Today is the fifth of February 2000. Jan and I have tried many times over the last months of 1999 to write a newsletter. Many things have taken place in the last six months of the year. I will try to tell them as they happened.

In January of 1999 my brother, Alfred, was diagnosed as having esophageal cancer. Alfred was my oldest brother and the second child in my family of six children. Many of you know that my brother Tom died ten years ago. Shortly after we wrote our last newsletter in July of 1999, we heard that Alfred was very near the end. We decided that I should go back to Illinois to be with my brother and the rest of my family. Jan worked at getting my airline tickets as quickly as possible and we decided that I should spend a month or longer in the USA, as developments demanded. I left Madang on the 31st of July and arrived in Chicago on the 1st of August. My brother in law and nephew were waiting for me at the airport. I was told Alfred had died just a few hours earlier.

In retrospect, it was probably a good example of God's timing being superior to ours. I am not sure how I would have handled the stress of being there at the time Alfred died after the grueling and stressful three day airline marathon to get back to Illinois. What was good was that my sister Shirley and her husband Chuck arrived from Texas about the same time I arrived from the South Pacific. After meeting them, we went back to my niece's home where my two sisters were waiting. Two days later we had a memorial service for my brother. It was very beautiful to see how much my brother was loved by his family and friends.

I stayed in the States for the month of August. I visited Hans and his family for about a week. Then I visited my older sisters, Jeannie and Mary, and their families in Illinois. It was a good time for us sisters to have together. We needed to come to terms with the fact that now we were four. I also visited my sister Shirley in Texas before returning to Madang. I praise God that we had the money and it was not a problem for me to make this trip. I needed to be there for that time to handle the grief.

While I was in the USA, Jan had to take care of himself. Fortunately, he has plenty of friends here to look after him. He went up to the Highlands with some SCUBA diving buddies for a few days to attend the 'Hagen Show'. It's a strange sort of event which features Singsing Races, meaning contests to see who can win big cash prizes for the finest displays of cultural dances and celebrations. Jan has become pretty bored with the displays themselves, so he looks out for unusual images. In the one on the left, a man is fixing up his makeup using a small mirror to check that everything is proper. On the right, a fellow enjoys the traditional number three drug of choice (preceded by alcohol and betelnut) while taking a break from the rigors of dancing. In times past, the participants rubbed themselves with pig fat to make their bodies nice and shiny. Now they use vegetable oil (no, he's not going to drink it). It's not as authentic, but it smells much less obnoxious.

After I returned to Madang, Jan and I were gearing ourselves for the busy months of December and January. As most of you know, December is busy with closing the financial year-end for the mission. Jan was talking to the owner of one of the hotels here in Madang in October and found out that he needed someone to travel on his ship the Melanesian Discover as cruise director. This ship travels to the Trobriand Islands on the East coast of Papua New Guinea and up the Sepik River on the North coast of Papua New Guinea. Jan told our friend that we had wanted to do this for several years and maybe some time he could use us. The next thing we knew Jan was going on the ship for two weeks in October. I needed to stay because I was still catching up on work after my trip back to the States. His trip was up the Sepik River. He also worked with the Papua New Guinean cruise director giving lectures on the different Sepik cultures that the passengers saw along the way. He worked with the rest of the crew to see that the passengers had a good time. He really enjoyed the trip. Just before he left we were asked to do the trip at the end of October to the Trobriand Islands. This was also about two weeks. I was able to take this trip also. It was a lot of fun working on this ship

After our busy time on the ship, we got back to work. In November a group of six people came from one of our supporting churches. Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute Indiana has been one of our supporting churches since we came to PNG in 1981. This group of four women and two men came to help us remodel the back room at our office. This room was our buyer/shipper room until we got our new building that was built by another group from the States late in 1998. This room was to be divided into two offices and a lunchroom. Gary Grevens and Norm Cheesman did the building of walls and the rest of the heavy labor. The four women (Sherrie Cheesman, Marsha Doan, Sheri Trendleman, Cathy Thompson) cleaned walls, painted, and helped the men lay floor tiles. They were here for ten days. In that time they visited some villages, the Pacific Orientation Course (jungle camp), and finished the two offices and lunchroom. They did a lot during their short stay, but I know they have gone home with a clearer vision of God's work in Bible Translation here in PNG. We thank each of them for coming and being such a blessing to us.

During September Lori, Jan's co-worker in the computer department, did final work before typesetting of the whole New Testament in one of the PNG highlands languages. This was then sent to Singapore for typesetting. She worked with the Papua New Guinean woman who had spent the last ten years doing this work on her own. After this work was finished, Lori spent the whole month of October with Fay Christensen, a translator with Australian Churches of Christ Mission, to typeset the New Testament in the Rao language. Fay has been a friend all the time we have been in PNG. It is a good feeling to be involved in the finishing of two New Testaments. We look forward to the completion and printing of another New Testament done by our own translators in the next year. We can see that in the next few years more of our translators will be finishing the New Testaments they have been working on for so many years.

December and January were busy months, but we finished the year-end work. The Annual General Meeting we have each January went smoothly and was very productive. Now it is February and we are on to other work that needs to be done.

Before we leave at the end of May on our three month leave, Jan will typeset the book of Mark in the Banaro language for William Butler, one of our translators. There will be a dedication of this book at Easter time. This is in the language of the group of people we lived with during our village living time when we were completing our orientation course in 1981.

Jan and I completed a chart of accounts to be used by all Pioneer Bible Translators branches and the international office in the USA. We plan on helping to set this chart of accounts up in Peachtree accounting software so that all the branches will be able to start using it by the middle of this year. This has been a need for PBT for many years now, and we are very glad we are able to help in this area.

How did you spend New Years Eve? Jan and I were on the Melanesian Discover ship going up the Sepik River with forty other people. Nothing major happened. The engines didn't stop, the computer changed dates and the ship didn't sink. It was nice coming back to Madang and finding out that what we felt all along would happen happened - nothing!. The world didn't end and there were no major tragedies because we had changed millenniums.

Jan and I will be in the USA in June and July of this year. We will spend August in Europe with friends in Vienna. This is our 35th anniversary, birthday, Christmas, and any other gift for the last year to each other. We were last in Europe together in 1986 on the last long holiday we had with Hans before he went to university. We plan to spend time in Vienna and travel with our friends to Sicily.

We will be setting dates soon for visiting all our supporters. Since our time is short in the States we will need to have the times scheduled before we get to the States. If you know that you want to see us please E-mail us with a date. Otherwise, we will contact you soon with a date that we can visit.

Jan and I hope that your holiday time was a time of joy with family and friends. We hope that this New Year will be a year of blessings and happiness for you.

As you think of us and pray for us, please keep these things in mind:

1. Pray for William Butler as he finishes the last checks on the book of Mark. Pray for Jan and William as they typeset this book and get it printed so it can be dedicated at Easter time.

2. Pray for Jan and I as we schedule our time in the States. We need to see supporting churches, have time with family, and do all the normal visits to Doctors and Dentist.

3. Pray for Hans, Tamara, Pippa, and Audrey. Hans is in his second year of work on his master's degree. He is still our forwarding agent. Even though our money goes through a central account at the international office now, Hans still has a lot to do as forwarding agent. We are very grateful that he and Tamara take the time to handle our finances and other needs we may have.

4. Pray for Jan and I to stay healthy and happy. We have had excellent health for many years and we pray it continues. We have been happy working here in Madang. We have started thinking about life after PNG. We have about ten years before we will both be of retirement age. Pray with us as we plan for this time in the future.

Jan & Eunice Messersmith