A Pastor With No Bible

During our five weeks of living in the village of Segar, we were surprised to find out that the father of our host family, who is a pastor in the local church, does not have a Bible in his first or second languages.

On our first Sunday in the village of Segar in the province of Madang, we attended the local Christian Mission Fellowship church, which is loosely affiliated with the Papua New Guinea Assemblies of God. Our host father, Boney Mukip, is one of the pastors of the church, and he was preaching that morning. Pastor Boney’s first language is Gavak, but he is bilingual and preaches mostly in his second language of Tok Pisin because some of the people who attend the church do not speak Gavak.

I was surprised, however, to discover that anytime he quoted the Bible, he did so in English. Now there is a certain prestige and richness to the English language that attracts many, especially Papua New Guinean pastors, to read the Bible, at times, in English. However, I noticed that Pastor Boney never read the Bible in Tok Pisin, even though that was the language he was using to preach. Now I knew that there was no translation of the Bible in his mother tongue of Gavak, but I assumed that Pastor Boney would have a copy of the Scriptures in Tok Pisin because they are widely available (although expensive). But after a couple of weeks, I discovered that Pastor Boney did not have a copy of the Tok Pisin Bible, and that the English Bible he was using was given to him by a Bible school teacher years ago. It was so old and beat up that it was in pieces. He had to glue it back together himself and set it out in the sun to dry!

For us in America, it is hard to imagine that something as basic as a Bible would be a luxury for a pastor. But in Papua New Guinea, the need for Bibles is great just like the need for translating the Bible into a language people really understand.


How Was The Village?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a movie is worth ten thousand. There is so much to share about our five weeks in the village of Segar that we cannot do it in a one page newsletter. Instead we have posted two videos online for you to watch The first is called Segar Village Tour, which gives an interesting look at our daily life in the village. The second video is called POC Highlights and shares some of the best moments from our time at the Pacific Orientation Course (POC), including our five weeks in the village. Finally, we are posting a detailed write-up on our blog entitled Life in the Village of Segar. We invite you to watch the videos and read the blog to really get an idea for what our five weeks in a remote village without electricity or running water was like.

How Are The Kids?
The kids are doing well. We were amazed with how well they picked up Tok Pisin, especially Jacob. At first the kids were understandably a little shy, especially when everyone wanted to hold Asher and touch Bella’s hair. But as the kids began to know some of the people in the village, especially some of the other kids, they began to play with them, talk with them, and visit them at their houses. The kids stayed healthy for the most part, with just some minor illnesses here or there. We cooked most of our own meals, but that didn’t stop the kids from happily accepting and eating food from other people in the village. Although they were glad to come back to POC and see some of their friends, the kids were also sad to leave some of the new friends they made in Segar.

What Are You Doing Now?
On May 1 we moved to Ukarumpa, which is near Kainantu in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Ukarumpa is the main translation center where we will probably be working when we are not in a village. Adam is currently helping to mentor translators from the Enga language for a Translators Training Course. Please pray for God’s wisdom and guidance during this time as there is good potential for Adam to continue working with the Enga on a long-term basis. Thank you for your prayers and support!

Village Living

Greetings from the village of Segar, which is located 1,233 feet above sea level on the North Coast of Papua New Guinea in the province of Madang. (For those of you who are interested, you can see our exact location by going to the following GPS coordinates: -4.8907, 145.623783.) We are just beginning the the second week of our five-week village living experience. Our host family has made it possible for us to stay in a traditional village house that has three bedrooms and a sitting room (see the picture of our house below). Traditional homes in Papua New Guinea do not have much in the way of furniture, so we sleep on camping mats that we brought from the United States and eat either sitting on the floor or below our house where there are some benches.

Because we are in a remote village setting, we do not have access to running water or electricity. The spring for drinking water and the stream for washing dishes and bathing are both about a ten-minute walk away down a fairly steep slope. However, we are attempting to catch rain water to minimize the number of times we have to hike to get our water (or recruit local kids to help us). Any water that we don't collect from the rain we are filtering with a Sawyer water filter that Pastor Darrel Larson has generously provided for us through his affiliation with the nonprofit organization Give Clean Water. For light, we have a Coleman kerosene lantern as well as a battery powered lantern and flashlights. For meals, we either prepare our own food over an open fire or eat with our host family (or both).

Our host family is a young family of four. The father's name is Boney, and he is the pastor of the local Christian Mission Fellowship church. The mother's name is Kristen, and they have a young boy named Jedida and a young girl named Salome. They speak the Dimir language as their mother tongue, but they are also fluent in the national language of Tok Pisin. As our host family, they are expected to help us develop our Tok Pisin speaking abilities as well as teach us skills that will help us live in a remote village setting.

We have a local produce market about one kilometer away and a trade store nearby. (A trade store stocks the very basics of dry and canned food such as rice and canned fish and pork). The local health Aid Post is four kilometers away. And even though we don't have electricity, we do have a good signal for using our cell phone (we just have to figure out a way to charge it). We are located just off a dirt road that has the occasional PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) passing by. The PMV goes out to the main road (about five miles away), where there are other PMV's that go into the town of Madang.

Please pray for our health during the village living portion of the Pacific Orientation Course as it is harder to make sure that the food, water, and kids are clean. Please also pray for us to develop close relationships with our host family and the other families in our village. And ask God to help us be content and have joy no matter what our circumstances, especially through the more challenging times that we will face.

We will not have internet access again until the very end of April, so we will not be able to respond to any emails for the next four weeks. But please go ahead and send us messages. We love to hear from you, and we will respond as soon as we can when our village living phase is over.

Thank you for your continued prayers, they make a big difference! And thank you for your continued support. We could not do this without you!

Pacific Orientation

We are just beginning our sixth week of our fourteen-week Pacific Orientation Course in Nobnob, which is located twelve-miles away from Madang on the north coast of Papua New Guinea. We are learning a variety of topics including Tok Pisin (the national langauge of Papua New Guinea), medical information for our own health, cultural anthropology to help us adjust to new cultures, spiritual vitality to help us maintain our own spiritual health, and other skill-oriented classes helping us thrive in the local environment including hiking, swimming, and outdoor cooking. Jacob is in school during the day where he is learning Tok Pisin, Papua New Guinea culture, and how to adjust to life in a new country, while also doing his regular first grade studies. Bella and Asher are in childcare and are also learning Tok Pisin as they interact with their childcare providers, who are all experienced Papua New Guinean women. We are living in the dorms at POC, which are basic but adequate. It is very hot and humid. Please also be advised that we have very little access to the internet during our training and little down time for communication back home until our training is over on May 1. We look forward to giving you a more in-depth update at the conclusion of our training!

Prayer Requests

In just a couple of weeks, we begin the village living portion of our training. We will spend five weeks as a family in a local village without any other foreigners. We will have a host family that will help us as we learn how to live life in a remote village with no electricity or running water. This will be a very stretching experience, so please pray for health, patience, and joy as we learn to live in circumstances that are sure to challenge us. But we know that God's grace is sufficient. Thank you for your prayers!

Greetings from Papua New Guinea!

After ten years of deciding, two years of planning, one year of itinerating, and three calendar days of traveling, we have finally arrived in Papua New Guinea!

What a joy it is to greet you from Papua New Guinea! We have just begun our initial training program at the Pacific Orientation Course (POC) in Nobnob, which is twelve miles from the city of Madang on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The POC campus is located 1,200 feet above sea level and has a beautiful view of the ocean and surrounding area. The average temperature here is eighty-five degrees with high humidity.

The POC campus is located 1,200 feet above sea
level in Nobnob in the province of Madang.

The main purpose of POC is to help us and other new arrivals adjust to Papua New Guinea culture and learn how to thrive in our new environment. The course is divided into three phases. The first phase is held at the campus in Nobnob. It includes instruction in Tok Pisin (the national language of Papua New Guinea), personal medical care, anthropolgoy to help adjust to different cultures, spiritual vitality, hiking, swimming, and outdoor cooking (including building your own haus kuk or ‘cook house’).

After eight weeks in Nobnob, we enter the second phase of the course, which is village living. During this time, our family will live in a village for five weeks without any other foreigners. This will allow us to practice Tok Pisin and apply what we have learned during the first eight weeks of the course so that we can understand what village living is really like.

After the village living phase, we will return to Nobnob for one week to reflect on our experiences with the other trainees. Then we will move to Ukarumpa, which is about seven miles from Kainantu in the Eastern Highlands Province. This is the translation center where we will be located until we are assigned to work on a language project. Please keep us in your prayers!

Are The Kids In School?
Yes! The elementary program at POC consists of devotional times, Tok Pisin language learning, journaling, Papua New Guinea culture, math, spelling, and reading. The program is designed to help kids adjust, feel comfortable, and make friends with the national children as well as to make them feel like they are a real part of our family’s ministry. Younger kids are placed in childcare, which is staffed by several experienced Papua New Guinea women, who help the younger kids adjust to the new language and culture.

What Is Tok Pisin?
The national language of Papua New Guinea is Tok Pisin (Talk Pidgin). A pidgin is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a common language. Because Papua New Guinea has over eight hundred spoken languages, people use Tok Pisin to talk with people from other language groups. The majority of people in Papua New Guinea speak Tok Pisin as a second language. Because pidgin languages have limited vocabulary, they often have long-winded ways of saying things. For example, if you wanted to say ‘piano’, you would say, “bigpela bokis sapos yu paitim long maus i kraiaut,” which basically means “a big box that if you hit it on the mouth it makes noise.” Or you would say ‘messiah’ like this, “dispela man God i salim bilong kisim bek ol manmeri bilong en,” which basically means, “this man that God sent to take back all people that belong to him.” The good news is that most of the vocabulary of Tok Pisin is borrowed from English, which will make it easier for us to learn.

What Are Your Living Conditions?
During the Nobnob phase of POC, we are staying in dorms that have electricity and running water (although we are taking bucket showers). All of the trainees eat together in a dining hall. During the village living phase of POC, we will not have electricity or running water. During that time, we will live with a wasfamili (host family), who will help us learn how to prepare our own food by cooking over an open fire. Common foods include sago, taro, sweet potatoes, pineapples, mangos, passion fruit, bananas, pig, and fish.

You Are Coming With Us

When we began telling people that we were itinerating to raise money to go to the mission field, they would sometimes look at us with sympathy. It was almost as if they were saying, "I'm sorry that you have to go through something like that during such tough economic times." They were surprised when we told them that things were going well and that the experience had been really positive. And for the past year as we have been visiting churches, we have been able to say the same thing. From the beginning of our itineration, God laid on our hearts to share our story in a way that would minister to and challenge others. We have done our best to be obedient to what we felt God wanted us to do, and we have seen God touch people's lives as well as pour out his blessings upon us. The hardest part of this whole process is anticipating saying all of the goodbyes. But the greatest thing we have come to realize is that we will not being going alone. You are all coming with us. We couldn't do this without your support. Whatever God allows us to accomplish in Papua New Guinea will not be done by just us but by all of you who have prayed for us, encouraged us, and supported us financially. You are also the missionaries. You are the senders, and we could not go without you. We have been overwhelmed by your generosity, kindness, and support, and we thank you for partnering with us to do not just what God has called the Boyds to do, but what God has called all of us to do.

Open House to Say Goodbye

We wish we could visit everyone one more time to say goodbye. But with just a couple of weeks to go before we leave on January 20, we know that is impossible. So we would like to invite you to stop by our house to say goodbye. We will have an open house on Monday, January 16 and Tuesday, January 17 from 5 to 8 p.m. If you are able to come by, we would welcome the chance to see you one more time and say goodbye. You don't need to RSVP, and please do not bring any gifts or food (we will not be able to bring anything else with us). Our house is located at 218 E Puente St in Covina. We hope to see you then!

Prayer Requests

Please pray for our travel to Papua New Guinea. Pray that we and our baggage will make all of our connections without delay, that we will not have any excess baggage fees, that the cargo we are shipping via boat will arrive without any problems or excessive customs fees, and that God will pour out an extra measure of grace and patience upon the whole family during our extremely long trip. Please also pray for health and stamina during our 14-week orientation that begins three days after we arrive in Papua New Guinea. God answers your prayers, so thank you for praying.

2011 Boyd Family Video

Each year, we create a video to commemorate some of the highlights from our past year as a family. You can watch the 2011 Boyd Family Video below.

50 Days to Go

With just fifty days to go before our departure for Papua New Guinea on January 20, our feelings of excitement and anticipation are growing day by day. And as we enter the Christmas season, we almost feel like kids waiting for that magical day to come when we embark on the next phase of our journey. But unlike kids waiting to see what they will get on Christmas morning, we are chomping at the bit to see what God will enable us to give when we finally arrive in Papua New Guinea. Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35), and we feel extremely blessed to be able to give of ourselves so that others can have access to the Word of God in a language they really understand.

An Unforgettable Evening
A couple months ago our pastor asked us to be a part of Covina Assembly's annual missions banquet on Sunday night, November 13. He said that we should just be prepared to share for fifteen minutes about our preprations over the past year. We always try our best to be well prepared when asked to speak at a church, but nothing could have prepared us for the incredible service we had that night. The church dedicated the entire evening to blessing, honoring, and commissioning us for our work in Papua New Guinea. The church invited Martha's dad and aunt as well as Adam's cousin. And then they pulled out the ultimate surprise by bringing out Adam's parents, sister, and niece, whom they had flown in from Pittsburgh and Seattle. People shared testimonies in person, via video, and even through a live Skype call to let us know how we have made a difference in their lives. The church then showered us with gifts to make our life a little more enjoyable in Papua New Guinea (including some things to keep the kids happy on the 28-hour trip to get there). We were completely amazed and overwhelmed. The church couldn't have made us feel more loved, appreciated, and supported. It was a night we will never forget.

Un Mensaje en Español
Adam had the opportunity to share for ten minutes in Spanish at two services in November. Adam had studied Spanish in high school and college and had the opportunity to learn a lot during our year in Ecuador. He is not completely fluent, but with a lot of practice and the help of our friends Gustavo Arias and Erica Gomez, it seemed to go over well. Click play below to hear Adam share our story in Spanish

The Nativity
Two years ago, we decided to have some fun and make a short film called The Nativity with Bella as Mary, Jacob as Joseph, and Asher as the baby Jesus. We thought we would share it with all of you as a way to say Merry Christmas! Watch it below.

Papua New Guinea, Here We Come!

With our work permit, visas, and plane tickets in hand, we are busy making our final preparations before departing for Papua New Guinea on January 20, 2012.

We depart for Papua New Guinea on January 20, 2012 at 2:15 p.m., and arrive in Madang, Papua New Guinea nearly 28 hours later. In Madang, we will complete the 14-week Pacific Orientation Course, which will prepare us for life in Papua New Guinea.

Pastor Jim Cymbala invited us to share at the Brooklyn
Tabernacle's Tuesday evening prayer service on Sep. 27.

So what are we doing in the meantime? Since returning from our linguistics training this summer at the University of North Dakota, we have been speaking at different churches every week. Two speaking opportunities have been especially meaningful to us. On September 25, we shared at Ingomar Church, where Adam’s parents have been members for twenty-five years and where Adam attended as a child. What a joy to return to the church where seeds of faith were first planted in Adam’s life (even though those seeds took a while to start to grow)! Two days later we shared at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, one of the largest churches in New York City. Pastor Jim Cymbala happened to see us share our story in California in April and invited us to the Brooklyn Tabernacle’s renowned Tuesday evening prayer service attended by three or four thousand people each week. It was incredibly inspiring and uplifting to have so many people praying for us at once.

By the time we leave in January we will have shared at nearly 50 churches in 7 different states! Besides speaking, Adam is also taking a Bible translation class at Biola University, while Martha is leading the effort to purchase clothes for the children for the next four years!

Thank you all for your prayers and support. We can’t tell you how much we are going to miss you!

The Cost of Obedience

Asher with his great-grandmother

Oswald Chambers once wrote, “If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in.” As we think about those words and the impact that our decision to go to Papua New Guinea will have on the lives of those we love, it brings tears to our eyes. We had a choice about going, but they have no choice in the matter. Their sacrifice is greater than ours, and so we want to take a special opportunity to thank them.

Bob & Heather Boyd
Thank you, mom and dad, for loving and supporting us. I know it is very difficult for you to see your son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren move so far away, but you have been nothing but supportive since the day we told you about our decision. I love you so much! – Adam



Charles Zimmerman
Father, the example you set before me of great perseverance in the face of trials has greatly influenced me, and I thank you for the foundation of courage you provided in my life. I know the sacrifice is great. Thank you for the support and encouragement you have shown us in spite of the pain. I love you! – Martha

John & LeeAnn Johnson
You encouraged us to keep moving forward when we wanted to quit. You’ve taught us how to be loving and patient with people, and you’ve supported us beyond measure. We love you!

Olen & Theresa Adams
Thank you Olen and Theresa for all your support! You have been wonderful friends and have treated us like your own family. We love you!