Christmas, outreaches, and a new building

Dear Friends and Family:

 

Well it is a Monday here and we are doing the usual routine. Nina is in the middle of educating Beau (2^nd Grade is testing both of their character), doing the laundry from our time at the river yesterday and getting ready for her ladies meeting on Wed. I am in the office with Romans translation work, lesson writing and going over a new teaching schedule with some of the "crossers".

 

Things have settled down really nicely in the village and there are some neat breakthroughs with some of unbelievers in the village. The believers have done a good job showing kindness (a very un-Yembiyembi quality) and a little grace when dealing with some of these guys. Right now our believers are living and breathing in the book of Acts  and watching Paul in action is infectious. How Paul was willing to sacrifice body, ego (a huge one in our tribe) and the comforts of this ground (another big one) to get the message to those who had never heard is a message that is resonating among them. 

 

5 nights ago I was about to go to bed when I heard some guys sitting around talking outside and went out to investigate. 5 of our believers were outside making a fire and were all excited about something. My brother-in-law Job invited me over and explained that 2 of the believers had been to our sister village (Changriman) to buy Kerosene for their lamps and had been asked by the village chief about the "God talk". The 2 believers went to the Chiefs house that night and the whole village sat inside or outside on the ground and listened till 3:00 in the morning as they started in Genesis 1:1 and talked through till the fall of Man. One of 2 believers said this later, "They were like baby birds just eating everything we were giving them, it was amazing to watch God squeeze their livers like that (desire something greatly)". The two believers had to leave early in the next morning (a 6 hour hike) but promised that next time they came they would bring their notes (the lessons they have gone through) and "fill up everyone's thinking good".

 

These next few weeks are going to be busy for us as we hang out with some visitors (Thanks so much Rob and Becky for coming, we can't wait to see you), tear down our old meeting house and re-locate it to a new site, have a translation check for the first few chapters of Romans, and finish teaching the last few lessons of the book of Acts.  We are really excited about finishing teaching in Acts and starting into Romans.  So many of the Yembis are asking questions about the "Christian life" and are wanting/asking us to start teaching them about faithfulness, living with the Holy Spirit and what to do with that law (10 commandments) now that they know they don't help them get to God.  We are also starting to gear up for an outreach to one of our sister villages and in the next month or so will be doing another baptism.  Like we said, we will be busy, but it is so encouraging to be seeing first hand how the believers are growing daily by their time in the Word and from the persecution they are facing.  Keep praying for them, especially for Jenny (Paul's wife), Helen, Ipona, Kerobim and Otto.  These are the one's who have been causing the most friction in the village lately.  We know though that God answers prayers, and we are hopeful that their hearts will be softened and their eyes opened to the truth of God's Word.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers.  Nina and I have been so encouraged these last few weeks by all of the e-mails and notes we have received from you. 

 

Appreciate you all,

Brooks for Nina and Beau

 

P.S. the pictures are of the baptism, clearing the site for the new teaching house, one of my fathers reading the Christmas story on Christmas night, and Beau with his friends.

 

More pics

 

Pictures

These are some of the pictures from the party that night after the baptism.

Weathering a storm

Dear Friends and Family:

Well Nina and I are currently out at our regional base and recouping from a wild last couple weeks. Following the baptisms in the village we had an incident that required us to get Nina and Beau out of Yembiyembi and call in the police.

I won't go into too many details but the crux of it came down to the teaching and some of the changes (in the believers and their families)  that are taking place in Yembiyembi. The leaders of the other side are starting to see where the teaching is leading and what the eventual outcome is probably going to be (as evidenced by the baptisms and some of the testimonies during it) and they are starting to get desperate.  Because of that there were some plans formed by a small group of men to try and provoke the believers into an all out fight and then go after us (Nina, Beau and myself) with the goal of getting us out of Yembiyembi.

 

In the end the police did a good job (it helped that some of them spoke our tribal language) and the men who put the plan into action were charged, forced to pay a massive fine and threatened within an inch of their lives. Keep in mind that the bulk of the village is standing with us and many would do anything to keep us from leaving. Also keep in mind that these guys are baby baby believers and their knee jerk reaction in the past to these type of situations is to fight back  with everything in them and some of them slipped back into that and the violence that erupted from that was too much to keep Nina and Beau in the bush.

 

But the most encouraging part of this whole incident was how the believers stood up and defended the gospel, the teaching, the baptisms and reminded the unbelievers in the tribe that with or without us there they would never leave what they have come to believe in.  Pita, Lawrence and Michael in particular stood up and together gave the gospel to the village and reminded them of how they used to live and how they could not imagine living in the "dark" again, not knowing what this life, and the life beyond was about.

 

This e-mail is purposely vague because we don't want to go into too many details yet, just know that we are doing well and things are cooling down in Yembiyembi. But please keep praying for the Yembiyembi believers and the unbelievers that are still in darkness, we are in truly in a war for the future of that tribe.  We have had some good meetings with our regional leadership and have a good plan in place, but do be praying for us as a family. In 7 days we will be heading back in and the "war" within the village, we are also prepping for the teaching of the book of Romans,  moving the teaching building, the believers doing a re-teaching from Adam to Christ for new believers and ones that didn't get it the first time, and our second baptism. 

 

Again I leave you with 2 quotes.

My oldest father Lucas said this after the 2 men leading the other side had demanded that the teaching, baptisms, and catching new crossers (what our tribe says when some teaches someone else the gospel and they understand).

"How can we stop any of those…those are the posts (the main points) of Jesus talk, those are the posts that He taught. If we take those posts out of the house the house will fall. NO, we will not, we have to listen to God, not to men, just like the first crosser/followers Peter and Jon did."

 

Micheal, said this when the police questioned him about why he left the other "church" (Micheal was the #2 man there before he was saved).

"The eyes of my thinking were opened, just like the fish scales dropped from Paul's eyes (when Paul received back his sight after the Damascus road, a lesson we taught 3 weeks ago) the fish scales dropped off the eyes of my mind. I saw my massive book (sin debt) and realized that I could not remove it, only one man could, only Jesus. How could I give my back to that, it is the true true talk of God, it is the only way to go to his side. So I give my backside to any other talk, it is only lies, I will only stand on God's talk, I will not go back to lies, my eyes are open now. "

 

Guys my uncle Zaccheus took me aside after the police had left and the village was in turmoil and reminded me that the strongest weapon of this fight is going "talking to our papa" (prayer).

So please don't let up in your prayers for the village of Yembiyembi, the entire Bises language group (the believers are beginning to talk about when this talk is heading to our first sister village Paliagwi/Mensuat in 2009), and the safety of our family in the middle of this all. God is building his kingdom in Yembiyembi in an incredible way, and these trials and challenges are the fuel that are producing incredible men and women of God.

 

Love you all,

Brooks for Nina and Beau

 

 

The Literacy Project: Video Update

Death Adders and the book of Acts

Dear Friends and Family:

Hope this e-mail finds you well wherever you are at. Life in
Yembiyembi continues to roll along, but with significant changes
happening in the villages. The teaching program has continued on with
a "crossers meeting" (the believers call themselves "the crossers"
because they have crossed from Satan's side to God's) every week as
well as a Sat night men's meeting, and Wed afternoon woman's meeting.

Some things that have been happening recently that have never happened
before are: singing in the believers meeting, testimonies by new
believers, public prayer by men and women, and a wholesale changes by
some of the believers to drop old customs and beliefs.

One of the neatest things though was the opportunity to take two of
our new believers on a survey trip to a different tribe that is being
looked at for allocation of new missionaries. The new tribe called
"Biem" has a similar background to Yembiyembi (Animistic/Catholic
Syncretism) and the opportunity for our 2 guys (Peter and Job) to
share (in the trade language) what they had come out of and in a
limited way share that there was is much more these guys needed to
hear, was awesome. Most nights they were up past 2 in the morning (a
everyday occurrence here, but still very painful for me) talking and
explaining to the Biem people what would happen if the missionaries
were to come, and asking questions about their belief system. It was a
really neat opportunity and a great growing time for Job and Peter as
they were able to think back on the massive changes that have come
into their lives over the last 4 years and more specifically the last
7 months.

Sometimes I am leery of writing out these quotes only because the
back-story on the individual that gave it is not able to be given. The
people that said these things are growing and changing right in front
of us in ways that we could not have imagined last year, but this
growth comes with sacrifices. Remember that roughly 50% of the
Yembiyembi village is still not saved, and around 10% of it is
adamantly opposed to what is happening in the tribe

The first night when Peter and Job arrived back from their trip to
Biem their canoe strings were cut sending their canoes way down river,
many of the believers have unbelieving spouses or a parent that are
putting massive pressure on them to stop coming to the meetings and
return to "normal" Yembi life. In the last 6 months some of the new
believers have had babies and the pressure to perform customs or
rituals on these newborn children has been….immense. Pray for guys
like Silas, Roger, Paul, Dennis, Andrew, Job, Gloria, Prisca and
Regina, that in the face of these challenges they would stay strong.
Trials challenges and opposition are not a bad thing, they actually
have an incredibly purifying effect on the body of believers
(half-hearted people usually jump ship fast), but we need to continue
to hold them up in prayer through these so they would come out
stronger on the other side.

After hearing that we will have to fly in a plane and boat across 5
hours of open ocean to get to Biem island for the survey some of the
women in the tribe started to wail for Job and Peter thinking they
might die. Job had never been in a plane or on the open ocean but
stood up in his house that night and said this: "Don't cry for me, I
don't feel any fear in my bones about this trip. I sit in one man's
hand and if He closes His fingers then I know it is my time, but He
holds/controls the waves of the sea and of the air (wind) so I don't
feel any fear".

One of the Biem Islanders asked Peter in a meeting if he had left his
beliefs that he was brought up with. Peter said this "I have. I
realized that I had been eating talk that was mixed with maggots, some
of it was good, but some of it was making me very sick. I was not
ready for the time of death, I was on a path that men had created that
was full of lies. Now I don't swallow (believe quickly) talk from
anyone, black man, white man, priest, village elder, none of them. I
hear their talk, I scale it (evaluate it) and if it is true talk I
down it (believe it), if not I throw it away, I only believe what is
true".

In the ladies meeting last week my mother Gloria stood up to talk to
God (pray) in public: "God break our heads in this meeting (open our
minds to understand) so that we see with clear eyes your talk, we
don't want our thinking to be cloudy. Keep your eyes on our 3 who are
on the big salt-water lake (the island survey to Biem), bring them
back here to us, that is the end of my talk".

My brother in-law Dennis whose wife (Vila) was sick said this: "Many
are asking me to make the offering of the spirits (killing then
burning a chicken in the house to satisfy whatever spirit is causing
the sickness), but I will not go down the path of man's talk
(untruth). I know who can make her better and I will only ask Him".
Then he asked if Tony would pray with him right there for Vila. She
has slowly been coming back to health this last week.

Next week we cross into another first for the believers here as we
step into the book of Acts. We are still working like crazy to finish
the necessary scriptures portions of Acts, and laying the foundations
for Romans (to be taught soon after Acts), so pray that the Lord gives
us good health and allows us to stay ahead of the teaching with
translated materials. Already in the translation of Acts we have seen
the believers that are working with us really respond to that book, we
are hoping the same holds true for the rest of the believers.

Last night in our men's meeting we were talking about a man from a
neighboring village who had been bitten and killed by a poisonous
snake when a 4 and half foot Death Adder came slithering right between
the legs of my brother-in law into the middle of our meeting and swung
around back to where me and my fathers were sitting. Nina and Beau
were asleep but heard the yelling and hooting as the men scattered and
climbed up poles to get away. We finally pinned it down with a shovel
as it went in and out of the stools and leaves that everyone was
sitting on. No amount of coffee can wake you up like having a
poisonous snake slither right under your chair. We had a good laugh
after it was over, though I was checking my boxers to make sure I
could continue.

Beau continues to grow like crazy, he is starting 2nd grade in 2 weeks
and is preparing himself mentally for the coming battles with his
mother. She in turn is listing her bribes, methods of inflicting pain
and other "motivators" to get him through.

Thanks guys, we love and appreciate you all, thanks for your continued
encouragement support and steadfastness in keeping us out here. We are
members of a greater team and we are thankful that you are part of
that team.

Your friends,

Brooks, Nina and Beau

P.S. The immensely spiritual job of taping any college or pro football
games (USC, Michigan, or the Chargers makes you extra spiritual) and
sending them to this address is there for the taking J.

Brooks Buser

P.O. Box 625

Wewak E.S.P.

Papua New Guinea

Beau improving and Yembiyembi update

Dear Friends and Family:

Well 4 days ago Beau's low grade fevers were still lingering around so we caught a flight up to Goroka, our mission headquarters in Papua New Guinea, to get some blood tests done and to see the Dr. Beau has been improving on a daily basis but still had the occasional flare up with slight fevers so we thought it would be best while we are out of the tribe to try and get as many answers as possible before we head back in. The doctor said it could be a virus of some sort, Dengue Fever or a couple things complicated with Malaria. Either way he is on the mend and we are really grateful for it. Most of the blood work is being sent to Australia and we won't get the results for another week or so, but we are feeling much better as he continues improving. Thanks so much for praying for and for your encouraging e-mails.

Nina and I are enjoying our time out at our mission bases and relaxing a bit now that things have turned with Beau. The last 9 months in Yembiyembi have been incredible and it has been our privilege to be a part of the things that the Lord has done there. The new believers and their growth has been one of the neatest things to see. Many are coming to grips with what it means to be a child of God and are now re-evaluating everything that they believed to see if it is true or "mans talk". Our first Yembiyembi public testimony from one of the big men in the Toucan Clan (Andrew) was incredible to hear and take in, this is a small piece from the middle of it: "For years I did not understand clearly God and the debt that I carried with him. I have been eating sago with rot in it (believing something that had an element of truth but was overall wrong), I was one who talked well but was carrying sick around. Well now I know, and no one can take push me back to ignorance again, NO, I am done with mans talk, on God's talk alone will I stand."

Another neat thing to watch has been the way God has sent the message from Yembiyembi out to other villages in the area. My lesson helper and brother-in-law, Job, took all his lesson summaries (for every day of teaching there was a one page summary for anyone who attended) and brought them over to his dad and brothers in anther village, a day and half hike away, called Chambri. His brother has been reading them to the rest of the family at night and working their way through them, storing up questions for Job when he came. The week before we came out here to Wewak Job went to Chambri to check on his dad (he is the publically acknowledged witch doctor for that area) . His dad was standing on the banks of the lake yelling "Youngest son, youngest son, I am waiting for you to come explain this talk to me, don't waste time I am not long for this ground, come explain what all this means". So Job sat through the night and taught the entire house from Adam through the fall of mankind. Job had to get back to Yembiyembi the next day but he will continue to go back and forth to review the lessons with his family. Remember that Job is barely a 2 month old believer himself, but when he got back he told me; "If God has spoke/chosen for my family not to be ignorant of this talk, then the only way they will hear is from my mouth, in my hands they sit (he is responsible for giving them the message of life)". It was awesome to hear the Chambri's starting to hear the Word, but even more exciting to see Job realizing that God was wanting to use him.

These past months there have also been some big time challenges that have come forward from ones in the tribe that do not agree with what is happening, and have been very harsh on the new believers. Continue to pray for these five especially: Donald, Kerobim Manu, Sophia, Otto, and Jeffery. All five of them have family members that are now saved (Sophia's husband is Andrew , the one who gave the first testimony), but their "eyes" are still very much blind, don't let up on them, keep praying.

We sure appreciate all of you guys and the encouraging e-mails we have gotten from everyone as we went through this thing with Beau, you guys are great.

Guys that should do it. I feel like a broken record asking and thanking you for prayers on our behalf, but if we didn't believe that it made a massive difference we wouldn't' be out here. So thanks for praying for us, and continuing to up hold the Yembis and this entire ministry in prayer.

Thanks so much,

Brooks Nina and Beau

P.S. Anyone who mourned/is in mourning for the Lakers meltdown at the finals I feel your pain. Next year…..next year.