The Bongomasi Church - David Wilkinson PDF Print E-mail
The Story
(scroll down to read The Journey)

The Bongomachi Church is barely 40 years old. These people were dressing in leaves, holding spears and axes and living in fear of demonic powers and those Sanguma Men (Animist Priests), who had influence in the spiritual realms. They fought and murdered for survival, surviving to live in fear of sorcery.

It was as recent as 1963 that MAF took some SSEM missionaries on an aerial survey flight over the area. 
They noticed people and leaf roofed buildings below. A national evangelist was despatched into the area and the work was begun. One village, Arkosame, (about 1½ hours walk away from Bongomachi), decided to speed things up a bit and by hand built an airstrip there. It took 4 years to complete with help from Bongomachi and other villages. Expatriate missionaries walked 9 hours each way to get in and out, guiding the people with this project.  MAF dropped bags of salt to pay the workers.

The strip was opened in 1967 and an SSEM missionary was invited to live with a national family at Arkosame while he built his own house. Soon after he arrived the believers who had come to Christ under the ministry of the National evangelist were baptised and the church began to take shape.

Some time later the church at Bongomachi was established. It was a small and fairly nominal congregation. The people had very little understanding of the power of the God that they were being told about. They still tended to have rather more confidence in the power of sorcery than the power of the Holy Spirit.

However when I got there in 1988, just 21 years later, the Bongomachi believers were taking a strong stand against a ‘cargo cult’ which was flourishing in the region. This cult said that if you mix the blood of a live man with powdered bones of a dead man and rub that mixture on some money, then more money will materialise in your pocket.  It may seem ridiculous to the westerner’s mind but to this day they remain confident that the westerner does something like that too; that is how money materialises in our hands. They resent the fact that westerners will not share with them the secret of how they do it. These people hear Christians report that Jesus said ‘I am coming soon.” and the Christians patiently expect this event; so in the same way they too persevere with their sorcery and wait for the good life to arrive.

Some of the believers at that time discerned this practise to be unscriptural and so they would have no part in it. 
One essence of the PNG village life is that there must be unity of belief and practise, otherwise the spirits will not be pleased.  Hence these Christians were outcast, with threats on their lives through sorcery and more than one or two ‘accidental deaths’ occurred.

That is how the Bongomachi church was when I first went to their village. Their lives were totally cast into the hands of their Lord Jesus Christ. Their cult neighbours had closed off the roads and walking tracks to and from the Bongomachi villages. Their children were unable to attend school. There was no access to the medical aid posts and no way for them to get their cocoa beans to the market to earn some money. Completely isolated like this they suffered illness and lost mothers in childbirth and tropical skin diseases became common. Still they would not give in.

Now 20 years later they say that God has blessed them and that they have made some progress. The cult practice still goes on around them and they still refuse to succumb to the persecution. Now, as before, they are pleading for some assistance and encouragement.

Last weekend (April 23) 4 of us went out to do just that.


The Journey

They [Bongomasi Church] had invited me to be present with them as they celebrated 62 years since the gospel arrived on the shores of Wewak. I could not afford either the time or the cost of going there, but 3 other MAF’ers suggested that they come for the adventure and share the cost of chartering an aircraft to take us to the nearest airstrip. The Bongomachi crew would take us the rest of the way in a dugout canoe which they had hired.  Both problems were solved.

Yes, we had an adventure alright! It’s a story of close encounters and near misses, any one of which had the potential to have serious or fatal consequences.

As we advanced up the river it seemed like a door was closing behind us making it impossible to return that way.  The river was in high flood, trees were floating down it and the river banks were collapsing. The engine was stalling at dangerous moments, and the crew were afraid of crocodiles at some places. The canoe was obviously too long for the tight corners in the river at the upper end of the trip. I became convinced that the crew lacked the skill and experience to negotiate the downstream journey. Neither did we have any floatation aids for such an exercise. Furthermore, we were carrying expensive data projection equipment for showing the Jesus film and some historical footage of the village.  Finally, for me anyway, the door shut with a crack of sound like a shotgun when a huge tree fell across the river just behind our canoe.  Later, after much discussion between the four of us it was agreed to signal for MAF to arrange an extraction by helicopter.

One positive outcome of this was that we had extra time to spend with the Bongomachi church leadership. They were extremely glad of our decision too because they actually shared our general concerns about the safety of the trip. The SSEC Superintendent, our host, was so concerned that he was fasting and praying for us and had set a prayer watch around us. He continued his fast until after he had heard that we were safely back in Hagen.

We found that they [Bongomasi] had erected a concrete monument in the village green that commemorated 62 years since the arrival of the Gospel; although we were a bit mystified by the reference on it to Israel. The Superintendent – Albert, patiently tried to help me see that 1948 was the year that Israel became an independent nation. “Yep I know that, but what’s that got to do with the arrival of the gospel here?” I asked. Eventually I decided that they thought that it was after that date that the gospel was “sent” out from that nation to the rest of the world and eventually, to reach them, in 1963. 

I realised also how desperately in need of gentle and sympathetic guidance and fellowship they are. So many new ideas and concepts for them to grasp in just 44 years! The leadership was always gathered around the four of us, quietly being near by in the hope of just being able to talk with us about issues relating to church governance, understanding of the Bible and ways to improve quality of their living environment.

They are, by comparison to the NZ way of living, extremely inadequately provided for. But in their spirit and heart for Christ, they are giants of faith and courage. What a joy to be able to hold the hand of the leadership and to influence the future direction of this young church and its valiant people.