Sanders Party of Five

On August 22nd, I made my sixth trip into the unreached area in which we feel that God is leading us to plant a church. My friend, James, who works for another mission here in PNG, came along with me this time. Village life moves very slowly, so a trip into the bush often involves a lot of just sitting around not doing much. James and I spent many hours discussing life and ministry, and his presence was an incredible blessing to me personally.

James along with some of the Pastors and our Was Papa from Village M

As usual, we took a bus down out of the mountains to the edge of the Ramu River, then we hiked in ten miles to Village M. Since we are still in the middle of an intense dry season, the water level was very low. This made it much easier to cross the river than it has been on past trips. We were planning on hiking another day up into the mountains to the upper end of Village M, but the people at the lower end told us that most of the people who live up in the mountains were away from their homes, and it would be better to stay where we were. We agreed to three nights of teaching in Village M, with a move to Village W for the final two nights.

Some of the kids waiting for stories in Village W

On our previous trip into the area, we had planned to teach through the life of Christ, but we never made it through the entire story set since everyone was so scattered and working on finding food. In light of this, we came prepared to teach the same material. The storying went much better this time because the villagers were prepared to meet together and hear the stories. The New Life pastors that went with me told New Testament stories, beginning with the announcement and birth of John the Baptist, then stories from the life of Christ, and finally, the ascension. I was able to teach after each story and emphasize our need for Christ and the work he accomplished on our behalf. On the last night of teaching we encouraged anyone who wished to talk more about this story to seek us out and talk more. We also showed the Jesus Film and God’s Story on our portable projection system. The villagers have seen the movies four or five times, but they still love seeing the stories in motion on the screen. Prayerfully, I hope that each time we tell the stories and each time they see the movies, the stories become a little more real to their hearts and minds.

On Tuesday the leaders of Village M requested we come to a certain spot to meet with them. They explained to us that we had been coming to visit them for over a year now and that they wanted us to have our own area to sleep and an area for them to come to hear our teaching. They picked out two spots and wanted to show them both to us so that we could choose the area that we liked best. After looking both of them over we chose the area closer to the “main” road through the village as it is more centrally located. In our teaching we have tried to emphasize that we do not want to come and build a church building; we want for their hearts to turn towards Jesus. We want for them to become new creations seeking to glorify and praise their Creator. However, for Papua New Guineans land is a core part of their lives, and their act of giving land to us shows that their desire is for us to continue coming and teaching the bible. They readily admit that they do not understand the gospel yet, but they want us to keep coming and teaching until they do understand. Pray for these men, women, and children that God would open their eyes to the truth of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Jeremy and the family that gave us land in Village M

On Wednesday we traveled from Village M to Village W. You may remember Village W from the last bush trip report. This is a nearby people group with a mainline denominational church. However, they have zero support from their denomination and have asked us to come and teach them. We were able to spend two nights with them. The first night we told the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, encouraging them to put their trust and faith in him and not their own works or their attendance at church. Just like in America many people here trust in the fact that they go to church and that they are good people without realizing their need for Jesus to be their righteousness. The second night in Village W, I shared one of my favorite stories from the life of Peter, connecting his denial of Christ to the story in John 21 where Jesus re-commissions him beside the sea of Galilee. Like Peter, we all need Jesus to not only show us our sin, but tell us that he has paid the price for that sin. After sharing about the life of Peter the last night in Village W, we showed the movies on our projection system again.

Pastor Paul teaching in Village M

Pastors Moses and Watty teaching in Village M

As the movies were playing on the last night in Village W, a man from the upper end of Village M came to see me. We sat down to “story” on a log off to the side of the meeting. He asked why we did not come to his village. They had heard of our plans to come up the mountain to their end of Village M and had prepared to receive us by killing a pig and a cassowary as a celebration of our coming to teach. Since we did not come, he wanted to know why. I explained that the leaders at the lower end of Village M had said that everyone was away from the upper end of the village and that we should stay in the lower end. He was not very happy with his fellow villagers for this and wants us to come up and provide this sort of teaching in his part of Village M as well. I assured him that it was our desire to come, but that we were hindered and perhaps on a future trip we would be able to make it into his area of Village M to teach. As an outsider to this culture, I rely heavily on the pastors that I travel with to interpret not only the tribal languages when they know them, but the underlying motives of those we are in contact with. However, in remote villages like this it is difficult even for them to know what is going on behind the scenes. Pray for wisdom and direction as we seek to teach and preach in this area. There are many conflicting motives and desires among the villagers themselves that we are not aware of as we come and go.

Men of Village M

On the last day in Village W we hiked to another village that I had not visited before. They also want us to come teach them although they have a mainline denominational church in their village much like Village W. We explained that it is hard for us to give the same teaching in three different villages, as we have a limited amount of time that we can spend in the bush. In light of this, we arranged for our next trip to be a five day camp meeting of sorts with all three villages coming together in one place. During the first week of November we plan to go back to the area. We will tell thirty stories in five days, beginning with creation and ending with the resurrection of Christ. Pray that our trip to Villages M and W will not be impeded and that the villagers will be ready to receive us. Pray that we will be able to communicate God’s word clearly. Most importantly, pray that God would grant them new hearts of flesh and that they would believe in the work and person of Jesus Christ and repent of their sin.

Mom and child in Village M

Little girl in Village M

A young cassowary in Village M

A young man in Village M

The senior goat in Village M

A child in Village M

The Ramu Valley from Village M