Email from Neil and Carol as they leave PNG

I received this email from Neil and Carol today tell the good news and the bad news from the field. I found out that Pastor Paul's Father passed away after the dedication of the Folopa NT. So keep Pastor Paul in your prayers. I praise God that he was able to see the NT completed and dedicated. It has been 35 years since Neil and Carol went to PNG and now they are heading back to the States. Neil has some health problems as you will read below. So keep them in your prayers.

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Dear Friends and Family,

Today we are leaving Ukarumpa and it is a sad day in many ways. We have been in and out of this place for just a few days short of 35 years. We left Spokane on March 1,1972 and arrive at Ukarumpa on March 10. A lot has happened in 35 years and we praise the Lord for his faithfulness and goodness to us in all those years.

As most of you know we dedicated the New Testament on January 16. It was a wonderful time of celebration despite rain that we were hoping would not come. But that didn't seem to dampen the spirits at all and we think everyone enjoyed the time. We had a lot of visitors come from Ukarumpa and beyond which made it even more special. God was good and all the flights made it in and out despite rain and clouds at various times.

After the dedication Pastor Paul Hon's father passed away suddenly and we were very grateful he didn't die before or during the dedication as everything stopped for weeks because of the death. He was old and sick but he did come to the dedication and my last memory of him was his shaking hands with all the visitors and smiling.

Pastor Paul was a dutiful son and mourned for several weeks. This meant that there was not much could happen in our last weeks there. We had hoped to have a course on using the scripture but that did not happen. And then to make matters worse our printer died the day after the dedication. That would have meant that if we had the course we couldn't have printed the materials for it.

Our leaving the village was painful but good. The leadership all knew it was time for them to take over and be the ones to encourage the use of the New Testament now. Neil hopes to make a trip to PNG next year some time to see how they are doing and hopefully have some kind of course. They really like to have courses out there as it provides a time of sharing and fellowship as well as just learning new things.

This morning we will be saying good bye to our SIL friends that we have known for many years and there will be tears shed. We may or may not be back here and many of these people we will never see again this side of heaven. The SIL members here have a huge challenge ahead of them as life in PNG gets more and more difficult.

Tomorrow, 1 March, we will be receiving the Logohu National Medal of Honor in Port Moresby and that will be a very special way to end our time in PNG. We also hope to sell some New Testaments to Folopas who live in there.

Then we fly to Brisbane for an overnight, then to Japan for a speaking engagement. The book 'In Search of the Source' has been published in Japanese and Neil will speak at the dedication service for it in Tokyo.

We arrive back in Vancouver, B.C. late on March 12 and then plans get a little fuzzy. Neil will have to have surgery for a hernia that has been slowly getting worse over the last months and we don't know the date for that yet. We will be in Spokane to see the doctor on March 14 staying at our house on Howard St.

Thank you to the many of you who have prayed for us during this stay in PNG and over the years. It was been wonderful to be involved with the Folopa people and to see that they now have the New Testament in their language.

Blessings in Christ,

Neil and Carol Anderson