Last weekend over Easter, the MAF Ministry Team (five of us) had the privilege of going out to minister to a village, the first one this year. The village being Kantel, and visiting a CLC (Christian Life Centre) Church. Over the long weekend we ran a program from Friday night to Monday morning, with some of the team staying the whole weekend.
1. Kantel CLC Church
The program involved Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning and evening. On Good Friday we were welcomed with a traditional greeting after a time of worship, introduced ourselves, one team member preached and we showed the Passion of the Christ. Saturday night involved the same sort of routine, with MAF awareness presentation, a testimony and talk and showing a DVD called the Lazarus Phenomenon. Sunday morning was a church service and in the evening was HIV AIDS awareness presentation (70-80% of HIV infected people in PNG live in the Western Highlands Province, Mt Hagen’s Province).
2. Some of the Kandel kids
I was able to attend the Friday and Saturday programs and it was quite an amazing time, with a good response from people. The church itself normally only has around 20-30 people, but we were able to pack the building with easily over 100 plus, with people looking on from outside. People came from neighboring villages. What amazed me was how close we were to town, but seeing again how these people live and this is how the majority of people live in PNG. My highlight besides being able to bless these people was seeing the kids. Each day they would wait for our arrival and go crazy. And I would ask why they were so excited to see us and the answer I got was because two of us are white. But what really amazed me, was how happy and content they were. They have very little and know very little of what happens abroad, yet they were so happy and able to keep themselves entertained playing with each other.
3. Timon sharing
In village life, people don’t have much concept of time, so you can tell people in advance the previous night that we will start at 1800. But an hour and a half later no one is really there yet. So in this time we were able to do different things. One of the team members wife taught the children My God is so big amongst other things, so that was really good.
4. Kids learning My God is so Big
Again it was a blessing and a privilege to be able to go out and minister to these people. It is hard to do the work we mainly do and not see the fruit of our labour. So it is great to be able to see, serve and interact with people the way we can with the ministry team.
