We did not understand the meaning of school, so many of the boys left and went back to the village, only a few of us continued. That doesn’t mean we knew the meaning of it either, but we wanted to stay with the mission because it was better than living in the village. Dabuma, 1970
It was nearly ten years since Gordon Young first arrived in Mendi, but what did they have to show for their work? Although there was only a small response to the preaching of the Christian message of God and Jesus, there was good work being done in education and medical work.
In Tari, as well as in Mendi, the local people were more interested in their traditional activities than church business. For example, at the time when the Methodist mission at Hoiebia was preparing for their annual Thanksgiving Day early in 1960, many of the local people were more excited about the traditional mali sing-sing as they prepared for the initiation of young men. The new minister John Rees described the crowds of thousands of excited people with beautifully decorated dance groups. He wrote:
At 2.30 am the next morning we went to the Tege house, specially constructed for the initiation where we watched part of the initiation. A platform ran down each side and a long fire was lit along the centre. Men stood on the platform with bundles of switches and, as at regular intervals, a boy ran down the centre over the fire, the men chanted and struck him with switches.
The mission staff in Tari were working hard on language learning and had translated Bible lessons in Huli language for use in the Sunday Schools and day schools, as well as stories from both the Old Testament and New Testament into simple English. The teacher in Tari, John Hutton, wrote that a few of the school students were ‘thinking seriously about the claims of Christ.’
They had schools in both Mendi and Tari. At the start of each year many children enrolled. Very soon, only a few students were left in those schools. One new missionary wrote, ‘They think that we should pay to educate their children’. Pioneer teacher in Mendi, Elsie Wilson, went home to Australia in 1957 and Head Teacher John Hutton in Tari was working hard at Hoiebia.
In Mendi and Tari, they started new schools called Circuit Training Institutions for the best students. But there were only twenty students in each of those schools and their standard of education was low although they had good teachers. Very few reached Standard 6. The pastors who were trying to teach in little village schools were finding it very hard work. The children and young people were more interested in cultural and local activities. Dabuma remembered
“Every month we went to ask our minister to give us pay for the things which we learned from him in school. Every time we went to him, he gave us only one answer. He said “The things we teach you in school are yours. You are not doing our work”. He was right, but we did not understand the meaning of school, so many of the boys left and went back to the village, only a few of us continued. That doesn’t mean we knew the meaning of it either, but we wanted to stay with the mission because it was better than living in the village. Only four of us reached grade 6 in 1960 but we still didn’t know why we did this and what we would do when we finished school.“
The mission nurses were also working hard but the local people often did not come to the aid post or hospital until it was too late. New nurses arrived to take the place of those who retired. Sister Elizabeth Kessler, returned to Germany in 1958. She was replaced by Sister Helen Young from South Australia; Helen Young served in the Highlands for ten years. Sister Elizabeth Priest wrote a book ‘Children of the Mendi Valley’ and never forgot her Mendi friends. Sister Edith James from New Zealand was in charge of the work with patients with leprosy in Tari. Sister Lydia Mohring transferred to Mendi and was happy to report on a new hospital, built of bush materials. She was busy with her work with mothers and babies. She also looked after motherless babies until they were strong enough to return to their families.
All these women gave important service but they were often discouraged. Some of them found that it was hard to live with their colleagues, when there was no escape from their company. Some of them felt very lonely and others were disturbed by clashes with fellow-workers. As Elizabeth Priest told some new missionaries, there were many stresses in the missionary life and that it was most important to ‘keep in touch with Jesus. Without this you will be a shell of a missionary, a shell without a heart.’
Ten years after Gordon Young first climbed the hill to Unjamap in the Mendi Valley, the little mission group had a picnic lunch to mark the anniversary in November 1960. The small casuarina trees that pastor Tomas Tomar planted on the mission ground were growing well.
Other things were a struggle. Their leader Gordon Young was gone. The new minister John Rees had only just arrived with his wife Gwenda and their small children, but he didn’t know the Mendi language. The Tongan minister David Mone was leaving to go home to Tonga. The pioneer agriculturalist David Johnston, who knew the local language well, had gone back to New South Wales. The teacher Rosalie Sharpe had gone, and the nurse Helen Young had transferred to the new work at Nipa. In Mendi, there was now no teacher, no nurse and no agriculturalist. John Rees was now the only overseas member of staff at Mendi and he was going to rely very much on the experience of the pastors from the coastal regions.
The mission work in Tari was stronger and the work in Nipa was very new but at the end of 1960 in Mendi everything seemed very weak indeed.
In the annual report for 1960 there was one part that gave them some hope.
‘In a service at Tari nineteen people have made a public confession of faith. A medical orderly at Mendi also accepted Christ’.
More change was coming.
Missionary Review March 1958
The Open Door Vol.50 No.2 September 1970 pp.9-10
Joyce Rosser, Missionary Review January 1960
Missionary Review February 1959
Missionary Review March 1961
Margaret Reeson 