Madang, Moresby, and Ukarumpa

Cassidy • June 6, 2026

Our boys finished school on April 27, and then we took a break out of the village!


It was a good chance for a rest and we had paperwork to attend to, so we ended up in 3 different places in 2 weeks.


Finished with 6th:

Finished with 8th and on to high school!:

Our first stop was Madang. Our organization now has five families living in Madang - three at their base, and two at a house nearby. All our kids were excited to see their friends! A couple of the families we have known for several years, and one were were just getting to meet.


On the work side of things, we needed to figure out how to get a police clearance form filled out and our fingerprints taken at the local jail. Thanks to Kerra who watched our kids, we were able to meet up with the right person and get this done so we could apply for permanent residency in PNG. If we are granted residency, it will allow us to come and go from PNG (for however many more years we have) without the need to apply for work permits every term.


Sak helping the girls drink some coconuts:

They both love a good coconut:

When we ask our boys about their absolute favorite places to go, this sandy beach in Madang tops the list (Jais Aben).

We got to celebrate our sweet friend's 9th birthday there with everyone:

After Madang, we had 4 days in the capital city of Port Moresby.


Donuts!:

Fancy dates:

Though the fancy food and donuts ARE a big draw, the reason for a trip to the capital was to meet with the consular at the American embassy and renew all the kids' passports.


We have no pictures from there because they take away your phones, but after:

  1. An hour of waiting
  2. Ellie drawing a picture on Oliver's birth certificate (!) while we are giving solemn oaths that we are who we say we are, and
  3. 2 hours of driving around to get a replacement photo done of Oliver (WITHOUT glasses on)...

Our day ended with a verbal assent that we are set to have the new passports processed and mailed to our team in Madang this month!


We owe a big thank you to our missionary friends, the Potinus, who drove us around that whole day - and who knew the right place to get a passport photo done!


Our last stop was at Ukarumpa where we were able to meet up with some other friends and get some vaccines done. Our boys love the freedom they are able to have there - it is a HUGE base and almost like a summer camp feel. They have made some new friends there recently, especially the kids of our newest heli pilot.


Zach broke his phone and must have been the only one who took pictures in Ukarumpa, so I will leave you here with one of Annie singing to her pretend audience at the hotel in Port Moresby:

We are now back in the village - stay tuned for another blog about our recent visitors!

Literacy Goes to Kongo

By Cassidy • April 9, 2026
As I wrote in the post "A Busy March," we have been working toward establishing literacy in a village a couple mountains away - Kongo. Kongo is still among the same language group and they heard that we had a class available to learn to read and write in their heart language, Do (pronounced Doe). And so they sent six men to come and take part in our literacy class last year. For the sake of this post, let me introduce them here: Dewiwi (the leader among them), Iramo, Simit, Dawa, Parati, and Idige. After they graduated, we started making plans for them to teach others in their own village. The deal is: they must to have enough people finish literacy that they can appoint 3-4 as teachers, they need to build a classroom, and they need to have community support (ie: not just one family who wants to start literacy somewhere). If a village can do all this then we will pay for and print all the materials. In March, these six Kongo graduates hiked back over to us and set up a meeting to tell us that all was ready! Do we have materials for them? Would I be willing to come next month to an opening of the Do literacy class in Kongo Village? Yes and yes. They hiked all the books, a big wooden box (to hold them), two chalkboards (!), and a bunch of smaller miscellaneous supplies to Kongo and then Monday we set out to visit them.

Jude is Fourteen!

By Cassidy • April 9, 2026
Last week we celebrated Jude's birthday! We had a special lunch, cake, presents, and games. Birthdays here are twice as fun with teammates!

A Busy March

By Cassidy • March 29, 2026
I know there are some seasons, at least I HOPE, where our updates are more frequent and therefore can be regarding a single area of ministry. That is not the case currently, but I am thankful that we are busy with good things over here - for the praise of God's Name! The picture above shows a recent visitor, affectionately called Mr. D, who came to help and to spend time with the Millers. A close family friend and professional carpenter, he and Josh put up the office, constructed a permanent awning for us, and oversaw the demolition of a storage shed that had served to house building materials ever since the earthquake. The new office:

The Brutally Brief Biography of Eneas Sage

By Zach Cann • March 4, 2026
I was reading a biography recently. It was a relatively short biography of John MacDonald, which takes up a single chapter in Iain Murray's book A Scottish Christian Heritage . And in that chapter there is an introductory paragraph about a man who was a missionary pioneer in northern Highlands of Scotland. His name was Eneas Sage, and his whole life fit quite neatly on the first half of page 130. Evidently, Sage moved into the town of Lochcarron in 1726 and ministered there till he died in 1774. Murray provides Sage's own testimony that he went to this dark and cold place "merely to pave the way, if it were practicable, for settling the bounds with a gospel ministry, though it should be at the peril of my life." And peril he faced. His house was burned down and at least three attempts were made on his life. After six years of work, there was one family coming to hear him preach in a tiny thatched church. After 20 years of laboring, he was still treated as an outsider and had to evade yet another assassination attempt. But at the end of nearly 50 years of toil, there were some who "were themselves the primitive fathers of the spiritual generations that followed them." And with that line, the story of Eneas Sage came to an end, and the story moved on to recount the accomplishments of others. A whole ministry boiled down into a paragraph. 50 hard and lonely years, summarized in just a few sentences. A whole life that serves as an introduction to the next. Yet I cannot help but admire how the Lord Jesus used Eneas Sage. Someone had to go and start tilling that soil. And that is exactly what Sage did. He paved the way—just like he intended to do. And while he is literally what we might call a footnote on the pages of history, his toil mattered to his Master. And who cares what history records, so long as at the end of our labors we get to hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master" (Matthew 25:23).

Equipping Hour on Mark 6

By Cassidy • March 4, 2026
Zach recently recorded a Sunday school hour for our local church. The first ten minutes are few videos with the kids of some new things on our ridge. The rest of the video is about the challenge of determining story breaks in Mark. Specifically, he discussed Mark 6 and the connection between the sending out of the disciples and Herod's beheading of John. See below if you are interested!

The Millers Have Landed

By Cassidy • January 22, 2026
Please join us in welcoming our new teammates: Josh and Autumn Miller! We got to know the Millers about 3.5 years ago. We were living in Madang following the earthquake that knocked down our home in Mawerero. And the Millers' were in Madang to bring a season of ministry to a close. And so, as the Lord would have it, we were neighbors for about 6 months. We got to spend lots of time together and fellowship with them was so sweet as we both dealt with trials. Soon after, the president of FinisTerre starting discussions with both of us about the possibility of the Millers joining our team in Mawerero. Fast forward through more transition for them, a new baby, raising support, and house building... and yesterday they landed on our ridge and moved into their new home and new ministry!

Married 15 years

By Zach Cann • January 22, 2026
15 years, 7 homes, 4 kids, 2 continents later...

Oliver Turns 12 + Christmas

By Cassidy • January 17, 2026
Oliver turned 12 last week! This guy brings joy to us. He is able to laugh at himself, he loves snuggling his sisters, and he is funny. He is also creative - he loves to draw maps and write stories. He loves Dungeons and Dragons and made up a game with D&D figurines that he likes to play. He LOVES board games and card games. He put together a schedule by the hour of how we would celebrate. :) We had a fun lunch of pizza pockets, followed by pazookie, and party games.

Literacy Graduation for Class 5

By Cassidy • December 18, 2025
The day we returned from Madang we found out that the literacy class had finished their last class a few days earlier and just wanted to wait for us to arrive before doing the graduation ceremony! I am so proud of these teachers and these students. They worked hard and have now learned how to read and write all the sounds in the Do language. The ceremony was completely planned out by the students, using the pattern of the previous classes. The singing was accompanied by the ladies who are in the reading class, which was so sweet to see.

Madang and Time with the Yates

By Cassidy • December 18, 2025
We just returned from a great time in Madang. We got to spend lots of time with the FIVE other missionary families currently living there, and we also welcomed our pastor, Smedly, and his wife, Janet, for a visit. It was a full and fun and encouraging time with so many brothers and sisters in Christ. We feel refreshed and ready for another stint in the village! Here is a highlight reel in pictures: