September 2022 Village Trip, Part 4
This post is part 4 of a series about Jason’s trip to the Mubami people in Papua New Guinea in September 2022.
In this Post: A quiet morning is interrupted by tragedy and Jason wrestles with grief.
Sunday evening service at Sogae by the light of a lone LED lamp.
On Sunday night, after finding out about the earthquake and making sure Jennifer and the kids were ok, I preached for the evening service at Sogae. I decided to continue with Genesis 2, though of course we hadn’t been able to get any further than translating Genesis 1:1-18, so I just had to read the passage in Tok Pisin with Rex translating into Mubami for me on the fly. I briefed him ahead of time on a couple of parts, like the ‘image of God’ concept, so that he would be able to translate more effectively, and hoped and prayed for the best. For my sermon, I zeroed in on the equality of men and women as revealed in the creation narrative, showing how both men and women were created in the image of God. The only thing “not good” in all of creation, in fact, was that man was initially alone! This is an important concept in PNG (Papua New Guinea), where gender discrimination and violence are prevalent. Even though I believe that men and women are created differently and should rightly have different roles within the marriage relationship, that doesn’t mean that women are lesser than men any more than Christ’s submission to the Father means he is less God than the Father! The biblical concepts of manhood and womanhood do not allow room for treating women as anything less than honored co-heirs with Christ (Eph. 5:25; I Pt. 3:7). I had no idea at the time that this topic would become such a major issue in just a couple days (post coming soon).
Education
The next morning (Monday), started off as a slow, easy morning. I had decided ahead of time to take it easy that day after a long and draining day on Sunday. I slept in a little, though the 1” air mattress I was sleeping on doesn’t allow for much sleeping in.
My air mattress and sleeping arrangements in Sogae.
After eating breakfast (which was probably more sago), I decided to try to get some more information on the educational situation in the area. My hosts, Dandy and Namu, are teachers at the elementary school there in Sogae. But I had noticed that it didn’t seem to be open despite the fact that it was in the middle of the term and the older kids were going to school. In Sogae, there’s an elementary school, which provides elementary prep (aka, ‘kindergarten’) through grade 2. When kids move to grade 3, they have to go to Kamusi for primary school where grades 1-8 are offered. By the time students make it to grade 3, teaching is exclusively in English and students are expected to be able to follow it, though most cannot. (Could you sit through math, science, and history classes in a foreign language after only two years of instruction?!?!) Since Kamusi is 30 miles away by logging roads (and no one in the village has a car), primary school students typically stay with family or friends in Kamusi while going to school and come back to visit their families in Sogae only during school breaks. Grades 1-8 are offered at Kamusi, while high schools (grades 9-10) and secondary schools (grades 9-12) are offered in Balimo and Awaba, respectively, both of which are hundreds of kilometers away by boat. In our area, students rarely make it to these higher grades.
Map of the Mubami area in Western Province, PNG.
I spent probably 30 minutes to an hour interviewing Namu about the education system in the area. The situation was bleak. As best as I was able to determine, the elementary school there in Sogae had closed sometime before my last trip to the village (which was in September 2018) and had not reopened since then due to lack of materials (books, paper, pencils, etc.). Many students just stayed at home in Sogae with their families, while some went to the primary school in Kamusi. Due to the costs of school, the lack of school supplies, frequent school closures, difficulty of travel, and (justifiable) reticence to board young children in another town with family or friends, many young students struggle to get through even the lower grades. Dandy and Namu’s family are fairly representative of the struggle, though as teachers they have perhaps a slight advantage over many. They have children in grade 1 (age 9), grade 2 (age 15), grade 5 (age 17), grade 6 (age 19), and grade 8 (age 22). If he passes his exams, their oldest child will be eligible to continue school in Balimo or Awaba, assuming his parents and family can afford to send him.[1]
I hurt for them. Education is something we take for granted in the US, but here it’s anything but guaranteed. Most people struggle to get even a basic elementary level education and therefore remain trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty. The lack of education in the area also causes troubles with spiritual growth. Being able to read and understand your Bible is one of many fruits of education. And, when it comes time for us to translate the Bible, education is a huge factor in that process as well.
The school library at Sogae. Notice the lack of books or supplies, which is quite typical for this area.
Tragedy
As I was talking with Namu about all of this, we were interrupted by shouting a couple hundred yards down the path. We looked up to see people running and shouting down towards the portion of Sogae village which connects to the adjacent Sipoi village. At first, we figured a fight had broken out, but someone shouted that a girl had disappeared into the river and they couldn’t find her. Chills ran up my spine.
We asked how long she had been in the water and got the vague response “a long time,” but since no one seemed to be very sure and I realized that I was probably the only one in the village who knew CPR, I told Namu to grab my SAT phone and I took off sprinting towards Sipoi. If the girl had only just gone under, perhaps I would be able to save her.
The path was muddy from the rains and even though it was only a quarter-mile away or less, it felt like eternity as I sprinted towards the river, knowing that every second could be the difference between life and death. People warned me not to slip in the mud, and sure enough, I slipped and fell in the red mud as I rounded a corner. I was covered head to toe in mud, but I didn’t care.
The muddy path leading down towards Sipoi village.
As I got down towards the water’s edge, I saw the crowd gathered. There must have been 50-100 people gathered on the riverbank. A dozen or so were frantically combing through the water where she was last seen. But the water was so muddy and dirty that you wouldn’t have been able to see someone submerged in only 2’ of water. Women were wailing loudly and one female relative (who might have been her older sister) flailed around on the ground wailing loudly. Just as I got to the riverside, her father shouted and pulled her from the murky water. He and some others held her upside down by the legs in an attempt to get the water to drain from her lungs. Her head and arms flopped about as they frantically carried her to shore. I yelled to the father, “Quick! Bring her here!”
As they brought her over and flopped her down on the ground, I got a better look at her. My first thought was that she looked about the same age as my eldest son, Josiah—maybe nine years old. My heart sunk as I looked into her glassy eyes, staring blankly ahead, and her belly, swollen with water. It felt like time stood still. All around, women wailed and thrashed about and men stood by helplessly. It was a horrific sight.
I quickly checked for a pulse, but it was hard to tell anything because the father and mother were shaking her body and massaging her belly to try to get the water out. I thought I felt something for a second, but it could have just been from her parents pounding on her stomach. I couldn’t be sure, though, so I figured I had to try. I’ve never seen a drowning victim before, so I didn’t know what was normal and I’d heard enough crazy survival stories to hold out some hope that she might be able to be resuscitated.
So, I began chest compressions. I pumped and pumped, which was harder and more physically demanding than I expected, but nothing but a few bubbles came out. In desperation, I decided to try a rescue breath. Maybe pushing some air in her lungs would help to force out the water and give her a fighting chance. I pinched her nose, tilted her head back a little to open her airways, and breathed into her mouth. As I stopped exhaling and began to move away, some of the water from her lungs bubbled out into my mouth. The taste was one I’ll never forget—it tasted like death. I could no longer deny what I already knew deep down—it was too late.
The area of the river where Helva drowned. The log where she had been doing laundry still there.
I heaved and retched off to the side while her father tried another rescue breath. But he, too, immediately realized nothing more could be done. As the shock and the taste of death lingered, I continued to dry heave for several minutes, coughing and spitting to try to get the taste to go away. But even once the taste left, the memory lingered and turned my stomach. Her father picked up her lifeless body and began carrying her back to their house, just 50 yards or so from the water’s edge, with her mother and the crowd following closely. I followed near the rear of the crowd feeling helpless.
There was nothing more I could do. For that matter, it had been a lost cause even before I had left the house—I just hadn’t wanted to admit it. She had likely been under the water for 30 minutes or more by the time anyone realized she was gone. Pieces of the story began to come in as I stood there with the crowd of onlookers. She had been doing laundry, sitting on a log in the water, with a younger boy who was probably no more than 5 years old. She had just finished doing the laundry and decided to bathe. She dove into the water once or twice, according to the little boy, but the last time she jumped she had never resurfaced. The water was only waist to chest high for an adult and sheltered from the river’s strong current in a little alcove on the side. But the water was so murky that there was no way to know what was under the surface. She had been a good swimmer, but it didn’t matter in this case. Chances are that she hit her head on something—a log or a rock—under the surface and blacked out. As I had guessed, she was about nine years old. Her name was Helva and her father, Pastor John, was the pastor of the church in Sipoi village.
I walked slowly back to the house. Only moments before, I had sprinted down this path, muttering silent prayers, with some hope still that we might be able to save the little girl. Now, I walked back slowly feeling defeated. My prayers had been answered, but not in the way I’d hoped. I got my clothes and went to take a shower, grateful for a moment alone. As I filled up my little camping shower bag, the cruel irony hit me. This little girl died while bathing in the river. Of course, she had been playing in the water, too, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she had died for lack of the $10 camping accessory that I was about to use. The disparity hit home in that moment and I felt conflicted—grateful for such ‘luxuries’ that allowed me, my wife, and kids to not have to worry about such a tragedy quite as much, and guilty for having something that they didn’t that could have possibly spared a life. I could hear the faint wailing in the distance. As the reality and gravity of what had happened set in, I broke down and wept.
My camping shower bag, where we usually shower in the village.
A long night
Within an hour or two, I noticed that the wailing had moved into the church building there in Sogae and people were trickling into the building. The haus krai (literally, ‘cry house’) had begun. Here, in the remotest regions of the Western Province, there is no medical examiner or coroner to be called. There’s no morgue, mortuary, or funeral home. The village comes together and handles everything themselves. They had carried Helva’s body over to the church building and were gathering around to mourn and watch over the body. In this environment, with stray dogs, birds, insects, and all kinds of other things, sitting with the body is not merely for sentimentality.
The wailing was awful. It came in waves, ebbing and flowing throughout the remainder of the day and night. Earlier that morning, the village had been in a buzz with preparations for the upcoming Independence Day celebrations, which were to start the next day (Tuesday) and go throughout the week. Men had been out in the village center cutting the tall grass with long, slender machetes, and women had been busy gathering sago, feeding the men, and making other preparations. Now, all the joy and excitement seemed to have died with Helva and a heavy cloud hung over the village. The weather even reflected the sadness as a tropical downpour moved in.
After a couple hours, I decided to go over to the haus krai and pay my respects. They had laid her body out in the center of the floor of the building, covered with a blanket. They had washed her body and dressed her in fresh clothes. Her closest female relatives sat around her, wailing and chanting, while her father and male relatives sat around against the walls, relatively quietly. Occasionally, her father, overcome with grief, would join the wailing and come over to her body for a time, then retreat back to the wall of the church. Mostly, the men sat silently, but occasionally chatted amongst themselves, speculating as to how she could have died. She had been a good swimmer, by all accounts, and at first no one could discern any visible marks that would indicate trauma. No one could recall any other drownings in this village—this was a first. That seemed surprising to me, given the freedom that children are given to play in the river without supervision, but they all agreed that this had never happened here before. In other villages, especially Kamusi, they could recall drownings, but not here in Sogae.
During one of the lulls in the wailing, John (the father) struck up a conversation with me. He reminded me of our conversation just a day or two before. During that conversation, we had somehow gotten off on the topic of faith and how God sometimes tests our faith. I had felt led to share my testimony of Jennifer’s medevac, and how God had used that time to test my own faith and commitment to him as I faced the possibility of becoming a single father. He had remarked then, “Sometimes God tests our faith like that.” He reminded me of that conversation and, as he looked at his daughter laid out on the floor, he said, “Now it’s my turn.”
Throughout my time there, John’s faith never wavered, despite walking through one of the worst nightmares any parent can imagine. His faith impressed me deeply, and I thank God for giving him such faith and planting such a profound witness in the village.
I stayed with them for a while, maybe a couple hours. Time seemed to stand still. When it was getting closer to time for dinner, I excused myself and went back to the house. I think dinner that night was more sago, but I had even less appetite than usual. That night, before going to bed, I pondered all that had happened in the past few days and wondered what God might be doing. I jotted down my thoughts in my journal and wrote the following:
“The finality and suddenness of death lingers like a bad taste in my mouth. I want so badly to point them to the many passages that give hope for those who believe, but those passages have not been translated yet, and trying to translate them on the fly would be difficult or disastrous. Again, I find myself today marveling at the timing of this tragedy and can’t help but think it connected to the progress we’re making with the Mubami people. I’ve been reading Spiritual Warfare in the Storyline of Scripture for the past couple weeks and a couple remarks by the author stuck out to me. Remarking on Jesus’ vision of Satan falling from heaven like lightning following the return of the 72 in Luke 10:17-20, the author says: “Each time they cast out a demon or healed the sick, Satan’s kingdom was suffering a significant blow. So as they returned from a successful mission trip, Satan’s kingdom suffered momentous setbacks.” Later, he remarks, “One should assume that the enemy is at work while the Word is being preached.” (64)
Amen to that! If one should remark that Hope’s concussion, the fighting amongst some of our closest PNG friends, the largest earthquake to hit Ukarumpa in memory, and the first drowning at Sogae village in memory should be coincidence and unrelated to our mission work here, I would say to them: “well, we sure have a lot more such coincidences when we are making progress and engaged in the work than when we’re not!”
We’re always in the midst of a spiritual war, whether we are conscious of it or not. But there had seemed to be a heightened level of conflict in the past few days, beyond the norm. Now, I was almost certain of it, and things seemed to be intensifying.[2] That feeling would be justified even more in the days to come.
I went to bed a little early that night. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. But rest did not come easy. All throughout the night, I could hear wailing coming in waves from the church building. It woke me periodically and I struggled to get back to sleep. I prayed for John, his wife, and their faith. I prayed that God would use this tragedy to bring others to him. I prayed that God would work through me to minister to the people. And God would answer my prayers very soon.
Notes
[1] This case study used by Namu’s permission.
[2] I can foresee some objecting to my classifying a girl’s accidental death as spiritual warfare. Of course, I cannot say that it was, in fact, spiritual warfare with any certainty. All I have to go on is prayerful hunches. However, the story of Job reveals that demonic/Satanic forces can, indeed, cause human illnesses and even death when permitted by God to do so (Job. 1:11-19). Furthermore, the New Testament confirms that physical illnesses which we would ordinarily attribute only to natural causes, including blindness, deafness, muteness, and seizures, can have demonic origins (c.f. Mt. 9:32; 12:22; 17:14-18). Though, of course, this is not to say that every instance of physical illness, injury, or death is demonic in origin. We live in a world broken by sin, which affects every aspect of our lives. Barring divine revelation, we are, like Job, ignorant of what goes on in the spiritual realm and are often left with little more than an educated guess or suspicion. But, like Job, there is often more going on behind the scenes than what we are aware of. When we attempt to push back the darkness, we should expect that the darkness will push back. Regardless of the underlying spiritual causes, we should be discerning when it appears that Satan is at work and maintain our guard against his schemes while trusting in the plan of God who is sovereign over all.