The other Shangri La!

Today, Wamena is a mix of native Papuans and trans-migrant Indonesians.   This a group of children after church.

In 1937 a wealthy son of a business tycoon flew his specially designed plane to an unknown lake deep into the heart of the mountains into the Papuan highlands.   He landed this float plane on a lake several ridges over from “Shangri La” and proceeded to collect flora, fauna, animals and birds for the New York Museum of Natural Science.   Only one short line was jotted in his journal, “Flew over a valley full of a 100,000 naked Cannibals today, in route to the lake,”  This marks the first know discovery from the outside world of that is known as Baliem Valley.   In the heart of Baliem Valley is a city called Wamena.   

If you do a google search for images of Papua Indonesia you’ll likely see lots of posts of pictures of the colorful Wamena people from the Doni tribe.   Traditionally men only wore head bands filled with the feathers of Birds of Paradise and a penis gourds.   Women wore only a grass skirt.    Today, in the remote places men may still proudly wear their gourds but women typically only wear the grass skirts for tourism and special celebrations.   The exception to the rule would be the airport where a few naked men run around begging or selling small hand made trinkets.

In 1943-44 the allied forces “discovered this valley” and came many times to do fly-overs as a special treat for the vast numbers of soldiers stationed at the bases in Jayapura.   These “special treat” site seeing flights changed the world for these mountain cannibals when one flight crashed in the Baliem Valley and only 3 of the 21 total survived.   The result was, for the first time ever, white man met Wamena man.    Fearless Wamena men did not know what to think of these “white Alian spirits.”   Were they there to harm them?   But the media reports soon began to latch on mainly because one survivor was gorgeous brunette woman was amongst the 3 survivors of the crash.   If you ever want an fascinating read try the book, “Shangri la.”

This year I’ll be doing evangelism meetings in Wamena so at last I reached this Mountain valley whose only outside approach is via foot or Airplane.   My general impression when I first caught a glimpse of this famous valley was – wow agriculture everywhere.   On the ground, flowers and fruits common to the USA and colder climates, flourish.  Massive peaks tower themselves up from the mile high valley floor to some 2 mile high summits.   The first noticeable difference is the perfect day time temperatures but down-right-chilly night time temps.   Little stone and vertical split rail fences line gardens nearly everywhere, the tops of which are loaded with tropical plants.   The plants sprouting from the tops of stone fences grow in the composting weeds dug from the gardens.   Their roots grasp the rocks and cement the rocks or split rails together with the root wads – Gorgeous.   Except for different people and the buildings, one could for a moment imagine themselves in the Lake District in England if only sheep were grazing on mountainsides around.

But that’s a lot of background for the fact that I’m here for motivating the people to get busy for God and start looking for people whom God has been tilling the soil of their hearts.    Teaching them simple principles of conversational evangelism.   Challenging them to find three whom they can bring to the evangelism meetings.    Challenging them to truly serve peoples needs in order to win their confidence for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Here are some of the existing ministries they have in this valley.   15 churches (some are start up churches).   1 very busy clinic.   1 K-12 high school in a very picturesk location.  11 Bible workers working in very remote locations where the 2 pastors for this area cannot get.

Here are a few of their dreams.  1) front and foremost would be the desire of the members and pastors to see their clinic become a full fledged hospital.  But that’s a big dream as it could take several million dollars in a place where everything has to be brought in by air plane.  2) build or finish many of the 15 churches.   3) Training and adding more Bible workers to the staff in the area.  4) upgrading the education of those who are already working to better educate them.

Please, pray for Wamena and the surrounding villages.