Highlands Break

Cassidy • August 1, 2025

We were able to fly up to the highlands to take a break at SIL's mission base (called Ukarumpa). We wanted to rest, see doctors, connect with coworkers, and give the boys time with friends.

The first week we were there, we got to spend time with our new teammates. Josh and Autumn arrived back in country in June and have been living in the town of Madang. We were glad they flew up to the highlands so we could see them and meet their baby.

Autumn even made me a cake for my birthday!

We loved having some quality time with them and had good discussions and good fellowship together.


During our second week there, the Twomblys and Donckels drove up from Madang and joined us. If you keep up with us, you have been introduced to the Twomblys many times... but if not: the Twomblys are working to plant a church in Madang town where the FinisTerre base is located. Bryan is also the field director for our organization and so he handles overseeing new missionaries.


The Donckels just moved to PNG and are learning language and culture in Madang so they can do church planting in another village in the mountains here. God is raising up more workers!


Here is story time with Mrs. Twombly:

...and the boys with two of the Twomblys (since I took basically no pictures of the adults):

We loved our time with them!


Here are some other pictures of our break. The boys learned some cool new tricks from Josh Miller:

We played lots of card games:

Annie's first dental cleaning:

Ukarumpa is cold, so Zach made lots and lots of fires.

One sweet surprise is that our break lined up with seeing our former heli pilot. Gavin and Carrie served in PNG for 20 years - Gavin has flown supplies in, us out, handled medical emergencies for us, and was the one we called to pick us up when our houses fell down in the earthquake. They were at Ukarumpa packing up their things to move back to the States and we got to give them hugs before they left.

They had a birthday party for their quints (yes, quints) and set up the waterslide. A fun way to end our time in the highlands!

Annie and friend Kori giving the "Go ahead" to the other kids.

We flew back in on Monday. Jude up front with our new pilot Greg.

We are still just BARELY able to fit us and our supplies in one heli load. It is getting tight though!

Josh came into the village on Wednesday to begin work on his house! We gave them the office and he is expanding it into a home. Exciting!

We had such a refreshing and fun break - we are thankful for that time away, especially for the boys. And now we are back to work. Zach has been busy prepping for Sunday and working through checking his translations of Genesis, Jonah, and Ephesians. The rest of us are prepping for school to start on Monday.


Thanks for praying and keeping up with the Canns!

Literacy Class 5

By Cassidy • September 3, 2025
On Monday, a new literacy class began! Our literacy teachers, Maikepe and Namura, have been gathering names and school fees for a year, but interest here was low. Once some men from a nearby village decided to join, interest (there and here!) spiked and we have an overflowing classroom. Sewing to bind four more literacy books to account for the extra students:

JAARS Video

By Cassidy • August 6, 2025
JAARS trains and sends pilots over here - we are thankful for them!

Teaching Video

By Cassidy • July 7, 2025
Zach and I put together a video for our church's Sunday school hour. The first small part explains how we keep ourselves supplied and the rest of it is how Zach handles foreign concepts in translation. If you have an hour and want to know more about the work here, see the video below:

Ellie Turns Two

By Cassidy • June 28, 2025
Our littlest Ellie turned two! We love this little girl and thank God for completing our family with her. We can see her beginning to grow A BIT in independence and contentment as she matures and is able to communicate. She has lots of words, giggles often at Annie's silliness, loves rice, and (as a last born) is usually just along for the ride. She is happy to write in the dirt or play on the rope swing, look at books on the couch or look out the window in a hut, but if anything goes wrong, she just wants her mama. It is sweet to see how good the boys are with her, and Annie is a good big sister, too! (Though Annie DID have a good cry a few days ago when she realized she wasn't going to get any presents on Ellie's birthday 😉)

April and Easter

By Cassidy • May 4, 2025
After celebrating Jude's birthday, we had a pretty low-key April and Easter. Zach has been faithfully preaching through Ephesians, and there have been good opportunities to follow up with people afterward.

Jude is a Teenager!

By Cassidy • April 7, 2025
The boy that made us parents turned 13 on Friday! This boy is growing up!  He has always been an analyst, but now he is thinking big thoughts about future plans and budgets. He has always been conscious of the feelings of others, but he is now taking more initiative to step up and handle things for others.

Australia Break

By Cassidy • March 20, 2025
Last month we got to take a break in Australia! Our first stop was to the town of Madang where we spent several days with the Twomblys and the Ruscios. I have basically zero pictures, but we LOVED our time with them. In Australia, we stayed on the Gold Coast, a bit north, in a sweet Paradise Point neighborhood with lots of parks and restaurants along the water. We went to Costco and ate good food and played in the ocean and felt so refreshed and thankful for our time! Here are some pictures. My mom and Zach's mom flew over and stayed with us for the first half of our trip. SO great to see them and we miss them already!

Teaching on Baptism

By Cassidy • January 20, 2025
The established church here in our village is Lutheran. Or, at least, it’s called Lutheran. In reality, it is a mix of Lutheran religious practices, animistic beliefs, and a false gospel of being good enough to be accepted by God. One of the practices here is that they baptize their babies and believe that this baptism saves the baby. After being baptized as a baby, the child should grow up and do good things and will go to heaven.

Oliver Turns 11

By Cassidy • January 15, 2025
This boy turned 11 on Sunday! He chose cookies and ice cream as his dessert because he knew everyone would enjoy it. Sundays are a busy day, but we celebrated midday with food and dessert and presents, followed by some fun family games. It is a joy to watch Oliver grow in wisdom and stature. This year he finished his first trek through the Bible, memorized Psalm 139; he listens to and think through the great claims of the good news of Jesus Christ, and is making efforts to be generous with others (especially his brother). On the stature front, Oliver is probably the strongest member of our family - certainly for his size. He is regularly swinging from his ninja course - a series of ladders, ropes, and handles hanging from our rafters. He can do a 6 minute plank and 35 pushups (far surpassing his parents' abilities in those categories). And we love how he uses his strength to care for and protect his little sisters.

Christmas with the Demarests

By Cassidy • December 23, 2024
We were thankful to host one of our pastors, Scott, and his wife, Sarah, for five days this month. We got to do our Christmas activities and advent readings with them each day and had such a sweet time with them. (Since they TOOK most of the pictures, they are absent from many...). Gingerbread cookies instead of sugar cookies this year, which was the right choice. Why haven't I been doing this all along?!