They came to say “Thank you!”

by Kevin & Mary Salisbury

A team of six from the Papua New Guinea Bible Translation Association (BTA) came to New Zealand last year.  They came to say, “Thank you for sending your missionaries to bring the gospel to PNG over the last 140 years.  The work is not yet complete – will you come and help us?”

Throughout the tour the team met Maori, Pacific Islanders and Pakeha whose ancestors or parents had contributed to the evangelisation of PNG.

On the first day, the team was warmly welcomed by the Pacific staff and students at Laidlaw College, who cooked a Polynesian umu (ground oven – known in PNG as a mumu).  One Cook Islands woman, very moved by the team’s presentation, told how two sets of her great-grandparents had served in PNG.  She spoke passionately about her willingness to follow in their footsteps.

 It was important for the BTA team to engage with Maori communities.  By tour’s end they had visited two marae, a kura kaupapa (language immersion school), two Maori churches and Te Wananga o Raukawa (the first indigenous university at Otaki).  The highlight was the powhiri held at Rukumoana Marae near Morrinsville to honour the Samuel clan, a number of whom had served in PNG from the 1960s to ’80s.  The manuhiri were led onto the marae by Wycliffe member Kemp Pallesen.

Kemp had learnt Maori at this very marae when in his twenties, and he had known the missionary couples personally.  After the concluding hakari (feast) the BTA team challenged the next generation to return to PNG and continue with the unfinished task.  Tangata whenua and visitors together were deeply moved as they paid their respects at the nearby graves of the missionaries to PNG.

Wherever they went, the team was overwhelmed by the hospitality and generosity of Maori and Pacific communities as they feasted, danced and shared stories of the mission pioneers.  They met with people from Rotuma, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Niue, and the Cook Islands.  Tears were shed as people remembered those who gave their lives to take the gospel to Melanesia.

At Ellerslie Tongan Methodist Church the late Rev. Sione Kami, a Tongan missionary to PNG, was honoured in speeches at the feast after the service.  Simon Savaiko, BTA’s Literacy Coordinator, recalled, “I was converted through Sione Kami’s ministry.  You sent him to PNG and prayed for him and I am the fruit of your investment.”  Several others in the team were greatly influenced by Sione in their youth.  With tears an elder of the congregation  recounted how he had actually sent him out to PNG from Tonga. People of all ages were greatly moved by the call to return to PNG, even young children.  The same night at the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga in Mangere, the team met a Tongan minister and her elderly mother who had pastored with her husband near Mendi in the Highlands.  

Badi Vila, the only woman in the team, has served in BTA’s Scripture Use ministry including Bible Storytelling) for 10 years, and before that worked with Operation Mobilisation, including a stint on the ship Logos.  She is now setting up a translation project for her own language group in the Gulf of Papua.  To her amazement she met Tokelau and Tuvalu women in NZ who were named after villages in her local area – their parents had served as London Missionary Society pastors in the Gulf province early in the 20th century.

 Meya Ivano, a translator in the Milne Bay province at the south-eastern end of the mainland, was intrigued to find similarities between his Tawala language and those of the Polynesians he met here.  Many Pacific Islands teachers learned languages distantly related to their own around the coasts of PNG.

Badi and Meya held listeners spellbound with their dramatic renditions of Bible stories, powerfully demonstrating how storytelling is an important approach to telling God’s story to people in oral cultures.Audiences everywhere listened in awe as John Wesley Gareitz recounted how God miraculously saved his life when he was repeatedly shot at from point blank range during the civil war on Bougainville.  At Mahurangi Christian School it was John’s turn to be amazed as he met the daughter of Gordon Cornwell, the Methodist missionary who led his father to Christ in the 1950s. Then in Christchurch, John met an old acquaintance Pamela Beaumont, a one-time Methodist missionary who translated the New Testament into a language in South Bougainville.

In Tauranga John was thrilled to meet up with Ann Cochrane, the consultant who checked his own NT translation.  Ann was the first expatriate to join the fledgling Bible Translation Association in the early 1970s.  It was a wonderful reunion for the team to gather in her home.  Members of the local PNG community were also present, including the daughter of the first indigenous translator to work for the BTA.

Staying for four nights at the Tokelau church and community centre in Porirua allowed the team to develop close relationships.  At the final meeting, one Tokelau gentleman exclaimed, with tears streaming down his face, “I feared my Aunt Lehia died in vain when she was martyred in PNG.  This is the first time someone has come to thank us for what she did.”

Stephen Ttopoqogo is a third generation Bible translator from Morobe province, following in the steps of his father and grandfather.  Revival came to the churches after they received the New Testament in their own Guhu Samane language.  Now his people often organise mission journeys to other language groups.

On the last day of the tour at a missions lunch in Pukekohe, a 90 year old lady said, “I have prayed for the people of PNG for 55 years.  Today is the first time I have met them in person.  I am so grateful to God to see the fruit of my prayers.”

It was a privilege for Wycliffe members to host the BTA team on their first tour of NZ, and we believe that their invitation to Polynesian peoples to join with them in Bible related mission will bear much fruit in the year