Today Marcus showed me a documentary of footage taken in 1930 when the Leahy brothers from Australia came to Papua New Guinea in search of gold. They discovered a million people living in the roughed mountain terrains of the highlands region. These people had stone axes and fire but no wheels. They were basically still living in the stone age and did not know there was a world beyond their own world.
They thought the white people were their dead ancestors coming back to them. The Leahy brothers introduced them to airplanes and wind-up Victrolas. The people thought the plane was a big bird that took people to the white man’s gods and the Victrola was full of little ghosts. This footage is thought to be the only film showing modern man meeting stone aged men.
I also accompanied Marcus to a conversational pidgin class, which of course was over my head. The class teacher, Tama, is a national who works in our finance office. He was telling us that he and his family will go to another village tomorrow to offer a bride price to a girl’s family to marry his younger brother. The potential groom’s mother has spoken to the girl a couple of times but neither her family nor she knows they are coming. They are taking 2,500 kina (about $1,000 US) and will line it in front of the front door so that when the family wakes up in the morning and goes outside to the toilet, they will see the money. The parents and the girl will go back inside to discuss her decision and, if it is yes, she will take maybe 50 kina and give to the person responsible for sending her to school, probably an uncle. Then everyone will clap and the remainder of the money will go to her parents. The parents may ask for more money but since the girl has already indicated her answer by giving money to her uncle, they really don’t have much negotiation power. They will have a wedding ceremony where they will serve pig but the groom may or may not be there depending on if he can make it up from Port Moresby. If he does not make it here, they will take the bride to meet her groom in Port Moresby. They have never met before. Tama said he would let the class know on Monday how it goes.
Tama is involved in planting new churches in his tok place (his native language). They were combined with a church of people from a different tok place but they are trying to have their own network of 14 churches. They have 5 years to become independent. They will need to be able to support a pastor and a missionary that they will send out to other areas in order to become independent. He said the leadership is ready to meet straight on any heavy (problems) should they come.
I finished emptying out my suitcases this afternoon and did my first load of laundry. It is definitely a tedious process. First you fill the wash tub using a hose and start the wash cycle, then you move the laundry to the spin tub and drain the wash tub, then back to the wash tub for rinsing, and then to the spin tub for final spinning. I haven’t figured out why you need to do the preliminary spinning between the wash and rinse cycle.
I ate pizza and played a game with four other single women tonight. The group included three teachers – Carmen, Gail, and Emily – and one missionary, Laurie, who works in a tribe. She has come out of the tribe to attend a conference later in the week at Interface. The pizzas were very good. I told them I didn’t know how to make pizza dough and asked for their recipe. They informed me that it is made in town and you can order it at the station’s store. You then add your toppings of choice and bake. I might be able to handle that.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” I John 3:16-18
Shirley Falls - Connecting You to Tribal Missions in Papua New Guinea
