Anyway, as we approached Aromat island, we could hear men signing and drums pounding. We jumped off the boat just off shore and walked through the shallows to the beach. They treated us like honored guests, immediately lined us up behind a procession of dancing warriors (apparently they had been waiting for us for some time and were ready to start as soon as we got there).
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| As we lined up behind the male warrior dancers approaching the main courtyard. |
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| The dancers moved slowly towards the courtyard and often would turn and march back towards us. I actually felt like I should run out of the way as they were pretty intimidating with the pig tusks and spears. But I held my ground and didn't move. Eventually they would turn back and make more progress towards the main courtyard where the entire villiage was waiting. |
After more dancing and singing (what they call throughout PNG a sing sing), I noticed another group of men being led by a woman. The men were carrying a make-shift airplane with some cargo inside. Here is a video I took as I watched them approach us. It's 5 minutes long, but I figured I would just upload the whole thing.
The cargo ended up being boxes of Bibles and songbooks translated into their heart language. After they delivered the bibles to the podium. The dancing warriors all knelt in the courtyard, and the pastor of the island church began to speak in their tok place. Obviously, I didn't understand any of it, but the response of the people was enough for me to know that they had anticipated this moment for years, and were overjoyed for this day to have finally arrived.
The ceremony was wonderful, and about half way through, each of us who had come to visit, were given a gift. I was given a beautifully carved bowl with a bird’s body around the outside and a cross standing up in the middle. There are many people in Aromat are master carvers.
After the ceremony, I was allowed to enter into their church, which bore more beautiful carvings. They were very proud of their work and wanted to show me the baptismal. Here is a picture of it.
Later, we had about an hour to visit with the people and tour the island. One person was telling me in Tok Pisin that back in the late 1800’s, a huge earthquake and tsunami struck the region, and the island of Aromat sank into the ocean just a few feet from the surface. So, over the last century, they have slowly piled up coral and stone to re-make the island! It’s now a man-made island. And they are still doing it. They took me to a spot where they are slowly building up a new section of the island. They increase the size of their island by about a meter a year.
I headed over to tour some more of the island, and stepped in a huge pile of pig dung (in my bare feet). Then I noticed the pig. It was huge!
I met up with the pilot who flew us to this region and had been able to join us for the dedication ceremonies. We stumbled across the plane that the people in Aromat had built for the bible procession. So we got a picture of our pilot trying to fly it and got everybody laughing. One “character” from the village kept telling us that his airplane was better than ours because it had pontoons and could float on water. After we joked around for a while, we told him that if he could fly his plane to our airport in Ukarumpa, that we would give him a job there. Everybody got the joke and laughed. It was a fun time for everyone.
Finally, it was time to head back to the main island of New Britain for our last night. We made it back just before dark and found our way to an old house that must have been converted into a mechanics workshop, because there were motor parts from lawn mowers and motorcycles all around. We set up our mosquito nets and fell asleep on the hardwood floor.
Part 4 will be the final installment in this series "A Bible Dedication". Stay tuned!
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| Proud owners of the bible and songbook in their heat language of Taum. |
In the Bible Dedication part 1, you mentioned a boy named James who had a tragic and inspiring story. Would you be able to post it?
ReplyDeleteStephen and James (pronounced Gems) are twin boys who are 10 years old now. Their mother was a very intelligent young lady. She was even attending high school. Getting admitted to high school in this country means you have passed all the exams and raised enough money to pay for it, which is no small thing. During high-school she started to lose her ability to think and reason. She then lost her ability to speak and was unable to continue her high school. Apparently she could still walk and had control of her body, but something the doctors couldn’t identify had taken her mind.
ReplyDeleteAn honorable man named Martin in her villiage, who already had a wife of his own (I only knew her as Mrs. Martin), provided a place for her to stay and he and his wife cared for the girl, adopting her as their own daughter. One day when they came home from working in the gardens, she was gone. Some time later, maybe a few days, they found her walking along the road towards their village with her hands bound and clothing torn. It was obvious that someone had found her and she had been raped.
She became pregnant and as she was coming close to the time of birth, the village had scheduled for someone to be watching her 24 hours a day because they thought she might walk out into the bush (jungle) and have her babies somewhere and leave them.
When she finally did give birth, they were twin boys. Their mother couldn’t produce milk and none of the other new mothers in the village were able or willing to provide any. So the man as his wife would try to get the babies to drink coconut milk. They quickly realized that the babies were becoming emaciated so Martin made the multi-day hike to the nearest missionary’s home. I think they said the babies were 3 months old at this point. The Bugenhagens, who had known Martin as a translator helper, contacted Ukarumpa via radio and desperately tried to arrange for baby formula, milk, medicine, and whatever else they could think of that would help to be put on a plane and scheduled to come the next day. You don’t normally get a plane to come the next day, you usually have to plan several weeks in advance.
The doctors heard the story and the condition of the babies and said it would be very unlikely the babies would survive based on what they heard. But by some miracle, the plane arrived the next day with the much needed supplies. Martin and Bob hiked back to the village and Bob said his was heart-broken to see how tiny and emaciated the babies were. They were so fragile you could hardly touch them without worrying they would break or fall apart in your hands.
The next several months were agonizing and uncertain as it didn’t seem like either of the newborns were making any progress. But finally one day, Bob went to visit and came back with a report that the twins had gained a little weight!
Slowly, Martin and his wife were able to nurse the two young babies back to health. Their mother disappeared at some point in this process, and Martin and his wife adopted Stephen and James as their own sons. This last year, when Stephen and James celebrated their 10th birthday, the whole village had a sing sing and mumu lotu (church service) in celebration of their life.
I was glad to have made friends with Stephen and James and look forward to meeting them again. If not in this life, I’ll be sure to remember to look for them in heaven so I can hear more about how the Lord used their lives for His glory.