“Kaje” is no longer spelt “Kaje” but “Kaze”. Over the past years, the Kaje team have been thinking a lot about changing the orthography so reading and writing would become easier for their Kaze friends. It was not an easy job but they finally settled on several changes and the Kaze seem to like it so far. A lot more changes have been made than they originally anticipated, but that is okay. Even though “Kaze” is spelt differently now the pronunciation, of course, has not changed.
When Christopher and Lilli Meyer returned from their extended home assignment in March both their co-worker families were in the bush. They overlapped for about five months before their co-workers the Myers left for their home assignment at the end of July.
However, right before the Myers left something amazing happened in one of the neighbouring villages – 14 people were baptised. While Christopher and Lilli were in Germany, their co-workers started to teach the Kaze chronologically through the Bible once again. The community from a neighbouring village, an hour and a half walk away, was also invited. Many people attended each Sunday for several months to listen to God’s story. When they reached the New Testament the people learned about Jesus and that He is the promised King and Saviour. Many people put their trust in Jesus and 14 of them made it public through baptism.
An even bigger group from another neighbouring village a similar distance away but in the opposite direction attended and again many people put their trust in Jesus. In August another baptism was held, this time it was for over 20 new brothers and sisters from the second village. That is phenomenal! They are overjoyed, but it is also a lot of work. So far both groups of young believers continue to attend church every Sunday and continue to listen to the teaching. But they also meet in their villages twice a week to listen to Bible stories, pray, sing, and worship God together, and to encourage one another. Please pray for those new believers to get to know Jesus better and to really help each other and encourage one another. While the believers in the village where the missionaries are situated outnumber the non-believers, that is not the case in the other two villages, so they do face different challenges.
Apart from the Bible teaching there are many other jobs to be done in a church planting context. One of them is Bible translation. Since everyone was so busy doing other ministries not much translation had been done for a while. Christopher has always been interested in doing Bible translation and got to start a few months ago. As far as he can tell he really likes it. It is probably going to be his main ministry in the future. However, another team member is going to devote some of his time to translation also. Christopher and Lilli are happy about that as he is a very good translator and has a lot more experience.
In August, Lilli and a co-worker, took on the girls youth group and Lilli started to be involved with ladies Bible study. Once a week they meet with the ladies to hear from the Bible, pray together and encourage one another. It is always a wonderful time.
Every other week they get together with the young girls who have been baptised. Lilli’s co-worker teaches them a dance and afterwards and they talk about what they have heard in the Bible teaching the weeks before. The girls love answering questions and it is very encouraging to see that they can answer most of the questions really well! They also memorise some verses, which seems to be so easy for them. However, it is very helpful for them as only one in over twenty girls is literate thus far. There is obviously a lot of work yet to be done.
Currently Christopher and Lilli and family are in Cairns, Australia. Their eldest daughter has had severe problems with her left ear for several months now. Their doctor in PNG tried everything he could to help her but nothing worked. He has sent them to see a specialist who has performed surgery. She has gone through so much in these past few months. It affects her whole being. But, they know the greatest physician of all and trust that there’s nothing too big or hard for Him! He has a perfect record of faithfulness.
They are thankful for:
- New brothers and sisters in Kaze and their trust in Jesus
- The ladies and youth ministry – so many women and girls participate
- A good doctor in Cairns
Pray with them:
- For the new Jesus-followers to grow in their faith
- To make good progress in Bible translation
- For their daughter’s complete healing
Thank you so much for encouraging Christopher and Lilli through prayer. They are so thankful that they are not on their own doing this work, and are truly grateful to have such a big team supporting them.