Mission Work in Papua New Guinea

By Glenn and Beth Calderwood

Calderwood Family

Glenn grew up in the Ballymoney area and was a member of the Ballymoney Reformed Presbyterian Congregation. Thirty-five years ago he emigrated, with his parents, to Australia. Some years later he answered the call to mission work and has served for the past 20 years in Papua New Guinea. He is married to Beth and they have three daughters – Ruth, Hayley and Alice. Glenn and Beth were on furlough in Northern Ireland for several months. This is a transcript of a talk Glenn gave in Cloughmills on 16th August 2009.

It has been a great pleasure to return to the land of my birth, all the more so for the welcome and fellowship we have enjoyed among the Lord’s people in the church of my youth. We are also grateful for this opportunity to introduce you to the gospel work we have been engaged in for the past few years.

Where we are and what things are like
Beth and I work in the Highlands (6,500 feet) of Papua New Guinea (one half of an island just to the north of Eastern Australia). Typical VillageWe were commissioned to the work of the gospel in March 1989, to do evangelism and church-planting in the Stone Age tribal villages of the Kanite language group. Papua New Guinea has 800 distinct languages in a population of just 5.5 million people. The Kanite has a population of around 5,000 people spread out in an area of approximately 100 square miles - in little hamlets of extended families living in thatch and bamboo houses with dirt floors, in the valleys or on the ridge tops. Thanks though to an emerging lingua franca (or common language) our ministry is not limited to just this one language group. We are strategically located to be able to touch at least two other language groups.

The Highland areas of PNG were first entered in the mid 1930s and missionised in the years following WWII. We make the distinction between peoples being missionised and peoples being evangelised or Christianised. The people of the Kanite have been missionised - they have taken on a form of Western Christianity, but remain Animists at heart, believing that they must do whatever it takes to keep God, and the spirits they believe inhabit the forests, off their backs, to avoid their displeasure and wrath, and to do what it takes to solicit whatever favours and blessings that may be available.

Witchcraft and sorcery very much control their lives. Their societies are violent. They are full of every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. While this may sound shocking and maybe even unloving, yet it's precisely what we should expect in a society where the gospel of God is unknown. The words I’ve used are the words the Lord himself uses in Romans 1:18-32. It was to this people and this kind of society the Lord took us - Beth and me and our three young daughters - in March of 1989.

How the work proceeded and progressed
After a short time of orientation with a senior missionary couple whom we knew, Beth and I, and the family moved into the Kanite area. Pioneering evangelism in such a society was not easy. Their language had to be learned and their ways of thinking understood. Because of the missionisation of the area people knew the religious words and phrases, but didn't know what it was all about. There is nothing more disheartening to a preacher after he has preached than to have people say, Oh yes, that's what we believe, while knowing they don't believe it, not in the least! It took much time to work out how to explain the gospel in ways that exposed Churchtheir false beliefs and to make the gospel of grace clear to them. When we succeeded in this the opposition to the gospel began in earnest. Nevertheless, in God's providence, after throwing a net of evangelism over the Kanite area - going out into the villages, staying overnight with the people in their homes and sharing their meals, speaking with individuals, teaching and preaching to families, and when appropriate proclaiming the gospel at larger tribal gatherings - a number of people were converted in a hamlet called Tatagufa and thus a church was born there. Later some other folk in another village were converted and a second, smaller, church was established.

Today there are about 100 people (80 at Tatagufa and 20 at Avili) who gather each Sunday morning to hear God's word. Not all 100 are converted, but many are. Some people come for reasons only known to them. However, almost all listen keenly and are interested in what is being taught.

GlennEach Wednesday morning I meet with several of the men from the church at Tatagufa. Over the past year we have been working through the first eight chapters of Romans. And what a great antidote Romans is to works-based religion! And what a great encouragement it is to those who have been on the performance treadmill for so many years. To know that Jesus' work on the cross takes away the penalty for our sin is just wonderful, and to know also that Jesus' righteousness covers our ugliness (i.e. the ugliness of our sinful characters) making us acceptable to the Holy, Living God is just beyond anything we could have imagined. As believers we do not relate to God on the basis of what we do or don’t do each day, but on the basis of being covered by the righteousness of Jesus. As the Scriptures say, Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.

We cannot claim that our work has achieved the heights that are often claimed. We can’t tell you of mass conversions, or of churches planted in every village, or of a great many pastors trained to lead the churches; but we can tell you that those whom the Lord has regenerated and who call on his Name are filled with thankfulness and appreciation to him who died - died not only to take away the penalty of their sin, but to cover them with his righteousness, making them acceptable every day of their lives before the great King of Kings.

It is with this deep heart change that we are now beginning to see changed lives. Only as people are changed from the inside can we see real and lasting change on the outside, particularly so in area of relationships. This has been the most wonderful thing to witness, and to have been part of.

Why we do what we do
We've been in Papua New Guinea now for 20 years. We plan to go back there at the end of September. The one question we keep getting asked is Why? Why do it? Haven't you done enough? What takes you back? The answer is simply, as Tom Wells says in his little book A Vision for Missions: God is worthy to be known and proclaimed for who he is. God is best known through the faithful work of Jesus - it is through his work that God is to be known and loved and appreciated. God wants to be known as the God of Grace - his work in and through Jesus demonstrates this in quite an incredible way.

God is worthy to be known and proclaimed for who he is.Missionary work is not primarily about getting converts, but about proclaiming the King of Kings. When he is proclaimed he is honoured and glorified before men and angels - and the elect of God gathered from the four corners of the world. God is worthy to be known and proclaimed for who he is - that's what keeps us going, not the need of the people (although they are indeed needy), nor converts (although we love seeing people converted), but because God is worthy to be known and worthy to be proclaimed. God is honoured when he is proclaimed faithfully - and he will be known and loved and appreciated by his elect.

Let me debunk just one myth about missionaries: they are not special people - they are very ordinary sinful people much like the rest of God's people. Missionaries have a passion to see God proclaimed and known - that he may be honoured as he ought. Each and every one of us should have this passion - to make him known - to proclaim him to our families and workmates - all for the honour and glory of our great and wonderful God of Grace.

If you would like to pray….