One Hundred Fifty Children in Sunday School!

Our second and last Sunday in PNG we visited the Mt. Hagen Bible Church.

About 500 to 600 people attend.

They kept coming in and filling up the pews and even sat down on the floor in the aisles and on the floor up in front of the platform!

Here they are singing worship choruses or hymns, with the words projected onto a screen on the front wall.

In PNG, the women sit on one side and the men on the other in both churches we attended.

I wanted to ask about the reason for this custom.

I got this quick photo from the front corner of the church. 

We "missionaries" are sitting on a bench or chairs along the wall on the far right front wall.

We got there just a bit late, and the church's "bus" driver saw Bro. Wilmer Paulus and gave him a bear hug!
Obviously they knew each other from a long time back!

The Dimmetts had been taking the orphanage children to different churches for the last two months, singing and representing the orphanage. This Sunday it had been arranged for them to sing at the Mt. Hagen Bible Church, along with having our group there as well.
Here the orphanage children are singing a song. 

Aunty Rosa shows a beautiful rose she had grown in her own garden, describing how even a beautiful rose only comes at the end of a stem full of thorns, and shared something along the line that there have been many thorns in the lives of these children and the work of the orphanage, but that God wants to make a beautiful rose out of each child and out of the work, and out of each of His children.

Now Numba, boys' dean, shares his testimony, short by sweet.

He tells how one day he was working and he heard someone calling his name.

He knew it was the Lord, because no one was around.

God was asking him to surrender to Him, and Numba did.

Numba had two wives at the time, and he gave up his second wife. [He had a piece of property which he built her a house on and he continues to provide for her and her children.]

Now Numba is living a Christian life, helping with the boys at the orphanage.

A close relative of Numba's was killed in a landslide in February, leaving six children orphans, because the mother was already dead. Numba has taken these children in as well.

Numba beams with joy, and we fell in love with him, and he with our group. He followed us very late to the airport the day we left, praying we'd still be there! Well, our plane was two hours later than we expected so we were still there! Numba sent two lovely PNG hats to us through airport personnel! Then the personnel were so kind that they let some of us back out through security to say goodbye again to Numba!

Below, the orphanage group, including some of the staff, is singing again.

Our group of "missionaries" also sang a song that Randy had put together as a medley.

Then when it was time for the message [Bro. Wilmer was to preach], the children leave for Sunday School.

Jonathan, Sam, the Holderbaums and Sis. Linda accompanied me to the Sun. School class. 

Bro. Wilmer was going to be speaking in Pidgin, so most of them probably figured they'd get more out of an English Sunday School class that was translated! 

Below, I am going over my lesson and story while probably 150 children squeeze into this large school room and sit on the floor.

How I loved these precious, shining, eager faces!

This dear young lady in red translated for me, and did a beautiful job, I thought. She is not all that old, but she is the main teacher of three who manage this huge class.
Her mother used to be a student of Linda Paulus!
She told Linda that it was in Linda's class that she decided to be a teacher!
This was incredibly rewarding to Linda to hear this!

My story was about a young black boy in Africa who walked for many days through lion-infested territory to bring the gospel to his people.
Different times when I talked about the lions, Jonathan was peering in the barred window and would roar into the classroom, and the children would roar with laughter.
I think those lion roars were the best part of the class. I wished I could have gotten a picture of him and a video of the children thinking it was so hilarious.
They probably never heard such a thing before!
Below, I'm going over the Bible verse, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God."

Now we are getting ready to sing a couple choruses.
I had no end of children volunteering to hold the visuals.

After the class, the teacher's mother presented us with a couple handmade PNG bags.

Here is where the people get drinks--at a little water spigot.

Afterward, each child gets a couple stickers.

These girls below wanted a picture with me, and then with Jonathan, and then one with Jonathan, Sam and me together! I thought we had a picture of all three of us with the girls, but I don't know what happened to it. The girls were taking pictures on their own cameras, and I loved these photos with these dear black girls.

Here we are with my translator and the two other teachers, one of them being the translator's mother, on the right.

That Sunday evening, Randy drove the truck to the Kopiago outreach spot.
This is the crowd of children  (below) running to meet us as we unload from the truck.

Sam carries the big mat that they spread for some of the children to sit on.

The rest of us just stand around, and there are lots of other onlookers, too, who stand or sit on the bank.

Randy and we watch and listen as a Bible story is told by a young man whom the Dimmetts hope will be responsible for this outreach in the future.

Sharonna asked if we would sing a song, so we took the autoharp and sang, "If He Be for Us, Who Can Be Against Us?"

Just down from where the above pictures are, is this poor little hut where Edwin sometimes stays (when he is not being beat up), the young man whom Randy would like to send to Bible College.

And here is a picture of Aunty Rosa and her husband Jiwa, with a grandson.

Rainbow Over Last Evening in PNG

Tuesday was our Mission Helps team's  last day in New Guinea.

As usual, the guys were up very early, most of them leaving for the work site probably before 6:30.

We ladies finished packing up a specially nice lunch since we would be along to help set it out and put last minute touches on it, such as ice!

Also the Pauluses were finishing packing and getting ready to fly out late morning.

Here they have their suitcases in the back of the truck, as well as some boxes of stuff Sharonna was moving to the house, as they hope to move as soon as our team leaves.

Even though he had good clothes on for flying out, Wilmer got right down on his knees to help repair some of the tiles that had cracked before the grouting was done. 

Today was the day the tile was finished and grouting got done.

We ladies cleaned up mortar bags and broken tile outside, and swept up dried mud on the inside while the men finished patching any broken tiles and started grouting. 

 

Sam learned to mix the grout mud to Jonathan and Dave's specifications, bringing a fresh pile in on a board every little while to keep it from setting up. 

Dave kept teasing Sam about learning all these skills because someday he needed to get married and get a wife to take care of him, and he needed to know how to do all these things!

Sam would just keep mixing mud and say nothing as usual.

The New Guinea men were awed at this young American boy who worked without stopping all day long till evening, saying even the men of New Guinea don't do that.

I thought, no wonder. They don't have much to eat!

We admired the doors the men had hung,

 including this door  with bars pictured above, that Dave Holderbaum had welded.

Jonathan helped Sam with learning to lay tile in the tiny bathroom.

I took a few minutes to take pictures of projects the men had done for the orphanage before putting on plastic gloves and getting on my knees to help scrub grout off tile.

Below is the swing set that Dave welded together for the children.

Rosa was overwhelmed with this special blessing for the children of the orphanage, something she had hardly dared to dream of.

Here is another of Dave's projects--a huge dish rack for the dishes which are done outdoors.

We had noticed when we first got there that there was just this makeshift table near the water tank, and flies were buzzing all around the dirty dishes and the muddy ground.

Dave welded this rack together and they constructed a sink with a drain that takes the waste water underground to the garden.

Nothing close to American standards, but what an improvement!

This front of the building had just been an open patio with woven grass walls halfway up like the one spot on the side, letting in the rain that blows in usually from this direction.

This patio is where the boys keep their shoes or sandals, and so those shoes were always getting wet in the rain.

Randy got Dave's help to put up metal siding which will keep this area protected and dry.

They were so very grateful for this simple improvement.

Jonathan posted better pictures of the inside of this boys' "dorm" on Facebook, but this is one that I took when Louise and I were allowed to go inside while the boys were at school. 

We noticed the cardboard that Randy had put up to keep out the chilly night drafts.

This looks like nothing, but it's such an improvement over what the boys used to have when no one cared for them at all!

And of course, much more could be accomplished if there was money.

So pray about the needs here.

I enjoyed this chore chart called "Duty Roster."

"Sweep dormitory. Chop firewood. 

Boil Tea Each Day.

Fry Wheat Meal.

Wash Dishes.

Rubbish Collection."

Back at the house, I quit taking pictures so I could help, so of course, there aren't many pictures of me there, but I got someone to take a couple of me dipping down to the bottom of the rainwater barrel to try to scrounge up enough to keep the guys supplied with water for scrubbing up grout.

This water ended up being disgusting, so Jonathan decided he needed a break from being on his poor sore knees, and he and I decided to hike to the creek where they get water for such work.

We wanted to see what it was like when the boys go down to the creek to carry big buckets or jugs of water.

The guys working on the fence protested about us Americans carrying buckets and jugs and going for water. They were highly embarrassed, but we insisted that we wanted to see what it was like.

Randy had claimed that the path was steep and we'd have to climb back up on our hands and knees,

but he forgot that we are not typical Americans.

Jonathan has gone camping many times with his family in the mountains, and spent years roughing it in Ukraine, and I know what it is to carry water for years at a time growing up.

So actually, for Jonathan and me, it was a fun break from the back-breaking and knee-hurting work of grouting tile.

I love walking new paths, exploring, seeing new sights.

And sure enough, here was a new sight, this creek splashing from a low waterfall and filling a pool with a lady sitting there by the creek.

She wouldn't hear of us trying to dip up the water.

She not only stooped to dip our bucket and jugs, she literally climbed clear down into the water, clothes and all, and filled the bucket and jugs for us!

 Such a dear heart!
Then she insisted on carrying them up the hill, but we wouldn't let her carry more than the bucket.

Jonathan carried two 3-gallon jugs, and I carried one, and we huffed and puffed up that hill, but we did not have to climb it on our hands and knees!

We ate lunch on the new picnic tables up under this grass roof.

After the tile had been grouted and scrubbed and set a while during lunch, the guys started moving the bed, wardrobe, and cupboards where they were supposed to be.

Meanwhile, Sharonna helps a little girl on the old piano that they are keeping inside the container that is one wall of their house.

The guys work to try to squeeze the wardrobe through the door that is barely wide enough.

Then it dawned on Sharonna that since her kitchen shelves did not have doors (thanks to what cockroaches would do if they had doors to hide behind) she would need curtains on her shelves besides on her windows.

We ladies did not think it would be good if everyone who came into her house could see what she had on her shelves, so we immediately agreed.

Randy and I got measurements, and we ladies headed home to make curtains. 

Aunty Rose and Jiwa her husband, had been out for a while and were leaving to go back to town, so we jumped into the back of their truck and raced back to town to buy more fabric, and I started sewing like a house afire.

Praise God, the sewing machine continued to work, and I was able to finish all the curtains needed for the sink cabinet, pantry, and wardrobe.

That evening when the guys got home, they hurried outside to try to silicone some cracks in the roof that seemed to be causing water damage.

Unfortunately, it began to rain, which put a stop to this task for the time being, but when I went out to get a picture of the guys on the roof, I spied this rainbow in the sky over us!

To me, the rainbow was not just a God-ordained tribute to the work that this Mission Helps team had done here, 

but something inside me was wondering if God had sent it to whisper to our hearts

that this might not be our last time in PNG!
 

Perhaps it was a special "farewell" message,

but perhaps it was an invitation to "Come Again," as well!

Marilyn Sturtevant, Dale Mahan, Lenita Bustin--Who Being Dead Yet Speak

As we were walking through the Pabarabuk Mission Station, we paused at this sacred spot:

the grave sites of Marilyn Lavy Sturtevant and Dale Mahan--missionaries who had given their lives while serving there in Papua New Guinea around 30 or 40 years ago.

While the rest of our group continued on their way, I made my way back for a few more moments by this scene of Remembrance.

And I remembered.

I remembered when I was a teenager at Evangelical Bible Mission those winters my family spent in Florida, and how we heard about Marilyn Sturtevant's fight with cancer and then her death, leaving behind a husband and two young children.

I remembered the picture in the Mission Messenger of Steve Sturtevant and his young son Jason and little daughter Stephanie standing near the grave in sorrow. 

It had been so heartbreaking then, and even now as I remembered, my heart broke.

It had been devastating to that father and to that young boy and his sister.

But today, after serving in Ukraine as missionaries, that father is engulfed in prison ministries and that son is courageously serving in Uganda, Africa.

Satan could have used this terrible loss to stop a boy's service to his mother's God,
but that boy knew that God's love is greater than his mother's death,
and that love has only fueled the passion of serving God without fear in a crooked and perverse generation.

And I stood there and cried, 

and prayed.

There was no  use just standing there feeling sorry, so I turn my emotions into prayers.  

I prayed for all those who were touched and affected by dear Marilyn's life and death, and by young Brother Dale's life and death.
Lord, let not Your servants's deaths be forgotten before You!
May these who died
not have died in vain!

Whether killed by cancer or by an accident while operating heavy machinery, these faithful missionaries' testimonies live on.

Their testimonies of being faithful unto death in missionary service lived on
that day that I stood there by their graves in New Guinea, and they spoke deeply to my heart. 

I shook with sobs and did not know where to hide them.

The group behind me had paused to wait and I was not the only one in tears that day.

We walked by this little house (above) where Susie Lorimor had lived while working there.

She, too, has gone on to her reward, and her house is now weather-beaten and worn.

But her testimony, like her flowers which Linda said she had cultivated so lovingly, lives on.

Becoming a missionary well into her 60's, having lived a very difficult life with an abusive and alcoholic husband and raising a large family, she had poured the last part of her life into the open and receptive hearts of the New Guinea people.

And then we went to the Kauapena station.

There we visited the grave of Lenita Bustin, which was behind this other grave of another highly revered PNG minister.

I will let the tombstone speak for itself.

"Lenita Bustin (Mum and Apo)

Pioneer Missionary from USA

Born on May 2nd, 1930

Arrived at Kaupena on May 27th, 1958.

Served faithfully until her untimely death on January 10th, 1997.

She will be long remembered for her service and sacrifice to us."

Some, like Lenita, never left behind any children of their own.

But as Isaiah 54:1 says, "More are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman," says the Lord.

And Lenita Bustin was not desolate in Papua New Guinea!

Isaiah goes on, "For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations and make the desolate cities to be inhabited."

Did Lenita and other missionaries like her know how well that Scripture would be fulfilled in PNG?

Now the PNG Bible Church alone has 60 or 70 stations with churches and/or schools all over the nation.
Thousands of Christians point to these and other missionaries like them as the ones who  brought the truth and light to their nation.
The government itself, while full of corrupt individuals, also has many Christians in high places.

The missionaries' seed has literally inherited the nation of Papua New Guinea in spectacular ways.

Schools with hundreds or a thousand students.

Churches with hundreds of attendees.

That school at Pabarabuk has over 1000 students; and this one pictured here at Kaupena had many hundreds and needed room for more, esp. for high school students, if I remember correctly.

This is the station where John Davolt built the airplane hangar, which I saw but did not get a photo of. 

Dozens or hundreds of students started gathering outside the buildings when we arrived.

I couldn't help thinking, especially after we visited Pabarabuk station, how wonderful it would be to see that mission station resurrected to new life--no longer government run but totally Christian run.

How wonderful if some godly conservative American missionaries would take turns going over for block classes a few weeks to a few months at a time, especially for vocational training--

shop classes of 3 to 12 weeks, where someone like Jonathan could teach the boys how to do basic carpentry, plumbing, tiling, and other woodworking--and then train those boys to train others to keep the ball rolling and into the hands of the PNG people.

Mechanics classes where someone like Jason Sturtevant could teach the boys how to take a jeep apart and get it running again--and train others  how to do it, too.

Sewing classes for the girls where someone like Linda or my girls and I could teach them sewing skills.

Nursing classes where someone like (you put the name in) could teach the girls some simple nursing skills.

Cooking classes and classes about hygeine and proper care of homes and families.

Marriage seminars.

Missions training.

The young people are there--hundreds and thousands of them.
Open eager hearts.
Only God knows what could be done if somebody got the vision,

not to go over to take over the place or run things,

but just to come alongside and help, encourage, train and fill in gaps that are there. 

The PNG people have held up well, but they seem to be craving fresh help and encouragement from us conservative holiness Americans.

I sat in Mt. Hagen PNG church the next Sunday morning, 

and I said "Yes" to God, if He wants us to come back to PNG in the future. .

And Jonathan said he felt the same way.
Our hearts were strangely, or not so strangely, tugged at while we were there.
We have children here in America, and they are our first priority right now, but who knows what the future holds?
But we aren't quite all back here in America yet.
I am up in the middle of the night, sleepless.
I felt at home in PNG, and like I was in a foreign country when I returned here to the States.
I dearly love those dear black faces with their open hearts.
I can still feel their hugs and the warmth and gratefulness they shared with us.
I will carry that with me for a long time, as a sort of shield against the hard things that we deal with on a daily basis.
Thank You, Marilyn, Dale, Lenita, Susie Lorimor, Bro. and Sis. Glenn Pelfrey and others who served in New Guinea.
Being dead, you still speak,
and the echoes live in our hearts.