New Year, New Vision

 Well, it's a new year, and that's a time for new starts, new vision, and a fresh perspective. I tried to write this update last week, and I didn't know what to write. I just felt at a loss, because there has been a lot going on, but comparitively to other times in my life, there really hasn't been much going on. I realized that with everything that I went through last year, I had forgotten how to walk with the Lord when things are really good. I got so used to relying desperately on Him, and crying out for every need, that I forgot how to spend time in his presence when I had no desperate need.

That said, this time in Kona is a blessing. It has given me an opportunity to pause, and to just be grateful for God's faithfulness; to look back on everything he has brought me through, and to pray into what he wants next for me. To bask in the grace and blessing of being able to walk through life with him, even though there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties. 

I've been working on the YWAM Base here in Kona for the last month or so, and it has been exciting, refreshing, and also kind of scary; but it's the kind of scary I like, where you are hopping in on someone else's vision, and you have no idea how it's going to turn out, but you just have to trust God and his promises.

It has been a really amazing time so far of connecting with the base, sharing the vision of the ship with the people who live here but aren't really connected with the ship ministry, and learning more about the base and all the ministries that go on here, and even just spending time with the base director and learning more about his vision for the ship; what is going on at a level higher than what I normally operate at. 

In the office I have mainly been working on documentation that we need to get in order before the ship is able to deploy for outreaches: policies, education materials, and an application to get the Liberty registered as a private medical facility in PNG. Our 2021 operations rely heavily on covid restrictions and the ability to get short-term volunteers into the country, but we are praying and planning for starting our outreaches in April. 

Right now we are building and preparing a new shipping container that is going to be sent to the ship, and it is going to be an oral bible translation container! This is really exciting, because the area that we are going to be doing ministry in over the next two years has hundreds of languages with no bible translated into them. We have a focus on 54 of them, and we will be training locals on how to translate the bible and being able to put it on micro SD cards which we can then give to people in the villages and they can have the bible in their own language!

I'm hoping to be able to travel to PNG at the beginning of April to prepare things for outreaches to begin, so if you can pray for the travel restrictions to ease, and for affordable flights, that would be very appreciated! Thank you so much for all of your continued support, and I continue to have Canada in my prayers