Papua Adventist Mission: Bade–The Frontier Town to the mighty Digal River

Bade started as a small trading post along the mighty Digal River. The Digal’s drain basin starts from high in the mountains more than 500 river kilometers to the north of Merauke, Papua. Each day some 5 meters (16 feet) of tide pushes up the river for several hours and more than 50 miles inland. The water changes colors daily as the water flows out to sea on the low tide cycle its seriously red and silt filled. If you dare to taste the water during the low tide phase it would be salt-less. But as walls of water rush back in from the ocean some 30 miles away the Digal gradually changes from reddish to dark blackish as mangrove tar is mixed with salt water and red silt-filled river water.

Termites, barnacles and a rapidly changing tide and massive tropical downpours formed the “perfect storm” to end the life of this small wooden ship on the Digol river at Bade’s water front.

In the late 1990’s a soldier from the Indonesian army prayed he would note be assigned to Bade. Why? It had no phone and no bank and very little shopping but that was Not the reason he prayed he would not be assigned to Bade. He prayed not to be assigned to Bade because he knew he would be 2 days by ship from the nearest Adventist Church. But the day came when all the soldiers in the officer training class were given their assignments for managing the posts in remote locations along the south coast of Papua province Indonesia. He found his name written under the post of Bade. “Why me? Why Bade? I will be alone without my family and without my church family and with many temptations. How can I make it?”

This soldier moved to Bade and began keeping Sabbath faithfully in his home but completely alone. One Sabbath it occurred to him that if there were ever to be an Adventist Church in Bade he would need to buy the land and donate it to the Adventist church. . . He expected that the leaders in Jayapura would be thrilled to learn that free land was being given to them when he procured all the documents and paid the last payment for the land. He expected that someone would come see him and make plans for a Global Pioneer missionary to be sent but because there was a change in leadership at the mission office and then this soldier was reassigned to the main post in Merauke this land document sat in a file cabinet until not long ago when one of our workers in the mission office commented/asked, “Why do we have land in Bade but no church?”

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We hope that on this hill can be built the Bade Seventh-day Adventist Church and school.

On April 1 Pastor David Rellely and myself together with Mr Masak Waramori landed in Bade thinking it would be a small village with a few hundred people, based on the report the soldier made from when he was there. But to my surprise I discovered there were 2 banks, a large port for ocean going ships to dock at, more than 100 stores and businesses, government district offices, a Hospital, a hotel and cell phone coverage. The airstrip had recently been paved and they built a terminal and now have 2 flights weekly from Merauke scheduled with Susi air plus the normal charters that come in as needed. Large ships (300-400 foot long) bring supplies either direct from Surabaya or Merauke. These ships ultimately go to Tanah Merah several hundred river kilometers to the north. From Tanah Merah (Red Land) planes take things to remote villages in the mountains. Roads are being built into many of these mountainous areas and prices are falling as a result.

A large ship plows by on the Digal River

If we were just now buying land it would cost us nearly 10 times what it did back then. At present there is only 1 Adventist Family that is native to Bade. They have to travel nearly 100 Kilometers by boat to get to the nearest church.

Even with all the above information somehow non of us thought of the need for a permanent church in Bade. . . But God had other plans. First we ran out of fuel and couldn’t buy enough to go to the next location. Second, we went to the bank and both banks were “Out of Money”. We tried every ATM card that we could find and indeed they were out. Third, because we had all this time on our hands we went walking around this out post town and discovered where the soldiers donated land was. It was located on the highest small hill in the city which is very important when your located on a place that is subject to flooding. From this hill you can see all the town and you can see the airport and river. Though I didn’t make the trip to the top of the hill because it appeared to be tall grass which is perfect home to pythons and other snakes.

Surrounding the “Adventist” hill are local people who are all relatives of the 1 Adventist, Mr Amos Ndiken. He has tried to share his faith with them for years and they know it but they keep asking, “When are you going to get your church interested in coming here?”

Pastor David Rellely, with the tan baseball cap hat, gives counsel and prays with the man in the red shirt who appears to have diabetes. One drink of herbal tea had this man going again.

As we prayed for various members of the family we found many who were sick. Pastor Rellely remembered from a class on herbal medicines taken a number of years ago various tree leaves that needed to be boiled into an herbal tee and then drunk for cures to the ailments of the people. One man was suffering from what appeared to be diabetes to me but after just one treatment with these herbal medicines he was up and around without even a complaint. Another man appeared to have severe malaria and we got him to the hospital and on malaria medicine and he was claiming we were miracle workers.

We left Bade with the feeling that we needed a base church and middle/high school to support our new work in the Auyu tribe. This will be an expensive undertaking for the Papua Mission as it will cost higher than normal to build a church and school and pastors house in this remote post due to transportation costs for materials. We’re still calculating the costs and seeking donors who can help partner with this project.

Perhaps you would like to adopt this project as your sister church or partner with several churches to help reach the more than 5,000 citizens of Bade.