PIU Team Returns From Papua

Yesterday the PIU team returned from a 4 week trip to Papua in Indonesia. The team consisted of PIU student Meluat Meluat, graduates Jayvina Chimwetiw and Daniel Assito (PIU assistant dean of men) and former PIU student Joyleen Haser. I interviewed Meluat this afternoon and most of the information and all of the pictures on this post come from him. He said that the team had a lot of expectations as to what would happen on the trip, but the only expectations that were met were: that they would “go to the unknown, experience hardships and frustration and they would learn many new things.” The main goal was to learn and Meluat said they did learn a lot about “culture, language, how the Gospel moves through a culture and to unreached tribes, and the difficulties of the mixing of the Papuan tribal peoples with the Muslim culture of the Indonesians.
The team was very blessed to arrive in the Papuan highlands just as the churches there were meeting for the 50th anniversary of the entrance of the Gospel into Papua. Meluat said he was “humbled to see the names of the missionaries who first brought the Gospel carved into the memorial. They were heroes in that place.” The picture is from the celebration in Ninia. Many of the people there wore the traditional Papuan clothing.
The team was able to participate in a large youth summer camp and get to know many of the Papuan youth. Most of the ministry they did in the camp, and throughout the whole trip, was relational. Papuan youth’s “big need is comfort and having someone come alongside to help them confront the many changes and challenges happening in their society.”

The team was able to do some church ministry, singing, sharing and preaching. This is normally the kind of thing that makes up the majority of a PIU mission trip. However, this trip was mostly devoted to learning about Indonesian and Papuan culture, building relationships, and encouraging the people they met. Meluat says “there were several Papuans who would like to come to PIU and get a good education but most cannot afford to come.” He asks for prayer that God would provide a way for these students to come to PIU and get a good biblical education.
The team was also able to make good connections with the leadership of the GIDI (the Evangelical Church of Indonesia) Church. In the picture Meluat and Daniel celebrate a new church dedication with a meal of sweet potato, taro, pork and vegetables on a banana leaf plate with the president of the GIDI church Lipiyus Biniluk and with Markus Kave, a missionary from Papua New Guinea who has been serving in Papua as a missionary for the last three years. Meluat was “amazed that the people funded the new church by giving their crops first to the church and then feeding themselves on what was left.”
According to Meluat the Gospel has had a “great effect on Papua. The 270 tribes with 270 different languages have been brought together by the Gospel, not politics or government.” They face tremendous challenges in the future but he wishes the Micronesian churches could learn to “hold their people accountable and work together with other denominations” as the Papuan church does. He feels a strong challenge to work with “the people in the jungles, not the people in the cities.” He feels he can be effective because “there is almost no culture gap between the Micronesians and the Papuans.” We are looking forward to seeing what the next step in this relationship will be.