Life with the vanderWals: August 2015

We would love your support for our work at Lae City Mission. Most importantly your prayers for the work being done, and that we will be well equipped to deal with a new home/culture/job and everything that comes along with working in mission.

Here is a copy of the post on Dave's blog Content to Contend:
As you likely know already, if you happen to be perusing this blog, I plan on uprooting my family and traveling to a (not so) far off land with the purpose of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ.

This is not without its challenges: distance from loved ones, a new language, a new culture, and, in our case, getting financial support.

I am going to be working with a group called City Mission PNG, in the city of Lae. Lae, like the larger city of Port Moresby, has a great deal of poverty, a great deal of homelessness, a great deal of crime, a great deal of unemployment, and a great deal of suffering. Lae City Mission aims to help the people of Lae, by giving them a hand up: the boys coming in off the streets are trained and taught skills which they will be able to use once they leave; skills which enable them to provide for themselves, to be in a better position than when they first came in. All this, and connected with the Gospel!

My role will be to work alongside the boys, as they become young men - and future elders, deacons, preachers, and teachers - teaching, guiding (and probably learning a whole bunch myself).

But, to be able to do this, we need to get there.

While we will be provided with a house to call home, transport to make use of, and an amount towards our day-to-day living expenses, we need to raise funds for flights, for vaccines, for the remainder of living costs, for insurances; costs which easily run into the tens of thousands per year. Costs which we cannot afford without a whole lot of help.

And that is where I must swallow my pride, and humbly ask: will you help us?

Any donation - from a couple of cents, to the largest number you can think up - will help us get to Lae, help us to stay in Lae, and help us to work with Lae City Mission, help us spread the Word of Christ.

If you wish to give us financial support, please fill in the pledge form here, or download here, and email it to Adrian at vanderwalsinlae@gmail.com or donations can be made to:

VanderWal Lae Support Committee
BSB #: 086 116 Acc #: 772861417

We appreciate your support!
xx Dave and Cheree, Nikolas, Isaac, Calvin and Madison xx

Our newest family member has arrived!

Madison Joy, 4 hours old, enjoying cuddles from Aunty Natasha Joy

We have been richly blessed by the LORD with a beautiful daughter, who arrived 5 days after her due date, in the early hours of Saturday 15th August (5:32am), weighing in at 4140g and 57 cm long.

We have named her Madison Joy van der Wal (Madison meaning 'Gift of God').

First night home. "Laps are for naps. The cot is not."

She is greatly loved, and her big brothers are proud as punch to finally have a sister!

Now we are settling in and getting used to being a family of 6, trying to catch up on missed sleep, making new routines, and of course enjoying lots of newborn baby cuddles!

And just a few more photos: