Two deaths - A call to pray

Two deaths

It was a rough week in Mesi-land.  Isakay had been sick for a number of years with a stomach ailment that our team was unable to diagnose or treat.  When she went into labor on Sunday night, she was already exhausted, and within a few hours of giving birth to a healthy boy she passed into eternity.

Isakay and her husband represent those who are ‘nominally’ part of the Mesi church.  They showed up occasionally to believer’s meetings but rarely gave attention to listen.  Their hearts were distracted by whispered lies that there are secrets of instant wealth to be found. 

Pray for Isakay’s  five children and husband.  Ask that her death will prompt their hearts to seek after what really matters, for all eternity – hope in a Redeemer.  Pray for the believers in their hamlet, who are also grieving the loss of their friend.  Several of these believing women are caring for the children as Isakay’s husband has been away at the coast for some months.

Kokolat

Thursday evening, Nate’s phone rang.  “A Kovol guy has been badly cut up in a fight between a Mesi village and a Kovol village.  They are going to take him to Sandra (our coworker) tomorrow.”  We prayed for wisdom and endurance for Sandra as machete wounds can be nasty to clean and decision-making about how best to treat the wound is difficult.  The next day, we heard that the man had died en route.

Kokolat was a Kovol man who had been very excited about the new team of missionaries settling in his language group area.  Remember, we’ve been praying for the Kovol language group for years and have been so excited to work alongside the new team of 3 families who will be moving in at the end of the year.  The men have been working for several months to cut and slab jungle trees for house-building lumber.

Kokolat had hiked the 4 hours to be near the new missionaries. He had worked alongside them and begun to teach and talk with them.

Some weeks later, an altercation over a pig erupted into violence, and now he too has entered eternity.

We are all grieved.  In the ten years that we’ve lived in Mesi-land, we’ve heard stories of inter-tribal warfare from the past and seen simmering grievances, but never a death like this.  Men and women in Kovol and Pal are afraid.  No one wants war. 

Please pray with us that the Pal outreach (taking place near the border village that Kokolat lived in) would be able to continue and that the many who are coming would believe.

Please pray with us that no other lives will be taken.

Pray for the Pal Bible teachers and our co-workers as they talk through this tragedy with both believers and non-believers.  

Pray for the Kovol missionaries as they fly back in today to continue felling and slabbing trees, and as they talk about this death with the Kovol people.  

Pray that men and women in Kovol would be hungry for true peace and hope in Christ.