The year has seen a remarkable increase in the number of our people coming forward to acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. This is due largely to the witness and personal evangelism of the converts themselves… sometimes we are perplexed by what may happen if the number increases very much faster.
Highlands District Report 1962
There were many new things in the Southern Highlands in 1962. For the Methodist mission, one important new thing was their name. Their minister John Rees explained, ‘We now have a number of Highland people who are Christians. Our true name now is Methodist Church.’
Other new things all happened quite quickly that year of 1962:
- The new Mendi Bible Training School started for local Highland Christians in 1962
- The first Highlands Lay Preachers were appointed.
- For the first time, Highland Christians were given a place on the church meetings to make decisions about their church.
- For the first time, a Highland Christian from Mendi went as a missionary to another community in Nipa.
- A special mission was planned in Mendi that year, 1962, which encouraged many Highland people to think about Christian faith in God and Jesus.
- A minister was appointed to start a new school for training Highland pastors; this was for young men who had some education in the mission schools. It became St Pauls College.
- For the first time, some groups of new Christians began to build their own small church buildings on the land of their clan.
- For the first time, the Methodist Mission sent a teacher to teach Religious Instruction (Christian Education) to a government school for the first time.
That is a lot of change in a very short time.
Something happened early in 1962 that surprised and frightened the Highland people. The white people in the area, both the government officers and teachers as well as the missionaries, told them that on a certain day and time, the sun would become dark.
These people warned them, ‘Don’t look at the sun! It will hurt your eyes. It will only be dark for a very short time, so don’t be afraid.’
One morning on 5 February 1962, exactly as they had been told, the sun went dark. The children at the little mission school at Unjamap were amazed. Their teacher tried to explain that they were witnessing a total solar eclipse, and that the moon had crossed in front of the sun. It only lasted for just over one minute and then the sun shone again. The students asked, ‘Is the world ending? How did you know that this would happen?’
This mysterious experience made a big impression on many people. They asked: What happened? And how did the white people know about this before it happened? Do they have special powers?
What were some of the reasons why there was so much change?
Highland Christians shared their new faith with their own people
Two very different men had the same idea at the same time. Both of them were thinking about the people of Nipa.
Sond was a traditional Highland man. He had never gone to school but was intelligent. For a number of years, he had listened to the teaching of the missionaries and Wasun, and at the end of 1961 he was one of the first adult men to be baptised in Mendi. He was planning to go to the new Mendi Bible Training School when it started after Easter in 1962. Sond remembered the time when he walked across the Lai Valley all the way to Nipa with the first mission patrol at the end of 1959. That time, he went as a carrier for Rev Cliff Keightley and his team. Sond remembered the Nipa people hearing about Jesus for the first time.
Sond went to talk to his minister, John Rees. ‘I want to go back to Nipa’, he said. ‘I want to tell the Nipa people to give their hearts to God.’
At about the same time, the minister from Nipa, Cliff Keightley, talked to John Rees, too. He said, ‘It would be very good if one of the new Christians from Mendi came to Nipa. It is hard for us to explain our message, because we don’t speak the local language well. There are no Christians in Nipa yet. Perhaps if one of the local Mendi Christians talked to them, they would understand what we are trying to say.’
When they heard the same hope from two different people, it seemed to them all that God was calling them to this plan. Rees called the Mendi Christians to join in prayer for Sond and his mission. Every day in the week before he travelled to Nipa, people came together to pray for him. On the first day 42 people came to pray. There were more the next day and on the third day 82 were present. This was really important to them. Even though many of them were not baptised yet themselves, and were still in classes preparing for baptism, they prayed for God to bless and strengthen Sond as he went to a strange community.
This time, Sond did not have to walk all the way to Nipa. Rees was going there for a meeting, flying with Missionary Aviation Fellowship, and there was a spare seat for Sond. It was the first time Sond had been in a plane and he was excited and a bit scared. On the day of travel, he had a good wash, put a clean shirt on over the top of his traditional clothes and added a topknot of fine cassowary feathers on top of his bark cap. His clansman Nawe, who was a member of the church decision-making group, the Quarterly Meeting, came to shake his hand and wish him well at the airstrip. It was a brave act, to go to a foreign group of people and to fly in a plane.
For two weeks, Sond stayed in Nipa. At first, he was not sure what to do, or how to meet the local Nipa people. But Keightley invited him to help him with the practical work of building a house at the new mission site at Puril. Whenever people came to Puril for classes for men or women, or for church services, Sond talked to them. He told them about a loving God who sent his own Son to be a human among us. He told them that Jesus is stronger than their fear of the spirits and came to bring peace. He spoke their language and was sure that the Nipa people were happy to hear his words.
When he returned to Mendi, ready to start with the others at the new Bible Training School, people asked him, ‘Did any of the Nipa people want to follow Jesus?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I think they will do that soon.’
Sond was right. A month later, in May 1962, Cliff Keightley sent a message to Rees. He said that twenty-five men and sixteen women and girls in Nipa had asked to join a new class to prepare for Christian baptism. This was a direct result of Sond’s visit. When one of their own people talked to them about God, they listened and responded.
Sond was not the only Highland man who was speaking about his Christian faith to his people. By the middle of 1962, a number of new Christians were speaking in their own language to their own community at church on Sunday. They were not well-trained, or well-educated, but they had understood enough of the message of God’s love and care and they wanted to share what they knew.
Wasun was one of them. At first, he was nervous about speaking in public. He was more comfortable talking to people around the cooking fire in the evening. But when he was asked to preach and lead in prayer, he was willing to try. A church service usually started when a preacher arrived at one of the ceremonial grounds. Maybe a few people were there already and when they saw the preacher arrive, they started to call and yodel loudly. ‘The preacher is here. Come now, everyone!’ One by one, and in family groups, a few local people would start to come to the place. When a group had arrived, maybe twenty or thirty or forty people, they sat together on the ground in the sunshine. The local preacher would start the service. John Rees had translated some prayers and short Bible readings, but usually the preacher prayed from his own heart. Each Sunday, everyone who was preaching was given a Bible story to share. The people who were listening usually asked questions, or made comments about what they were hearing.
One Sunday at that time, Dus came back from preaching at Wakwak. Wakwak was not his own tribal area, so he was going there as a stranger. He came back to Tende to report about his service, beaming all over his wrinkled face. ‘They were happy to hear,’ he said.
Traditional ideas and beliefs had space for new ideas
At the same time as the Methodist Church was introducing the Christian message in the Highlands, the traditional business of exchange, displays of wealth and spirit practices went on. In 1962 many hundreds of people came from many different clan groups to join in big sing-sings. Men dressed in their finest bird of paradise feathers, wigs, oil and paint to march together and show the strength and power of their clan group. This was part of a cycle of very important activities. Some were to do with compensation for deaths in tribal fighting. Some were to demonstrate how much wealth a clan group owned in cassowaries, pigs, pearl shell and tree oil. These were always very exciting times, and crowds travelled a long way to take part, or just to watch the drama. The ‘Big Men’ of each group were the leaders and were very active in preparations and action for each part of these special events.
At the same time as all these exciting events, the Highland people were interested in new ideas. The white people from government and missions had been in their area for ten years. New things had been introduced over those ten years. New animals like cows, a different language like English or Tok Pisin, new technology like steel axes, spades or wireless, new roads instead of narrow tracks, new ways to travel like motor bikes or Land Rovers, new trade goods. The Highland people were interested in all these new things, at the same time as they went on with their traditional activities. They accepted and used anything new that seemed good and useful to them.
No one was forcing anyone to believe in the new Christian message. But for some people, it was a new and very interesting idea. They welcomed the idea of a creator God who loved them and knew them. They recognised the image of a great Spirit who entered the human world; there was a traditional legend that told a story something like that. They welcomed the idea that they did not need to be afraid of evil spirits, because the power of the Spirit of Jesus was more powerful. For women, they welcomed the idea that as women they were valuable and worthy, not rubbish, or just objects to be used and to do the hard work. Not many of them began their understanding of the Christian message with the idea of guilt and the need for forgiveness. Most of them were drawn at first to the hope of freedom from fear of spirits or of their enemies. Other understanding came later.
New Christians were encouraged to make this their own Highlands church, not a copy
Now that the first few Highland people had decided to follow Jesus and be Christians, the missionaries knew that it was important for this to be their own church, not a copy of something from Australia, New Zealand or one of the island groups. They hoped that this church would truly belong to the people of the place.
One way to do that was to speak in the language of the people. In Tari, John and Barbara Hutton and others did their best to learn the Huli language and to translate Christian material into that language. In Mendi, John Rees and some others were using Angal Heneng, the local Mendi language. All the church services and groups for teaching about Christ were in the local languages. (This was different from the method of the Catholic Mission in the Highlands; in 1962, the Mass was all in Latin language. This changed after the world-wide influence of the Second Vatican Council, October 1962-December 1965.)
Traditional music was another way in which they tried to make this a Highland church.
When people in Mendi heard the first missionaries singing, they did not know what they were hearing. They thought that someone had died and these strangers were wailing and crying in sorrow. It did not sound like music or singing to them at all.
Later, the missionaries tried to teach the school children and some others to sing Christian words in Mendi language to Western hymn tunes. This was not a success. The words did not fit well with the music.
The first time Wasun tried to introduce Mendi words for a Christian song to a traditional chant tune, everybody laughed. They were all embarrassed because he used a tune that was usually sung for courting. This made him cross. ‘I refuse to use tunes for God’s words that we have used for spirits!’ he said. ‘We sing these courting tunes for other ordinary songs. Let’s try it.’ After a while, a few people tried to use those chant tunes for Christian songs. It was much better and easier than trying to sing to the strange music of the Australians.
By Easter 1962, Wasun wrote six new songs for Easter. The local people liked them and started to make up more songs of their own. They didn’t laugh at these songs any more.
New Christians were making decisions for their own church
The local committee that made decisions about the Methodist Church was called the Quarterly Meeting. It met four times a year. The bigger group that made decisions for the whole Highlands Region was called the Synod and it met once each year.
Soon after the first adults were baptised, a few of them were invited to join the Quarterly Meeting. In Mendi, the first Highland members of the Quarterly Meeting early in 1962 were Wasun, Sondowe, Sond, Enenol, Pis, Lune, Nawe and two women, Webinong and Tekin. They did not wait until they were better educated or had learned all the rules about being a Christian. At one meeting, they recommended that it would be better for the weekly service of Holy Communion at Tende to be later in the morning; an early time that was good for the people living at Tende was not good for local people who had no clocks and didn’t leave their houses on cold mornings until the sun warmed the land. At the Quarterly Meeting in June 1962, the local Highland representatives brought reports from their congregations, discussed plans for a mission to visit communities across the whole area and accepted some men to be lay preachers. One of those was accepted to be a lay preacher ‘when he comes out of jail’; Dus was in jail for a short time for being involved in tribal fighting. One of the missionaries wrote, ‘It was wonderful to hear the Mendi representatives giving the reports on the work in their own places and making contributions to the discussions.’ The teacher was touched when Christan woman Tekin gave her a big hug with excitement when they were talking about sending teams of people to visit many places with their message; Mendi women were usually excluded from important decision making, or from being included in anything to do with the spirit world.
Back: Kemp Kabalua, Eenenol, Sond, Wasun Koka, Solomon Dongohoring, Sekri To Vodo, Epineri Kopman, Setepano Nabwakulea, Samson Taming, Isaac Kenaji.
Front: Lune, Sondowe, Nawe, Joseph Tirlua, Pis, Libai Tiengwa, John Angello, Tomas Tomar, Saulo, Webinong, Margaret Higman
In June 1962, the annual Synod meeting was held in Mendi. Again, local Highland representatives were there, this time as observers of the meeting. Wasun, Tundupi and Sond were observers from Mendi Circuit with Komengi and Pogaya from Tari Circuit. They listened carefully when decisions were made. An important decision at that meeting was to pass the mission work in the west of Tari at Koroba to the Brethren Mission, because the Methodists didn’t have enough staff to do this work well. At the same time, they decided to start a new work at Magarima, the area between Tari and Nipa, which had just been de-restricted by the government. Now that a new teacher, George Buckle, had gone to Tari, John Hutton was going to pioneer the new work at Magarima. Another important decision was the plan to open a new College for training pastors. This was to start at Unamap in 1963 with Rev Graham Smith as the Principal and was for young men who had some education. The first four students were all to come from Tari Circuit.
They needed to think about how their new church would work. In a community where many men had a number of wives, they decided that a man who already had many wives could be a church member. A pastor should have only one wife. This was a difficult question because it was different from the traditional understanding of marriage. In the traditional understanding, a man became a person with authority and wealth as he had many wives and many pigs.
All mission staff were encouraged to help with preaching and leading
At that time in 1962, when there was a lot of new interest among Highland people in the Christian faith, the mission staff were all encouraged to help with direct church work. So, teachers, builders, secretaries and agriculturalists, as well as ordained ministers, took services in the bush, preached, taught Sunday School and catechism classes, and visited the government school in the town to teach Religious Instruction. For example, as soon as the young teacher Margaret Higman arrived in Mendi, the minister John Rees asked her to take services in Tok Pisin and in bush congregations, with the help of a translator, before she had learned the language. Everyone needed to help.
It seemed important to focus on evangelism and Christian teaching when there was a new openness to the gospel. This was a reason why John Rees decided to close nearly all the schools. He believed that it was more important for the pastors from the coast to be free to spend time visiting their people and preparing to talk with them about God.
At the Synod meeting in June 1962, they were very happy to know that some new workers were coming to the Highlands – two ministers, a nurse and an agriculturalist. For a long time, they had been asking for more helpers. They said that there was too much work and not enough workers. The Synod asked for a deaconess to come to help with church work.
Highland people like to work in families and clan groups
For Highland society, it is natural to work in families, groups and clans. When one leading person decides to do something, his family will join him. When some men with influence decided to become Christian, their families would often join them. Instead of working as individuals, in a Western way, where one person might become a Christian even though their family is not Christian, when a Highland man asked to be baptised, often his wife would be baptised with him. It was difficult for women to decide to become Christian when their husband did not want to do that and sometimes that made trouble for them.
When students at the mission school decided to prepare for baptism, they came one by one, or with other students. But when people who lived in the hamlets in the bush decided to become Christians, they often came in family groups. This meant that numbers of church members sometimes grew quite quickly, once they started.
People who hoped to be baptised were given preparation first.
In both Tari and Mendi, and later in Nipa, anyone who asked about baptism was asked to attend classes to help them understand more about this new faith. They would come to classes for a number of months and then the minister or pastor would interview them about what they understood.
This preparation was important. Some people started the classes but lost interest and didn’t bother to continue. Some didn’t understand very much but they held on to the central idea that God loved them. The ministers did not expect the people to have all the answers, or to have learned everything. They accepted people for baptism when they saw that they were sincere.
They went to where the people were, and didn’t wait for them to come to the central place.
In each of the Highland Circuits, there was one main central mission station. In Tari circuit it was at Hoiebia, in Mendi Circuit it was at Tende and in Nipa Circuit it was at Puril. But the mission staff didn’t just stay at the main place. Pastors from the coastal regions were living at pastor stations right across the valleys and all the staff travelled to many other places every week to visit, preach and teach. The overseas staff were learning from the experience of the older regions in New Guinea, Papua and the Solomon Islands. They saw that there could a danger of putting too much work into one central place, with big buildings, businesses, institutions or plantations, and so neglecting people who lived in other places. At that time, they saw that it was important to travel to places where the people lived and worked, even if they were far away and difficult to reach.
For example, in November 1962, Wasun took John Rees and some others on a long walk to the north-east to Lake Ekari. They had come so far that the language was changing and Wasun started talking in a different language. This was his home area and they could see his father’s house in the distance on the mountainside. This place was quite remote and they planned to send an evangelist to live there.
New Christians were given the opportunity to train for leadership quite quickly.
In 1962, two important new programs were started. One was the new Mendi Bible Training Institute for local men. [See the story of this work in another chapter.] The other was a plan to start of new college in 1963 to train Highland men as pastors. This work was for young men who had finished six years of schooling and could read and write in English. The new college was to be called St Pauls College and the first Principal was to be a new minister, Rev Graham Smith.
In their report for 1962, the Highlands staff wrote:
The year has seen a remarkable increase in the number of our people coming forward to acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. This is due largely to the witness and personal evangelism of the converts themselves… This is wonderfully encouraging, but sometimes we are perplexed by what may happen if the number increases very much faster. There are too few people to do God’s work in this area.
They tried to work out what to do. They didn’t want to turn people away, or ask them to wait a long time before baptism. They thought about making the time of preparation for baptism shorter, with less training. They were worried that this would lower their standards, but said ‘we must be careful not to lean too far toward perfectionist ideals.’ No one would ever be perfect. Their best idea was:
We must make more use of indigenous leadership in training new converts. Attention is already being given to training selected people for these tasks.
As well as the Bible Training School and plans for St Pauls College, in Mendi a number of older school students joined others in preparing to be lay preachers. In November 1962 in Mendi, the first group of Highland lay preachers were accepted for this task. They included both men from the Bible Training School and school students Kongel, Kambeyowa, Mol, Wasun and Sondowe. They did a written exam too. An observer wrote that they were very happy to hear ‘the schoolboys’ testimonies and the wonderful way they coped with really deep questions on sin and salvation, and the person of Christ, of Holy Spirit and so on.’
The year 1962 included many challenges and many opportunities for the young Highlands Church. Now they were ready to go on to the next steps.
Margaret Higman, personal letter 27 April 1962
Missionary Review 27 May 1962
Missionary Review, July 1962,
Margaret Higman, personal letters, 17 June, 7 July, 11 July, 15 July 1962
Synod Minutes 1962
Margaret Higman, personal letters, 9, 11, 17,23 September 1962
Margaret Higman, personal letters, 15, 18 November 1962
Annual report, Missionary Review, October 1962
Margaret Reeson 