Thank you so much for your love and prayers and gifts! We are deeply grateful for your part in reaching the Hewa people with the love of Jesus. Thank you!

We owe you a huge apology! I’m sorry for taking so long to fill you in on what has been happening in our lives lately. We told you in our last letter we were planning to return to PNG at the end of January, but since then our return was delayed by unexpected medical problems. Then, as we were working through those issues, I kept planning to write to explain what was going on, but felt I couldn’t until we came up with solutions and a new return date. Each week we felt we would know more from the next doctor appointment or the next test result but in each one we were told to set more doctor appointments or wait for the next lab results. February disappeared and now we are in March! I’m so sorry for not doing a better job keeping in touch. Please forgive me.

In short, I (Jonathan) had two medical problems I have been sorting through. One was that I was experiencing severe pain in my shoulder and by the time we decided it was not healing on its own, an MRI revealed I had a small tear in my rotator cuff which resulted in a condition called Adhesive Capsulitis (frozen shoulder). Though it was not serious enough to require surgery, the doctors determined I needed to attend regular physical therapy appointments all through February. Those PT sessions are continuing even now.

The other problem was that after many blood tests my doctor was not able to determine the reason I had chronically swollen lymph nodes (and other symptoms). He referred me to a urologist who after several tests determined I needed surgery to remove a lymph node for biopsy. The diagnosis of the biopsy was necrotizing granulomatous lymphadenitus from a penicillin resistant staph infection. After a new course of antibiotics, we are thanking the Lord for what appears to be relatively good health, but in the meantime the surgical site has not been healing quickly enough for us to return to PNG quite yet. In fellowship with my doctor in PNG and with mission leadership we are now planning to return to PNG in early April.

Thank you for your continued prayers for Mikayla. She has been gaining strength and endurance and though she has not been able to return to full time school or work, she has been trying to be productive by volunteering to help other women through her church woman’s drug rehab program and with prison ministry and also with the local pro-life ministry. Right now she is on a week-long trip serving with the college group of her church in southern Texas. We feel like we have done everything we can to help her get established and succeed on her own and we think she will do fine after our departure. Please continue to pray for complete healing and for clear direction for her future.

You may have heard on the news that central PNG has been rocked by severe earthquakes. Unfortunately, these earthquakes have caused landslides which have resulted in lost lives. Recently we received news from missionaries that our Hewa friends have not been hit too hard by the quakes and no one has been injured. Please keep praying the Hewa believers will grow in their love for the Lord and that true faith in Jesus will spread all over the mountains.

Thank you for your love and prayers and gifts! We deeply appreciate you!

Jonathan, Susan, Mikayla & Mikenna