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Madonna being adopted into the clan by Tika with a traditional necklace.
Many of you are familiar with our teammates directly involved in the Patpatar work: Butch and Tammy Kunzer and their family (who are currently in the States) and Madonna Yates. We had met Madonna, an Australia lady, during our orientation to Papua New Guinea. She was teaching in the school for missionary children. She later returned to Australia for more training and then returned to PNG and joined our team nearly 2 years ago. We never realized when she joined the impact she would have on the work here.
In the two years Madonna has been here, she has been very involved in the community, and been a great friend and help to many of the ladies here. She has worked hard at learning the language, done much of the printing of Bible lessons for our team, has helped in the literacy development, and has been involved in many ways while we taught the Bible to the Patpatar in the nearby villages. She desires to help the team in translation of the Bible later after she finishes language study.
Late last year, Madonna headed home for a short break. After 3 ½ months, she joined our family once again to help with the ministry here. After only 2-3 weeks, Madonna realized that something was not right with her health, and made the very hard decision to go home to Australia to get everything checked with a doctor.
The recent news has been disappointing for all of us, especially Madonna, but also our team, and the Patpatar people. Madonna has breast cancer. She has surgery scheduled for the first part of March. Madonna wrote: “There will be some appointments leading up to the surgery and then chemotherapy and further testing probably for at least 6 to 9 months afterwards. At this stage I don’t know if the cancer has spread to any other parts of the body and won’t know till after the surgery and further testing is done.”
“This is not what I wanted to hear,”, said Tika, a Patpatar believer, “but I know that God is in control and all I can do is pray and leave this in His hands.” Other comments have been, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear this. She is such a good friend to all of us ladies.” These have been some of the comments that I have received as I’ve told my Patpatar lady friends of the recent big news we have received.
Madonna has amazed us as she has been looking to the Lord through this situation and has seen His hand in this as far as her medical care. He has directed her to a wonderful Christian physician that is a specialist in this area. She has told us she has seen God’s hand as well as others reach out to her and show her love and support.
Please pray for her. She has a long, hard journey ahead of her. Please pray that God will be glorified in all of this, and that the Patpatar can see Him work through this situation. You can pray for us too. Madonna is very special and close to our hearts, and our family, and it hurts us to see her going through this. We are far away and can’t take care of her, but God can and He is, and He cares, and we are so thankful for that.