Goilala is one of the new work areas in the Central Papua Conference (CPC) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Papua New Guinea. The area is dominated by the Catholic church for many many years. The physical geography of the area poses a very challenging environment for foreign missionaries to enter, travel and work. Rugged terrains are the main feature of this rural part of the country.

A CPC team recently visited the area and was in awe to witness the eagerness of the local people to know the bible truth.

CPC General Secretary, Pr. Rex Koi led a team of 6 pastors to Tapini station, Goilala, Central Province, on Friday 24th September to conduct a first ever Adventist baptism, church and pastor’s house dedication in the area. With him were CPC’s Adventist Youth Ministries (AYM) Director Pr. Mathew Walter, Personal Ministries and Sabbath School (PMSS) Director Pr. Andrew Anis, Efogi District Director Pr. Oscar Munele, Cape Rodney District Director Min. Moses Yobuna and Bisiatabu District Director Pr. Jack Tale.

Eighteen people got baptized on Sabbath 25th September at Tapini station, the first ever conducted by the Adventist church in the area. Tears of joy were shared among the locals as they witnessed the first 18 newly-baptized members being welcomed into the Adventists family.

The program continued on Sunday with the dedication of the first Adventist church and the opening of the pastor’s house. It was a milestone achievement of the conference as a whole to finally have an Adventist base at Tapini.

The baptism was the result of the work of the 15 volunteer missionaries and a two weeks evangelistic meeting conducted by a lay preacher Francis Tokai.

After the baptism, church and pastor’s house dedication, the 15 volunteer missionaries were commissioned to take the gospel of Jesus to the un-entered places in the Goilala area. Six strategical locations were selected as gospel fields. The missionaries were assigned to these locations to work in threes and pairs. Most of these missionaries were young as 18 years of age. Pr. Koi encouraged and advised them on challenges they will face at the gospel front.

The General Secretary shared the vision of the conference saying the gospel will be spread from Tapinin to other parts of Goilala and to have Adventist churches establish therein.

Many mothers in the villages surrounding Dorobisoro, thought Min. Julian Lava, the CPC’s Women’s Ministries Director was a medical officer during CPC’s team stay at Dorobisoro. They began carried their sick loved ones to her for treatrment. However, to their surprise, she was not. Nevertheless, whether she was a health worker or not, she administered to the sick through prayer, the only medicine she knows best. During the CPC’s team two weeks stay at the small village, she had prayed to numerous sick people both young and old and had administered herbal medicine to them as well. They went away thankful and blessed

Thirty-four souls gave their lives to Jesus in the water of baptism following a one-week district camp meeting at Dorobisoro Village from 30th August – 04th September. The guest speaker of theKwikila District Inland Camp Meeting was Pr. Wally Kapi, Stewardship Director of the Central Papua Conference (CPC). He was preaching on the theme ‘God’s final call – I will go.’
 
Dorobisoro, located in the jungles of Central Province and about 81.2 km from the capital city Port Moresby, is a United Church village with a population of approximately 250 people. Adventist church is only present in the nearby 4 villages of Barai, Onohuro, Boto and Mimai.

Dorobisoro is the only easy link from the area to the outside world with an airstrip that only see one or two flights per year or none at all.

The camp meeting saw faithful Adventist church members from the 4 villages converged at Dorobisoro to fellowship in the one-week religious meeting.

With Pr. Kapi were Minister Julian Lava, CPC Women’s Ministries Director, Kwikila District Director Pr. Pali Veroli, Minister Garry Jack and CPC Media and Communications McValen Kaminiel.

Throughout the week, the United Church members have secretly attended the nightly meetings to hear Pr. Kapi preaching on the end time issues and God’s appeal to the world before his soon return. On the final night on Friday nearing conclusion of the sermon Pr. Kapi was shocked to see people walking up towards the stage without him making any appeal. Young people came in numbers to give their lives to Jesus.

On Sabbath 34 souls went into the water of baptism. Among them was Saul, a United Church member from Dorobisoro village.

Later on, Saul told Pr. Kapi that he and more than 150 other United Church members have attended the meeting every night and have sat in the dark to avoid being noticed.

Pr. Kapi encouraged the new baptized members to be disciples in order to make more disciples for Christ in the context of the world church theme ‘I will go.’

The only easy access to this village is by small airplane. Otherwise, a 3-day journey through rugged terrains awaits you. But despite the remoteness of this area, the women of Barai, Boto, Onohuro, Dorobisoro and Mimai villages were very much eager to learn the function of Women’s Ministries for the first time. Central Papua Conference’s (CPC) Women’s Ministries (WM) Director Min. Julian Lava was in the area for 2 weeks from 30th August to 13th September 2021.

She was accompanying CPC’s Stewardship Director Pr. Wally Kapi the speaker of the one-week district camp meeting at Dorobisoro.

During the one-week program, Min. Lava would organize small gatherings daily with the women in the area and would give them firsthand information on the function of Women’s Ministries in the church. She gave several handbooks regarding Women’s Ministries to the ones who can read as many of the ladies in the area were illiterate. Also, attending those smaller meetings were several United Church goers.  
Min. Lava encouraged them to pray more often as this will help them in their spiritual life.

During the night the WM director would hold prayer bands or prayer warriors meeting with the women (pictured above) where they would pray for the speaker, the program and their personal requests. During one of the nights while Pr. Kapi was on stage preaching, the prayer warriors prayed for the Holy Spirit to speak to the listeners’ hearts for them to give their lives to God. Amazingly, while Pr. Kapi was preaching, crowds began to stand up and walk to the front one by one to surrender their lives to the Lord.

Pr. Kapi was dumbfounded as he wasn’t making any appeal that night.

Min. Lava later revealed to him that she and her women folks have prayed for such to happen.

After seeing with their own eyes the work of the Holy Spirit the women’s faith in God grew stronger. They came to the WM director bringing their sick children to pray for.

The Women’s Ministries has planted its seeds in this area. Women are now visiting their fellow women folks to encourage each other’s faith in the Lord.

Before departing to Port Moresby, Min. Lava encouraged the ladies to stand firm in their faith and to help advance the gospel of Jesus to the unreached territories before His soon return.

The Women’s Ministries (WM) of the Central Papua Conference (CPC) usually conducts its main events in the city of Port Moresby. This year 2021, it was different. The CPC WM’s-organized End It Now campaign was staged at Hula village, 94 km (58 miles) outside the capital city.

The campaign was the first of its kind to be held in the rural district thanks to the commitments and efforts of the WM leaders of Kwikila District who have liaised with the CPC Women’s Ministries to bring such an event to their community.

The End It Now campaign is the worldwide church event and the women folks in Kwikila District were very much part of it.

CPC’s WM director, Min. Julian Lava, when invited to the district on Thursday 26th August, was in shock to see 2,500-plus women young and old from different Christian denominations joined hands with Adventists in a massive End It Now march from Kamali to Hula village, a distance of 5 km (3 miles) chanting ‘stop violence against women’ with placards spelling out words such as ‘End it Now – Adventist say no to violence.’

Accompanying Min. Lava to the event were CPC’s Stewardship director, Pr. Wally Kapi and Ministerial Seretary Pr. Gibson Lohia.

The invited guests to the event were greeted on the road with women in uniforms chanting, bellowing and expressing their voices against violence. One of the invited guests was the local Parliamentary member, Mr. Lekwa Gure who decided to get off his vehicle and walked with the women for the last phase of the march.

Min. Lava in her address to the people who gathered at Hula to witness this first-of-its-kind event said this year 2021 the church chooses to focus on the issues of youth, violence and pornography and the church must find ways to help deal with the harmful and destructive effects of this issues. She further stated that the Adventist church encourages its members and leadership to facilitate awareness in their churches, communities, schools and workplaces to let the victims know that the church cares for them.

Merolyn Pokana, a local women leader, was very vocal about the event and its significance. She said the home was now becoming a very dangerous place for violence. She called on the men folks to honor women as weaker vessels and wish to see the change beginning at home.

MP, Mr. Gure, who was the former Civil Aviation and Labor Minister, shared the same sentiments saying to break the cycle of violence is to start at home. ‘Family unit is the basic unit that constitutes a society. Thus, if the family unit is breaking down, our society breaks down as well.’

The End It Now campaign was observed by several Adventist churches in Port Moresby city. Through social media posts, these churches were June Valley and Mango Avenue SDA churches. The WM director thanked those churches who have taken heed of the circular advising them to celebrate the day in their respective communities.

Fifty-one souls went into the water of baptism at Kiru Village in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea after a one-week District Camp Meeting. Pr. Wally Kapi, Stewardship Director of the Central Papua Conference was the guest speaker of the program that ran from 15th – 22nd August this year.

He delivered the messages based on the week’s theme ‘God’s final call – I will go.’ More than 500 church members in Maria District attended the camp meeting among which were few United Church and Bahai followers.

Pr. Kapi preached about stewardship and encouraged the audience to bring back the one-tenth of all their produce to the ‘store house.’ He said many times we have robbed God through our actions such as failing to return tithes and offerings, misusing our resources, mismanagement of our time and many more acts of negligence and ignorance to God’s instructions. He continued on saying ‘test and see that the Lord is good.’

The people who attended the camp meeting came from villages far deep in the jungles of Central Province that are only accessible by bush tracks some of which require days to travel. The local people appreciated the messages and made up their mind to follow what God has instructed them to do in the bible.

Among the 51 souls that went into the water of baptism on Sabbath 21st August were a United Church deacon, a Bahai follower and an outlaw in the society. It was the highest number of people baptized in the history of Maria District.

More than 50 souls took their stand to follow Christ after the baptism when the appeal was made by the Stewardship Director.

Pr. Kapi thanked the faithful missionaries in the area who had left the comfort of their homes for the sake of the gospel to minister to the people in this remote part of the country.

The Stewardship Department of the Central Papua Conference (CPC) have identified K20 thousand worth of tithes and offerings buried underground in remote districts. This information came about as the Stewardship Director Pr. Wally Kapi was conducting stewardship awareness and farming inspections in the Maria and Kwikila Districts recently. He said many rural church members have the power in their hands to convert their soil into a money-making asset.
    Pr. Kapi was in Maria District for its one-week District Camp Meeting from August 15 – 22 when he came across Adventist farmers who invested heavily in banana farming. Villages in the area are well known for their ‘samoan’ bananas that supplied the markets in the city of Port Moresby every day. However, there is lack of evidence back in the area to show the impact of cash-flow. No permanent buildings and no small businesses in the area indicated that the money earned from their banana sales are not put to good use.
    The people stated that they were afraid of jealousy and sorcery practices in the area. Once someone decided to improve their livelihood, jealousy takes over the neighbors and relatives.
    Pr. Kapi visited several gardens in the area, especially in Bagubara village, and was pleased to see villagers engaging in pawpaw and cocoa farming. He said pawpaw trees take 3 months to grow before it bears fruits. The first harvest contains 30 fruits and the tree lasted for 3 years. That means if you sell 30 fruits for a fixed rate of K5 you will get K150 from just the first harvest of a single pawpaw tree. Multiply that with the number of pawpaw trees in your farm and you will be blessed abundantly at the end of your sales.
    The concept of ‘primary source tithing’ is emphasized by the director who said that it is better to tithe the land and the primary source than to set aside tithes after sales. That means you have to set apart God’s tithe on the land and the primary source of your food produce such as the whole pawpaw and banana trees.
    The villagers in Maria District such as Kiru, Monatou, Bagubara, Mumuiru and others were eager to learn more but time will not allow.
    While in Kwikila District Inland camp meeting from August 30 – September 13, Pr. Kapi was full of praise for the villagers who showed they can grow a vast variety of foods. Yams, taros, bananas, sweet potatoes, singapores, nuts such as okaris and peanuts and even rice. In addition to that there is an abundant supply of greens such as ‘choko’ tips. A food house was erected for all the yams and other garden foods to be brought and stored during the one-week meeting. The yam tubes were as long as 1 meter with a diameter of approximately 8 - 10 centimeters.
    ‘Food shortage is not an issue here in Barai, Boto, Onohuro, Dorobisoro and Mimai,’ said Obadiah Boboro, a Boto villager, farmer and Boto SDA church elder. ‘The only issue here is all about how to convert these food crops into cash,’ he remarked.
    Boto is located 82 kilometers northwest of Port Moresby. The nearest airstrip is at Dorobisoro which would take 2 hours walk from Boto to get there. There is no road link to transport garden produce to the main center Port Moresby. Those who wish to get to the capital city would have to endure 3 days of journey by foot before reaching the nearest road in Debari, Kwikla.
    Such harsh geographical conditions have hindered the villagers from transporting their garden foods to the markets. Hence, there is lack of cash flow in the area.
    Eld. Boboro was one of the participants who attended the agricultural training in Bautama last year 2020. He told the CPC Media that he did put into practice what he was taught of at Bautama and was blessed to see his garden yielding more foods than he first ever expected.
    He said he and his wife, Naomi, decided to allocate a plot of land within his garden to the Lord. Then they went about planting seeds in the Lord’s plot first before theirs. The result made him speechless. The pigs kept their distance from his garden. The pests withdrew. The crops in his plot and the Lord’s began to grow rapidly and in fine health. His yams grew bigger, longer and heavier. His bananas and other crops were bigger and healthier as well.
    Unfortunately, he said, when harvesting he has no way to convert his garden produce into cash for tithes and offerings.
    The Stewardship Director estimated around K20 thousand worth of tithes and offerings for one whole year have gone back into the ground because of lack of economic activities in the area.
    He encouraged the locals to be mindful of how they spend their hard-earn cash during his daily sessions with the church members and interested locals in Maria and Kwikila District Inland camp meetings

The students attending Carr Memorial SDA Primary School have given their lives to the Lord through the water of baptism.