Jonathan and Rachel Willcock serve global partners in Latin America. “Besides doing member care over the internet, Jonathan especially keeps busy online with several projects. One project is the development of an app that is going to be a useful tool for missionaries to have on their phones and computers when they are learning unwritten languages along with the people's culture. He is working on the app with a team of missionary men and women from around the world. They meet for four hours each week over the internet as well as spending time working on the project on their own. It is going well, and they hope it won’t be too long before it is available for missionaries to use. It has been good to see God provide the funding for this project, as developing software for the Google Play and Apple stores is not cheap. Please pray that God will continue to provide the remaining funds so the project can be finished quickly. Along with the app, there is a revised version of the culture and language acquisition manual which will guide missionaries through their first years in a new culture and language. Pray that God will give us wisdom as we begin to finalize the manual and then share it with our global partners around the world.”

Lindy and Carol Drake along with Barry and Denise Spor, minister among the Guanano people of Colombia. “Do you remember the evangelistic outreach the Guanano church in Colombia made to a neighboring Cubeo village? The discipleship of new believers in that village was stopped dead in its tracks by the pandemic. Now … Orlando, Rey and Leoncio will begin a Bible study through the book of Acts for the new believers and others. We know that the Lord gave us much more to do than lead people to faith in Christ for salvation. His command was to ‘make disciples,’ life-long followers of Christ. This requires much teaching, explaining, modeling, exhorting and sometimes rebuking. Pray for the effort on behalf of the Guanano church to obey the Great Commission.”

Coleton and Shawna Williams minister among the Kuman people of Papua New Guinea. “We began to focus on the health of the church here in Kuman. Like always, there were some great things happening and some very discouraging things happening. One of our very good friends, whom we spent most of our time with before leaving for the States, has fallen into sin and has walked away from the church. …. Now for some encouraging news. The Sunday School teachers in the Kuman church have been working tirelessly to train our children. We are so proud of the work that they are doing and spend time encouraging them and helping them to plan. As a result, we had a group of 11 young people baptized. It was such an exciting time for our church as we celebrated their desire to tell the community that they are followers of Jesus Christ. We now find ourselves in the mix of wearing several different kinds of hats and sharing the work of the church with [the Kuman believers]. … We have plans in the future to start some outreaches into other villages nearby to spread the news of the gospel. This prospect is both exciting and terrifying, so you can be praying for us as plans for that start to take shape. We know that for all of these things, we are completely hopeless without the strength and power of the Lord.”

Jim and Kathy Tanner minister as church planting consultants in Papua New Guinea. “Melki is a young married man who came to our teacher training course a while back. He was eager to help his villagers come to know the truth that changed his life forever. He went back to his village with great expectations, not in himself, but in the power of God’s Word. He started teaching through the first course, and people heard the powerful message of the God of Creation and how He was holy, all-powerful, never changing, eternal, all-seeing and all-knowing. …. Melki’s villagers got more and more interested and asked him to teach every day. They decided their garden work could just wait until after they had finished class each morning. Many were thrilled to hear the gospel of grace for the first time. There were dramatic changes in their lives and in their community. More and more people were attracted by the transformation of their neighbors. Now, Melki provides teaching for the unbelievers, new believers and more mature ones. God transformed a community which was known for sin and addictions. Just think how He can use each one of us to teach and disciple others. Is discipleship more important to us than food?” Please pray for Melki as he disciples and teaches.

Jonathan and Rachel Willcock minister with the network of Global Partners in Latin America. “For the last couple of weeks, we have spent more time meeting with American and Latin missionaries working in Colombia. The main purpose was to see how the missionaries were doing in general and if they are coping OK with the COVID situation in their areas. We heard from one missionary lady that about 100 people have died from COVID in the village and the surrounding area where she works. It has been hard for her to see so many people she knows go through so much pain and suffering, but at the same time it has been bringing lots of opportunities for her to share the good news of the gospel which has been an encouragement to her. So very many mixed emotions. Latin America has several new and possibly stronger variants of the disease that are passing from one country to the next. Some hospitals are being overwhelmed by the cases, as is happening in so many other areas of the world. Please pray for Latin America that they will soon have the opportunity to be vaccinated and that the vaccinations will be effective. Also, that many will turn to Jesus.”

The Palmers minister among the K people of Asia Pacific. “The next morning, [the pilot] flew me into the K, and I had three full days with the people. It was great to visit with E and W, two of the K Bible teachers who are faithfully teaching there in the village. W in particular has grown so much in his ability to teach. There were some discouragements that came up during my time there. I heard from one friend who has seen a number of his family members and friends move out to town. He is wondering how to face the future and feeling overwhelmed. His dilemma represents well the societal shift that is taking place among the K as many of them are moving to town for big chunks of time, and some have left permanently. Other friends filled me in on the latest examples of the discrimination that they have faced because of their faith. Please continue to pray with us for the K church. Pray that they would love God and read His Word. Pray that husbands and wives would love each other and live humbly together. Pray that they would continue to be a powerful testimony to the rest of their people who are still living in darkness.”

The Palmers minister among the K people of Asia Pacific. “We're thanking God that the doors are open right now and we can continue on with translating the New Testament for the K church. I had a quick trip into the K. On the way we always pass thru the town … where the helicopters are based. Because the mountain pass into the K closes so quickly, we typically spend the night in [the town] and then catch an early helicopter ride the following morning. It was so good to see our friends that live [there], both the Helivida family as well as some of our K brothers and sisters. One of the highlights of the trip was hanging out with P and talking over a number of different ministry topics. God is giving him so many opportunities to be a blessing to his people. Because of P’s gentle character, he is even respected by the men who continue to persecute the K believers. Two of the main ministries that P is involved in are leading a Bible study four times a week and building a new dorm/church for the K believers who live in town to have a safe place to meet. Pray with us that P would continue to walk with God and that God would give him a Christian wife.”

Benjamin and Missy Hatton minister among the Amdu people of Papua New Guinea. “We continue to work hard to provide the food that these baby believers need. The book of Romans is being translated by our co-worker. Pray for him as he uses up the last weeks of his time in Amdu before going on home assignment to get more of that epistle translated. Missy is translating Ephesians and enjoying the in-depth study and challenge of the translating process. Pray that she'll have wisdom and that the Amdu ladies she works with will be able to help her make good progress when we get back to the village. One of our goals for this year is to see significant growth in the reading abilities of each hungry believer. We aren't limiting our focus to just the believers. Anyone with interest can participate in [the] literacy program. Our desire, though, is for the believers to become better readers so that they can begin feeding themselves confidently from God's word. They already prize the portions of Scripture we have provided for them in their heart language. Pray that we can, with their help, produce more material for them to practice with to get them up to the level where they can take the Scripture and read it on their own proficiently. Here is a short video showing how this lady is progressing. The testimonies … have been encouraging. [They] show us how much the Holy Spirit is working to establish these baby believers in their faith in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. Continue to pray for them. Here is a short video testimony from one couple who has eagerly drunk in every word we have been teaching.”

Rachel Searcy ministers among the P people of Asia Pacific. “The team drafted Colossians and Philemon the first of March. Then we did another comprehension check of Ephesians. That was one of the more difficult checks that I have ever done, so it was back to the drawing board to redraft quite a bit of it. This means more comprehension checks to see if the revisions ‘work.’ Pray for those willing to help with additional comprehension checks. I have also started the preliminary draft of Romans to begin working on that. … Pray that our drafting team … will follow through on their plan. We are also continuing to work on Proverbs as we are able. There is a national language proverb that says, ‘Little by little becomes a hill.’ I like to remember that on days when it doesn't seem like we make much progress. And I am so thankful that the Lord understands the big picture.”

Anthony and Jennie Chee minister among the Yao people of Mozambique. "We arrived back home in the village in January this year and were greeted with much dissatisfaction among the church members regarding the church leaders. … Over the past three months we have been working through these and other related issues with the church, while continuing teaching through 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Although we see encouraging signs of repentance, there is probably still a long way to go to full reconciliation. We would appreciate your prayers for the church, that God would help us to guide the church to a resolution of the problems and use these events to unify and to grow each one in the church. Pray for the church here and for us as we seek to build disciples who will be faithful to take the gospel message beyond [these] villages."

Jonathan and Heidi Bamford minister among the Isnag people of the Philippines. “I didn’t win any awards for being graceful, but a few weeks ago, I was doing a victory dance because I thought I had beaten down all the technological barriers and actually sent Bible lessons via the internet to a man who was going to take them up to the village. Why didn’t one of you stop me? Why didn’t you say, ‘The lessons are not in the village until they are in the village and besides, flapping your arms isn’t dancing. You look silly and are going to hurt yourself.’ The lessons were sent and received and read on a cell phone, but alas, the receiver didn’t understand that the lessons needed to be saved to the phone’s memory. When he left cell phone coverage and got to the village, he was surprised that they were gone. It was an almost, but not quite, victory. During the past few weeks, I’ve written seven additional lessons to go with the first three, and Vicky, our co-worker in the Philippines, will print them and send paper copies via Jeep to the town near the village. Beat that technology! Maybe I’ll just hold off on the dancing until I hear that they made it. I will continue to write lessons until they have enough to last a few months.” Pray for the progress of these lessons.

Ned and Linn Beall minister among the Tigak people of Papua New Guinea. “God continues to work miracles to make Ned’s time in Papua New Guinea successful. He has been able to get to every location in PNG that he needed to. There has been a big surge in COVID in PNG since Ned arrived, and the country has now been locked down. Ned’s last flight to get to the Tigak people happened the day before the lockdown began, after making a last-minute change in flight dates. He has been able to do translation consulting for two different language groups. He has also pretty much completed the book of Joshua in Tigak. He is enjoying having time with the Tigak believers. Please pray for the Tigak church as they continue to grow stronger and will be on their own until our co-workers are hopefully able to return in July.” Read more.

Koen and Anne-Laure Verdonck minister as support personnel in Papua New Guinea. André and Aurélie Tousch are missionaries in Papua New Guinea, sent by SIM France. “The Iski people group received the gospel some years ago. The young church did an outreach in 2019 … and a good group of people came to know the Lord in [another] village. These new believers and new church are standing on their own as the missionaries of [the village] where the first church of the Iski [people] was born were only able to return to the [other] village for a visit in 2020. The church had to stand alone. No, not really alone, as God is building His church. It is really encouraging to hear how the Christians there are coping. [One believer said,] ‘We are living in the middle of people that have no interest in Jesus. They laugh and ridicule us, spread all kinds of rumors about us and hurt us.’ There, young believers live in the real world and learn the reality of the words of Jesus: ‘Do not be surprised when the people of this world hate you because of me.’ And how do the Christians respond with this opposition and hardship? ‘We are trying to show the love of Christ. We try to do good to those that hate us.’ And the result? Over 60 people have asked the church if they would tell them the story of Jesus and teach them about God. The church started to teach these 60 people. They were and are the salt and the light. …. Now the [two villages] would like to reach out and be light and salt to the Kominimung. God is building His church.”

Bill and Karen Michaud minister in partnership with the Gimi churches of Papua New Guinea. “We thank the Lord for safety for Bill as well as many members of different Gimi churches that traveled to the conference. The majority of the people hiked from surrounding villages up to four hours away. [On the other hand], Bill and about 50 others traveled four hours by truck and then a one-hour walk; a group of 23 flew in from the capital city and then traveled by truck and a hike; and the last group hiked in from another province, spending six days and five nights on the trails. The overall theme of the conference was one of thanksgiving for the truth of God’s Word that was brought to them when they were lost in darkness, for the men that are leading the 21 Gimi churches, for many new believers that have been saved in the past few years as a result of all of the different outreaches and for the blessed hope that believers have of spending eternity in the presence of their Savior, Jesus Christ. The local church … had prepared well and were very generous and gracious hosts for the week. The daytime hours were filled with times of teaching from the Word in the big field outside the church building. In between the sessions there was much fellowship and singing, starting before sunrise and lasting [at least] to midnight and into the early hours of the morning on a few nights. The Lord blessed with enough cloud cover to make the outdoor meetings possible, and none of the teaching times were canceled because of rain despite being in the middle of rainy season.” Pray for ongoing benefits from this conference.

On May 23, Pentecost Sunday, use the church kit to bring awareness for those denied access to Jesus. A third of all the people in the world are still denied access to the Gospel. That means no Bible, no church, and no known believers. These people live in some of the most Gospel-resistant places. One of the greatest barriers to getting the Gospel to the ends of the earth is that the Church in the West largely doesn’t know about these people. Hundreds of people will be sharing about the third of the world still denied access to Jesus. Learn more about the International Day for the Unreached and how to get involved.

Eric and Cherie Daum minister among the people of Asia Pacific. “We were able to drive into the village by car because it has been dry season here lately. The roads were really rough, and there were a couple of times we wanted to inspect the wooden bridges before driving across them. We had borrowed a 4×4 SUV, and we were very thankful for it because of the bad road conditions. After picking up our local coworkers in a couple of spots and about ten hours of driving, we arrived at the first village. The evening that we got there, we gathered a word list from some of the people that lived in the village there in order to compare it to other local languages and to other local villages that could possibly have the same language or just a dialectal difference. This video shows me and another guy named Pak Aska listening to specific words and attempting to write them down phonetically. We made plans for how we would go upriver from there using an old handwritten map that someone else had made about the area. … We were told that 11 languages were spoken along the river, and we wanted to narrow down how many of those were actually local languages and, of the local languages, how closely related were they. … Pray as we consider three future locations of ministry.” Read more.

Matthew and Debi Zook minister in Mozambique. “We were not planning to do much last year in terms of literacy. However, we did make it possible for literates to teach their family and friends how to read but not how to write. This informal literacy has continued to grow. We are making the materials available, giving teaching instructions, visiting those teaching and listening to students read. The results so far have been good. Although it is not as thorough and on occasion will take more time, it certainly requires less of our time as a team. It seems more sustainable and is allowing people to learn in areas that we would not be able to reach now. Please pray for the teachers to teach with patience and joy and that the students will enjoy learning. A related note is that Bible reading is increasing as well.”

Jerry and Joyce McDaniels minister as International Literacy Coordinators. “This time without travel continues to be a huge blessing in that we are able to concentrate on some key projects right here at our desks. Literacy Manual: The final chapters of the manual are in sight! … Then the book will be translated into several main languages so that it can be used by teams speaking Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc. Literacy Training Videos: As the oversight team considered where the literacy videos will fit into their overall training program, we were given a later deadline to have all the presentations revised. Now we have until October to get them ready for videoing. … Future Literacy Software Project: As we think of the future, it has become evident that there is a need for another part of the literacy software. This would be software that helps teams transition from the local language to the national language spoken in the country.” Keep in touch with the McDanielses.

Rachel Chapman ministers among the Nahuatl people of Mexico. “Languages often do not have an exact one-to-one match for words we have in English or key terms from the Bible. But there are ways to communicate the same ideas. … The other day, Katie and I were visiting with Agustina, and she started telling us how she viewed the people of this village who are lost and looking for a Savior. ‘They are like wild chickens who hear a noise and run toward it hoping for food. Then they hear another noise and run over there looking for food. But what does a chicken do who has an owner?’ she asked. ‘They eat the food their owner gives them, and then they rest with calmness.’ I immediately grabbed my cell phone and wrote down that last phrase. I have started translating epistles and have been working on a phrase for the ‘peace’ that Paul uses in his greetings. So now, I’ll take Agustina’s phrase to my Nahuatl translators and see what they think about that idea!” Pray for those working on the Nahuatl translation, that God's Word would be accurate, natural and clear in their language.