Our Vision for Papua New Guinea

And then there was somebody else who would actually translate it into the local dialect or not really a dialect, the local language of the people in that village. And that’s important because in Papua New Guinea, there’s over 850 languages. That’s why they came up with Pidgin. So everyone would just agree to speak Pidgin. Now, some people do speak English. There’s also motu, which is like the talk place language for the people from the Port Moresby area. But by and large, just about everybody in New Guinea speaks Melanesian pidgin. So I went there to be the translator. The reason the other guy had to translate was because some of those folks didn’t even speak pidgin. We were that far into the translator. The reason the other guy had to translate was because some of those folks didn’t even speak Pidgin. We were that far into the bush. So we left Mount Hagen, which is where me and my parents lived. My parents, like I said, went there for a short-term missions trip. They were only going to be there for two years. And we flew from Mount Hagen, a place that has electricity, it’s got running water, reasonably civilized for Papua New Guinea standards. We flew from there. We flew to a place called Mount Tawa and it was in what was called the Inga province back then. And then we began a journey into the deep bush to go to the village of Tabari. And when we started this journey, we thought it wasn’t going to be that big of a deal. We were under the impression it was only going to take us a day to get there.

But for whatever reason, well, I’ll tell you the reason, it was because it was a really hard hike. It took us three days. It took us three days to get there. And it was because there was dense vegetation and jungle. There was no walking trail. There wasn’t any sign of civilization. It was hot. It was hot.

It was humid. Everything we stepped on was slippery. And it was quite the journey, quite the journey. We would go through these rivers and these streams and they were all muddy and nasty. And when we get to the other side, we’d have to roll up our pant legs and pull all these leeches off. And that’s what we did for three days to get to this village. Once we got to the village, everybody was really, really happy to see us. And you know, you see those pictures in Hawaii where they put those leis around those little, you know what they’re called. And well, a bunch of people, they put those on us, those little flower necklace things. And they were all excited to see us. And we were excited to finally be there. And they had a house for us to stay in. And it was just a really, really nice time. We would preach in the morning and then we would preach in the evening. And in between, we would have story time after church at night. We’d stay up late talking and they would, we would do all sorts of things like they would feed us stuff. And I remember they cooked these bananas for us. And I was a kid and they said, they gave me this plastic tube and they’d say, blow on the coals. Well, the first thing I did was I put up my mouth and I went, and so I inhaled the coals but anyways it was it was a whole other it was it was a different time it was a wonderful time and you know they treated us really well like I said you know they we we just ate whatever they gave us and after about a week we knew it was time to head back and so we started the journey back to Mount Tawah from there we would fly to Haagen and we weren’t feeling so great. I was, I know I wasn’t feeling so great on the way back. But the biggest problem was it just was raining like crazy. And it was harder the way back than it was the way there the first time.

And, you know, it took us a really long time to get to that first stop, much longer than it should have. And once we got there, the people said to get to that first stop, much longer than it should have. And once we got there, the people said to us in Pidgin, they said, No good you be to go. What a by-cotton you go away. Finish. Meaning, if you go any further, those rivers are going to carry you away and no one’s ever going to see you again.

And so we said, OK, well, we’ll stay here for a day and hopefully it’ll it’ll get better. And it didn’t get better. It just kept raining. But somebody happened to have a shortwave radio. Now this is the middle of nowhere. This is the middle of the jungle in a village. But someone’s got a shortwave radio and a way to power it because in Papua New Guinea, things like that just happen. So I used the radio. I contacted my dad in Hagen, explained the situation, and the missionary talked to him, and they paid to have a helicopter come and pick us up. Unfortunately, it was raining, and when there’s rain, there’s clouds, and when there’s clouds, there’s mountains hiding in those clouds, and the helicopter pilot was not going to fly into those clouds. And so they tried twice. They weren’t able to pick us up.

And we had to just, we had to walk out of there. And so we did. We made it out. And God took care of us. We got back to Tawah, flew from Tawah back to Hagen. And I got all cleaned up. I hadn’t taken a bath for over a week. I was in the jungle. I didn’t care, but I got all cleaned up. And then I noticed, I guess I hadn’t really realized it before, but I had about 25 boils all over my legs.

And these were nasty, painful things. And I’m going to spare you all the gross details about a boil, but I had a bunch of them and they were so bad and they were inflamed and swollen that I could not walk. I had to lay down or sit down on a chair and get my feet up and then had to treat those things with amoxicillin and ginseng violet. And I still remember to this day, the whole ordeal. And after a day of that, I was good to go. And you say, Brother Rick, why did you just tell me the story about a helicopter and then the boils and the leeches?

Because that’s what it took to get the gospel to those people. And you know what? People got saved because we went there. We went there. And that’s what it takes. That’s what it takes sometimes in New Guinea to get the gospel to places. Sometimes you’ve got to go through ordeals like that. It was worth every minute of it. Sometimes missionaries, like I said, they have to fly to get where they need to go in Papua New Guinea because there’s no roads.

I mean, there are roads, but Moresby is not connected to Hagen and Lea. And Hagen and Lea are cities number two and three as far as population. The whole country is just very fragmented. It’s one of the reasons why there’s over 800 languages there. It’s hard to get around. So sometimes people have to fly to get where they need to be. Some places there are roads, but the roads could just be absolutely horrible, like potholes that you could lose individuals in.

They’re just massive. And then, you know, some people have to go on big hikes or they have to take a boat to village to village because there’s no other way to get to them. But sometimes you could just go out on the street and just preach. And, you know, I saw a street preacher down, well, I don’t know if you call it downtown, but over there in Greenville, and he was preaching, and people were not gathering around him. They were all just doing their own thing.

In New Guinea, when somebody street preaches, people stop and listen. As in, you can get up there, and you can preach a full-blown three-point message, and people will stop and listen to that sermon. Doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily get saved, but they’ll listen to it. I know because I’ve done it many times. It’s neat to see just how open the gospel is. So our vision for Papua New Guinea is to evangelize the best way we can with whatever door the Lord gives us. How many people will get saved? We don’t know. That’s up to the Lord. But our job is to get it out there. Our job is to just evangelize where we can. Next thing it says in this passage, it says, and to turn them from darkness to light. To me, when I see that, I think of teaching biblical principles for life. The Bible says in Psalms 119, 130, the entrance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding unto the simple.

You know, when I lived in New Guinea, I noticed that the mindset of the Papua New Guinea people are very different than what you have here in America. You know, I understand that our culture is headed in the wrong direction, without a doubt doubt but God has been merciful to this country and because early on in its history we adopted this book and the principles of the Bible are interwoven into our culture to where simple things like being kind to your neighbor or forgiving people.

Or I used to drive this one truck and I love this truck, but it was always breaking down. And I get stuck on the side of the freeway on the way to work. And people would pull over to try and help because we’re Americans. That’s what we do. And I love that about America because that’s kindness that comes from God. The entrance of thy words giveth light and giveth understanding of the simple. Well, in Papua New Guinea, they didn’t have the Bible for who knows how long. It wasn’t until the middle of the 1800s that missionaries showed up. And even then they were on the coast. And then it wasn’t until the 1900s that they made it to the highlands. So before then, their culture and the influence in Papua New Guinea was demonism.

It was shamanism. It was ancestor worship. It was evil spirits. And that’s the mindset and the culture that they have. And the way they look at things is very different than how we look at things.

different than how we look at things. So one story that I feel kind of illustrates New Guinea culture versus American culture. So Australia came and they built this bridge for these two villages and everybody was excited and they ran out onto this bridge and when they did, it collapsed and everybody falls into the water. And you know, so they all swim to the side except for three young girls. And these girls are, they’re teenage girls, like, you know, Lily and Charlotte’s age over there. And they’re struggling. They can’t swim. They’re going to drown. So three guys jump into the river and they save them. Now, so far, this is exactly how it would go down in America. Somebody would do something.

That’s because that’s what we are as Americans. We’re going to take action. We’re going to do something. Where the story changes between Papua New Guinea and America is the guys that saved them then took the girls home to their villages and they began the Papua New Guinea custom of seeking compensation. Now they didn’t mistreat the girls or anything, but they reached out to the families and they said, we did this great thing for you, now you need to do something good for us. And it’s because that’s part of their culture. It’s compensation. They have compensation and then they have payback. You do something bad to them, they’re going to do something bad to you. You do something good to them, they’re going to do something bad to you. You do something good to them, if they do something good for you, they expect you to do something good for them.

And that’s part of how the system works there. So they reach out to the families and they tell the families, hey, you know, you need to do something good for us. Meanwhile, Australia says, so why did our bridge collapse? This is unusual. We know how to build bridges. They send a team. They take a look at the bridge. They say, well, there’s bolts missing. That’s why the bridge collapsed. And word spreads really fast in Papua New Guinea and they find out there’s an old guy in a neighboring village. He’s got a coffee can filled with these shiny bolts that he’s so proud of. And that’s why the bridge collapsed. It’s that short-sighted nature that they have in New Guinea. And back to the story of the girls, though. What’s going to happen with the girls? So these guys, they reach out and they say, okay, well, give us some land and we will give your daughters back. And, you know, it’s like any negotiation tactic. They started really, really high. And in Papua New Guinea, there’s no way they’re going to give them any land for those women because land is like the most valuable thing. So they said, no way, we’re not going to give you any land for them. They’re not worth that. And so the negotiations are sharp.

They’re going back and forth and they say to them okay well tell you what just give us some pigs give us some pigs and we’ll give your daughters back and they said no we’re not going to do that they’re not worth it they’re just not worth that and they said okay well give us some money give us cash and we can figure out a price and they’re like we’re not going to give you anything for them. And so this goes on for a while and eventually they settle and they say, okay, tell you what, you can just keep them.

You can keep them and you don’t have to pay us anything for them. You saved them, therefore you can keep them, they can become your wives. And that’s how those girls got their wives. And that’s really sad. That’s really sad because could you really sad. Because could you imagine like that’s how you start your marriage? I mean, hopefully these were good guys. We don’t know. I mean, they did save their lives. But who knows? Who knows how that whole thing turned out? But that’s just part of the culture in New Guinea. They don’t value women. They don’t value life.

the guinea they don’t they don’t value women they don’t they don’t value life it’s just just the way they view things and we understand that we’re you know a joke around like the kool-aid man who kicks down the the wall you know and he says hey we’re not gonna bust in the door and say okay everybody you need to think like us right away we know that that’s that change happens slowly over time. But what we want to do is we want to get there and we want to teach them biblical principles for living.

We’re not interested in trying to make them Americans. There’s good things about their culture. You know, the compensation thing, it’s got that bad side to it. But the compensation culture is the reason why they will listen to us when we come to preach to them and come to share the gospel to them because they look at us and they say wait a minute these folks left America which they call number two heaven they left America and they came all the way over here to bring us the gospel we should at least hear them out and so that’s the good side of it but obviously you have to pray for us because what we don’t want is false conversions which is something that you can get in foreign countries when you have this sort of warm culture so we want to teach them biblical principles for life we’re not just interested in just winning souls and then leaving them and moving on to the next place.

The next thing it says here in this passage is to turn them from darkness to light and the power of Satan unto God. You know, in New Guinea, you don’t have to, you don’t have to really convince people about the supernatural because they’re, that’s how they view the world. You know, in America, we view the world, generally speaking, through science and through math and through education and that sort of viewpoint. And I’m not saying that faith is an opposition of that. It’s not. but in new guinea they don’t even bother with that whole concept like you don’t have to convince people that evolution is wrong they’ve been dealing with evil spirits for as far back as they know they understand they understand the spirit world better than we do um but you know what we need to do is tell them that, hey, yes, spirits exist, but there’s also a spirit that is greater than all these other spirits.

And this spirit, God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. This spirit gave his son to die on a cross to pay the penalty for your sins. And that, when somebody came and told them that, that changed everything. That changed everything. And so when we go to New Guinea, part of what we want to do is teach them that they don’t need to live in constant fear of evil spirits, but they also need to not invite their ancient traditions that had to do with pleasing evil spirits into the church house and where that comes into play is when it comes to bible doctrine bible doctrine you see the spirit the spirit world it likes to and it it plays in really well with false doctrine a lot of a lot of denominations that are off on things like the apostolic gifts and they’re trying to teach you that tongues are for today and things like that. What they do is they don’t teach the Bible correctly doctrinally. And you have a lot of that in New Guinea. And then when you get that in New Guinea and you get people that are trying to speak in tongues and they’re dancing and now all of a sudden what they’re doing is they’re actually bringing in some of the stuff from the ancient religions that they’ve had, the worship that they’ve done for evil spirits. They start dragging that into church and mixing that with Christianity, which has actually been common throughout history in the Roman Catholic Church where they will mix paganism with Christianity.

And the way you counter that is not just by winning souls and teaching them how to live right, but you actually have to teach them the Bible. And so part of what we want to do in New Guinea is we want to teach sound Bible doctrine. I’ve written a couple books in Pidgin. This one’s called Big for the Fight Belong Time. It’s about the rapture and it’s about the promise of the coming king and all that. And they love that sort of end time study. So I wrote a book about that. And then I wrote this one called Brukham’s Threat. Oh, that means a conflict of the ages. And then this one is called Brukham’s Threat. All contract, all testament, all dispensation, And then this one is called Brukham’s Threat, All Contract, All Testament, All Dispensation, which means rightly dividing, covenants, testaments, and dispensations.

And it basically, you know, it just, it’s not super complicated, but it teaches people how to rightly divide the Bible. You know, in the beginning, there’s people that think that if you get baptized a second time, as in you, maybe you were a Catholic and you got baptized and you get saved, and then you get baptized the right way. Well, getting baptized a second time, as in you, you, maybe you were a Catholic and you got baptized and you get saved and then you get baptized the right way. Well, getting baptized a second time, well, you grow you a second head because somebody along the lines taught him that. Well, the way you counter that is by teaching sound Bible truth. So we want to be able to do that. Then it says here in this, right here in Acts, it says, and from the power of Satan unto God, in the middle of the verse, it says here in this, right here in Acts, it says, and from the power of Satan and to God, in the middle of the verse, it says that they may receive forgiveness of sins. You know, I see that, I think of starting churches. This whole thing is about starting churches. When I look at the New Testament, God’s doing everything through the local church. He’s sending these missionaries out and they’re starting local churches. Most of these New Testament books are written to local churches.

And that’s what we want to do. We want to be able to start churches. And in those churches, more people can get saved. Over and over again, when I meet people, they tell me about how they got saved in church because somebody invited them and they came to church. That’s the way God designs the system to work. He works through churches. So we want to start churches in New Guinea.

In those churches, we can teach them the Bible. We can teach them how to live for the Lord. We can help families to develop the spiritual the correct way.

And the opportunity is so great. It’s so great in New Guinea. When I lived there, we lived in Mount Hagen. And like I said before, third largest city in the country. And right across the street from where we lived, we lived in the Mount Hagen missionary home. Right across the street from there was the hospital for the city of Mount Hagen.

And my mom, somehow she got the idea to go over there and ask if she could help out. Now, I mean, just think about it, ladies. If you went to the hospital here in Greenville and you said, hey, how can I help? You know, they would look at you strange and they said, well, do you have an application? Have you maybe gone online and filled it out?

How much schooling do you have? Well, they’d ask my mom any of those questions. My mom didn’t have any sort of medical schooling. She did not have a degree, a college degree or anything like that. And they just said, oh yeah, well, you can help out. Just go help deliver babies. So my mom is over there and she’s helping to deliver babies. And she’s doing it every day and she’s getting pretty good at it. And one day she shows up and she goes to the hospital and this doctor comes out and he’s a little bit upset and he says, hey, how many babies have you delivered? And she says, oh, I don’t know, about 10 or 12. And he says, okay, well, I actually have not delivered any because I usually just leave that to the nurses to take care of. So there’s a situation over here. Could you please go take care of that situation? And I’m just going to leave.

So that’s what he does. He leaves and mom goes over there. And the situation is that this woman is trying to deliver a baby. The baby’s going to be born breach and everybody’s losing their mind over the whole situation. And the nurses are yelling at the woman and they’re saying, you did something to offend the spirits. This is all your fault. You’re going to die and your baby’s going to die.

I mean, this is, this is really bad bedside manner. So my mom, she gets down real low to the lady and she’s like, hey, hey, hey, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be all right. You need to understand that my little boy, Ricky, that’s me. I’m Ricky. I still am Ricky. And he lives across the street and he was born breech and he’s fine today and you’ll be fine and this baby will be fine and she was right she was right the lady was able to deliver the baby and she was fine everybody calmed down and then she said to her the lady you know she said when this is all done you can meet you can meet Ricky and so I got to meet her and she she came over to the guest house.

And she brought her baby with her. And she named the baby Ricky. And it’s just neat how God does stuff like that. And God does stuff like that in America, just maybe in different ways. God does amazing stuff all over the world. But I don’t know. There’s just something special about Nagini. Maybe it’s because God’s put it in my heart. But the door’s just wide open to the gospel.

It’s wide open to the gospel. And we’re excited to think about what can happen. We really are. The last thing it says here in this passage, it says, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me you already talked about building strong Christians and strong families and churches for the one day they’re all going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and I want them to know the fellowship to be had with Jesus Christ and fellowship with other believers but there’s something about this inheritance that I think is really special and you know I think of that judgment seat of Christ that inheritance to me that speaks of the judgment seat of Christ where you stand before the Lord and you’re rewarded for how you serve the serve the Lord has nothing to do with your salvation has to do with how you served God and the Bible talks about gold silver and precious stones And I think about a guy in Papua New Guinea who, I mean, he gets saved.

And this is a guy that just lives in a hut with dirt for the floor. And for him, what’s really exciting is when he has scraped up enough money at the end of the week, he can go down to the local store and buy himself a Coke. And there’s a lot of people that that’s how they live their lives. They go to the garden every day. They eat some of it. Some of it they save. Some they take down to the market and they try to sell. And that’s how they live their lives. And that guy, he gets saved.

He decides he wants to live for the Lord. He starts coming to church. He gets married. He raises a family. He raises them for the Lord, and I have seen it happen. And this guy, you know, the rapture happens. Wham! We’re all up in heaven. He’s flying up in the rapture. He looks over his shoulder, and he sees number two heaven, America. And he comes up. He stands before Jesus Christ at that great white throne.

Not great white throne. That’s the other one. He stands before the Lord at the judgment seat of Christ. And Jesus says to him, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. And then an angel comes around the corner with a wheelbarrow full of gold, silver, and precious stones, dumps it at his feet. That’s the inheritance he gets. And to be able to play a part in that guy getting that is just an amazing thing to me. Not just him getting saved, but him living his life for the Lord and then going up to the King of Kings.

There’s another side of this inheritance though. Bible says in Psalms 2.8, it says, ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thy inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. That inheritance right there is not our inheritance. That’s the inheritance for Jesus Christ. In Psalms 2, you have God the Father talking to Jesus, his son. And he says, ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thy inheritance.

The context here is this is the Old Testament and God is dealing with the Jews. And he says the heathen, you know, those Gentiles, us, those Gentiles who worship the sun and worship the stars and they worship the trees. And then when they’re not worshiping the trees, they cut down a tree and they carve it up into a god. And then they worship that. The ones that are sacrificing their children, they’re doing all sorts of horrible things.

Those heathen. God the Father says to the Son, ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. And you know what? Jesus Christ wants them. And he gives his life so that we could be saved. We’re his inheritance and he’s excited to get it. He wants it. And I think of that inheritance and how we get to play a part in not only people getting saved and living their lives for the Lord, but we get to play a part when it comes to mission of our savior getting that inheritance because really in the end we just want to give back to him right that’s what it’s all about and so when it comes to missions we get to play a part in him getting his inheritance um that’s that’s all that i have for you tonight and uh let’s go ahead and close in prayer and then pastor you can come