The Kayan language group is composed of a single village located on the north coast of the Madang province. The village of Kayan contains about 600 people as well as a catholic mission station, and medical clinic, and a community school. A road comes to within a couple miles of the Kayan village. This allows the people easy access to markets for their copra and cocoa. Besides the food that they purchase in town, the Kayan people rely heavily on their gardens and on the sago that grows throughout the area.

The Kayan are concerned about the declining language use among their young people and are worried about the loss of their culture and identity. For that reason they are eager to participate in the Bible translation program since they see that as one means of preserving their language and culture.

Summer Institute of Linguistics personnel assisted the Kayan people in developing an alphabet for their language in 2000. A writers' workshop was held in Kayan in April 2003. A translation team was scheduled to attend the first Jonah workshop in June 2003 but they did not come. We are hoping to get them involved in the translation work after our return to PNG.