I had the privilege of sharing at two churches, Osterhout Bible Church and Northmoreland Baptist Church. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at both churches - sharing about Papua New Guinea and the needs there, as well as getting to meet many great people. It was an encouraging day!

These churches are the last two in my schedule before I go to serve at Bancroft Bible Camp in Tennessee for the month of June. Since coming home in February, I've had the opportunity to visit nine different churches in the area. You can see the churches I've visited on the map below. You can click on a marker to see the name of the church. You can also move the map or zoom in or out - just use the controls in the upper left-hand corner.


View Larger Map

100 Days

What will you be doing 100 days from now?

On any normal day, I would not be able to answer that question. But today is an exception...

100 days from now I will be sitting in the Chicago airport, waiting to catch a flight further west. 100 days from now I will have already said my goodbyes to family and friends. 100 days from now I will be on my way out of American culture and into a new and different culture that I will call home for the next few years.

In some ways, 100 days seems like a long time, but in other ways, it feels very, very close.

Airline Tickets

August 22! That's my official departure date for Papua New Guinea!

Tonight I purchased plane tickets to travel from Scranton, PA to Madang, Papua New Guinea. (Madang is where I'll spend my first four months in training.)

Because of the supporters that have given to my ministry already, I didn't have to worry about being able to pay for the tickets. Praise the Lord!

An experienced travel agent helped me find good fares, and I was able to purchase the tickets now to avoid paying extra fuel surcharges that may be tacked on soon. Some airlines are now charging for a second piece of checked luggage, but I was also able to book through an airline who doesn't charge this fee. Things are going really well.

Last week I mailed my visa paperwork to the Papua New Guinean Embassy in Washington D.C. Please pray with me that my visa will be granted. Thanks!

Cameos of Life

What comes to mind when you think of a cameo? Peter Jackson's brief appearances in his three Lord of the Rings movies? Or Humphrey Bogart's cameo in The Road to Bali? (If you haven't seen this great old movie, check it out!)

That kind of cameo is what first came to mind for me when I was asked to speak on "Cameos of Life" for our church's annual Mother-Daughter banquet. But, as you might have guessed from the picture below, we're talking about a much different kind of cameo.


Cameos are made from precious stones, take time and hard work, and are beautiful when they're finished. In the same way, each person is valuable to God, and He is at work in our lives, cutting and shaping us into a beautiful end product that will bring glory to Him!

It was a bit of a challenge for me to prepare for on this topic, because I'm used to speaking about missions. But I had a fun time presenting this talk, and was overjoyed to see more than 200 mothers and daughters in attendance.

Here are a few pictures from the banquet tonight...

Talking about cameos

With my mom and grandma

Happy Mother's Day!

Tok Pisin

Meet Dimad (and his adorable granddaughter Nora).

He was my Tok Pisin tisa (teacher) when I was in Papua New Guinea in 2005. Each morning four other students and I would meet with Dimad. In our two weeks there, we had the chance to practice listening and speaking Tok Pisin, both in the classroom, in small group sessions, and in Dimad's home.

Tok Pisin is widely spoken by people in Papua New Guinea as a second language and is the main way people from different language groups communicate with each other. Tok Pisin is the language I will use to communicate with the Papua New Guineans I meet.

To hear a sample of Tok Pisin, head on over to this page on the Wycliffe Bible Translators of Canada website. You'll be able to hear John 20:31 read in many different languages, including Tok Pisin. Two other languages of Papua New Guinea (Rossel and Girawa) are featured on the site and both sound very different from Tok Pisin. Click on "Most of the Rest of the World's Languages" to hear how God's word sounds to about 200 million people around the world today.

Taim bilong nius bilong mi

It's newsletter time again! No, the title of this blog isn't a result of typos; its in Tok Pisin, a trade language in Papua New Guinea that I'll be learning when I go to PNG. (Taim bilong nius bilong mi means 'my news.')

In the May edition of my newsletter, you'll get the latest scoop on my ministry, find out when I plan to leave for PNG (it's less than four months away!), learn more about Tok Pisin, and get a chance to figure out what manmeri and haus sik mean.

If you normally get an email newsletter, it should be in your inbox waiting for you. Hard copies should be in the mail early next week, and should be available at SNMBC this Sunday too.

If you are reading this blog, you probably use email, and that means you too can receive my newsletters in your email. If you currently get a hard copy or don't get my newsletters at all, let me know and I'll be happy to add you to my newsletter list.

God bless!

Sara