Church Planting in UPGs

Planting a church among the least reached poses many obstacles. Aside from the money and material things needed to move in and set up shop, there are anywhere from 3 - 5 years of language learning and documentation in our future before we can effectively begin communicating the truth of the gospel in teaching sessions.

A huge part of getting the written Word of God into a tribal language, however, involves the arduous task of developing a written language for this people group. This work begins by looking carefully at the sounds made in the tribal language, and choosing appropriate letters to represent these sounds from the country's main written language. The process ideally ends with a completely indigenous literacy program - tribal people teaching other tribal people how to read and write their own language! This entire process is called "Linguistics."

Once all the language stuff is out of the way, relational discipleship and foundational bible teaching in the heart language of the tribal people begins, and indigenous church leaders are trained up. This process begins the day the first tribal people come to faith, and continues to the second coming! Our role in the tribe then slowly moves away from primary teachers to discipleship and translation of Scripture and other teaching resources.

This whole process involves many people. We will have a core group of about 2 other families on location with us in the tribal location. Considering the 60+ other families serving in a supporting role (pilots, teachers, supply buyers, building/maintenance help), the team in-country is huge, not to mention all the prayer and financial support provided to ALL of these families… Reaching the unreached is a GOD sized job.

To support JUST the three families in a village for the 20 years it takes to see a mature indigenous church planted, and another language reached with the gospel will cost around $15,000,000 USD - and there are still HUNDREDS of these languages in Papua New Guinea alone

PNG is Home to about 8 million people. about 3% of the population lives in third-world urban centers like (this one, the one we are stationed in, Wewak, Goroka, Lae, Hagen...)

PNG is special - nearly 900 indigenous languages here, known to the locals here as a "Village Language" - Many of these have multiple village dilaects and can be extremely complicated.

We are partnering with local churches and individuals in the USA to plant sister churches among the least reached people on the planet. We intend to move into a remote tribal location, learn the undocumented tribal language of the people in there, develop a written language and literacy program in this tribal group, translate scripture into said language -and all this in hopes of seeing an indigenous sister church planted among the people there.