Dear Family and Friends,

The last three weeks have just been a whirlwind for us here. I think that Carolyn has kept you posted with what has been going on, except maybe what happened on the survey trip to the Southern part of Irian. Hopefully, this letter will bring you up to speed with the latest. Most of all however, we just want to thank you for your prayers. Thank you for laboring with us as God's plan continues to go forward.

On April 1, of all days, we flew down to Senggo. (NTM has recently taken over the administration of the hospital there.) We spent the night there and started out early the next morning in a long dugout canoe with a 40 horse kerosene motor on the back. Our main purpose for the trip was to get up to Patipi, the northern most village of the Citak language, to determine the possibility of placing a team there some time in the future.

We arrived in Patipi after 10 hrs on the river and spent the night with a native evangelist and his family. The most exciting thing that happened there was that I, with a dazzling display of coordination managed to step through a rotten floorboard, leaving a gaping hole in its place.

This dazzling display of coordination was second only to yet another dazzling display of coordination about 30 min. later when I managed to drop my tooth brush through that same hole in the floor. As I shown my flashlight through the hole and looked at my toothbrush, with the toothpaste still on it, perched neatly on top of dirty water, ankle deep mud, and pig droppings I had to wrestle with the question of just how badly I wanted to brush my teeth. In the end Tim shared his toothbrush with me -- of course what else is family for?

The next day we continued our travels up the Brazza River to another Citak village. We picked up a Momuna language speaker and continued north as far as we could go. We stopped at one huge long house and talked with the people there. The women and children all sleep on one side while the men sleep on the other. They sleep on the ground and cleanliness??? what's that??? Skin diseases and other infections were rampant.

Everywhere we went people were armed to the teeth with bows and arrows. Raids are often made on other villages and vice versa in order to steal women. ( I was talking with one man who said that he had three wives but one had already been carried off in a raid).

We hiked into one village late in the afternoon and were met by five men all carrying bows and arrows claiming that they just happened to be out walking. I rather think they heard us coming and wanted to make sure that it was ok for us to enter their village. We took a word list there and have since ran it past some of SIL's (Wycliffe's) files but doesn't seem to match anything yet.

We got back to Senggo on the third night, it was pitch black and raining cats and dogs. Amazing that our driver was able to find his way back. Sure felt good to be home again.

Well if you got this far I thank you for taking the time to read all this. I left some details out but hopefully left enough in to give you a feel for our experiences.

Every time we do this I go away feeling different inside. It can't help but change the way you see this world when you taste their world. If only I could see this world the way HE does . . .

Thanks again for everything.

Stephen for Carolyn and the girls.