Many of you were praying for my (Aaron’s) survey trip out to the Mamusi area in February and March. It’s finally time to share some of my reflections about that experience. Before this trip, my knowledge of the Mamusi people and language were pretty limited to Sivauna village (where we work) and about a 5-mile radius around it. This is due to the remoteness of the area and not having easy ways to get other places. The goal was to visit as much of the territory as we could in order to gain a much better understanding of the people, their language patterns, their literacy and education levels, and how they feel about Bible translation. To do this, our little team of six traveled for three weeks, nearly constantly, by foot and by car, generally entering a new village every day, spreading word about what we were doing, and waiting for people to gather in the evening for a community meeting. The journey itself was a spectacular experience of the rugged grandeur of this part of the world, and the meetings were unfailingly helpful and encouraging.

While there were two very remote corners that we were unable to get to, I’m happy to report that we visited 15 villages (11 of which I’d never set foot in), met hundreds of new people, and gathered reams of valuable information. The good news is that there is widespread support and enthusiasm for what we’re doing in Bible translation and other language development work. The other good news is that we’ve got some pretty solid job security; I’ve got at least 4 papers to write from the data we collected, and the Translation Committee is deciding how to incorporate all the new people interested in helping, and how we’re going to address the very wide range of dialect differences in the Mamusi area! There’s a ton of work left to do, and I’m so grateful to work with such an eager and supportive team – both here in Papua New Guinea and including each of you as well!

While we were roaming all over Mamusi land, some dear friends and colleagues were staying at the village house in Sivauna, teaching a two week course on Bible Overview to interested community members. This enhanced their understanding of the big picture of Scriptures. We’re so grateful for the big things God did through that training, and how He is using His Word to draw people into His story.

There has not been a ton of time to reflect on this massively important trip since I’ve been back, between attending our organization’s country-wide conference and trying to process my way through the mountain of new data we collected. One thing that has stuck out in retrospect is how clearly the Lord had gone before and prepared the way ahead of us, often putting just the right people in our path to help us get where we needed to go and get the information we need, or to ask just the right question in a meeting to raise something really important that we forgot to cover in our exhaustion.

One of the most encouraging things for me personally was in connection with a scary eye injury I sustained on the fourth day. I spent several days in great discomfort and fearing that I had damaged my vision, endangering the success of the trip, not to mention how it might affect the rest of my life. When I finally got to a place of surrender and giving that fear over to the Lord, he connected me with our medical staff in Ukarumpa, and it turned out that the very medication I needed was in the first aid pack we’d been carrying around. The pain was totally gone within 48 hours of starting those eye drops, and my vision was back to normal a few days after that. Huge thanks to those of you who were praying over that issue, even if you didn’t know you were!

I’ve also been struck by the sheer bigness of our God and the magnificence of his works, in his creation and particularly in his people. We are so loved and cared for by our Father; sometimes he provides directly out of his hand, and often he uses the kindness and generosity of strangers. It’s such a privilege being your hands and feet out here. Thanks for being on this journey with us.