Thank You

Help us celebrate the home-going of the man who led the Hewa villagers to follow the “Jesus trail.”

When we finished teaching the Creation-through-Christ story for the first time in the tiny mountainside village of Kulufuntu, we were holding our breath wondering if anyone would catch the significance and turn from their appeasement of jungle spirits to a simple trust in Jesus. Fato was one of the first to grasp the importance of the message. “I now understand Jesus paid for my debt of sins and I know it’s true,” he said. “I want to be on the Jesus trail and I want my family and my entire village to live on the Jesus trail!”

From that time until his death on Aug 26, 2019, Fato’s faith in Jesus grew, and he became a strong teacher of the Word in his village, doing his best to lead his villagers in yielding to their Creator. In the same way that he was one of the first to trust in Jesus, he has now become one of the first to demonstrate how to face death with confidence in Jesus. Recently, as it became evident an illness was taking his life, he boldly declared he was not afraid to die, but was simply going ahead of us to meet God face to face, and would be eagerly waiting for us all to join him at “God’s ground.”

We will dearly miss Fato, but are rejoicing that God touched him and used his life to blaze the trail for many other Hewa to follow Jesus.

Here is a clip from Fato’s testimony as recorded June 2012

. . . Earlier I was living with my eyes blinded. My mouth was not able to speak truth, and my heart was blocked from understanding- it was as though I was tied with a pig leash (from the bondage of the ancestral trail) and could not free myself. When I was in that condition. . . Jesus came and He cut away the pig leash to set me free. Jonathan (and Yanis) had come and said, ‘Brother, come on this trail. Take this trail to follow Jesus,’ and he cleared the trail for us to follow. But now I know it wasn’t Jonathan or Yanis that opened the trail for me. Very truly it was Jesus that came and rescued me. . .

Fato heard the story of salvation and became a follower of Jesus as a result of years of faithful prayers. Please feel free to read the back-story and join with us in praising the Lord for how He still brings people from darkness into the light.

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

Jonathan, Susan and Mikenna