Apr-Jul: I'll be in the South Pacific.
Goodbye to PNG
“Mate! Back again,” said the big Aussie. “The human yo-yo.”
Today was the third or fourth time I’ve run into Mike at the missionary guesthouse here in Moresby. His greeting sums up rather well the way I’ve felt for the last five months.
Since the first day of June, I have not been in any one place longer than 14 days at a time — usually much less. Almost every time I went back to Ukarumpa, somebody thought I was a visitor and asked if I needed any help. I’ve been in and out of Port Moresby at least seven times since June and suggested that the guesthouse managers should just charge me a monthly rate. I have hiked through mountains and swamps on my own two legs, and I’ve traveled by dugout canoes, small boats with outboard motors, a ship, cars, trucks, vans, taxis, public motor vehicles, bicycles, planes, and a helicopter. I’ve taken 32 flights in everything from a Boeing 747 to a Cessna 206.
Since April, I have seen every province in this nation save one, which I visited in 2005. I have visited at least 22 of Papua New Guinea’s language communities since March and talked with people from many more. If that sounds like a big number, consider that it is somewhere between 2 and 3 percent of the languages spoken in PNG.
In addition to Papua New Guineans, I have interacted personally with people from Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Kenya, Canada, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Latvia.
And why this marathon — why this yo-yo-like activity that sometimes left me too burned out to climb back up the string?
I was thinking again today about the Bamu people, whom I visited in July. The flow of the river on which they live changes direction four times each day, as salty tides rush in from the Gulf of Papua. Except for one, all of their villages are flooded regularly. Their world is one of mud and water, and if they can’t quite believe that God separated the sea from the dry land, nobody can blame them.
They live with malaria, fungal skin diseases, and at times, hunger. But even more oppressive is the spiritual darkness in which so many of the Bamus live. “Their base state is fear,” explain translators Phil and Chris Carr. Some of the Bamus have felt evil spirits come to them at night, pressing them until they couldn’t breathe. Many burn their hair and fingernail clippings, lest someone should find them and use them to work deadly sorcery. Fear of the spirits. Fear of each other. Fear because they do not know the freedom they could have as God’s children.
Sometimes, I’ve forgotten why I do this work. I need times like today when I remember.
In just a few hours, I will board a plane to leave this country. I’m eager to go home again, to see people, taste foods, visit places, and hear sounds that I’ve missed. I’m eager too to begin telling the stories of people like the Bamu when I pick up work in Dallas. And I have to be honest: I’m eager to leave some of the strains and discomforts I feel in a place so different from my own.
But I will miss the sound of praise songs by the fire, so beautiful that you almost ache. I will miss low flights over spectacular peaks and gushing waterfalls. I will miss many people whom I’ve come to know and love, and I will miss friendly smiles and eyebrows raised in greeting. I will miss cream crackers and pineapples, but I will not miss fried bananas.
What happens when you leave your heart in too many different places?
categories papua new guinea
Comments
Comment from Parke
Time: November 4, 2006, 8:33 am
I think, at least for me, it grows larger.
Good work, David.
Comment from Lauren
Time: November 4, 2006, 10:57 am
David,
I once read that one should be wary of saying “welcome home” to a returning missionary because his experiences tend to change the definition of home. The Bible also tells us we are to live as pilgrims. I have enjoyed reading about your pilgrimage to people and places I may never visit (though in heaven I expect to worship our Savior with many from PNG). As your journeys bring you back to the States, may the LORD protect and bless you.
Comment from Corey Adams
Time: November 4, 2006, 3:26 pm
David it is said you are leaving PNG. I hope you had a good debrief and that you are prepared for the reverse culture shock. Hopefully you will not have a bad case of it. You will have stories to tell and pictures to show. Have a safe trip bro. If you need to talk bro send me an email and I can call you up. Take care. God Bless.
Corey
Comment from johnny
Time: November 4, 2006, 10:53 pm
It’s a struggle for me sometimes to use my memories as a positive reminder of how blessed I have been in experiencing God’s creation–instead of wallowing in a state of “I wish I was back there”.
Thanks Bolt for the work you’ve done for our Father. It’s encouraging to remember at the close of any chapter in life that it is but one chapter amongst many in the rich and vibrant book God is writing.
Brendan
Comment from Radar
Time: November 6, 2006, 12:17 pm
Bolt! i pray you feel your mission for the time being complete as you return home for refreshment. you’ve had quite the adventure! i would have loved flying low over the mountains and waterfalls. that definitely enchants a heart. what’s your phone #? i’ll want to come visit you in Dallas.
-Chirp
Comment from Becca
Time: November 6, 2006, 5:31 pm
My dear Melchior…
Parke stole the best answer. Pieces of my heart are so many different places that I can’t think of a one of them without feeling a hollow ache. But the truth is that it’s only then that you realize what the heart is capable of. Of loving each new person as much as each one before them, and never running out of love! Of feeling God as much in each new place as in the one before it and being changed by it. You wonder a little more each day how you’ll ever be the same. And you won’t, my friend. You won’t be the same, because even an ordinary day leaves us a little different than we were before. To think of what eight months of extraordinary days have done!!
And each part of your heart that you have left with those people is replaced by the part of their heart that leaves with you.
E-mail me when yo uget settled. We’ll go find a park and swing and get caught up!!
Spooky :)
Comment from Becca
Time: November 6, 2006, 5:33 pm
Sorry… I guess patience is a virture when it comes to posting on blogger :)
Write a comment