Planting seeds of hope in Papua New Guinea

We were almost the last passengers from our flight into Port Moresby to get through the immigration procedures. As we emerged out into the arrival area we were greeted by a large crowd of Papua New Guinean Salvationists, singing at the top of their voices. They had been waiting for two hours in the blistering tropical heat. Every other passenger, exiting before us—along with airport staff and waiting greeters—had been also welcomed and delighted by these rowdy choruses. It was a memory-making moment!

Four months earlier, we had received a phone call from the Army’s International Headquarters in London that started our journey to the ‘Land of the Unexpected’. As we listened to the Chief of the Staff on the phone, relaying our new appointments, our immediate thoughts were, ‘Why us? What have we got to contribute to a place we know very little about?’

We knew life and ministry in Papua New Guinea would be different to our 34 years of New Zealand-based leadership, but we smile now at the thought of how naïve we were about living and working in a place where our Kiwi understandings have to be suspended and put away in the cupboard where other comical things go!

Like New Zealand, Papua New Guinea is mountainous. Its highest mountain is actually higher than Mt Cook, at 4509 metres, and Papua New Guinea has a 72 per cent larger land area. It is a beautiful forested land fringed by coral reefs and aqua blue oceans. The climate is tropically hot in the coastal areas, but cooler in the inland highland areas. Very few of the provinces in this nation are connected by road, so distance travel within PNG is mostly done by air.

PNG has a population of over seven million people, most of whom speak more than one language. It is not uncommon for someone to speak not only their local dialect but Motuan, Tok Pisn, and English as well. Most Papua New Guineans live in rural villages and are farmers of crops, chickens and pigs.

Recently, we had our understanding of Papua New Guinea life enriched by a conversation in the Territorial Headquarters boardroom with members of our Cabinet. The national members of our Cabinet do not know the date of their actual birthdays. When we asked why, one of them explained that their village-based parents were illiterate and had never seen a calendar, much less understood the concept of months and years. This goes a long way to understanding why the concept of time and punctuality has little value here. In reality, we expats seem downright uptight and oddly fixated on time in the PNG world.

A land of opportunities

Papua New Guinea is a land of remarkable opportunities. Since its independence from Australia in 1975 it has struggled, at times —as any young nation would—to maintain its balance on its way to standing up by itself. This is especially noticeable in the inadequate provision of social services such as health care, education, and civic law and order. And that’s where The Salvation Army has made and is making its greatest contribution toward caring for people and reforming society.

We were visiting Kwikila, a small town about two hours from Port Moresby, for a gathering of Salvation Army officers (ministers). While there, we met a young officer couple in their first appointment as commissioned Salvation Army officers. The couple told us about challenges they faced in getting to their first appointment in January with their children. They took a PMV (a small public bus, which in a rural context means a truck with bench seating on the back) from their divisional headquarters in Kwikila to a road end. From there, they hiked five hours to their village on a bush track.

Everything they wanted to take to the village, they carried. Thankfully, some Salvationists walked out to the road end to greet them and help them carry things back to their first home as officers. The couple’s children also walked, but when they got too tired to walk the entire distance, they were carried as well.

I immediately imagined how unpleasant this would be in the humid heat and intense interest of the insect populace, so I (Andy) stupidly asked, ‘Surely you don’t do that walk in your Salvation Army uniform, do you?’ ‘Oh no, Colonel,’ the woman lieutenant answered, ‘it is too difficult to climb the steep banks in a skirt. But do you want us to wear our uniforms?’ she asked. ‘No,’ I quickly replied, feeling more than a little thoughtless, ‘I was just correcting the picture in my head from the one of how New Zealand officers leave Booth College of Mission for their first appointments, to the PNG reality.’

New and wonderful experiences

There is so much for us to adjust to here. Salvation Army meeting halls in the rural areas are basically oversized carports, but without the concrete pad. Wooden posts hold up a tin roof and are resourcefully decorated with an amazing variety of colourful adornments.

Some halls have plastic seats, some have fixed wooden forms, and some have no seats—people sit on the ground on mats, cardboard or pieces of plastic. The mercy seat (a special place set aside for prayer) is usually given extra emphasis with coloured fabrics. I should point out that in the tropical heat of Papua New Guinea, having a hall with no walls is not only desirable but essential for survival!

Salvation Army church services are long by New Zealand standards and usually feature dancing by the whole congregation. Dancing is a riotous but beautiful demonstration of God worship that would probably startle many New Zealand Salvationists.

Usually, a small petrol-driven generator is fired up, as far from the hall as the longest available extension cord will reach, and amplifiers are then cranked up to full volume. Sometimes a domestic fan is also carefully positioned to offer some additional airflow to the hard working amps. Amazingly, if the generator stops and there’s no power, the music just carries on with the drummer and the singers.

Most Papua New Guineans are musical in some way. Songs and choruses are sung from memory, and we have yet to see one piece of sheet music. Likewise, we have yet to come across a Papua New Guinean who cannot dance. Everyone seems to have rhythm—even the children (Pikininis) who take excessive delight and glee in our Kiwi attempts to join them in dancing!

Child sponsorship

We have now seen the great good that the Child Sponsorship programme does in the lives of children. Many children are given the opportunity to receive an education through this programme, which supports individual children by paying their school costs.

We are beginning to understand what an impact this has, as we now have young adults who have university qualifications and good jobs as a result of being able to get basic education when they were younger. Many of these young adults are leaders in our Salvation Army churches and fellowships.

Education is in great demand in this country where the majority of the population is young and there are not enough schools. Some of our officers are sent, of necessity, to appointments in remote areas where there is no school for their children. In a nation where huge opportunities exist for educated young people, this is heart breaking for our officer parents. Sometimes they are able to leave their children with wantoks (extended family members) in a place where there is a school, but this produces another set of challenges with affordability and security for their children.

The Salvation Army has recently been able to support a young man in his late 20s who wants to get a qualification in the construction industry and who did not complete school till he was 23, simply because there was no school in the area where he lived in when he was a young child.

The challenges of poverty

Papua New Guinea is a land of promise. The country is resource rich, but struggles to build systems and infrastructure for growth. There is a stark contrast between the wealthy that live in a secure apartment complex with a swimming pool, health spa, shops, cafés and a tennis court, and the settlement just down the road where people live under pieces of corrugated iron and wood, on dirt floors, with no running water and no power. We find ourselves mixing with both groups of people, trying to relate and be a Christian influence in both worlds.

Healthy living is a challenge here, as it is in all developing countries. Malaria is common. Often we hear people say, ‘Oh, they’re home with malaria’ as though it’s like the common cold. Diseases that would be treated easily and simply in New Zealand get out of control here where there are limited health facilities, travel is on foot or by PMV, money for medication or doctor’s fees is not available, and people have limited understanding of sickness and health.

Often, even the advice of doctors is confusing. We were told about one officer: ‘He has typhoid; no, he has malaria; there’s something wrong with his liver … and he needs a heart specialist.’

The Salvation Army runs health clinics and a nurse training facility and we often hear ‘good news’ stories, such as a woman in a remote village in the Highlands who was having difficulty giving birth. Our health worker was able to secure the services of a helicopter that flew in and airlifted the woman out to a hospital where both the mother and baby were able to be saved. Although we rejoice in stories like this, they are rare—the reality is that mortality rates for women giving birth and their babies are still far too high.

After just a few months here, we are stunned by the success of Salvation Army mission in Papua New Guinea, and realise that we stand in a long line of great leaders, officers and local officers who have served here. Some of these have been Kiwis, who are spoken about with great affection. We can see around us the astonishing difference the Christian gospel and The Salvation Army’s mission offers to individuals, families and communities in Papua New Guinea. We meet many people who tell us their stories of transformation and renewal.

Thank you for your support of this year’s Self Denial Appeal, which will be a significant boost to the Army’s work here in this beautiful but challenged part of the world.

New Zealanders Colonels Andy and Yvonne Westrupp are territorial leaders of the Papua New Guinea Territory.

Go to www.salvationarmy.org.nz/selfdenial for more on the Self Denial Appeal