Greetings Team,
The time is suddenly upon us! Geoff and I will appreciate your prayers as we lift off early-early Tuesday morning for Dallas, and from there on to Tokyo and Asia Pacific. I say early-early as we have to check in at 3:30 a.m. – not a normal time for us to be up and about for sure! We are very excited about getting back to Asia Pacific and more specific to be able to spend some special time with the Wana people whom we have been ministering to for past 40+ years. We are looking forward to a church wide Bible conference where we will be continuing our “Inductive Bible Study” in the book of Joshua. We will also be spending a number of days with our church leadership discussing the health of the church. One of the big needs we have right now is to see more leadership ordained, so with that we will be spending a lot of time with our current church leadership on to topic of “Shepherding”. We do praise the Lord that one of the Wana churches is ready to ordain some men so we will be able to be a part of that while we are there.
Landing in Lauje Tribe – they got fancy and made a cement pad
We want to give a shout of “PRAISE” to the Lord for answering all of our prayers for the helicopter!! A week ago today we were notified that there remained just one signature to obtain the operating permit which we needed to start our pilot check out process in the bush sites where we work. We had all of our “check out pilots” in place just waiting for that final signature. The letter was finally signed on this past Thursday which means our pilots have been really busy the past few days getting checked out on all the interior/bush helipads. We are so grateful for this good news as it means we will have use of the helicopter during our time there.
Landing in Wana
This past month as we have been praying for this helicopter permission and also as we have been praying for some of our friends going through some physical struggles I have been reminded of this verse from Jeremiah 32:17: “Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee”.
Thanks so much for your prayers and being a part of our team,
Ed & Jeanne Casteel
Church Planting Asia Pacific
Update! March 11, 2026
Just wanted you all to know that late last night Geoff and I arrived safely at the capital city here in Asia Pacific. All our flights went smoothly and on time for which we were very grateful. We had a little hold up at immigration as we were supposed to have filled out our immigration/custom information on line “before” arrival to expedite the process of getting through. It was no big deal but meant that we had to get online there at the airport and fill the forms out before we could get our visa put into our passport. (The days of filling out paper forms has come and gone) So it was through immigration and on to customs where our bags made it through without inspection. It was going on 2:00 a.m. here by the time we made it to the hotel and after phoning our wives and taking showers it was 3:00 a.m. before we hit the sack. Needless to say it is very good to be back here, and we are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us these coming days and weeks.
Thanks for praying for Jeanne and Tina while we are away. It was good to hear their voices from this end and to hear that all was well with them. I was thinking this morning what a blessing it is to have such good communication these days. I can remember 20 years ago when I was traveling that staying in touch with Jeanne was sporadic and no communication at all while in the tribe. Now with the many cell towers being put up, even in the tribal locations, along with Starlink we can have daily communication while here – such a blessing!
Thanks for being a vital part of our team,
Ed n Geoff
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