“Wow, Birds galore!” As I touched down on Merpati Air flight 860 a commercial flight from Jayapura/Sentani to Tamika both in Papua Indonesia. This was my first real trip to Tamika though I have been to the airport before on route to my home in Sentani. If you look carefully at international news you might occasionally see an article about Tamika and the Freeport Gold/Copper mine. It’s owned by American Businessman/Cartel Jimmy Moffit. The Gold Mine is worth a whole blog in and of its self but a paragraph here will have to do. The News media has been focused on the utter selfishness of the American owner for not giving a 55% pay raise. What they didn’t say was all the things that this rather generous leader has done for the people of Indonesia. The owner offered to raise their base Salary by even more but the Indonesian government said no because if you raise the salary to that much they the cost of living will go up so much that the non Freeport mine people will not be able to afford living in Tamika the nearest major city to the mine. So the owner has built a modest house and provided a car and food and free school and on and on and on. When I was taken on a tour of the housing development which houses the 20,000 employees of the mine and it’s operation I was shocked at the wealth. Think Hilton Head, SC when you think of the development. Rare exotic Parrots screamed noisily from inside 1 of several dozen parks that are in this development and a myriad of other jungle life. For the first time I’ve been in Indonesia I felt that preservation was finally happening for some species that are nearly extinct because of international laws being broken every day. So Why was I in Tamika?
As most of you know I am Coordinating Evangelism for the Papua Mission. One of my assignments this year is to hold a major series of meetings in Tamika and help train and teach pastors and lay people how to be organized for this effort. My trip was to evaluate the local church and see what they had in the way of leadership and resources on the local level. Fun stuff as I love pastors and trying to encourage them. There are 12 Adventist churches and 2 new church plants in the greater Tamika district. We have a membership of about 1,800 in that area. We operate 2 schools in the area. 1 is about 75 students all but 6 of which are not Adventists and the other is a major K-High School campus with 1,797 students of which only 301 are Adventists. So we have huge mission projects at both schools. I will be going for a special meeting with the staff of both schools on March 4 or 5. On that Same weekend in March I will train 70+ leaders from local churches on soul winning and how to teach it to your local church. The goal is that each of the 8 pastors will work with these 70+ people to help them develop Bible Study ministry for both outreach and discipleship.
The only Adventist Church group amongst the Asmat Tribe.
Probably one of the most exciting things was a quick visit to our new work amongst the Asmat tribal people. They are people who live in tree houses and stilted houses in the swamps. They are a nomadic people because they have to move for the Sago palms that they make into a paste for consumption. It's the major staple of their diet. This tribe lives on the rivers of Southwest Papua. Because the tribe is always moving to find new sources of food I suggested that the local pastors propose to the government to provide a house/church boat/mobil clinic. The justification is the mobil clinic with the government. Keeping ones health is a major challenge in the Malaria infested swamps of the Asmat kingdom. Yesterday we passed some children on their way home from school who appeared to be mixed boys and girls up to 15 years old. They were in full school uniforms as we passed them. An hour latter when we were returning from the only permanent post where the Asmat tribe live we rounded the corner to see all their uniforms neatly hung on the bushes on the rivers edge and the whole lot children of around 50 of kids were stripped ala’ naturale with the girls on one bank and the boys on the other bank splishing and slashing but in clear view of each other but clearly not ashamed of our presence or their lack of clothes. Their tribe wears clothes at the permanent village near the terminus of the river at the ocean but in land even the adults don't bother with clothes except for very small grass skirts on both the men and women. So these children don't see it as a problem. From my western perspective the older kids should have more shame but they weren't bothered in the least about swimming right along the highway where we were passing. We have two small groups of Adventists meeting amongst the Asmat but there are hundreds of villages where not even one church of any faith has yet to come.
I keep dreaming of who we might inspire to go and live amongst the Asmat as one of them to bring a deep lasting faith in Jesus Christ.
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