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Last year a 7.5-magnitude earthquake shook Hela Province, Papua New Guinea. Landslides destroyed villages, took the lives of many people, and left survivors buried in grief and fear.

“People were in shock,” said Jenny LeMahieu, a Resonate Global Mission missionary who serves as a Scripture-use facilitator with Wycliffe Bible Translators. “Various organizations came to hear their stories in order to give tarps or food. No one had come to talk about [the survivors’] emotional and spiritual pain.”

Not until Jenny and her team arrived.

In October of 2018, Resonate Global Mission received a copy of a letter that had originally been sent to our partner the Christian Academy in Japan (CAJ). In January 2019, we received an additional letter outlining various allegations of abuse that took place at CAJ between 1963-1987. Four people were named as perpetrators of this physical, emotional and sexual abuse, one of the four was a missionary with Resonate Global Mission (then Christian Reformed World Missions) between 1974-1982.

We reached our match goal! You helped us raise over $50,000 to help equip Christian leaders AND a generous donor matched that amount dollar for dollar! Thank you! One of the leaders you helped is Teopista, a pastor who made an amazing change in her village.

“About two weeks ago I was so happy. You know what happened?” The village chief of Agbo, Nigeria, smiled at Resonate Global Mission missionary Jonathan Barnhoorn.

“I wrote a letter in my own language to one of my assistants, and he did what I asked him to!” the chief exclaimed.

“This probably doesn’t sound like much,” noted Jonathan, “especially to those of us who write things every day—but to this village chief, this was the first time in his life that he had been able to do such a thing. Ten years ago, it would not have even been possible.”