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Stay Current With What God Is Doing In PNG
Papua New Guinea is the second largest island in the World. Slightly larger than the state of California, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is home to approximately 863 distinct language groups, many of which have no access to the Gospel.
 The country has a vast range of geographical features including swamps, dense rain forest, towering mountains, and beautiful winding rivers.
The people of PNG are just as diverse as the terrane. The country's population is approximately 4.5 million.
The Main Religion of PNG is Animism. Animism is the belief system consisting primarily of a belief in a spirit world that controls and influences all events that occur in the physical world-from mist and rain, to clouds and snow, to the color of the sky at sunriese and sunset. Animists can also believe that the animals, plants and even inactive objects have spirits within them. All of the environment that surrounds the animist is controlled by spiritual forces. Because of this  belief in a powerful spirit realm, the job of the animist is to attempt to control and manipulate these spirits toward a desired end. In the context of a tribal culture this could include but is not limited to crop growth, family protection, weather manipulation, and sorcery on others. The entire life of the animist revolves around certain things he must do to succeed and be favored by the spirits, and the fear of doing something to displease those spirits.
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The Madang Region of PNG is a relatively new work for New Tribes Mission (NTM). The Lord and the PNG Government opened the doors for NTM to start working in the Madang region of PNG, June of 2000.
This region contains approximately 222 distinct language groups. This is nearly 1/4 of the entire countries language groups. New Tribes Mission is currently working among 5 of these language groups. Late spring of 2006 the Mibu people heard the message of the Gospel for the first time. We now have brothers and sisters in christ among the Mibu. The missionary team working among the Tobo people of the Madang started the chronological Bible teaching in mid October 2006. Below is a picture of our Madang Regional Headquarters.
The Doors To PNG remain wide open for the message of the Gospel to come and penetrate the darkened hearts of it's people. There is much work to be done. If church planting were to continue in PNG at it's current rate -including all missions organizations- it would take approximately 70 years for each language group to be reached. This is a big task that takes partnership. No one person can do it alone! The following picture is of a bag overflowing with letters from tribal groups asking for missionaries.
You may be wondering how an illiterate people group pens a letter requesting missionary presence. It is a lengthy process. The people group sends a representative from that village to a neighboring town -sometimes several days hike- where the national language is spoken. They then convey the message to someone who can write it down for them. When this process is finished they then hand deliver it to our regional headquaters, which can often times mean a few more days on the trails. Each letter represents a lot of effort and is not taken lightly. The sad thing is that we do not have enough people to send to each group who is requesting a missionary.
What Time Is It In PNG?
To determine the current time in PNG add three hours to Eastern Standard Time and flipflop the AM to PM or vice versa. Example: If it is 3:30PM Eastern Standard Time on January 8, it is 6:30AM on January 9 in PNG. |
