\u201cSon wake up \u2013 get up, the sun is going down and it is time for you to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those are the heartbreaking words sung in a wail-ful cry by Unai, our neighbor who was mourning the loss of her firstborn son.\u00a0 Unai is the wife of Yanis.\u00a0 Many of you will recognize Yanis as one of our key translation helpers and teachers.\u00a0 Yanis has worked tirelessly to teach the Hewa people God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 He has taught the Hewa people to read so that they can see for themselves what God\u2019s Word says.\u00a0 He has an incredible deep understanding of God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 He married Unai about 18 months ago and a month or so ago they had their first son John.\u00a0 Yanis and Unai were so proud of John.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Right before we arrived, a really bad respiratory infection started to affect everyone in the village.\u00a0 Yanis was very busy distributing medicine as he is also the village medical aid.\u00a0 John took a course of medicine and seemed to be on the rebound.\u00a0 Yanis, Unai and John live right next doors so we saw them every day since our arrival in May.\u00a0 John was doing a little better and eating and sleeping like normal.\u00a0 However, mom was giving John his bath this morning and noticed that John was not acting normal during his bath time.\u00a0 Yanis was down in the school assisting me with literacy \u2013 someone came and asked Yanis to come quick.\u00a0 We all immediately went to the house to see what was wrong.\u00a0 John was glassy eyed and breathing very shallow.\u00a0 We tried giving him a breathing treatment as his respirations had become very shallow and labored.\u00a0 Within 15 minutes, he just stopped breathing.\u00a0 We tried all we could, we prayed for a miracle \u2013 but God chose not to revive John\u2019s little body.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has been a very long day.\u00a0 Yanis is a true brother in The Lord that has labored vigorously many hours over translation and teaching material.\u00a0 Yanis is one of the sharpest men I have had the privilege of working with.\u00a0 His wife is a beautiful believer that seemed to be the perfect fit for a leader in the church.\u00a0 Today we have listened to crying, tears, sorrow, heart pain, anguish and tremendous grief.\u00a0 The Hewa people are extremely vocal when they mourn. \u00a0And they stayed on our porch mourning for the first hour or more.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
They have moved down a few houses to a larger house that can accommodate the crowd.\u00a0 As we have mourned with our friends, we have taken time to sing songs of God\u2019s salvation and Jesus\u2019 precious blood that was spilled to pay the debt for our sin.\u00a0 We have prayed for strength and encouragement.\u00a0 We have read from passages including Romans 8:26-32, 2Sam 12:22, at Lindsey\u2019s suggestion we read Psalm 139:13-16, and we concluded with 1Thessalonians 4:13-18.\u00a0 It has been a very difficult day listening to Yanis talk through tears expressing all the plans he had for his son.\u00a0 \u201cHe was going to God\u2019s work, and teach all over these mountains and I was going to go with him and support his ministry, and now he is gone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This afternoon Eyaka, another key man in the church, and I spent a few hours building a casket on our front porch.\u00a0 Layla came out to watch and said, \u201cIt is so sad that the casket is so tiny.\u201d\u00a0 Her and Lexie had a good cry over the loss or their baby neighbor.\u00a0 We all spent several hours today in the \u201chouse-cry\u201d shedding tears, listening to wailing that is deafening at times, and just being there in solidarity with a church that is in mourning.\u00a0 Lauren and Lindsey stayed with me until dark even after mom and the little ones left.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We need your prayers, the baby will be buried early in the morning.\u00a0 Less than 24 hours after his passing.\u00a0 We will have a small graveside service.\u00a0 Pray for Yanis and Unai.\u00a0 Pray for the Hewa church.\u00a0 Pray for the Copley girls to learn that God is good, even when things don\u2019t turn out the way we prayed.\u00a0 We have HOPE because we know The Savior that lost His son, so that we could have eternal life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Resting in HIM –<\/p>\n
The Copleys – Working with The Hewa People of Papua New Guinea Pictures of Yanis, Unai and John are available on our FB Page.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cSon wake up \u2013 get up, the sun is going down and it is time for you to eat.\u201d Those are the heartbreaking words sung in a wail-ful cry by Unai, our neighbor who was mourning the loss of her firstborn son.\u00a0 Unai is the wife of Yanis.\u00a0 Many of you will recognize Yanis as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/keith-copley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}