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September 30,
2004
Em Nau Wantok bilong mi stret hia. (Hey,
my true friend!)
Yupela stap iorait o nogat? (How are you
all doing?)
It was a real lift to my day to receive your
email Jack. I have often wondered how you
guys are and looked back with joy at the times
we have shared. Some how I lost touch
with you and have often wondered how I might
catch up with you again and here I am with an
email address at last. So how are you
guys?
Things have really changed in PNG. Some
positive developments and some really
challenging ones.
They began having major problems with the
aircraft
. So the brethren met and decided that they
would
buy a new one that would be more reliable and
concentrate on doing the local mission district
flying again with less emphasis on the
commercial flying around Goroka. The
South Pacific Division is putting in some funds
to pay for some of the operating cost of
running the airplane which is a big plus. The
local missions are just so
poor.
What is great about this is that new aircraft
will be hopefully more reliable and less costly
and time consuming to maintain.
Also the SPD helping with the operating cost is
a real benefit. It
starts to match church resources to the
expectations they have of the staff and the
equipment. That will make the job so much
more pleasant.
Yet this scenario leaves us with a tremendous
challenge.
I think the best thing I got out of the
commercial program that we had running Jack,
was the insight into a brilliant and exciting
field of missionary service. It opened new
vistas of mission endeavor to my mind. So many
missionary opportunities came to light as we
went down that road. Making regular daily
contact with people in remote areas opened our
eyes to the spiritual and physical needs of the
people. We picked up for instance that in many
of the villages 60% of the kids were dying
before reaching maturity. We went back to
Goroka and I mentioned this to a few people and
before long I had nurses coming to me and
asking if they could help as volunteers. A
meeting was held and the Laity Mobile Health
Service was born. They raised their own funds -
which I thought was a miracle. They have done
an outstanding job in providing basic health
care to remote villages.
Most of the government health services in
remote areas are non functional these days.
This provides a fabulous opportunity to
Adventists to prosecute their missionary
outreach. It has been so effective. Today is
the day of opportunity for mission in
PNG. LMHS has been one of those
ministries that God has blessed in spades right
from the start. Today we have several permanent
clinics in remote villages. LMHS volunteers man
these outposts and Adventist Aviation Service
was carrying the supplies given by government
and NGOs to immunize and treat the people. They
run flying clinics to areas where they do not
have a permanent presence and immunization
patrols with vaccines from the
WHO.
Jack, the results from their work are
staggering. The death rate amongst the kids has
dropped from 60% down to 5% in a lot of
villages. The nurses are running clean up
campaigns in villages, helping the people to
fence out the pigs and teaching mothers the
principles of hygiene. They are teaching the
proper construction of pit toilets and many
other public health issues to try and combat
disease and bring the abundant life promised by
the gospel. Their work is very openly and
frankly missionary. They carry their picture
rolls with them and always take a bit of time
out to share the gospel story with the
villagers. It means so much more when they hear
about the healing Jesus to see people bringing
healing to them. I had one old village elder
tell me "mipela harim harim harim gut nius
tasol nau mipela lukim" (We have heard the good
news over and over but NOW we SEE it!) He shook
his index finger with a lot of conviction as he
said it.
There are 2 new villages who once were hostile
to Adventists. They are Kapi and Wabo. When I
first went up there I was told never to go into
Kapi because they hate Adventists. The Kapi
people asked me to take in a coffin one day.
When I got there I asked about the mortality
rate amongst their kids. They were a 60%
village. They were enthusiastic about a team of
nurses coming. I will never forget the
experience we had the first day a team went in
there. They had tried to kill one of our
missionaries just a few months before. Now
there is a permanent clinic there and recently
I sent Pr Jessley the money to send a church
approved Layman in there to answer the people's
request for a minister to help them to become
Adventists. Is Medical missionary work still
the right arm of the message? It sure is.
There were many other things that we did to
assist missionary work on our commercial ops.
We often were able to help a District Director
to go somewhere "very economically" when he
needed to. Pr Kassi at Karimui is a terrific
pastor. He has a very bad knee Jack. He gets
terrible pain if he has to walk any distance
and you know what the terrain is like up there.
I used to pick him up and take him places when
ever I could so that the people in his
scattered area could get the nurture they
needed and importantly When they needed it. We
have ferried laymen around and ferried messages
in and out to the local mission, and to and
from the DDs around their areas and equipment
for them too. Just having a plane regularly
circulating has opened up opportunities for a
new school with Adventist teachers at Dobu
funded by the Chimbu Government. We have
carried countless tons of roofing iron in at
discounted rates to help our church members
with building schools and churches.
We have done so many medical evacuations I have
lost count. I have seen God's hand so many
times diverting us unexpectedly into places
where we have been needed. If the people could
not pay, then God gave us special blessings
time after time to compensate. Jack I know the
church has made the decision to turn away from
this model of operation to a large extent and
re prioritize reviving the local mission flying
for local missions. I think they have a valid
point.
The work we were doing is dependent on regular
circulating around the area. That's the way you
build up the current of business upon which it
rides. That's how you can maintain your
commitment to medevac flights which crop up any
old time, not in gaps in the district flying
program.
Anyhow Jack, I am convicted that there is a
very wide missionary field available away from
Goroka too for this kind of missionary work.
When Jessley was president down in Morobe
mission we talked about all the unentered
villages up in the Finnestere Ranges behind
Lae. We have a few isolated churches up in
there, but there are a lot of strips we never
go to. I have a burning desire to get nurses
into that area and start breaking down
prejudice and opening the doors for our
missionaries to go in there. There are areas
down North East too where I know from the
little medical work we tried to do there, that
this type of program would be dynamite for
building up the church. So I see
a Lay Model aviation service which would be
managed outside of the financial pressures the
church faces with all the other needs it has to
care for and would be able to grow with God's
blessing and be able to establish bases in
other areas and pursue this outstanding
missionary opportunity into as many areas as
possible, for the love of people and for the
effective presentation of the Gospel by the
church.
By the way, all the missionaries that my group
supports up there are approved by the church
and are told that they are servants of the
church and work under the direction of the
church government structure in place in PNG.
They are subject to their DD (District
Director) and the local mission, not to us. We
get reports from the local mission so we can
gauge the effectiveness of those missionaries.
We support them but they do not work under our
direction. What I want to do is provide a
logistical frame work for the church to do its
own missionary work, not provide a new
mission. I am a supportive member of the
church and believe in church government and try
my best to co operate with it. I do believe in
the personal calling to mission of individuals
within that context and am interested in
finding ways to help others achieve their
calling to mission as well.
There are a number of things we want to do. I
want to establish a "library" of equipment for
pastors and laymen like generators, Av
equipment, lighting etc so that those who
cannot afford these things do not need to hold
back if an evangelistic opportunity arises.
They can borrow from the library. We would
transport the equipment out and back, train
people to use it and maintain it. This way more
people will be able to utilize this kind of
equipment and more people will hear the
message. It would be available for AAS to use
for church work as needed as well.
I have projects in mind to help the people out
of poverty. This text in Psalms sums up what I
am on about here and how it relates to the
gospel. Ps 113: 6,7 New Living Translation
"...He stoops to look, and He lifts the poor
from the dirt and the needy from the garbage
dump." I don't share the Hillsong church's view
that the gospel is all about God blessing us
with more earthly riches than anyone else Jack,
but I do believe that Christian believers have
a legitimate field of ministry in trying to
help people out of abject poverty, where they
do not have the chance to educate their kids or
clothe them for church or buy them life saving
medicines when they are sick. I can see why the
church itself has a different focus. That is
appropriate too. One of the benefits of lay
people being involved is that we can go ahead
and do a wider variety of things to help
people.
The coffee price is about the same now as when
I went up there about 10 years ago. The cost of
flying has gone up to about triple of what it
was then. The margin for growers has shrunk to
the point that distant places are just not even
bothering to pick the stuff any more. Some are
heaping and burning it in frustration. Peanuts
are worth far more than coffee and are a more
spiritually correct crop for Adventists too. I
know we tried to develop Markham peanuts at one
stage and that failed because of their poor
quality. Karimui peanuts are pretty
good.
I hope to be able to boost tithe, income and
hope out in the bush by developing new
industries that can help the people earn a
decent living to educate their kids and give
them clothes to go to Sabbath school in.
The other thing we did a bit of with AAS and
which I would like to do more of with a Lay
model program, is to get out to remote areas
and bring people in to church programs like
camp meetings. We had a scheme going where the
plane would go out and the people would fly in
at a discounted rate so more could have the
opportunity of attending. They then go back
with renewed spiritual insights and vigor to
strengthen their own remote communities.
I have a real burden for remote areas. There
are so many of the remote areas where the
church is really struggling because of the lack
of contact and nurture that the church can
provide those communities now. AAS will be
helping this by taking local mission guys out
to visit in the bush again and that is
fabulous. I just want to share one quick
example of a community that has really suffered
under the current climate of cut backs in
ministry. I flew into Wia Wia one day and was
told by the elder that their church had dropped
to 30 members from 115. When I asked the reason
he told me that the mission had sacked their
pastor because they could not afford to pay him
any more.
Local missions have been sacking scores of
pastors over the last couple of years to
contain costs. This has a devastating effect in
remote areas where people are unable to read
and find nourishment for their spiritual life
if there is no shepherd to lead them. In Wia
Wias case, we found a sponsor down south and
the president selected a suitable Layman and we
flew him in there and supported him in his work
with regular flights. We established a clinic
there too. Within a few months we were getting
the request for roofing iron and nails to build
a new and bigger church because the one they
had was not big enough any more. You have
worked in PNG as a missionary and you would
understand the joy and excitement that we as
pilots felt at seeing this transformation in a
hurting remote church community. Bonnie, Bill's
wife contacted someone back home in the states
and a kindergarten Sabbath school there raised
the money for the roofing iron for Wia wia
church. Some one fixed a radio up and had it
sent there. We flew a layman in from Goroka to
help with the building of the church. It was a
combined effort of lots of normally pew bound
church members. They all got a blessing for
being involved and participating in the
churches missionary effort. The benefit of
mission participation to the soul is
tremendous. Last I hear there are a group of
people there waiting for baptism now. With
God's healing power, and the faithful ministry
of Aileen our national nurse there, the village
population which has steadily declined to just
over 200 over the last few years is now
rebounding and growing for the first time in
living memory. Lots of Mums were dying of
hemorrhage after child birth. Aileen is a good
bush mid wife and I think they have only had
one death over the last 12 months she has been
there. I just praise God for His blessing of
the efforts of ordinary church members who have
seen needs and put them selves in God's hands
to go out and do what the corporate church can
not afford to do by its own
means.
I just heard that we now no longer have a
nurse at Wia Wia. The reason is that there are
no longer any flights out there.
It astounds me how God has blessed the Nurses
work there in Eastern Highlands. They had
measles completely eradicated in Eastern
Highlands there at one stage. Now as the
flights have stopped they will not be able to
contain the disease problems. I am inspired by
God's leadership and blessing of this humble
group of Christian workers who get no or very
little pay for their efforts (About $55 US per
month) and do what they do for the love of
Jesus. People have really responded to this.
What they have developed is the most effective
tool of Gospel ministry I have seen in my time
up there in PNG. For the moment the Devil has
stopped it in its tracks by the grounding of
our aircraft. They still have some clinics they
are able to work by road. They took on some of
the Sopas nurses when the hospital closed.
Jack I have a burden which I feel to the point
of desperation some times that
this
model of ministry that they have developed,
must be transplanted into other areas of the
country as well. e.g. Sepik.
I want to get into the dark areas in the
Finnesterres. I want to get into the areas
around Poppondetta too and there is a vast area
of need out west of Hagen. There are all the
remote areas in the Sepik. The church's clinic
at Tumolbil on the border has influenced the
starting of new churches over in Irian and lots
of new groups our side as well.
I see huge potential for church member
involvement in mission. There is a group of
professional laymen at Goroka town church who
are always looking for opportunities to go out
and share their love for the Lord and their
ministry skills with remote communities. They
have several hand churches they are supporting
around town. The DDs (District Directors) in
the bush have expressed the desire to have
their help in the bush if we can get them out
there. The excitement for me is finding ways of
connecting the resources God has put in our
pews with those who are crying out for their
help. I would like to continue AAS practice of
developing commercial routes where our
missionaries are in need of special assistance.
Eg. Haia where there is a lot of opposition to
our mission work.
What I have in mind Jack is a privately run
air service managed at a Lay level which
would
focus on the commercial dependent missionary
work that AAS pioneered so well.
The Adventist Aviation Association and NNSW
conference here where I live had a very
harmonious relationship. They even had their
own separate aircraft at one stage. I remember
when I was president of AAA, we were invited to
the conference office when they were planning
the following years visitation so that they
could liaise with us to make best use of the
aircraft. I have seen church work enhanced by
lay support and involvement in the past and
believe that it can work in PNG.
Another thing that is very dear to my heart, is
to be able to hold out hope to young
people.
I want to see a mission opportunity that a kid
can hook into for life that will provide the
opportunity for professional and spiritual
growth over time. To achieve what needs to be
done will take a lot of guys. I want Adventist
young people who are faithful to God and want
to keep the Sabbath Holy, to have a rewarding
career path in missionary aviation to set their
sites on as the contemplate the expense of
pilot training.
Anyhow Jack I should stop rambling here. Thanks
for making contact. If you have any suggestions
about the project I have in mind or would like
to be involved, I would sure value your input.
I know you guys have been in the self
supporting side of mission and I admire that. I
see room for lots of paid people and lots of
volunteer in and out sort of people as well as
the thing develops. This is a critical time for
this program.
God bless
Regards
Trevor
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