WHAT'S HAPPENING IN PNG

Our time is winding down.  The high school has completed their 2022-2023 year and the elementary students only have one week remaining of the school year.  We have year-end testing and some fun planned for the kids before the week is completed. The most recent excitement was an end-of-school party where the students, teachers, and families were invited to another nearby town, Minj, where there was a pool party and lunch to celebrate the students’ successful year.  This also included two sad farewells for the 1^st grade teacher and the high school teacher.  Both will be leaving this June after being here over 2 years each.

We recently celebrated the one high school senior, David, who graduated last Thursday.  They had a wonderful graduation party attended by all of us as well as several nationals that included speeches, reminiscing the past few years and enjoying lots of treats. He will be returning back to Figi to live with other family members as he pursues his education. His parents are directors of the Malaysia Nazarene Church district and are living here at the station and fly in and out to the different church areas as they minister.

Joshua and Kendall Stewardson and their four children are one of the young families who have moved to Kudjip Nazarene Hospital as missionaries this past December 2022.  Dr. Kendall is one of the physicians who serves at the hospital.  This is a family when meeting new people is very natural to them and they make it easy for us.  The Stewardson’s invited us to attend a small national church, Bethlehem Church of the Nazarene, in Banz, PNG, which is about 6 miles north of Kudjip.  Bethlehem Church is relatively new having only been started just over a year ago. It was started by Pastor Samuel and his wife, Pastor Sylvia, after they came to Kudjip.  Pastor Samuel runs the library for the Kudjip Nazarene Nursing College here at our station and Gayle has been working with him to develop nursing resources for the college. 

When we arrived at the church, we were welcomed by a group of about 50 friendly faces waiting to greet us.  We enjoyed a good visit with several of the people.  Even though we don’t really speak Tok Pisin it is amazing how many ways you can still communicate.  The pastor, his wife and a few others know some English so that makes it much easier. The kids played rugby in the lawn while the adults talked together.  When it was time for the service to begin everyone left their shoes at the door, and entered the clean, beautifully decorated church where we all took a place on the tile floor.  Sitting on the floor certainly reinforced the realization of how old we are, but we didn’t embarrass ourselves too badly. As always, when you leave, they have gifts of fruit and vegetables to give you to show their appreciation for coming to visit their church and worshiping with them.  It is humbling to see how freely they share when they do not have much.

Pastor Samuel led with his guitar, and everyone joined in with bold, uplifting and joyful singing.  The people take part in the service with lots of clapping.  Often there are times where the leader suggests giving praise to God and it is always followed with 3 unified claps by everyone.  It is a beautiful expression of praise.   Pastor Samuel had requested that the missionaries share their testimonies.  Judah, the Stewardson’s oldest son was first to share.  Even though he is only 12 years old he is quite the evangelist with aspiration to be a pastor.  He hosts a Bible study for national boys every week. He is exciting to watch as he ministers to the nationals.   Joshua and his wife, Dr. Kendall, also shared.  They have had language studies, so they shared in Tok Pisin and did amazing.  Bob was next to give his testimony.  He had spent the past two weeks translating and practicing his testimony, along with help from our mentor, Rebecca, who is fluent in Tok Pisin.  Through his hard work and practice Bob was able to complete his testimony in Tok Pisin.  The nationals seem to appreciate the effort to communicate in their language.

We had another cultural experience recently when we got to attend a mumu.  This is a traditional feast prepared by the nationals for a special celebration.  This one was to celebrate the grand opening of the recently completed maintenance building on the station here. 

The nationals dug a long hole in the ground, heated lava rocks in a fire, placed them in the ground, covered them with banana leaves then placed the food to be cooked on the leaves.  The food consisted of three pigs and many of the local vegetables that were then covered with more banana leaves and buried to cook over night.  The next day we saw the nationals after they dug up the meal and carved and separated it into plastic bags to be handed out at the mumu. 

There was a ceremony at the maintenance building with many of the people involved in the building sharing short speeches.  The ceremony ended with the reading of the cakes (tradition to have someone special read the decorated lettering on the cakes and make the first cut).  People then took their bag of food and enjoyed the meal. However, we were encouraged to not eat the meat if we wanted to remain healthy.  So we just attended the ceremony and had a tour of the new building.

It seems like every few days we have either new arrivals coming to serve or missionaries departing for home or home assignments.  We have many individuals who give weeks to months of their time to serve here.  Often these individuals return year after year.  We have businessmen, doctors, radiographers, Olivet Nazarene medical teams with professors and students etc.  We just had another family depart this past Sunday for home assignment back to Illinois.  They have a lovely tradition of having a “prayer circle” at a designated area in the early morning on the date of departure.  All the missionaries, adults and children, come together joining hands in prayer and then send off the missionaries by throwing colorful flowers at their vehicle as they leave.

Our time in Kudjip is winding down.  We are scheduled to depart on June 6^th.  The itinerary has us arriving in Grand Rapids the afternoon of June 9^th.  Perhaps we will get to see our home church that weekend if jetlag allows us to be awake at that time of day.  

 

Serving Him,

Bob and Gayle