After much prayer, research, and advice from our pastors, God has led our family in the decision to go to Papua, New Guinea (PNG), for the purpose of planting churches among unreached tribal groups. With over 800 tribal languages in the country and terrain that separates these tribes from the outside world, the need for missionaries to go to these hard to reach groups is overwhelming.
Our desire is to invest our lives in a place where we can train disciples who make disciples, and plant indigenous churches which are self-led, self-supporting, self-theologizing, and self-reproducing. After looking at the needs and opportunities in PNG, we can whole-heartedly say that we desire to take our family there in order to baptize and teach those who wish to follow Christ.
As of June of 2012, we have one year left at the To Every Tribe Center for Pioneer Church Planting (CPCP). We will graduate in May of 2013. Then we hope to enroll in an eight week language acquisition course at the University of North Dakota in June and July of 2013. Following this course, we will spend five months preparing for the move to PNG.
Our plan is to move to PNG in January of 2014 and start the Pacific Orientation Course (POC) in Madang, PNG. This course consists of 8 weeks of classroom time learning language and culture, and 5 weeks of village living. The remainder of our first term will be spent in Goroka, which is where other To Every Tribe missionaries are currently living. During this time, we will intentionally spend time learning more language and culture, building relationships with the nationals, and taking scouting trips into unreached villages. We pray that during this time we receive an invitation to live in a tribal village, where we would eventually build a house and spend as much time there as necessary to build up and train leadership. Our first term will likely be 3 years and would end some time in 2017.
We hold these plans loosely, as we know that God can change any or all of them over the next few years. We will continue to rely on His Word and seek counsel from our pastors and leaders at To Every Tribe as we move along on this journey to the unreached.
Sanders Party of Five 