Please Read on -
Fairly recently (Within the last 18 months or so) The Tiute clan, of whom we have written much, was awarded a very substantial payment (1.8 million Kina / about $800,000 AUD) for the use of their river stone and gravel on the 33 million Kina ($15 Million) road development project from Kainantu to Okapa, the district of which Tiute and Amumpoi are both a part. It seems that the half of the clan who are the principle landowners of the river gravel decided to selfishly cut out the other half of the clan from access to the funds. This typically greedy and selfish move, couple with a number of previous accusations of witchcraft etc, set in motion a series of minor altercations, skirmishes and confrontations that climaxed about 3 months ago with an incident in a potatoe garden that ignited the fire that burned somewhat out of control last week with the dawn raid on the villages of Tiute and Amumpoi in the early hours of Monday morning.
12 weeks ago a small group of young men belonging to the disaffected half of the Tiute clan were in their garden sewing up some large potatoe bags in readiness to transport them to the market, when they were rudely disturbed by a young man from the other half of the clan, (The guys that got the money). After cursing, abusing and accusing them he pointed a loaded magnum pistol at them and made threatening gestures as if to shoot one of them. (The pistol by the way was stolen from one of the potatoe growers clan members, when the opposition shot off two of his fingers in one the skirmishes I just mentioned) Quite unbeknownst to the guy with the stolen pistol, the boys packing the potatoes had a loaded M16 rifle hidden amongst their stuff, and as the young man was brazenly brandishing his pistol, one of the more experienced of the lads laid his hand on the rifle and shot the guy in the head, killing him instantly. At the noise of the burst of gunfire another clansman came running up the hill and was also very unceremoniously shot to death on the spot. All in a days work in the potatoe garden! The lines being drawn now in the sand, both halves of the clan were now suddenly on full alert and in full fight mode. That is about the time according to the will of God we came into the picture. As we happened to know personally, the guy who had his magnum stolen and his fingers blown off, his name is Jasper. Jasper is of the Amumpoi clan of which Simon is one of the leaders, and who also (Simon that is) is one of our Baptised Church members. We also knew the guy who was shot in the head, his name was Justin. He worked for the construction company on the road as an excavator driver. Some of the boys sewing up the potatoe bags we also knew, as they had been at our Bible School for 3 months earlier this year. Many of you would remember us asking prayer for the village of Amumpoi back in 2010 - 2011 as we had a very well attended and fruitful outreach there each Saturday. Amumpoi and Tiute are two very closely related family groups all descended from one Papa (Ancestor). Anyway, When Justin and his friend were shot dead, and the magnum pistol was reclaimed, war was declared, and as I mentioned, everyone went into fight mode. Within days, the extended family of the potatoe bag boys made the most of their two death advantage and shot up the village where the rest of Justin's clan lived, burning their houses and causing them to flee for their lives. Jasper (and his boys from Simon's Amumpoi clan), still grieving the loss of his two fingers, joined forces with the potatoe bag boys in the burning and pillaging of the village.
Two weeks later after regrouping somewhat, some of Justin's grieving relatives made a surprise attack on the potatoe boys clan (The People we call Tiute) whilst they were charging their mobile phones at the stone and gravel crusher at the river early Saturday morning. After spraying and dispersing them with an M16, they cornered one young lad and decapitated him with bush knives. Leaving his body in pieces on the gravel beach the murderers fled the scene whooping and yahooing their way back over the mountains to their hide out in a place they call New Block, over near the township of Kainantu. Hearing news of his brother's murder, Toksi (who incidentally is the guy who grabbed the M16 and shot Justin in the head two weeks earlier at the potatoe bag incident) took off immediately in hot pursuit of the murderers with a number of other young men from the Tiute clan. It just so happened that very morning that my son Samuel was leaving Yababi on his way back here to Yonki for more supplies for the building project, when he picked up another few young warriors, that unbeknownst to him had an M16 rifle hidden under one of their trench coats) Dropping them off at the highway, Samuel drove off; oblivious to the fact that those men were intent on joining Toksi and the others to do their worst at the New Block Camp. Apparently from what we can piece together, the guys Samuel dropped off never got there, why not, we are not quite sure. But Toksi did, at about 1am the next morning (Sunday) Toksi and his boys armed with 3 heavy duty guns, came upon the exultant murderers in the midst of a drunken orgy. There were dozens of clan members, men and women, drunk, half naked, and singing morbid victory songs. The men who had decapitated Toksi's younger brother were in the midst of the crowd being carried back and forth in a singsing type of war dance, drinking, smoking pot, revelling and literally glorying in all of the gory details of Saturday morning's murder. Toksi, covered by the darkness and the other gunmen, stepped into the crowd and levelled his M16 at his brother's murderers, and said basically in Pigin, 'I believe you guys gave my brother his passport to leave the country this morning, well now it's your turn, I've come to give you yours', and then he opened fire, by the time he was finished, 5 men were dead, and a number of others were wounded. Toksi fled with his men, and was back in Tiute by daybreak Sunday morning.
We arrived in Tiute about 9:30 that same morning to preach, (Baptist preachers are always on time) aware something was going on but not finding out until later that day the details of what went down at New Block. I ought to mention here, that from the first week we visited Tiute (After the potatoe bag incident) we had exceptional liberty in preaching, I mean unusually so. All of the men were extremely attentive, they sat quietly, reverently and paid much more attention to the preaching than most audiences I've ever seen in a Baptist Church in Australia. Toksi wasn't there that morning, but he was the next 7 or 8 weeks or so we were there. Sadly (or I probably should say, Justly) Toksi met his demise only two weeks ago. He sat through the preaching on Sunday morning, he was noticeably distracted and dull of hearing that day. 24 hours later he was dead, and in hell, I'm sure he lifted up his eyes being in torments. Monday morning, the enemy clan having left their camp in New Block, formed an alliance with the Fomo Clan living just up the hill from Tiute, and came down in a dawn raid upon the village. Unfortunately for Toksi, and the people of Tiute, unwittingly he had shot dead a clan member of the Fomo clan by mistake when he raided the New Block Camp that Sunday morning 4 or 5 weeks earlier. Even though K10,000 compensation was paid for the mistake, Fomo clan were not appeased, they wanted K50,000. With The alliance formed with the New Block people, the bitterness was doubled and after biding their time they made their first move the Monday before last. Knowing Toksi was Tiute's main gunman, they set an ambush in the midst of the raid and killed him that morning, he was shot through the head. (They showed me his grave yesterday), 'Whatsoever a man soweth, THAT shall he also reap" Galatians 6:7. That's when the people of Tiute (Particularly the Potatoe boys), as they were now without Toksi's firepower, became very nervous. We preached again the next Sunday, which was their last, but everyone was noticeably troubled and distracted, they knew their time was short. I felt impressed to preach that morning on Abraham's intercession for the city of Sodom, it was quite a solemn occasion, not that we really knew what was going to happen, but The Lord certainly did, and the Word of God spoke for itself. Five O'clock the next morning Tiute was surrounded for the last time. I forgot to mention that that Sunday morning was the first time we visited the village of Ha'Jena. Ha'Jena or A'Jena depending on who is pronouncing the name, belongs to the Fomo clan that took in Justin's clan from New Block, in sympathy over their own clan member who Toksi shot by mistake. That morning we descended into the village of Ajena with very mixed emotions not knowing what to expect. There were dozens of men we had never seen before all very noticeably ready for trouble. It seems there were a number of mercenary type men amongst them, men who are hired to strengthen and swell the ranks of the clan. these men can be paid upwards of a K1000 ($500) a day for their services as well as women, beer and whatever else in the village takes their fancy. These men get well paid for their services. One of our preachers Bro Fregol, often made money as a hired fighter before he was saved. Back to the story, when we arrived in the village they were in the middle of preparing a huge mumu of pigs, sweet potatoes, and other garden produce, to be cooked over hot stones in an earthen oven. Despite the very shady and dubious looking nature of the congregation that morning, the Lord gave us an amazing opportunity to preach a very clear gospel message. Again, we had exceptional liberty as we spoke to them about, death and hell and judgement, also of the value of human life as illustrated in the lost coin of Luke 15, and God's concern for the value of human life as illustrated in the woman searching painstakingly for the lost coin until it was found, the point of the message was, if God so values human life, so as to even sacrifice his own Son in order to secure the soul's salvation, who are we to indiscriminately take men's lives away, we can do it, but if we do, God will surely call us to account, as he did in the case of Cain over the shedding of Abel his brother's blood. (New Block & Tiute are close brothers) They seemed to receive the word very intelligently and soberly, and the village leaders even thanked us profusely for being concerned enough to come and warn them of God's Word, unbelievable!. From Ajena we then descended the 10 minutes or so into the enemy village of Tiute, where as I mentioned earlier, we preached our last message on Lot's escape from Sodom & Gomorah. The rest now is history.
Before daybreak Monday (the very next day) the men from New Block led the large raiding party from Ajena down the mountain and surrounded the village of Tiute, this is where we begin to see the Hand of the Lord. The whole village that morning was engulfed in a thick cloud, (See Exodus 14:19-24). The valley below apparently was clear, but try as they would the men from New Block & Ajena could not see their way clearly to get into the village. Knowing Tiute had armed men on security duty (Jasper & Others) they were obviously fearful for their own lives, and lay low waiting for the sun to rise and to disperse the cloud. It never happened, somehow the village was alerted and amidst a rain of random gunfire the Tiute people streamed out of their houses fleeing towards the downside of the valley towards the village of Amumpoi. The Amumpoi people hearing the gunfire also began to flee for their lives, taking what scant possessions they were able to grab on their way out of doors. Still hampered by the thick fog, the raiding party did their best to cut down the Tiute people as they scattered in all directions, praying as they went. In yet another act of direct providence and mercy, as the main body of villagers came bolting out of the cloud into the large open space of ground between Tiute and Amumpoi, where they were totally exposed to the gun fire, one of the M16s that had them in the crosshairs jammed, they finally got it freed up, and then it jammed again, giving the escapees time to get far enough out of range before the next barrage of fire. Unbelievably out of a village of probably 150 souls only 4 lives were lost. Interestingly, all 4 who lost their lives that morning were all directly related, Father, son, uncle & brother. One woman was shot dead also who was from another clan, and was married to one of the men that was shot. The family that perished were the instigators of a sorcery like ritual in the days prior to the raid, seeking to protect themselves from the inevitable by use of witchcraft. A number of the families who been under conviction throughout the previous weeks of preaching warned the family against using witchcraft as it was sure to bring the curse of God upon them and not protection. Very interestingly, all of this information about the raid, and the miraculous intervention and deliverances of the majority of the Tiute clan, came not from the escapees themselves, but from the men of the Fomo clan who accompanied us to the smoking ruins of Tiute after the preaching in Ajena yesterday, (Sunday) morning. After the meeting in Ajena, Brian, Tobias, Robin, (a Christian brother from Ajena) and myself, spent an hour or so amidst the ruins of what used to be Tiute, gathering photos and the fragments of information that I have pieced together for you in this epistle. Scattered amidst the burnt out ruins were a dozen or so young men, (some of them smoking marijuana) scavenging for anything of use that hadn't already been looted by the surrounding villagers over the last few days. There is literally nothing left of Tiute, except burn't timber, hundreds of charred potatoe seeds, and melted aluminium saucepans and cooking utensil, not to mention dozens of half scorched and singed marijuana plants. What a life! This is the mission field of Papua New Guinea on one of its bad days, of which sadly there are very many.
In closing, the most amazing thing to me in all of this, is not the fight, not even the miraculous deliverance of the cloud, and the jammed M16 Rifle, but rather, the quiet and attentive respect and reverence these wild and dangerous men gave to the preaching of the Word of God over the last couple of weeks in both Tiute and Ajena. Remember, we have never been in these villages before. If these events had taken place in Somalia, Columbia, Sierra Leonne, or even somewhere in India or South East Asia, the missionary also quite likely would have been amongst the casualties, but not so in Papua New Guinea. To the credit of all of these men in Tiute, New Block, and now the village of Ajena, they showed great respect and reverence for both the Word of God and the men of God who came amongst them with great fear and trepidation, to present to them as best they could under difficult circumstances, the Gospel of the Grace of God. It is with this amazing testimony of God's working amongst these troubled peoples as a backdrop, that we appeal to you all again, to CONTINUE IN PRAYER, and watch in the same with thanksgiving on behalf of those we believe at this time are seriously considering the claims of Christ upon their lives. We have 10 refugees (Mainly women and children) from Tiute and Amumpoi with us here on our Mission Station at present, and are in almost daily contact with their menfolk who are scattered abroad throughout the district. We are praying firstly for their salvation, secondly for a complete end to the hostilities, and Thirdly for the Lord to miraculously intervene and open the way for them to return to their villages to rebuild. It will be nothing short of a miracle for us to see an answer in any or all of three above mentioned prayer requests.
Thank you for taking the time to read (wade) through this lengthy account in order to be able to better understand what we are up against in a Church planting ministry amongst the tribal peoples of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. We will keep you informed as to outcome in the days ahead.
Yours for the people of Tiute and Amumpoi in need of much prayer and consideration
Bro Dave in Papua New Guinea
