Chad Wells Family Blog

I woke up about 3:00am this morning, very unsettled about yesterday’s news regarding Peter.  Around 7:00am I went over to the dorm and talked to the rest of the boys and asked them if they would be willing to go with me to Mendi to pick up Peter.  I feared for his spiritual life as well as his physical.  Peter’s only been saved for a couple of months and has shown a great desire to serve God.  I would hate for this situation to come to a point where it would stunt his spiritual growth.  The boys were all in agreement, so we loaded up in the 10-seater and drove to Mendi.  None of us knew where Peter’s village is, nor could we get a hold of him on his mobile phone.  However, just as we arrived in Mendi we tried one last time and Peter answered.  He was in town, near the hospital, and we could come and pick him up.  When we arrived at the hospital I told Peter that we had come to bring him back to Pangia.  He began to cry with tears of joy.  He said that he had wanted to come back on Monday, but because of the pressure from his family he didn’t feel that he could.  He asked if I would come to his village and talk to his family before we went back to Pangia.   We drove about 35 minutes to Peter’s village where the family group quickly assembled.  They all just sat down in a big circle around me (there were 100 to 125 people). I looked at Peter and he just nodded at me.  I figured the best place to start was the gospel.  I gave them the plan of salvation, preaching for about 45 minutes.  This led into why I was here to pick up Peter.  I told them that Peter has given his life to Jesus and wants to come to Bible school.  However, these customs and revenge fights are prohibiting Peter from following the plan that God has chosen for him.  So, I asked them for their blessing before I took Peter back to Pangia.  They were all quiet.  Then Peter stepped forward and gave his testimony as to how God saved him and changed his life.  He told them that he wantsto go to Bible school but wanted them to send him with their blessing.  At that point an elder lady from the crowd stood up and handed Peter 20 kina, and gave him a big hug.  She motioned for him to “get going!”  Before she was able to sit back down several other older men and women from the village came forward and followed in like manner.  As we began to leave an older man, who will be assuming the leadership role while Peter’s gone, stood up and said that he, along with the village, was giving Peter to me for safekeeping until Peter knew exactly what God wanted him to do.  We had a very joyous drive back to Pangia, with the boys trading off between singing songs and giving testimonies, both of salvation and of how God has worked in their lives over the last several weeks.

Kirsten and the kids worked for several hours on the garden today.  It’s such a huge garden that it seems impossible to keep up with the weeding.  They don’t even attempt to weed the kau kau (sweet potato) mounds (the garden is done in “mounds” so that the water can drain off into the ditches surrounding them).  They’ve just been trying to keep the kumu (greens), onion, and strawberry patches weeded.  She planted a bit more today; some garlic and pumpkin.  She’s struggled trying to grow tomatoes.  She has planted them over and over again (from seed packets as well as from fresh tomatoes).  Not even a green leaf has sprouted.  Today she noticed that growing along the fence of the chicken coop are two tomato plants!  She’s happy to have the plants, but a little frustrated that they’ll grow from the scraps she gives the chickens but not from her hard work!

We had some upsetting news today.  Peter (the boy whose dad was murdered in Port Moresby) is in Mendi with his family.  He was supposed to be here on Monday to start Bible school.  These funeral arrangements seemed to be taking a little bit long.  Now we’ve heard that the man who killed his dad is from a rival clan in his home area of Mendi.  This produces a great problem for Peter because he is the eldest son and is now considered the leader of this clan group, even though he’s only about 18 or 19.  His father was a very influential man.  Peter’s uncles and family members all want to revenge the murder.  However, this can only be done with Peter’s consent.  Peter called and talked to one of the other students, Joe, and told him that he would not be coming back since his family is demanding that he begin this revenge fighting.  Peter’s mother is from the Pangia area but his dad is from Mendi, about a 5 hour drive from Pangia.

I had a disappointment today.  One of the high school teachers called me this morning and told me that they had sent all the 9th graders home and so I didn’t need to come for the weekly Religious Instruction class.  I stayed home and worked.  This afternoon several of the 9th graders came by, wondering why I hadn’t come to teach the RI class!  In the future, I believe that I will just go to class and not take somebody else’s word for it.  We tried to figure out who the teacher was.  I couldn’t remember if the teacher had even given me his name, so we believe that it was just one of the other pastors or teachers from another church who was a bit jealous.

We had a huge storm this afternoon that lasted for 3 hours.  Two trees were knocked down and the power is now out (not that it takes a storm for the power to go out!)  We had our Soul-winning class at 6:00pm, before church, and before the class was ended we were all sitting around in the dark.  We had sent our lantern with James (he has been preaching in Keremini while dad’s in the States) and Pastor Sam’s mantle had broken in his lantern.  So everybody just sat and listened while I spoke into the darkness!  Afterwards we all headed over to the church building (we use the classroom for these classes).  Once somebody came with a lantern it was much easier!  The lanterns that the people have do not produce very much light.  Kirsten used my cell phone to produce light so she could see the song book and sing along. We couldn’t actually see our Bibles during church.

After church we found out that James had some problems and wasn’t actually able to make it to the Keremini church. There was some more trouble involving the village councilors.  James was roughed up a bit on his way to Keremini.  Because Keremini is in the area of what we would consider his clan’s enemies (from tribal warfare many years ago) he didn’t want to risk any more trouble.

I had half of the boys start working on their garden today.  This will help feed them in the future.  The other half helped me in laying out and building the trusses for Pastor Sam’s house.  All this, of course, was after we had our morning construction class.

I took two of the boys with me to the high school for the character class.  Both boys said it was a little bit different coming to the school as observers rather than students.
Trevor and I, as well as the Bible school boys and Pastor Sam, went to our outreach Bible study in Maiya.  Three of the ladies who have been coming since we started meeting got saved tonight.  It was such an encouragement to all of us to see these souls repent of their sin and come to Christ. One of the ladies was supposed to move to Ialibu this past weekend.   She was under such conviction from last week’s Bible study, however, that she couldn’t leave.  She prayed that I would come back tonight so that she could get saved.

Kirsten said that the grade school kids were excited to hear the second part of the story she’s doing, Ringu.  When she asked questions about what she told them last week they were quick to answer and ready to hear more!

The most recent haus krai in Pondi ended today and the men should be going back to roll logs for the sawmill tomorrow.  It seems that it has been one trouble after another with the sawmill.  It’s nothing new, of course, but still frustrating.  We can’t work any further on dad’s house until we are able to get some more lumber carried out.  The lumber is cut, it just needs to be carried out from the jungle.

The church still has some lumber to use for building Pastor Sam’s house, so I gave the students a construction class, for about an hour, and then we went to work on his house. The kids were excited to apply their newly acquired knowledge.

Taking a couple of weeks to build Pastor Sam’s will be invaluable as we continue working on dad’s house.  Because the lumber is not dry and tends to warp and bend as it dries there are several things that we’ll be doing differently in order to build dad’s house correctly.  So, even though we are taking time to build Pastor Sam’s house, in the end, I believe it will be a great benefit.

At 4:30pm we started Bible school.  I began a lesson called “Spiritual Leadership”.  This will be our Monday night class for the next 8 weeks.

Kirsten learned a very valuable lesson today.  Jack (the man with the gouty arthritis) came by for some pain pills.  He had a pretty, fuzzy leaf with him.  As he was taking the pills Kirsten looked at the leaf and asked what kind it was.  Jack said that it was for pain.  She picked it up, interested in finding out about a leaf that is helpful in controlling pain. In just a few seconds she understood that she had lost something in translation!  Her finger was on fire!  She gave it back, smiled, said her goodbyes, and then came into the house to try to relieve the pain. It actually IS used for pain relief.  However, not the way she was expecting (more like using Icy-Hot). If they have a headache they rub it on their head (or whatever body part is hurting).  The pain from the leaf distracts them from their headache as well as causes their muscles to relax.  Since everything hurts their body can’t figure out what muscles should be tensed.  So, pain relief, yet not pain relief!  At least Kirsten knows which leaf she should NOT be touching!

We had our high school Sunday school class and then I preached the A.M. service. This afternoon we also held our first soul-winning class.  Everyone in the church is invited to attend.  The people are excited about learning how to tell others the gospel of Christ. They are afraid to do it (they are a very shy people in that respect) because they lack the confidence that they can.  I’d like to instill confidence in them that if they have received Christ as their Savior, then they know enough to tell someone else and share the good news.

Saturday is the Bible school students’ day off to get some things done around their dorm and is a time to rest and catch up on their studies.  However, today they came and said that they wanted to come and work on Pastor Sam’s house in order to get a good start for Monday.  So, we were able to get the first wall up before the rains came.  The boys were really excited about the progress and about learning how to build the correct way.

This evening I met with the leader of Pangia.  They’ve asked me to help them organize themselves in order to make Pangia a better place to live.  We’ve called it the Pangia Rejuvenation Project.  It will be interesting to see how this goes.

We had a group of people come looking for some medical help today (they had walked 6-7 hours to get here). Kirsten gave out some eye ointment for a few infections.  A mother brought her 1 year old boy and we decided he has an umbilical hernia. A man was suffering from what we think is an ameba and another one was just suffering from old age! We tried to direct them to the haus sik to get the medicines because the Pangia Haus Sik doesn’t like us giving out medicines.

A group of church members here, from the Pangia church, went to Pondi and spent about 5 hours carrying lumber for dad’s house today.  I was very excited to hear this because we’ve been at a bit of a standstill because of lack of lumber.  The lumber is cut and just needs to be carried out of the jungle.  Sam and I will go pick it up tomorrow and maybe I can get a little work done on dad’s house, as well.

I sent the boys out (the Bible school boys) to invite people to come and watch a video about lions tonight, at the church.  We had a good group of adults and kids (about 150).  These people have only heard about lions and after seeing the video understood a little more about what a lion is like.  I then preached a message out of I Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:’ One young girl came up to me afterwards and I was able to show her some verses from the Bible and lead her to Lord.  Pastor Sam was still talking to one little boy, about 10 years old, when I left.

Pastor Sam went this morning to organize the men to carry back some wood for dad’s house.  However, he was met with news of another death in Pondi.  Therefore, there will be no more wood carried the rest of this week. We’re going to see if some of the church members here, in Pangia, would be willing to go and carry wood.  However, this would be very difficult for them since their custom does not allow them to work around people who are mourning.

Five of the boys moved in today and began cleaning up the area around the kitchen/dormitory.  They want to plant some flowers and make it look nice.  I sat down with them and went over some of the rules and regulations of living on the station and what I expected from them.  One of the things that I told them was that I wanted them to sit at the table (a rough picnic table) and eat their food with spoons and plates.  They said that this was going to be very difficult for them because they are used to “hiding” when they eat.  Eating for them is not social.  They just shovel it in as fast as they can and then go on to the next activity.  They said that they would make the change, even if they were ashamed.

There are 7 boys from the high school who are going to be staying on the mission station and helping me work on dad’s house.  In exchange for this they’ve asked me to feed them and teach them the Bible at night. Some of these boys have just recently gotten saved and are afraid to go back to the village before they are spiritually mature enough to be able to fend off their families and old friends. This afternoon we worked for a couple of hours on changing the kitchen (a small building we use to cook mass quantities of food when we have special tent meetings) into a bunk house for them. The boys are all very excited about the classes that will start Sunday afternoon, and are anxious to have a hand in finishing mom and dad’s house.

While we were all working Kirsten brought out a big pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade.  We poured some for all of the boys and they absolutely loved it!  They had never tasted lemonade before (as we said before – people here don’t eat the lemons) and decided it was very nice! They were disappointed when the pitcher was empty.

Jerry, a young man who recently got saved and is staying for the Bible school, said that his dad wanted to meet me.  His dad, Simon, walked about 7 hours to talk with me. As we were working on the bunkhouse he came and told me that he was happy that I was taking his son in and was happy that his son had become a “religious” person.  Simon said that he, too, was a religious person, even though he still smokes and drinks occasionally. Not knowing when I would be able to see Simon again I began telling him the story of Nicodemus. After a few minutes I asked him if he had been born again. He put his head down and said “That’s a hard question.”  He said that he would think about it and the next time he comes to Pangia he would have an answer for me.  Jerry has been able to witness to him 2 different times, so Simon has heard the gospel and only needs to believe and trust in Jesus as his Savior.  Pray for Simon!