We are excited to report that you now have new brothers and sisters in Christ in the Hewa village called Fiyawena, PTL!!! You may remember that the Copley’s and our family moved to Fiyawena in 2000, and after learning the language we presented a six-month overview of the Bible in 2005. Our efforts were sadly interrupted by murders and ongoing warfare that forced us to leave and move to an entirely different area of the Hewa mountains.

In the years since that time, we have been waiting for those Hewa friends to express a desire to be taught and we told you in our last letter that over the last couple years, the Fiyawena villagers have sent repeated requests for someone to come teach them the Bible. After much prayer, last December one of our young pastors named Faimpat took his wife and daughter and moved there with a passion to bring his relatives to God.

Since then, he and two other young men have been teaching the story of the Bible, finishing last week with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I have been eagerly waiting to hear an update from Faimpat and on Monday he called me on the HF radio and was very excited to report that many people are now professing faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins! He said 40 people have successfully finished the literacy program and can now read the Bible we have been translating. There have been between 70 and 100 people coming consistently to the Bible teaching. He said he started interviewing people to discover what they believe and he is very pleased to hear they are trusting that Jesus’ payment for sin on the cross has given them a new relationship with their Creator! He also said that the group wants to learn more so after a two-week break he plans to move into the next phase of lessons which focuses on Jesus. Please keep praying for Faimpat, his wife Ailam and the young man named Kaifas as they work to disciple the baby believers.

You may remember we mentioned in previous letters that Susan’s father’s health has been failing terribly and that we have been praying about how much of a role our family needs to take in supporting Susan’s parents in this difficult time. After much prayer we decided we need to return to the States for the summer months to see how we can help the family. This week Susan flew from PNG back to South Carolina and at the end of this month, after Mikenna’s school year is complete, she and I plan to head that direction as well. Our hope is to stay in SC in June and July and then return to PNG in time for Mikenna’s school to start in early August. Please pray for God’s wisdom on how He would have us press forward with ministry while at the same time, love and support our family in this difficult time.

Thank you for your love and prayers,

Jonathan, Susan & Mikenna