I cannot start this letter to you all without first expressing our gratitude for your prayers. We have been so blessed by your coverings over us, and the Father has been so gentle and even in the midst of so much work to do we have been able to rest in his provision and care.
These past few days have reminded me of when COVID first came here and we had our first center-wide quarantine. John was so busy during those days—working, fixing things, and maintaining the center. He would come home each day fully poured out and spent, but God provided him with a contentedness as he was doing exactly what God sent him here to do. After the earthquake hit on Sunday, John made sure we were ok and immediately left to care for the community. He has been working nonstop since, but comes home each night content in his work.
The kids and I have been doing all we can to help clean up the rubble and care for people here as well. Nori spent the whole day sifting through glass and exploded food containers, Banner ran errands and helped some of the single ladies living near us, and Millie spent the day in the library organizing and shelving books that fell out everywhere. My tasks have been a bit more varied as I am just trying to stop and help those God puts in my path, but the kids willingness to help has freed me up to care for the people around us better.
We are so thankful that the loss of life was so low and even with the piles of repairs and work that surround us we are thankful for the evidence of God at work. Your prayers are felt and are sustaining us in this time.
We are also thankful for the ways that God uses calamities like this to bring people together and bring people to their knees. Much like when COVID first hit our center with global confusion in the Spring of 2020, people have laid down the constraints of their job descriptions and skill sets to show up ready for whatever needs to be done. That has been so encouraging!
SO How can you help? Many of you have reached out to ask how you can actively help and send relief to PNG. Yes! We would love for you to join us in our efforts here to rebuild, repair, and just being present for those who God puts in our path each day. I thought the simplest way is to just list it out here once, especially since our internet is so bad right now. In fact, you may be getting this by email because we can’t get websites to load at the moment. We have been told that our fiber connection broke somewhere in the ocean between Madang and Sydney (that’s over 2,000 miles by the way), so our connection issues may go on for a while.
Because of COVID, shipping things here has become increasingly difficult and expensive. As much as I would love to just send out a list of things lost that need replacing shipping just isn’t a viable option at this point. So the best way to tangibly help is to send financial support to our Wycliffe ministry Account. https://www.wycliffe.org/partner/thefamilycraig.
Please keep praying. We cannot stress enough how big this is. Pray, and ask your friends to pray with us too!
Running out of our house, watching it shake violently with everything else, hearing things breaking, and waiting to see if it was going to slide down the hill, was a pretty traumatic thing to witness. There have been almost daily tremors that have followed, usually during the night, and that makes for some stressful nights. Please continue to pray for the kids especially.
As bad as this was, God was truly gracious to us. We are all still very thankful that it happened early on a Sunday. The sky was beautiful and clear and we had a wonderful dry day to attack the cleanup. In addition, it has been clear and dry all week for the many repairs that have been happening all over our center (we are still in a drought after all…). The dry weather has been nice, but it has also been quite a challenge to recover our bleeding water systems without any rain, however God sent us a wonderful shower last night (nearly 1.5” of rain!). The truth is, we probably wouldn’t have been ready for this rain if it came earlier—with all of the roof patching and reconnecting of water tanks that we’ve been doing this week. In fact, just yesterday, John repaired a section of our own gutter that fell off and we were able to collect all of last night’s rain. Thank you Lord!
I’d like to say that this is the only issue that we’ve had lately, but it’s not. We’ve had many PNG friends that have lost their homes and belongings due to tribal fighting before the earthquake hit and we have been helping them. Any one-time or monthly gifts we will work to put through to where they are needed.
Also, advocate for us! We are here in PNG and now if feels we are even more cut off from communicating well. But you are there back in the states :) Please spread the word about what is going on here in PNG and what our family is doing to help. If there are people that you know that have a heart for world missions, please send them our link. We would love to share about what God is doing here. We also long to stay here and work. In the wake of COVID, the work is greater and the workers are fewer than ever.
Thank you again for all your prayer and support… and thank you to so many of you who have reached out to us. We are trying to respond to all of you the best we can, but the internet isn’t always working with us :) SO please know we are so thankful for your contact and care.
We are so looking forward to catching up with you and seeing your faces in less than three months!!! It seems somewhat surreal to be writing that our second term serving here is almost complete.
Much love and Blessings to you all,
All the Craigs