Papua New Guinea Part 3

Week 2, Gabagaba Village

Our drive down to Gabagaba was pretty smooth and uneventful. We had a quick stop off in Port Moresby to get restocked with food and other supplies for our next week’s needs. While we were at the grocery store we met up with some friends, not all by our design. Pastor Hokupu, the overseer of YWAM in the Central Province, a Hisiu native, and our guide for the rest of the trip met us in the parking lot with his young son Eddie in tow. While we were getting acquainted, Eksee, our friend from the first day at the airport drove up with a friend named Dr. Peter. I was intrigued to hear that Dr. Peter was a professor of economics at the local university and had accompanied Eksee in order to meet and develop a relationship with YWAM in general and our group specifically. Once our team had finished their shopping they told us how they had “randomly” run into another team of YWAMers from Sunny Coast (just north of Brisbane) who’d been serving in Port Moresby for a number of weeks and were soon flying out for another outreach in the Philippines. Crazy! I was amazed at all the people that God was connecting us with in only an hour’s time at the local grocery store. We said our “goodbyes” to Eksee and Dr. Peter and tentatively made plans to reconnect with them once we were back in the city in about a week. Our groceries were distributed throughout the back of the PMV in every crack and crevice and all the passengers found whatever open space available to sit on for the hour and half trip to Gabagaba, some even sat on laps and hung precariously off the back. We stopped only once on the way as we had to pull off to let the engine cool down but it was just a few more minutes of driving that we pulled off the paved road and began bumping our way down the potholed dirt road to the coastal village of Gabagaba.

Similar to Hisiu in that it is located on the water, Gabagaba is different in practically every other way. It’s quite a bit larger in population (a couple thousand more) with many churches including a Baptist, Pentecostal, United, another United split from the other, Church of Christ, and a few others. It is divided into three informal sections; the country section located inland containing huts with greater property and garden plots, the beachfront section with smaller grounds and many more huts built closely together, lastly there is a large group of houses (maybe 50-60) located on pilings suspended above the water directly on the bay. A couple of kilometers from the coast a barrier reef keeps most of the dangerous surf from hitting the beach (bad for me…good for them). We arrived around in early afternoon at the makeshift home of the United Church located in the beachfront section of the village. The church sanctuary is a bamboo structure with half walls around the perimeter and a palm branch roof. Comfortable mats woven from palm fronds covered the pebbled dirt floor and another small decorated half wall separated the “common area” from the “clergy area” complete with a long table and chairs and a modern looking iron and wood pulpit. Also, chairs lined both the left side and right side of the building for the elders to sit in during the three weekly services. Upon arrival the team unloaded our gear and ourselves onto a large blue tarp to rest and listen to the formal introductions of the pastor and elders. Greetings were exchanged and we were soon divided into three groups to be accommodated among three family’s households located nearby.

Ryan, a couple of guys from our team, and myself were placed in a small two room hut a few yards away located wonderfully on the coconut palm filled beach overlooking the serene water covered with stilt houses. It was an unusual view, one that I’d never seen before and one that was unbelievably beautiful at times…Straight out of National Geographic. Our Hosts were extremely loving and hospitable even to a fault. As I learned it is the culture to treat your guests (especially missionaries and clergy) like kings even to the point of complete inconvenience of yourself and family. A good example is an evening meal. The best food is prepared, usually rice, fish, and scones or frybread, fruit and some veggies, a real feast. For dessert some sweet local delicacy all the while the family is closely watching to see that your well fed and meeting your every need. When the meal is underway and the guests are busy eating and talking, the family (and often family from down the street) gather together and sing beautiful island style songs with guitar, ukulele, and traditional hand drums if available. The scene is extraordinarily idyllic but at the expense of the hosts for once the guests have finished eating, the leftovers go to the family and when it’s time for the guests to retire to their rooms for a good night’s sleep, the hosts spread our their mats and mozzy nets on the deck to sleep virtually out in the open. Our society could certainly take some notes on this kind of hospitality but at the same time, we felt pretty uncomfortable putting everyone through so much trouble, especially since we were here to serve them. What’s more we began to realize that some of the host families were even beginning to compete against each other to see who could be most hospitable! We felt a little caught in the middle in this and in other ways.

The church hosting us was the United Church of Gabagaba, as mentioned previously they met in the yard of one of our host families in an open air bamboo church. This wasn’t by their design but out of necessity since they felt compelled to split from the other United Church due to a lot of confusing circumstances, of which I’m still not clear on. The result was that their offending congregation ended up with the historic church building and parsonage. Thus, they didn’t have anywhere to meet. Into this mess, our team was flung with the earnest desire to see God do amazing things. We especially hoped for the steps toward reconciliation to be made, though we couldn’t help but feeling like a pawn in the whole war of wills.

A similar schedule was set as we used in Hisiu with the differences being the extra church services that we attended and helped to lead on Wednesday and Friday mornings. We conducted our workshops once again with the villagers responding by showing great interest and eager cooperation. Ryan floated around this time taking in the different teachings while I helped to lead the workshop on evangelism as I had before. As in Hisiu, I had many in my group who were either not Christians or backslidden, so it was my privilege to lead them through prayer and counseling into a new relationship with Jesus or back to the Faith, what a joy!

Many house visits were made in all sections of the village, with a majority of our visits made in the houses suspended out on the water. As can be expected, once a person out there gets sick or physically immobile it’s very difficult for them to see anyone, especially to attend church. So, it was our blessing to venture out at low tide over the trash covered beach (praise God for immunizations!) and onto the black muddy flats to the crude wooden ladders which led up to the planked deck and our inviting family or ailing individual. Each meeting was an encouragement and very touching as the people were endlessly loving and willing to receive any prayer and/or words of blessing. Through these visits many were prayed for, recommitments to Christ were made, and one man was fully healed from debilitating back and leg pain due to years of heavy construction work.

Many of the DTS students had opportunities to teach the Bible in formal settings, on the Wednesday of this week one of our young women was told to get prepared, that evening at a large gathering she was to teach. She was full of nerves and doubt not knowing what to teach on. We prayed for her and encouraged her as she was clearly fearful to the point of tears but ultimately we had to entrust her to the able hands of the Holy Spirit to help and direct her. The gathering occurred at the local Pentecostal church located in the center of town. The large building suspended over the shoreline had a deck that connected the street to the building and it was on this covered wood planked deck that we presented out program. At least 150 people turned out for this outreach, many of whom were young kids. The target audience of teens and young adults were seemingly absent but many could be seen on the fringes and in the shadows listening in secret. The small waves lightly broke on the sand beneath our stage as we opened with prayer and some fun kids’ worship songs. As the waves were unending, I prayed that all would know that the love of God was even more consistent and powerful. The team performed a number of skits, some quite silly and others with a more serious tone. It didn’t much matter as the children laughed gleefully at all of them. There were two or three testimonies shared with their impact reaching deep into the hearts of those listening, especially those secretly in the shadows. Even when the rain began to fall making things uncomfortable for those outside of the shelter and noisy for those inside, as Jennifer stepped up to share her Bible study, all ears and eyes were open and intent on her. What her text was and what she said exactly escapes me, but she spoke with such anointing, power, and sincerity that each person listening could tell that God’s Spirit was at work. Once she completed her message, Pastor Hokupu stepped up to the mic. and began to beckon anyone who desired, to respond to the call of God. To come forward for prayer, to give their lives to God for the first time, to recommit their lives to Him, for anyone who needed prayer for healing and as he made the appeal, they began to stream forward. Over thirty people made their way forward for prayer and counseling. Some gave their lives to God for the first time, many more recommitted their lives to the Lord, and some were healed. As the time of ministry continued most danced and worshiped along with the team who led up on stage or mingled among the crowd. It was quite a precious experience as God showed up powerfully and ministered in the lives of practically everyone in attendance.

Thursday was a planned day off with the church family gathering for a picnic on a beach about two or three kilometers across the mouth of a river and south down the coast. We crunched into two fiberglass dinghies and motored our way slowly to our remote destination. Once there, some jumped directly in the water for a swim while others piled onto the shore and under the nearest tree for shade. Many of the church’s families came with us bringing all their young kids, probably forty or more, most under twelve years old and all clamoring for the biggest guys on our team to hurl them off of their shoulders into the water. It was great fun and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Many coconuts were consumed as well as mangos and lollies. Soon, the tide began to recede and the signal for departure was made. We piled into the watercraft and made our way back to the village. It is hard to describe the experience of motoring our way back with the other boat next to us full of singing children and families worshiping God on a clear sunny day with the water whisking by and our team together soaking it all in, certainly a scene that will stick in my mind for quite some time.

Friday came around quickly as we were planning on leaving for Port Moresby on Saturday morning. The day began with a church service at the United church were I was again privileged to share a Bible study this time answering the questions, “What do I do now that I’m a Christian?” And, “How and why do I do it?” I brought in a number of verses but mostly focused on the Parable of the Talents in Matt. 25 and the sending out of the twelve in Mk. 6. We had so many people excited about their new found or renewed relationship with Jesus and I knew that they now needed some biblical direction for their service. Yukari led out in prayer in Japanese, her native language and some of the local Hisiu YWAMers helped in worship and other parts of the service. It was well attended and the message well received. For the rest of the afternoon we enjoyed fellowshipping with the villagers and our teammates as we headed north up the beach to explore and take in the sights. On the way back we headed to the long manmade rock jetty that extended about a hundred meters out into the bay with an old dilapidated wooden wharf at the end. Many of the locals fish from of it and at times the kids especially enjoy leaping and back flipping from it into the calm, deep tropical bathwater. In the evening we enjoyed more of the villagers’ exceptional hospitality as they threw a huge extravagant farewell ceremony for us. Hundreds of villagers of all ages gathered as the evening wore on and performed various hula type dances with traditional and some more modern music. Gifts were given and many hugs, handshakes, and well wishes were exchanged. At the climax of the night, well after midnight, the M.C. of the evening our host pastor, announced to everyone’s delight that we’d be allowed to stay for a couple more days through Sunday with arrangements for our departure to be made on Monday. This gave us some more time to do house visits, to fellowship and to experience village culture, an amazing opportunity and blessing. We didn’t have any formal programs during those days and enjoyed being able to blend in (as well as we could) to the village and host families, once again it’s hard to describe the acceptance and hospitality that we were offered during this extended visit. When Monday arrived it was truly hard to leave, though it was evident that our time was up, any longer and the saying about the correlation between fish and guests would have been proven true. We crammed into our van (Yes, no PMV this time!) and drove our way back to the big city. My eyes feasted on the countryside as we drove along, it wasn’t at all what I’d expected. On the way down a week previous we had little to no exposure to the sights as we were in the packed PMV but now the colors and wide variety of geography and vegetation were clearly evident and I was amazed by the difference between this area and the land to the north by Hisiu. That view was thick with impenetrable jungle, tall trees, Jurassic undergrowth, and an occasional swollen brown river passing by. In the distance you could see the base of large steep mountains but due to the weather much of the peaks were enshrouded in ghostly clouds. Here in the south there were rolling grassy hills with differing shades of green interrupted occasionally with islands of palm trees and jungly underbrush. These rose in elevation as they marched away into the distance creating deep and more thickly jungle covered valleys both broad and narrow. Even further away these foothills could be seen butting up to the steep walls of a mysterious mountain range, the Stanley Range. Don’t let the docile name mislead you, it reminding me of something out of King Kong, I’m sure there are some crazy prehistoric leviathans up there!

Papua New Guinea Outreach Part 2

Week 1, Hisiu Village

Upon our late arrival into the village we were driven to our housing accommodation in the front yard of the United Church’s parsonage. Our host, Pastor Dough greeted us warmly and introduced us to his family and showed us around the property. It was a bit hard to see because of the darkness and due to our generally fuzzy and confused state of mind. Our accommodation was a large wooden hut suspended about five feet off the dirt. It had wood planking for a floor with various dangerous places where the planking ended abruptly or where the planking was so soft that it threatened to give way. We only had one accident as a result. I was not paying attention to where I was going and stepped right through a hole giving me a shock and a couple of bruises. The structure had no walls, only posts that held up the palm branch roof. Though it made for very little security for us it did enable the greatest amount of airflow which was a huge blessing in all the heat and humidity. The guys spread out on one side with Ryan and my beds next to each other and the girls on the other. We suspended our mozzy nets over the sleeping area with a spider web of string attached securely to the beams in the roof. This would serve as a very cozy and comfortable home for the entire week and though security was a concern, it was on the church’s property we had very little theft and instances of sketchy prowlers.

The second day turned out to be a day of recuperation, getting acquainted with Pastor Dough and introduced to many more people in the village including the pastor of the local Pentecostal church, the Christian Life Center (CLC). We discussed and settled on a general schedule of events for our team, I say general because PNG is known as the “Land of the Unexpected.” Sometimes it seems that time does not exist here and a well planned schedule is merely a flexible guideline of suggestions. The week we arrived turned out to be a week of celebration for this village, as it was the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The village churches had been staging events each evening which usually began around 8pm and lasted until around 10. A church band would play some music, a mix of contemporary Christian praise and worship and locally written songs in pigeon and in the local language. These events made for a perfect opportunity for our team to integrate into the program and share our music, testimonies, skits, and Bible teaching. Each night through until Friday, New Years’ Eve, we prayerfully chose members of our team to be involved in these events and the villagers received our efforts with great enthusiasm and appreciation.

Leading up to the outreach we’d been praying for God’s strategy in how to reach the people most effectively and came to the conclusion that we needed to form many of our skits and teaching around the fact that this is a widely Christianized nation and that though there are many churches already established in virtually every village, only some of the inhabitants were walking everyday in an active relationship with the Lord. In other words, there’s a lot of religion, but not a lot of relationship. Our strategy would be similar to if we were doing outreach in the U.S. or Australia except that people in PNG are more desperate and hungry to know God due to the poverty and physical suffering experienced by the majority of the citizens. Once we had our schedule and strategy, we were ready to plan our evening program and prayerfully insert our gifted team of 14 young men and women of various nationalities and ages (10-39) into the mix. We decided on a couple of testimonies, two skits, and a Bible teaching each night and though we had some skits already practiced and ready to go, we felt inspired to create a couple more keeping the spiritual condition of the village in mind. Thus was born a skit called “Sunday Christian.” It was a hilarious skit for sure, but it also powerfully communicated a serious message regarding the dangers of hypocrisy and pretension in Christianity. This skit proved to be incredibly effective not only in this village but in all the villages that we performed it. It set a tone of honesty with God, repentance, and recommitment for literally dozens of villagers who were invited at the end of each evening program to come to the front to make a decision to walk in a fresh relationship with Jesus, for some they received Him into their life for the first time while others recommitted their lives to Him in renewed faith.

A couple of highlights in these programs were the testimonies of a young Japanese woman named Yukari and my Son, Ryan. As most of us are aware, during World War II the Japanese sought to control the entire Pacific Ocean and nearly accomplished their goal. In PNG, the Japanese invaded from the north coast and then made their way across the mountains toward the south driving Australian and US defense forces back in their strong assault. As a result, the villagers of PNG came to the aid of the Allied men, helping them retreat and even carried their wounded over hundreds of steeply rugged slippery miles of mountain and jungle terrain to safety in what was known as the Kakoda Trail. We were slightly concerned that the people of PNG might be a little hostile to Yokari but what we found was just the opposite, they were incredibly blessed by her and loved to listen to how she came to faith in Jesus and of her heart to see many more Japanese enter into a relationship with Him. Ryan also had a large impact on the villagers. Being 12 years old, a white kid and firm Believer, he was a bit of a celebrity everywhere we went. He was able to share his testimony of how he longed to hear God’s voice and through prayer and obedience in the little things began to hear and enter into a real relationship with God. His faith was not his parents’ only, it became his own. Each village was packed with young kids and his message touched many of their hearts, also the parents and grandparents gained much admiration for him since it was their longing too, to see their kids come to know and walk with Jesus. He shared once in the evening program and once at a church service at the CLC and each time he stepped up to the microphone and went for it. As you can imagine I was bursting with pride and thanksgiving for Ryan and the on going work that God is doing in his life.

Village life in Hisiu is very mellow and island style. Most of the men are fishermen or divers, some are farmers or go into Port Moresby for employment and some are unemployed and scratch together a living doing anything they can. Drugs and alcohol are a universal problem in PNG and this village is no exception and along with that comes a higher instance of domestic violence. Many of the children attend school and have the opportunity to progress to grade 12 though the fees and other interests often discourage them from continuing much beyond grade 8 or 9. There are openings for the youth to attend university as the government provides scholarships but very few make it all the way to graduation.

As we toured the village, I was very impressed by the cleanliness of Hisiu compared to Port Moresby. The reality is every village is different and Hisiu happens to have a community and civil leadership who care about how clean their village is. It is picturesquely established on the beach just a few miles away from Australian waters. The fishermen gather prawns with nets while the divers head up the beach to a small reef and compete with the sharks for various kinds of tropical fish, most tasting delicious. The staple foods are rice, sweet potatoes, deep fried dough (fry-bread), scones, and breadfruit. Other veggies include, pumpkins, the leaves and stocks of the pumpkin plant (tastes like spinach), plantain and many kinds of locally grown fruit. Starfruit (locally called 5 corner fruit), papaya, coconut, mango, watermelon, and many more fruit were enjoyed daily. We drank mostly tea, cordial, and water and ate much in the way of seafood and meats. Prawns, various kinds of fish, chicken, canned meat (corned beef hash and spam), pork, and some kinds of beef are all readily available. The local hunters spoke about harvesting wallabies, wild pig, bandicoots, and even some heavy horned deer in specific areas of the bush but we didn’t have the privilege of sampling any of them.

During the week we were kept busy with house visits and with teaching the villagers in discipling workshops. The purpose of the house visits were to connect with ailing villagers to encourage them and pray for their healing. We split up into four groups and visited two to three families each. We all had multiple opportunities to minister to the broken, depressed, scared, and embittered villagers. Our team prayed for a man in his prime with a wife and four children who had had an accident with a truck months before which left his right leg weak and useless. Next, we prayed for a young boy, maybe 14 months old whose symptoms included general listlessness and some dark blotches on his back. His parents were very grateful for our concern and prayers and were encouraged as we headed back to home base. We didn’t see any obvious healings during this time but we did see many people encouraged to know that God had not forsaken them and that He’s still deeply interested in their lives and struggles. One team was very excited to report that an older mother who’d been prayed for regarding physical problems had actually experienced healing in her relationship with her daughters who’d been generally estranged previously. So, we saw some great miracles though not necessarily the kinds that get all the headlines (there were some of those in the next couple of weeks though!).

The workshops that we operated on Wednesday and Thursday mornings were a hoot and very successful. Once our schedule was set we decided to create and use these workshops as a way of equipping and reaching out to the whole Christian community in Hisiu. Though they were held at the local United Church, people from all over the village took part. We split the team into four workshops, Evangelism (how to share your faith), Prayer, Bible Study, Drama/Skits. Each were popular and the students either led or helped to lead the topics. Ryan and I were involved with the Evangelism group and really enjoyed watching the village students receive the teaching, grasp the concepts, and get excited to apply it into their daily lives. Interestingly, within our groups, I realized that some were not even Believers or, some confessed that they were in need of recommitting their lives to God because they were not living daily in a relationship with Jesus. In fact, at the end of the second day of workshops, we had a time of worship when all the groups had come back together and a brief message resulted in three young men and a male teen came forward in tears of repentance. It was a truly touching and powerful time where God’s presence was wonderfully apparent.

Friday, New Years Eve, came upon us quickly with all of the busy-ness of the ministry. Typically, as in the rest of the world, this would be a time of great celebration and unfortunately general drunkenness and potential danger but in our little village the unified churches had arranged with the authorities to hold a safe and joyfully festive time with bands, dignitary speeches, traditional songs and dances beginning at dusk Friday and continuing on until 11am Saturday. What a blast! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and were recognized as VIPs. We sang the songs as best we could and danced together with the villagers, many of whom were in traditional costumes. As the evening wore on we began to wear different parts of the costumes as they were handed off to us from our elated friends. There were some in the crowd who were drunk, but most were not, which kept things under control and without incident. After the clock struck 12 am we decided to head back to our accommodations and slept soundly only waking from time to time to the beautiful sounds of the villagers continuing to sing their traditional “prophecy” songs until the next morning. Unbeknownst to me that night, we had a couple of local guys who volunteered to watch all night on our front steps to protect from prowling drunks who would have liked to cause trouble, praise the Lord!

Saturday was a day of rest and fun as most of the village took the day off to celebrate the New Year. We did as well and enjoyed volleyball, catching up on our journals, and doing some house revisits.

Sunday was church day, as you may expect, so we visited many of the churches in the area. First, we attended a small English speaking congregation which met at the United Church just before the main service. This was well attended with probably 70-80 individuals. I was privileged to have the opportunity to share the morning message in which I focused on some basic discipleship principles from the Epistle to the Philippians. It was well received and I was reminded once again of what a joy it is to teach God’s word in a small church setting. It’s been months since God has opened the door to teach and I realized clearly that this is what God has made me to do. I look forward to see how He’s going to lead our family into serving Him more in this capacity as time goes on here in Australia. After this service, our team was split into three groups in order to attend the three main church services in the area, the Catholic, the United, and the CLC. Our group attended the CLC, an semi-outdoor church about half a kilometer from our house. It had well over a hundred in attendance with many young children and a lively worship team. Worship is a wonderful experience in PNG as many know the local songs and sing with great gusto, joyfully dancing out the actions that match the songs. This is true regardless of the church denomination; these people are full of rhythm and music. I was prepared to share a second time that day but upon our arrival I was told that they already had a full program with a traveling preacher and a music group attending from Port Moresby. Nonetheless, they asked for a couple of testimonies and a short word from me. So, at the appropriate time, Yukari came forward to share and Ryan followed. I was really impressed by Ryan as he was pretty embarrassed and not feeling very confident but bucked up and shared anyway. At first his body language revealed his mindset but once he started to speak everything changed and God took over. The audience was truly blessed by both testimonies and a little later in the service I had about three minutes to share from Philippians 4: 6-7, one of my favorite passages in the Word. I was especially excited since these verses lined up perfectly with the preacher’s message just previously shared (that is, I think it did…I couldn’t understand everything he said but it seemed to be about prayer and its place in 2011). We completed Sunday with a wonderful meal and many tearful “goodbyes” as we were to be leaving Monday morning just after breakfast. Our friends were extremely generous throughout the week as daily people would drop by with fresh fruit, fish, and veggies to bless us and when our final few hours had come, they came with many gifts ranging from colorful bilums (decoratively knit handbags), bracelets and other homemade jewelry, flowery lais, and grass skirts.

We awoke early Monday to pack, clean, and get ready for our day of travel. We left a little later than I thought we would but it gave us more time to say our “goodbyes”. Once we piled into our previously arranged PMV ride (a local driver had agreed to cut us a great deal on our trip to the city and on down to Gaba Gaba, another great blessing!), we slowly made our way back down the dirt potholed village road to the highway. This time I was in the back of the truck with the rest of our team and a bunch of others (probably 30+ people again) as our host, pastor Dough was up front in the cab. This made for a much less interesting trip since the canvas coverings blocked the view outside and all I could look at was the other bored and uncomfortable faces of my teammates and friends. Due to the diesel fumes, bumpy windy roads, and the way in which I was situated in the back, I was struggling a bit with motion sickness. Thankfully, I didn’t hurl but Dramamine might have helped had I planned a little better. Ryan was a trooper through it all, whether it was on the trip up to the village through the rain and road washouts or on this trip back down to the next village, he endured without complaint and soldiered on, what a great kid.

Papua New Guinea DTS Outreach 2010-11

Preparation

Christmas in Townsville was quite the event. ‘Busy’ is the word that best describes this holiday season for us, Christmas day was no exception. We awoke and dove excitedly into our bulging stockings and presents. Lots of lollies (Aussie for candy), knick knacks, and fun things were enjoyed by all. Next came a light breakfast and some playtime. Then, we headed over to the YWAM base for a wonderful time of fellowship and feasting. It was great fun even the downpours of rain and loud thunder couldn’t dampen our spirits. With our tummies full we headed back home to clean up the house for an evening of fellowship with friends from church. They arrived right on time and thankfully, we were just about finished. We had a mellow evening full of stories and good food with there departure signaling time for all of us to finally retire for the night, what a relief! A full day for sure and though our hearts longed to be with family and friends back in the States during this holiday, God filled it with lots of love and celebration. For that we’re very thankful.

Sunday was recovery and family day while Monday was absolute pandemonium. We were planning on leaving early (4am) Tuesday on a tour bus up to Cairns. Then, we were to fly out to the PNG capital city of Port Moresby by noon. So everything had to be ready by Monday, it was crunch time. One interesting aspect of this whole plan was the weather. As many of you know Queensland has been hit hard by rain over the last few weeks resulting in horrible devastation for thousands of people and a few tragic deaths. When Christmas weekend arrived we watched the weather with great concern as the highway to Cairns was blocked in many locations and was looking to be impassable if things didn’t change soon. We set about praying for God to intervene. Sunday didn’t look good but by Monday things were looking considerably better. I had a gander at the satellite images for Monday and noted that surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) the drenching storm clouds had parted over the highway with a large system over the mountains to the west and another system over the ocean to the east! This allowed the blocked areas to dry up making a clear path for us on Tuesday…No worries, we were going for sure!

DAY 1

Transportation:

Ryan and I awoke groggily early Tuesday and met our large group of 50+ students and staff (IPHC included) at the base and loaded quickly on the brand new bus to make our way up to Cairns. The weather was clear and not an issue and we made good time to the airport arriving after about five and half hours. It was a really beautiful drive though I wish I could have slept a little more through it. We watched acres of sugar cane and banana fields pass by with the ocean periodically in view on the right and many rolling and steep jungle covered hills on the left. We passed through historic Ingham and costal Cardwell, definitely places to revisit another day with the family. I haven’t been on a trip like this for quite a while so I had mixed feelings about going, mostly apprehension due to leaving the family and some fear of entering an unknown culture and developing country with much poverty and corruption. God had been speaking to me quite a lot through His word regarding fear and I was encouraged, but some fear still lingered. We reached the airport on time and without any problem. After everyone unloaded and all the gear was gathered and accounted for, we waved goodbye to our driver and filed into the lobby. After some effort our paperwork was checked and tickets issued and we were ready to make our way onto the plane. By now everyone was a-buzz with anticipation and the reality that we were about to step foot on Papua New Guinea (PNG) soil. All the prayer and preparations that had been going on for months previous were about to come into effect. The flight on the aging Air Niugini plane was fairly easy and without event, a few bumps and some interesting food came our way and in about an hour and half we had touched town in hot and humid Port Moresby International Airport. Our trip through customs was smooth and a quick stop at the money changing window finally delivered us to the lobby of the airport where we were to meet our contacts. After that we were to split into four groups and then go our separate ways into the unfamiliar and unknown. Our smallest team was to join with the IPHC school and head to Daru in the Western Province, while two other teams were to be heading north to the villages around Kerema (about 6 hours away from Port Moresby). Our team was to stay around the city and visit various villages selected by our local guide Pastor Hukopu.

Once we said our goodbyes to the rest of the teams, we met a man who’d been sent to guide us to our first village, Hisiu about two hours north and west of Port Moresby. His name was Philip and he in-turn introduced us to a friend of his, a short stocky man with a very warm personality and smile, he introduced himself as, “Eksee”. I found out in our brief conversation that he was one of the chief financial officers of the police headquarters in the city. This really excited me as we had been praying for weeks previous about the trip and God’s direction for us in ministering in the country. One impression Cameron received from the Lord was of a government building of some sort. I also felt a need to minister to the police by meeting some possibly at a police station to pray for them. Next, two other spheres or areas came to mind. I saw a mental picture of us ministering to people in a hospital room with a ceiling fan spinning and white walls and curtains surrounding a patient as a group of us played music and prayed. Finally, we felt an impression that we’d be contacting and praying for those in education of some sort. This partly came from the hope that YWAM Townsville has to bring Aussie students to PNG for short term missions in the near future. The program is called, Mission Adventures and will include visits to villages like Hisiu and to various schools to reach out to PNG teenagers with Aussie teenagers. Aside from this program we felt God would connect us with the sphere of education in someway. So right off the jet we met our first answer to prayer, this man Eksee, who would turn out to be a significant contact and very helpful friend.

After the introductions, we walked our way up to the carpark to meet our transportation. We had watched the other teams load into nice Toyota Hiace vans and I thought for a moment that we too might be riding in luxury but I was wrong. Our transportation turned out to be a classic PNG method of transport called a Public Motor Vehicle (PMV). A flatbed truck with dually tires in the back and bench seats lining the sides of the bed. Enough room for three in the front cab and probably 20-25 comfortably in the bed with luggage. Our vehicle already had three in the front, the driver, his wife, and their grandson of 5 years of age, named Ronaldo after the famous soccer player. Into this warm family’s embrace I was invited since the rest of our group was required to cram their way into an already fairly packed passenger compartment along with all of our luggage. In all there must have been close to 35 people sitting wherever they could in the back of that truck with Ronaldo on my lap and his rather large grandparents up front in the cab. It may have been a bit awkward for us but it was business as usual for them. We drove out of the Airport carpark and into the city to shop for supplies for our stay in Hisiu and I realized immediately that I was very much a minority in this country. Everywhere I looked my eyes were met with curious dark skinned men, women, and children who would cry out with excitement, “White man! White man!” I began to wish that my freckles would all connect so I could have a little darker complexion. After the grocery store we drove back past the airport and north up the Hubert Murray Highway to our village. It had begun to rain as it does in the tropics during the rainy season and in no time the dusty road and busy roadside markets packed with people all became awash with mud, trash, and a thick humid mist of diesel exhaust fumes. In a couple of kilometers we were stopped by our first police checkpoint. I was told that due to the holidays, the police were out in force checking cars for inebriated drivers and those who were operating their vehicles without proper permits and documentation. As soon as they saw that we had foreigners in the PMV we were waved aside and questioned. I concluded the conversation must have been in pigeon since it was clearly not English but I still could get the just of what was being said, I’m glad that there are a couple of common languages used in this nation which contains over 800 different languages and dialects. The police asked who we were and the driver cheerfully said we were not tourists but missionaries come to serve the Lord. The discussion didn’t last too long and we were soon on our way again. I was stoked but pretty cautious still since in my past experiences in Mexico and Central America, when a policia pulls you over, it means money up-front and now. I was ready for the same treatment but was relieved to see that we were waved on and could continue unhindered. The second police check was a little different. The same conversation took place between Ronaldo’s happy smiling Grandpa and the second stern-looking police officer but this time he wasn’t having any of it, he wanted cash. Grandma entered the conversation with an attitude and I prayed hard thinking we were going downtown for sure. But after a few Kina were handed over we were on our way and again I breathed a sigh of relief and prayed a quick prayer of thanksgiving.

Some kilometers flew by as we made our way through the rain soaked jungles and sometimes windy road. It was evident that the rain could create some hazards on the road as we had to dodge water filled potholes and storm debris but when we approached a part of the road that was covered in water, I knew things were getting a little more serious. It turns out that a culvert had become clogged with logs and limbs and the water was being diverted across the road making an ever increasing pond that was threatening to become a lake. Our driver proceeded with caution and sent some of his young relatives from the back up ahead to check the depth and swiftness of the current. We went as far as we could but without a snorkel attachment on his exhaust we had to stop. “No problem” Grandpa said, as he jumped out of the cab and proceeded to fasten a plastic bag on the exhaust pipe and make some other modifications to the vehicle. “Push!” was the next command so most of the guys in the PMV jumped out and began pushing the heavy beast through the water toward safety. The current was pretty strong rushing perpendicular to the truck hitting the right side and its depth went from ankle deep to just over the knee at its worst but with all of the man power behind it, the truck soon reached the other side and we were soon on our way. This scenario repeated itself a number of times with the worst being the last time. Again, logs and limbs blocked a culvert causing excess rainwater to be forced in the wrong direction resulting in a whole village being flooded and many vehicles being stopped in a line waiting for the water to recede. We too waited for a while but Grandpa concluded that we could make it across if we did it quickly before the water rose any further. So we began to push, probably 8-10 guys. This time the water was much swifter and the depth greater, as much as up to our thighs. As we moved our way forward the torrent on either side of the road became increasingly dangerous and one of the local guys warned me to stay away from the right side of the truck as the water could force me under the truck and down river. An interesting thing happened as we pushed, something completely unexpected. As we heaved the heavy truck against an even stronger current, the truck began to speed up. In fact, the road even began to rise and go uphill slightly which should have made it much more difficult to proceed but the opposite occurred. The truck continued easily through the water and even began to take off to where we had to jog to keep up with it. Grandpa, not being a Believer, exclaimed that it was a flat out miracle. Angels pushing the PMV I reckon. We made it to Hisiu around 8 pm while the other PMVs who were just behind us having the same destination, but stopped at the road washouts didn’t arrive until after midnight. Our two hour trip ended up taking over six hours to complete making our total travel time from Townsville to Hisiu somewhere close to fifteen hours. We were all pretty exhausted by the time we arrived and after a short introduction with our hosts and some food, we collapsed into our sleeping bags and enjoyed a good night’s sleep.