Thank you so much for your committed support and prayers. I wanted to communicate an update on where things are at with our outreach team and ask for your prayer support for wisdom, grace, and unity for us. Our team of 6 were supposed to fly out to Papua New Guinea through Manila, Philippines last Thursday, but our visas never made it through in time. We have been working hard to push our application through for the past month, but many set backs and difficulties delayed the process. On another note, finances have been challenging for many of our students with travel to and from PNG being the priciest tickets, making our outreach the most expensive for our Asia Pacific DTS. We have been putting pressure on the embassies and immigration office in PNG to authorize and release our visas so the Washington DC embassy can issue the visas and release our passports back to us. Eventually, we realized it would not come back in time for us to go this past Thursday. Our team has taken it well and we have processed through the changes with them. They understand the situation and are optimistic for what lies ahead. They have been great at staying flexible as God continues to reposition what we had thought was His will and timing for PNG and pressing in to see what He has in store for our team. We know that God has spoken PNG to each one of us and I am thankful that no one has wavered about what God has already spoken to us.

 

Personally, it has been a challenge to my faith in many ways and emotionally many ups-and-downs. Nevertheless, even though my faith may fail, I know God's love is so real and abounds through all of it. I have had to wrestle through the why's and how come's. And though visa delays are not uncommon and many YWAM teams have faced similar situations, the disappointment is still something that I had to process through. It was difficult to look past so much effort investing and believing for the timing for these visas that didn't pan out. It challenged my understanding of God's faithfulness as a good Father because I had rested my heart and efforts on believing that "we do the possible and God will do the impossible," but it was in MY TIMING and in MY FRAMEWORK of what I thought it should look like. I wanted and was believing God for a miracle like last year for visas to PNG. That time we had again encountered many delays with our visa application but managed to get our visas and passports back a day before flying out miraculously. Through it all, I realize my circumstances can and should never dictate who God is. As I processed with my school leaders through it, I realized I was unintentionally judging God in my attitude and rating His character based on what happened. As I recognized what was really going on in my heart I had to ask God for forgiveness and repent for doing that. God is always a "10" no matter what trials I may go through. His character, His faithfulness, His love does not drop to a 7.5 when things don't turn out the way I expected them to. He truly is good. I began to see past the messiness of the situation, recognizing that now ahead lie some challenging details to work through. As we as a team stay in Kona, we have been able to spend more time with one another and really learn how to work together as a team. As we were interceding in prayer, God gave me a picture of lots of shards of broken glass on the ground. It was very messy and the ground looked like it needed to be cleaned up. As I looked closer, what I thought was broken glass was a ground full of diamonds, and I just felt like God was wanting me to recognize there is so much value in what He is doing and that His faithfulness and plan is so much better than what i could have anticipated.

 

While all of our passports are still lodged in Washington DC at the PNG Embassy, to add another challenge was that one of our students realized their US visa waiver is only valid until this Tuesday. We scrambled to reassess what we were to do and thankfully should be receiving back the passport in time on Monday, for her to fly out on Tuesday. We cancelled our outgoing flights once we realized we would not be leaving, and currently our student, Hyemi, who must fly out of the country will leave with my co-leader, Josh, and another student with connections in the Philippines to a church she used to serve at. They will be doing outreach there for several weeks until the rest of our team get our visas issued through the DC embassy and meet up in PNG. The team staying back will run outreach at home base and serve the community in different ways as we line up different options for our students.

 

If you can be lifting our team up in prayer about some of the following, that would be so appreciated at this time:

 

-Being of one Spirit as a team even though we physically may be separated for a time

-Favor over visas, passports, logistics & clarity

-Needing about $4,000 total to cover cost of ticket changes

-Walking in the fear of the Lord individually and as a team

-Unity between Josh & I as we lead and prefer one another

 

I hope that through the smallness of even this situation, God may lift you up in any challenges you may personally be facing as well. He is good, faithful, and His ways are so much higher than our ways. May we not trust in our circumstances but find peace and comfort in knowing the truth of who this amazing God is that we have a privilege of knowing.

 

Thank you so much for contending with me through this and supporting what God is doing through our team in the nations. We are even more excited and expectant for what God has ahead for us and continue to rise up and press on. Bless you and may the Lord continue to pour out His abundant grace and peace to you as well!

 

Love,

Alice