Without it we Would Die!

Sound extreme? What is more important than water? Nothing?

Water--The whole world spends so much time and money looking for it, collecting it, and saving it. It is often taken for granted by many, but others are willing to die for it. Back home in the United States we usually just turn on a tap and we've got water.  If you leave the hose running, oh well, "That happened."

Here at Ukarumpa, our highlands center, we get water from two different sources.  It's good to have two different sources for times when one method is not working or we have not gotten enough rain. Each house on our center collects clean rain water off of our roofs. In rainy season, that fills the tanks and then the surplus runs back to the ground. We also have a center system that pumps water out of the river, to the top of our center, using a series of collection tanks and pumps. This water is generally used just for toilets, some showers and laundry.  Most people try their best to never use the river water in their sinks, as it is not clean.

A translator needed this water tank in their village in the mountains.  There are only two ways in:  Walking two days along a jungle path or by helicopter.  This helicopter pilot prepares the tank to be sling-loaded into the village.

We were praying for a good flight. The clouds were close to covering up the village he was flying to, and when he took the previous sling-load, this tank rolled about 200 ft. away. The tank was shaking on lift-off but everything went smoothly.

In June, we finished installing two new, giant water tanks to provide river water storage for our center. This should more than triple our storage capacity! Our previous storage tanks are on the right.

Collecting rain water from our roof.  The last time we had a good rain like this was in May.

Before we installed it, Grayson sprayed out our new rainwater storage tank!

He spent an hour in there.  It really needed it, and he was thrilled!

This new tank is an answer to prayer! Thank you for your donations! It doubles our current storage, but our old tank will most likely rust out in the next year or two. It has pinhole leaks which we continue to patch.

Our good friend and plumber, Leslie, has kept us with water. He gutted two older pumps we found in our shed to reconstruct a working pump! I was impressed. This is the old, leaking pump that he removed. Tenkyu, Leslie! Yu boi stret!

Our pump sends water to our solar hot water tank and throughout the house.

We are in the middle of dry season now. Our metal tank is now almost empty and the new tank is only 1/3 full. Bring on the Rain!!!! You probably already know my opinion, but there is one thing more important than water. The reason we are here.

Jesus Promises Living Water

John 4:13-14

Jesus said..., “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

Places We've Laid Our Heads

 OUR HOME!

Our Home July 2015-to-Present Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea. Formerly owned by Jeff and Kristen Brewer. We wish you were still here, but we love your house!

I (Matt) want to write this as a testimony to God's goodness to us! Our home here might not be impressive by American standards, but it is a great blessing to our family. It is actually beautiful and has more than we need. Compared to a typical PNG home, it is impressive!

We have a view of sunsets, coffee plantations, villages, gardens, and fields of kunai grass. We collect our rainwater in a big, aging metal water tank. We have 4 solar panels on the roof to give us piping hot water. In the back yard we have a banana patch. We have started growing corn, pumpkins, pineapples, beans, peppers, herbs, cucumbers, and soon...jalapenos!

When we sold our house in Boone in 2012, we didn't know where we would live, specifically. For the past three years we have lived or stayed in more than 30 or so homes! People have been so generous in opening their homes and sharing what they have with us.

The following is a short list of places we've stayed. Many houses have been left out.

Waxhaw NC, 1995-2015 We have been in and out of Nana and Papa Young's house for a long time.  It always feels like home! Many memories of breaks, summers, Christmases, and Holidays here.

Laurel Bloomery, Summer 2015 Grandma and Grandpa Golding's farmhouse in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee. They have recently restored this house. Over furlough it became a special place for our family.

Vilas, NC Jan 2015-June 2015 We got to live in this house for 6 months of our furlough. It is owned by our friends Marta and Dave. It was a fun house in one of our favorite places: the mountains of Boone, North Carolina!

Long Island, Papua New Guinea June 2014  I (Matt) stayed in this beauty for two nights on a remote island. We were there for a Bible dedication. It was a short stay, but I had to include it for obvious reasons. It looks great but the floor was not much to sleep on and if I rolled through the open plastic wall on the far side I would have ended up in the ocean! Can't complain-no mosquitoes or rats! In the mornings you could watch large Blue Trevally swim underneath us.

Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea (Ukarumpa) January 2014-November 2014. We rented the Rehm's house...not a great picture of the house, but the kid is adorable.

Ukarumpa April 2013-January 2014. Our first rental house in Ukarumpa was the Troolin's house.

Just kidding! Never stayed here. I found this picture on the internet. Cool though, right? (Search: tree house, Indonesia)

Surumaran, PNG  March 2013-April 2013  Two villagers, Jems and Lidia, generously vacated their house for 5 weeks to let us stay there as we learned the culture and language. We learned so much from our time in this village.  It has a special place in our hearts.

Nobnob, PNG One night in February 2013 We stayed one night in Papa Ganig's house. Papa Ganig has been an employee of the Pacific Orientation Course school for many, many years.  We stayed here to begin to familiarize ourselves with the PNG way of life.

Pacific Orientation Training School, Madang, PNG  January 2013-April 2013  This one room dorm became our home while we were in training. It doesn't look like much and...it isn't.  However, it felt as clean as a hospital and as comfortable as the Hilton after coming back to it from village-living. We take for granted many conveniences we have.

Vilas, NC  June 2012-Dec 2012. We rented this place after we sold our house in Sugar Grove/ Boone, NC and before we left for Papua New Guinea in January 2013.

Sugar Grove, NC 2006- 2012 I built this home with the help of my brother and several others, on five acres. We sold it in 2012 so we could go to Papua New Guinea to work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We loved this house, but we have never regretted selling it.

Yarinacocha, Peru, South America 1977-1995  This is my family in front of the only childhood home that I had. I spent the first 17 years of my life there. We have come full-circle. Now we also have two children and a home in a third world country. Like my childhood home, we also have two propane tanks, a house on posts, and a metal roof in the tropics. Nothing is quite as soothing as a rainstorm on a metal roof.

We have found these verses to be true! 

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

Mark 10: 29-30 “I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life."