Youth Rally/Truck/Levi and the Lizard

I was gone for a few days to preach a youth rally at a high school in Kavieng. I preached for two nights at the school, and then Sunday at a village Baptist church outside of Kavieng. Missionary Terry Thrun organized the youth rally and the church where I preached was started by him.

The youth rally went good. There were a large number of teenagers present. Three youths made professions of faith, two boys and a girl. On Saturday morning Bro Thrun and I preached at the market with our youth groups. Here in PNG people will stop and listen when you do open air preaching. There were probably 50 to 100 people gathered around to listen. Afterwards, we went to the only prison on the island and preached. There was somewhere around 75 prisoners who came for the preaching, two of whom also made professions of faith.

The day before I left for the youth rally, I had some parts for my truck flown in. One of the parts was for the master clutch cylinder, and the other was a needle bearing for the front axle/wheel. The mechanic put the parts on and I then took him back to the village. I also picked up some of the youth for the next days trip to Kavieng. After I finished, my truck started giving me problems again. The clutch fluid started leaking like crazy. I had some spare fluid with me. (I have learned to keep a good number of things in my truck to be prepared for a breakdown.) I put the fluid in, but it would only last for a few minutes. My truck ran out again, but this time I made to the mechanics house. I made it right to the front of his house!!! I could have easily broke down anywhere on the road, leaving me to walk for a long distance, but the Lord blessed again! The mechanic was able to fix the problem in about one hour.

Another truck story

A few days prior to this, I was driving back home from church, and a bolt to my torsion bar snapped. I thought a tire exploded! The left front side of the truck just dropped. The tire was rubbing on the body of the truck. I was not far from the mechanics house and I was able to inch my way to his house. He jacked my truck up and took a block of wood and placed it somewhere in the front end and then lowered my truck back. This enabled me to drive my truck back home. He told me not to drive the truck again once I was home. Obviously, this too could have caused me to have to cancel the youth rally. The next day the mechanic borrowed a bike and rode for two to three hours to a broken down truck. This truck is similar to mine. He then removed the bolt from that truck and rode back to his house. The next day he came to Namatanai and repaired my torsion bar. (The mechanic’s name is Able. He is a good Christian man who loves the Lord. He is a member of the Baptist church in Sohun.)

Funny Story,

The other day my family and I were sitting in the house. My 10 month old son Levi was sitting on the floor. Daniel looked down and noticed something sticking out of Levi’s mouth. I looked down and saw it was a tail from a lizard! Levi was just chewing away! Mariann quickly reached down and pulled, but she only retrieved the tail itself. Levi was still chewing. She then stuck her finger in his mouth and pulled out the body of the lizard. It was pretty chewed up, and Levi had already swallowed the head! Levi was fine just upset that he could not finish his snack. After all he caught it!