Jay and Lisa Franicevich Training this Generation of Church Planters 
Note: The following is a portion of a prayer letter from our partners (the Stewarts) in Inaru.
Dear Friends,
Last week in Inaru we experienced a truly sad event. One of the 7-year-old boys, the son of Silas and Robin (Wabina and Baga), was very ill with malaria. From a young age, he has always gotten very sick when he got malaria. I treated him with the standard anti-malarial this time and the fever went away, but he was still very lethargic. I figured that since the fever had left that whatever it was would run its course. The family left to go live in a bush camp and catch fish and while they were there, their son died. They paddled the body upriver to the village in a canoe, wailing as they traveled. When they came to shore another man and I carried the body to the parents house (next door to ours) and the village cried while a small coffin was built and the parents smashed and tore up all their possessions as part of the mourning process. In the afternoon he was buried
in the cemetery across the river and the crying continued for a few days after that.
Almost immediately after they brought the body back to the village, people were fairly certain of the cause of the boy’s death. His uncle had considered taking a young widow as a second wife and the widow’s family
didn’t approve and therefore hired a witch to perform sorcery to kill this boy. The uncle was extremely angry and has threatened to perform sorcery on one of the children in the widow’s family in return. In the midst of all of this, less than a handful of individuals have actually kept in mind the truths of the Bible that God is in control of life and death.
Raymond, our church elder, says he feels like the village is returning to the way their ancestors used to live–ignorant of God and fearing witchcraft. Many people in Inaru have confessed faith in Christ but it seems that few of them are really willing to take God’s Word as the ultimate authority in their lives. Would you please pray with us that the Inaru believers would learn to leave behind the false things they believe and have true faith–the conviction that God’s Word is right even though they can’t see it.
