Paul's PNG Mission Trip - Ep 08

[pandrews]

(April 1st, 2010)

While on my mission trip to build an airstrip in Papua New Guinea was
on
hold for quite awhile to get here, it's also been put on a slight hold
to even get down to Kaiam for various reasons. However, it does look
like this month will be the month that I will make it to the airstrip
project. While those reasons for the delay are fairly complex, the
discussion between Anton, Laura, Nathan and I turned toward something
very interesting: PNG is like the Old Testament.

Their are many examples that could be used to draw parallels here: If
one tribe has an issue with another, you simply kill them. If someone
does something that is considered unacceptable, the crowd watching
takes
the law in their own hands and reprimands the person in the wrong,
sometimes quite severely. If someone was reprimanded beyond the
"normal" punishment, they may demand compensation in the form of pigs
or
money from the people or tribe that was responsible for the
reprimanding. Sound sort of like Leviticus to you?

Lets go back a little farther, to Genesis. When I walk through the
hills of Mambis, like we did today up to Radio Tower again, we trek
through some pretty muddy paths. These paths are foot paths used by
both man and animal (usually hogs) to walk along the crest of a hill
or
to ford a stream and there are pieces of bamboo and wood that keep
animals close to their owners, essentially property lines. Sometimes
the paths are dry, wide, and flat making travel on them quite good.
Other times they are wet, overgrown, and feel like a climbing wall.
Today on our two mile hike I found my shoes being consumed by the
muddy
path numerous times. I slid down hills while I tried to grab onto a
tree or other piece of vegetation to keep from falling uncontrollably
down the hill, my feet fighting constantly to shed the mud and find a
solid foothold only to find it receding from the rubber knobs of my
shoes.

How is all this like Genesis? The people of the highlands are farmers
doing exactly what God commands us: subduing the land and thriving in
an
extraordinarily difficult land to traverse. When hiking through it,
this land does appear to be cursed as it rises and falls in your path
and spiky plants gouge out crevasses in your hands as you flail past
them. Do the locals have any difficulty making it up and down these
paths multiple times per day with heavy bilums slung on their heads
and
backs? Nope, but then again, they aren't wearing shoes.

God designed our feet to handle conditions exactly like these with
ease,
much better than any $90 pair of hiking boots can. The feet of the
Enga
are amazing. They are wide to spread out their weight through the
mud,
callused to resist the thorny/rocky landscape, and strong to propel
their bodies through a landscape that has few roads.

PNG is like the Old Testament not only in the attitudes of it's
people,
but also in the reflection of God's true design for our bodies and the
fruition of the command: fill the earth and subdue it.

Paul Andrews
http://zloof.blogspot.com/
http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=14786