Brethren
Happy New Year from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea!! We pray this finds you all faithful in the service of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
November was a rough month here as we were faced with the untimely passing of Pastor Gideon’s wife, Melissa. She was a very dear lady and a true servant of the Lord, and her passing was very unexpected. It was 2 weeks of Hauskrai(the cultural time of mourning), and funeral arrangements and while it was heartbreaking to have our dear sister leave us, it was also a great comfort to know she is now with the Lord.
Pastor Gideon asked me to preach an impromptu 2-night meeting right before the funeral service for his wife. The Lord truly blessed and we saw four souls saved during this time. It is only through the gospel of Jesus Christ that we can see a time of great sorrow turned into a time of great rejoicing!!
Please be praying for Pastor Gideon, his family, and Narrow Way Baptist Church as they adjust to Sister Melissa’s absence in the days to come.
Highlands Baptist Bible Institute: Our 2024 school year was closed out with exams in the second week of December, and it was a blessing to see so many of the students do so well in their studies this year. We are currently in our school break and will resume for the third year of Highlands Baptist Bible Institute the first week of March.
Kelua Ministry: Our services in Kelua continue to go well as we continue to meet on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons. We have started to see visitors coming from some of the neighboring communities as we work to try to do outreach on the many coffee and tea plantations in the area. Most of the coffee projects in our area are staffed by folks from other neighboring provinces, usually from more remote/bush areas. These folks are often living off the beaten path, and are not usually involved in any of the local denominations in the area.
I was also asked to preach a funeral service for a 35 year old mother in Kelua who passed away right before New Years. The entire community heard the gospel, and a few of the local leaders invited me to come to their homes in the future to visit more. Please pray for the Lord to continue to work in the hearts and lives of everyone in this community.
Gospel Tent Ministry: Although our new tent has not yet shipped for PNG, we are still blessed to have gospel meetings scheduled all over the highlands. In December, we were excited to have a 4-day tent meeting in an area about 30 minutes away, in a community called Jika-Panga. One of our preachers, Matthew Pon Keita, is working in that community to better establish a church, and this tent meeting was a help in the work there. Although we did not see any souls saved during this meeting, we saw great conviction come on many of the folks present and trust that God will continue to do a work in the days to come.
We are excited to see the Lord give us this open door to hold gospel tent meetings here and ask that you pray with and for us as we try to reach this country with the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ
God Bless,
Kenneth Seremak and Family