WHAT EXCITING THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA...AND IN PHOENIX?WOW! So many exciting things are happening in our mission, I need to stop talking about Daniel and I’s lives so much and explain to you what’s going on!! Two major exciting things just happened within the last month within our mission, Finisterre Vision. The first has to do with the Do (also spelled nDo) tribe! If you’ve been looking at our Facebook page, you should have seen a link provided so you can schedule time to pray for the Do tribe, so that they can have 24-hour prayer coverage. Why do they need 24-hour prayer coverage? Because they’re about to give the Gospel to the people group they’re in!! They are in the process starting the Bible teaching, so that the tribal people understand who God is, how serious their sin is, and who Jesus Christ is, and how He came to save His people!! Because they’re giving the Gospel in to the tribal people in THEIR language, and because these tribal people have only mere portions of the Word of God in their language, it’s a HUGE deal that the guy teaching them through the Bible, Zach, accurately communicates the only infallible Word of God to them. Here’s a link so you can catch up with their update videos (this video tells of the first day of the teaching): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXLvP2-vE7o If you just skipped over that, I would encourage you to stop doing that and check it out, the videos are super short. Also, some of the teammates doing the videos are South African, so they’re fun to listen to (not as fun to listen to as my Daniel is though…). The second thing has to do with the Pano people. We have second team in our mission, Finisterre Vision, on the ground (hopefully we will be the third). This team now named itself the Pano team, because they figured out where they want to officially bring the Gospel to! Now, just as a reminder, it’s a long process! What they are planning to do is, get into the tribe, build their own houses, learn the language of the people, teach literacy to the people, then go through the Gospel teaching, establishing a self-sustaining church, and then translating the Bible fully into their own heart language. Another note is that some of the tribes have prior influence of Catholicism and Lutheranism (a form of it that is extremely close to Catholicism) that they have mixed with their tribal beliefs. This can make it harder to preach the Gospel to them, and it can make the process longer because of the complexities faced through trying to communicate in their heart language while distinguishing ourselves from these groups. We want to make sure that the people fully understand who God is. He’s not one to be prayed to with the saints to get merit, He’s not a tribal deity, and He’s not an object or system the white man invented. Another important note is that the people understand true conviction of sin through the light of God’s holy Law. Their murder, lying, adultery, and wicked thoughts keep them from loving the one, true God. And finally, they need to understand that salvation is by grace alone, through the perfect sacrifice of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Placing your faith and trust in Christ alone, repenting of sin and giving your life to Christ no matter the cost, not for any personal benefit, is crucial. The Pano team understands this, and they may see tribal people interested in what seems like the Gospel, but they really have no idea what the Gospel is, and how they will respond to the true Word of God. Here’s an awesome link that shows how the Pano team is working towards starting the tribal Gospel-process in Papua New Guinea for God’s glory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkYkikt1l8A&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0R8kZB3j_q-h84pH9FyNWVsRGds2K0_dEg85H9aSu489OUs5754wQvgGY As for us, things are rapidly changing!! I have lots of exciting news to share, but I’m not going to explain it all just yet. Greek is going very well!! We took our second major exam (two of five) a week or so ago. Second year Greek is SO awesome because it’s in person, which makes it SO much easier for me to learn. Our in-person teacher is Pastor Smedly Yates of Grace Bible Church. As you will see from the pictures below, he was instrumental in translating the entire Bible into a version of Scripture that replaced “LORD” with the term “YHWH” (in Hebrew) and rendered the Greek word “δούλος” as “slave” instead of “servant”. Some other changes included textual variant related issues. But get this…a little while after Grace Bible started this project…Master’s Seminary in California (John MacArthur’s seminary) decided to basically do the same thing!! Isn’t that cool?!? ALSO...the church had an editing project where you could actually take a huge portion of text, and then make sure it's accurate by comparing it to the NASB. AND THEY LET ME HELP!!!! I'VE NEVER HAD THE PRIVILEDGE TO DO ANYTHING COOLER!! I was so excited to help edit...Daniel had to deal with me screaming about how cool it was for days. :) On a completely different note, Phoenix has been COLD!! I mean…not compared to most other states, but, instead of 110 degrees F every day, it’s been closer to 60’s and 70’s. I don't like it, but it makes for some easier evangelism in some places, because people are willing to go outside!! So that has been encouraging... As I start to conclude this blog post, I hope your Thanksgiving went really well! Ours was very nice! Daniel and I’s first one together! This time last year was when we first started communicating across the world from each other! I want to stop and encourage you before I conclude to thank God for providing the Bible in your language. You may have never thanked God for this. Or maybe you have, maybe you realize the deep blessing it is to be an English-speaker in this day and age. As you read this, people in tribes on the other side of the world are dying without hearing the Word of God in their own language. On the other hand, we can probably look around the house and find at LEAST one Bible, probably multiple at that, which you can read at your leisure whenever you want. We have churches, we have access to churches and solid teachers. What do the tribes have? Lost heathenism without hope of Christ, souls going to Hell when they have never even had a chance to hear what we have access to without thinking... Please think on these things, and share the Gospel with the resources you have before it’s too late. Zach teaching the Bible to the Do people in Papua New Guinea! This is Gen. 3:15 in the language of the people.I'm sure you're sick of politics right now, but I just wanted to share that we were blessed with handing out 1,000+ tracts, mostly Trump millions, at a HUGE rally!! So much fun!Daniel and I at “Hole in the Rock” mountain to share the Gospel.Daniel with his tracts in the “hole” of the mountain.Exploring Arizona State University for some campus evangelism!My cute man doing campus evangelism with Kobe Bryant million dollar bill Gospel tracts.Flat-Earthers setting up where we share the Gospel on Saturday nights. They were interesting to talk to...Pastor Smedly Yates with the AWESOME New Testament project mentioned above that he had been working on for years.The full New Testament on three GIANT sheets of paper, soon to be displayed on awesome looking slabs to bring focus to God's Word.A cool display we saw at the Ark that I wanted to highlight to show the importance of sharing the Gospel to unreached people groups.The New Testament Scriptures in the Yanomano language!My sweet, cute one and I, thankful for all the Lord has provided so far!Want to donate? https://www.finisterrevision.org/donate/
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AuthorsDaniel and Sarah Bruce desire to be missionaries to the unreached peoples of the world. Daniel is from Australia and Sarah is from Detroit, MI. They reside in Phoenix, AZ, where they are members at Shepherd's House Bible Church in Chandler, AZ. Archives
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