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You are here: Home -> Current Fields -> Papua New Guinea -> Visit to Kundiawa

A beautiful welcome at Kaulgan Church, Chimbu

Visit to Kundiawa

Uploaded 21 July 2008

June 1st, 2008

We were invited by Bro. Tom Wii, pastor of Kaulgan church, to minister for a special service at his church near Kundiawa, Chimbu Province. Chimbu Province is the area where Mum & Dad first begun their missionary service, and the remote village where they started is not far from Kaulgan church. It was to be a special service, because I as a child lived in a village in Chimbu for four years, and have the privileged distinction of being known as “Mangi Gogl” (the boy from Gogl). They even have reserved my plot of land in Gogl village, for me to inherit whenever I desire to take up residence.

Kaulgan Church is not Gogl village, but it is the other side of the mountain range from it, and a place I remember visiting as a small child when it was known as Goglmande Church. It is near Kundiawa town, the main town in Chimbu Province. I had not been to Chimbu Province, my ‘as ples’ (place of origin), since I was a small child, and had very little memory of it. And so it was with anticipation that we travelled from Goroka to Kundiawa on Saturday afternoon after an intensive morning working at levelling the Bible School land. It was a drive of approximately two hours over some fairly rough road, past the landslide area which I had previously walked over on my way to Mt Hagen. The kids were good for us, which was good, as Andrea was feeling very sick with a throat infection. I had told her to stay home, but she feared the thought of leaving Laura and Timothy in my care while I tried to preach a two-day meeting.

The place where the church in PNG began was through the distant Chimbu Gorge (valley between the mountains) and around to the right. That's where Mum & Dad first began their Missions Work.

Eventually we arrived at Kundiawa, and after a time of looking around for our motel, checked in to the Chimbu Premier Lodge. It was late by this time, and almost time for church. The only problem was that we hadn’t eaten anything, and the kids couldn’t survive without eating something. The Lodge’s restaurant didn’t open until 7:00pm, but church was meant to start at 6:30pm. The staff assured us that they could organise a specially-prepared meal for us early, and so we got dressed and sat alone in the dining room awaiting our dinners. We ended up waiting one hour, and about 7:00pm the dinners were brought out. While waiting, we heard sounds of a skirmish in the adjoining kitchen. There was yelling, sounds of a scuffle, and the noise of dishes and plates being scattered along the benchtops. It sounded like two men were trying to subdue a third person, and muffled yells of “What are you doing” and “Get out of here” floated out to our table. Andrea’s eyes widened and mouth dropped slightly agape in horror, and I gripped my dinner knife tighter in my hand, ready for the fight to spill out into the dining room at any moment.

After about a minute of scuffle, two men dragged the culprit out a back door and kicked him out into the street... He was a town drunk who had somehow managed to wander into the kitchen looking for eats. And we were sleeping there that night!

I was a little nervous as I left Andrea alone in the room as I and the kids went off to service that night. Andrea was nervous too; but her sickness was greater than her nervousness, and she elected to stay home that night.

After a wonderful service, I came back to the Lodge. Andrea was fine. As the door chain didn’t work, she had barricaded herself in the room, but there were no incidents to report.

We settled down in bed, and after praying for God’s protection, drifted off into sleep. About 2:00am we were rudely awakened by a tremendous explosion, and we both sat bolt upright in bed. My eyes turned immediately toward the door, expecting to see some criminals breaking in to rob us, or a drunk tyring to get in the wrong room; but instead I saw the door of the little bar fridge fly open on its hinges and cans of Coke fall all over the floor. After a long few seconds of convincing myself it wasn’t a break-in, I investigated the exploding fridge, and eventually found a can of Coke which Andrea had put in the freezer section to chill it for my return from church. She had forgotten to give it to me, and it had slowly frozen over the hours, and eventually exploded with such force that it blew the top of the can off, blew the fridge door open, and caused all the contents of the fridge to spill out onto the floor!

The Pastor of Kaulgan Church, Bro Tom Wii, gave a beautiful speech and presentation in traditional Chimbu style.

It took a very LONG time after that to slow the heart-rate down, and it was a long few hours before sleep graced my eyelids again. That was a funny incident in the journey, but the whole time was very memorable. Bro Tom Wii and Kaulgan church gave us such a wonderful welcome. Part of the ceremony was a traditional Chimbu presentation of spear, a handing of the heritage of the father down to the son. With the spear, Bro Tom gave a lovely speech, saying to me “You are a child of Chimbu. And as with all Chimbu sons, you inherit the ways of your father. Your father was a man of God and brought this precious Truth to Chimbu; and with this spear we are recognising you as inheriting the ways of your father. And when you are old, your son Timothy will carry on your ways and come back to us to preach.”

It was a very moving ceremony, and I met some old ladies who used to care for me as a baby in the village. They wept and hugged my feet as they saw me now a grown up man with children of my own. We had lovely church services with them all too, with the children of the church simply staring in wonderment at Timothy and Laura.

A small part of the large food offering that was given to us.

The church in Kaulgan also gave us a huge offering of foodstuffs, and a substantial offering in cash, as a public testimony to their desire to have us remain in New Guinea and work among them.

We will never forget our weekend in Kundiawa, and how meaningful our time was there. It is these type of memories that will stay with us forever, and give us joy (as well as laughs) for the rest of our life.

- Richard Carver (Jnr)