Prayer Letter Archive

March 2006

HI there! It’s been 2 months now since our return to Papua New Guinea and I wanted to give you an update of what’s been happening. Our flights over were long but the airlines kept us occupied with meals and movies. Once we got off the planes, I noticed my feet were swollen. They are fine now.

The supplies we bought have held for the 2 months we’ve been here. The fishing has been good too so that helps. Our house was all moldy and Joan cleaned and cleaned to make it livable. It took a while to realize all that the thieves had stolen when they broke in the house. It was like, “hey, have you seen…, “oh, they must have taken that too.” We can survive without the items but it’s a bit annoying.

Who ever said you can’t buy happiness forgot about puppies. Even though our cat had died while we were gone, our security dog had pups to fill the gap.

In their quest to find money, the thieves pulled our water bed mattresses off the beds. Because we were low on water, we didn’t want to drain them so what a time we had getting them back in the beds!

We were happy to see our generator arrive. It had been shipped to the wrong city but then the ship was re-routed because of bad seas so had to come by our town and brought our geni! It works fine which is nice as the electric from the town generator is so low Joan’s dryer motor burned up. She wasn’t happy about that.

Our house was infested with cockroaches and rats. We caught 11 rats in traps and killed another 6 with poison. The poison makes them thirsty and we found one out taking a swim so we couldn’t resist bombing it with rocks and running it over with the boat. There are still more scurrying around at night so the pursuit continues.

While working on the boat, I found a snake curled up in a box. Mariko was so excited to have a new pet. To her dismay, Joan gave it a thumbs down so it was beheaded.

We thought we had the boat all fixed so the girls gave it a good cleaning only to have it break another set of valve springs. I’m at a loss as to what to do and a rebuilt or new engine are out of the question as they cost more than the boat. Whichever way we go to get it fixed is going to be expensive.

I’m open to any ideas you might have as to why it keeps breaking valve springs.

The main road had a wash out so I took a truckload of guys to build a bridge. When we got there, another group had had the same idea and were already at work. It was decided our “roadcrew” would fix it the next time.

The big truck has been such a blessing and we’ve been able to help many of the local businesses with their shipments that come off the barge. I’ve already been stuck twice so am looking forward to the new winches arrival.

One reason we need to get the boat going is because we have some new missionary families here and some are looking into locating in a village that will be supplied by our boat. Three years ago they sent a letter inviting us to come to their village. How much longer will they wait to hear the Gospel?

So please pray for the boat to get fixed and for the upcoming survey trip to determine the best spot to locate these new, fresh and eager to go missionaries.

One of our tribal teams just moved OUT of a village as the Church is standing strong and there are 5 Elders appointed to oversee the Church. They had an emotional party and time of looking back at what god has done among them. The people are awed that these 2 families left their families to bring them the Gospel and they understand now just how much work, money and prayer went into bringing them God’s Word. They even wanted to have a party for the missionary wives for supporting their husbands over the years so they could continue to teach and guide them. Continue to pray for the missionaries here, the people they work with and that God would open their eyes to the Truth of His Word.

Thank you for your prayers and financial gifts towards our ministry here.

Because HE said, “Go,”

Mark and Joan Reichman

If you would like to help out financially with the Reichman's re-setup expenses and repairs, you can use this link to donate online.