By Richard L. Schoonover

What do you do when your village is in the middle of a tribal war? Do you leave or do you stay? This was a decision David and Amy Julian, missionaries to Papua New Guinea, had to make.

The villages on either side of them were at war with each other. The battles took place in front of the village where David and Amy lived. There was nonstop gunfire and opposing tribes were burning houses and businesses in the villages as they fought. The people in the village where David and Amy lived asked if they wanted to leave. The Julians said, “No. We’ll stay here with you. We’re part of your community.” David and Amy had a gated area at their house. They opened the gates so women and children from the village could have a safe place to sleep. This helped calm their fears.

One night, some ladies brought David and Amy food. Amy asked why the women were bringing food to them. They said, “We met as a community, and it meant so much to us that you didn’t leave. You being here gave us strength.”

Amy replied, “We didn’t give you strength. God gave you strength. God gave all of us strength to stay here. He gave us strength to stay and gave us peace while we’re here. Go back and tell the chief what I said.” They replied, “We’ll go tell him.”

“When I told them that God had given us strength and peace, there was a change in their faces. It was a change in perspective. We didn’t do anything other than stay. We didn’t abandon them.”

When David and Amy minister to people, their goal is to present the gospel and lead people to Jesus. Helping with people’s physical and spiritual needs is a way to spend time with people and build relationships with them. The long-term goal is to have influence in their lives and talk about Jesus.

David explains, “Most people in Papua New Guinea have heard some presentation of the gospel. Most people in Papua New Guinea claim they are Christians. However, PNG is an animistic society. Instead of believing in the one True God and that Jesus is the only way, they live in a culture that believes in hundreds of spirits. They hear stories of Jesus and God. But to them they are simply the best one. God is the No. 1 Spirit. They claim to be Christians, but they don’t have a true understanding of what that means.

“When you spend time with people you can talk with them about their animistic beliefs. People have held these religious beliefs from generation after generation. To come in as an outsider and tell them, ‘Hey, this isn’t right,’ you don’t have that influence. But being with them and teaching them helps break down their animistic beliefs.”

Within animism, nothing happens naturally. Someone could be a hundred years old and die a natural death from old age. But, to the people of PNG, it wasn’t natural; there was a cause. There’s a spiritual cause for everything.

Explaining basic medical issues helps break down animistic beliefs. People get sick with diarrhea and other illnesses. David says, “We explain to them that it’s not evil spirits. They are sick because they drank contaminated water. We show them that 100 yards upstream pigs have been contaminating the water, and they have been drinking out of the stream. Or their outhouse is too close to the water so it’s leaching into the stream. When they look at the water, it looks like clear water, but we teach them that there’s bacteria in the water and that’s why they’re getting sick. It’s not because of spirits. A little education helps break down those animistic views that spirits are causing everything. Some things can be prevented.”

Obviously, there are spiritual things that happen. David and Amy have discovered that teaching about spirits presents a difficult balance. David says, “You don’t want to go too far so they begin to think that God and the Holy Spirit are not real.”

The Assemblies of God in Papua New Guinea is doing well. David and Amy’s goal as missionaries is to come alongside the Assemblies of God PNG and to be force multiplier for the work that the church is already doing. We want to help them grow and expand.

David and Amy work with the students at the Community Health Worker Training School that was recently established by the Assemblies of God of Papua New Guinea. In this school they train health workers to work in remote clinics. The government of Papua New Guinea pays the school fees, so students can come to school. The school also receives some grants through other organizations. After students graduate, the government pays them to go into remote communities and live there. “While the government pays their schooling, it is not the government’s priority to give them biblical training. But we are an Assemblies of God school. If the government is going to pay for them to come to our school and then pay them to go out to remote communities, why not add discipleship so these students can witness in these communities. We develop a missional and evangelistic mindset in these students,” says David.

David and Amy focus on villages where the Assemblies of God PNG leadership wants to plant a church. David, Amy, and Regan Newhouse, another nurse, take Bible school students and students from the Community Health Workers Training School to hold a clinic and build relationships as a team. But they also build relationships with people in the community. Hopefully these Bible school students will see a need in these communities. God is going to call some of them to these places. Some Bible school students feel called to a particular place, but some don’t know where they will go. By letting them help in these clinics, David and Amy can guide them and provide opportunities for them. Hopefully, Bible school students will eventually plant churches in these communities.

The churches in PNG have a heart to plant churches in other villages. The Bucawa Assembly of God is an example. Amy says, “This church is good at evangelism and church planting. One of the pastors went to his family line’s village and conducted an outreach. The entire village came to Christ. The church is going back and making sure these people are discipled and planting a church there.”

There was a huge effort to start clinics on New Britain, which is a big island off the coast. Assemblies of God PNG leadership saw the need to minister to the physical needs of their people but also saw it as an opportunity to share the gospel and plant churches. The church asked David and Amy to help. One of the clinics was about to open on the campus of a school. One of the students who just graduated from the Healthcare Workers Training School is from that community.

Amy explains, “She returned to her community. While she was waiting for her license to be processed, she traveled to other communities and churches. She did healthcare presentations about diabetes, high blood pressure, clean water, and other health issues but also shared the gospel. This is what I was hoping that these students would do when they graduated.”

“There are so many good people and pastors who have sacrificed beyond anything we could even imagine,” David adds. “But she is a good example. While she was in school, part of what she did was to do evangelism on weekends to plant churches.”

Amy continues, “During the week students work in the clinic as part of their training. But because of who she is and just how she was raised, she said, ‘We’re not going to waste the weekends.’ She took some nursing students and made a nine hour trek up the mountain to plant a church. In September they are going to have a church opening.”

This church plant is not from her area, her people group, or her language group. However, she said, “These people need Jesus. We’re going to go plant a church.”

David remarks, “We often say ‘Someone should do this.’ But the believers here are not like that. They say, ‘This needs to be done. I’m going to do it.’”

Amy adds, “And especially as a female in a male-dominated society. She said, ‘We’re not going to wait for one of the pastors to come down. We can do it.’”

One of David and Amy’s goals is to find people who have potential and work with them and help them.

In animism, there’s always a cause for everything. In one village two men of influence died. One had cancer and the other man died from another illness. When people of influence die, the community leaders bring in a glassman. This is a traditional animistic belief. This glassman is a seer, or a witch doctor. He is to point out who caused the death of these men. Who put a spell on them? The glassman usually points to women, single women, women of low status. He pointed out three women in this community.

The leaders brought these women into the village square — the Sing-sing area — and started attacking them. They planned to kill them. Many people in this village professed to be Christians, but animistic belief controls them. The AG pastor in the community had enough influence and was able to take these ladies somewhere else. However, they can never go back to their village or families because leadership labeled them as witches who caused these men’s death.

Even where people say they are Christians and go to church, animism still has a stronghold. Discipleship is key. A little bit of education goes a long way. If you can explain to them why things are happening, then they’ll be more likely to understand as opposed to blaming everything on the spiritual realm.

Amy says, “I go into the Bible schools to teach about hand washing and clean water. I put glitter on my hands and then shake hands with everyone. Then I ask, ‘Who has spots on their hands? We all do.’ It’s something they’ve never seen so they don’t understand at first. These types of illustrations break barriers. They can go back to their communities and do the same thing and explain it.”

Amy and David are one of the three missionary units on Papua New Guinea. Phil and Kim Rojak, and nurse Regan Newhouse, use their unique giftings to bring the gospel to this island nation.

Bryan Webb, Pacific Oceania area director, says, “A work desperately needs to happen here in Papua New Guinea — a transformation that will happen only through the power of the gospel. As individual lives are transformed, as the church is planted in communities overwhelmed by darkness, there is hope, hope for the nation to be transformed.”

Bryan, along with the AGWM missionaries and Papua New Guinea Assemblies of God leadership ask God for many more missionaries to serve this nation. They need passionate church planters, Bible school teachers, nurses, doctors, those who can train future primary and secondary school teachers, and those who can focus on the youth and the children of Papua New Guinea.