Not a Shoe to be Found

The Prison

Well, Seth is in prison…again. Every Wednesday he goes with one other missionary and a national man to go teach foundationally through the Bible. They teach roughly two lessons each time, so they rotate lessons and share the load. This jail ministry is unlike any American ministry Seth been a part of before. When you get there, you walk in to what appears to be the “mess-hall”, a long building with low ceilings and hardly any wind, metal ceiling and roof. Seth says it is the hottest place in PNG 🙂 so far.

When you walk into this place, you will typically find 80+ men, no shirts, no shoes, everyone sitting on the ground and smiles everywhere. Each week the men come and are excited for the teaching. Seth and the guys treat it as a Bible school. Teaching chronologically pulling out the main meta-narrative themes of the Old Testament through the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus, using expository teaching throughout each passage. The men love it and they understand the main purpose of Jesus coming. Seth taught (lesson 63 of 68) through Mark 10, Luke 12, and 16 this week focusing on how money cannot get you to heaven, when you die it does not come with you, hell and heaven are real, God has marked a time for all men to die, so choose today while you are this earth, who will be your God? (Luke 16:13).

The cargo cult is a huge thing here in PNG, if you are not familiar with it read some excerpts from Google and you will see it permeates the thinking of all PNG, it goes down to their worldview-heart-core level. One group of missionaries learned the language of a tribal group, learned their culture, translated a good portion of the Bible and taught for months…when they came to the life of Jesus, they told everyone the BIG part of the message was about to come! They all sat down to hear the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, after the series of messages concluded, the people all said, (paraphrase) “this is the white people’s secret, this is the road to cargo”. People befriended the missionary, came to months of teaching, only to find out “a secret” to getting more stuff…that is not an isolated event, the cargo cult came to PNG at the turn of the 20^th century and was a strong belief system until the 1950’s or so, it came and it went, and in some areas it is taking a strong foothold again and making its resurgence.

We shared that brief story with you to show you what we and other missionaries here in PNG are dealing with. Some people are blinded by cargo and they have no interest in Jesus (it’s the same with American-materialism). This is just something we have to be attentive to when we are teaching and dealing with others and their eternity. Seth said that he asked a lot of questions in his message this week, and the men responded well, some knew the Christian lingo, and others clearly articulated the Gospel. That is so encouraging! Seth also wishes he could take his phone with him and record them singing, they have 1-2 guitars, both Seth and another missionary’s opinion is that they are the best guitar players and singers that that they have heard in PNG. The acoustics of a small concrete room and a metal ceiling makes every song echo and make a beautiful sound. One of his favorite jail-house original songs is, “God, He is here”.

Pray for Seth and the other men, Greg and Joshua, as they have 5 more lessons until they get to the resurrection of Jesus. After that, they will transition to the New Testament and the Holy Spirit’s work, and then possibly to some epistles. Seth is thinking through some ideas with another missionary as to see where else they can preach on a more consistent basis as well; pray God opens doors!

Thank you all for reading! We love and miss you all!

Your feet to the unreached of PNG, Seth and Nicole Stokes.