Dear friends, you may remember a sentence we wrote in our January update:

As our stateside assignment approaches in just 6 months, we are feeling the pressure to accomplish quite a lot during this short window…

Today, we can chuckle at this declaration of our large hopes of checking off all our lists. However, when we came down with COVID in February and needed to cancel the Literacy and Songwriting workshops without knowing if we could reschedule them or not, we were not chuckling. Of course, we knew God’s timing and reasoning were infallible. And we knew His love could handle our disappointment and questions. If we had written to you in February, it probably would have sounded pretty dismal. Sometimes it is better to just not say anything when you know your heart needs some time to catch up to what your mind knows to be true. We’re grateful to God for healing each of us from the virus, and for the unexpected opportunity for our family to have some restful and healing time together. Indeed, when so many across our world are facing such tragic circumstances, how could we not be grateful?

As we pray over many of you who are in North America, we’re reminded that you’re entering into the season in which winter is fading and spring is blooming (bless you). Here in Papua New Guinea, our climate is more like an eternal spring; though it’s sometimes very wet, very dry, hot, or even chilly. May your spiritual lives, in their unique seasons, be constantly growing, ebbing, and renewing as the Lord guides you in your own journey with Him.

Aaron and Zeke were able to go to Sivauna (the Mamusi village our other home is in) in the latter half of January. What a huge answer to prayer! Aaron was able to finish TTC2, and complete some valuable research, praise God. Zeke was able to reconnect and play with his village buddies and keep up with his school work, thanks to the diligence of his amazing teacher at Ukarumpa International School.

The January Jesus Film launch was delayed since a prominent Mamusi big man couldn’t make it. They delayed it until Aaron’s next scheduled trip, which was supposed to be last week. So, as you may have guessed, it’s been delayed again. We’ll keep you posted about that as we find them out.

Next week, we will have meetings with the other teams who have Scripture related projects in the Islands region. All the other regions will be meeting together as well. It is exciting to us to have this rare opportunity to be in the same room with the people normally scattered across the country. Later in the week will see the start of a week of meetings with all of our PNG colleagues. Thanks for praying for productive and fruitful conversations and decisions regarding the future of our branch here in Papua New Guinea. Following the conference, there will be workshops and meetings designed just for the language teams, which we’re also looking forward to.

We’re also excited that the literacy team is able to travel with Aaron to the village in May for the rescheduled Vernacular Creative Phonics Workshop and the Songwriting Workshop. Aaron will arrive a week early with two friends, John Craig and Dudley King, to do some needed maintenance on the house. Thank you for your prayers over all these logistics.

A great opportunity

As you may have read before, one of our biggest struggles has been communication to/from our remote village location, particularly during our family’s first furlough in 2018-19.  Now as we’re approaching our second furlough later this year, the Lord is opening a new door in providing satellite internet access for the program office! This is a huge answer to prayer and will be game-changing for our ability to collaborate with the Mamusi translation team during the times we cannot be in the village with them.  Satellite and networking equipment has already been provided, and now we’re praying for a good video conferencing solution to install in the conference room that will make connecting as frictionless as possible.  We’d love your help in providing these items for the Mamusi translation team. The equipment we need to make this a reality is at the top of our Amazon wish list here.  Further down the list you’ll see other needs, from SD cards to help distribute the JESUS Film in Mamusi, to professional recording equipment to help us produce further media projects locally.  The list is already set up for delivery to where we need things to go. Thank you so much for investing in the work of making God’s Word available to thousands of under-served Mamusi speakers.

We truly appreciate your prayers for our family and our ministry over the years. Especially now as the time approaches for returning to the US, we’re incredibly grateful to have so many people in our lives with whom we truly can’t wait to reconnect and spend time. God bless you all.