Through God's grace, missionaries from PNG are thriving despite trials
Papua New Guinea —
By Kellis Melson
God is doing great things in Papua New Guinea (PNG). He is uniting the hearts of national pastors and many see the benefits of working together. Some of the national believers have started a mission agency and are sending out their own missionaries to tribes within Papua New Guinea. Our Bible College is expanding, bursting at the seams. We are trying to secure new property to enlarge our campus and train more nationals. We are also in the process of nationalizing many areas of the field. We have our first national headmaster at the Bible College.
God is truly doing great things in PNG, but all of this has happened in the face of some tragic and difficult circumstances. Throughout history God has used tragic or difficult circumstances for His glory. In the last few years almost all of our missionary colleagues in PNG experienced some sort of heartbreak. For some it was a medical emergency, for others the death of a child.
Two of our colleagues faced the heartache of burying their only sons. One of them was Tyler Aholt. He survived a tour in Iraq and the emotional scars that involves. He was struck down while riding his motorcycle home from work, and his parents, Steve and Sandy, left PNG to bury their only son. The other was only 4 years old. Tyler Thyng was in America with his family for an extended medical furlough because his younger sister Kate was ill and his mom was going to have a baby. While enjoying time with his grandparents he became ill and was hospitalized. Within a week he had departed the arms of his earthly father to be cradled in the arms of his Heavenly Father.
A first-term family, Joel and Rachel Prigge, almost lost their six-month-old son Hudson. He had to be MedEvaced to Australia due to a telescoping bowel. Bill and David Smith were guiding a medical team from ABWE to a remote village to help familiarize them with the medical needs in PNG. They were riding four-wheelers when the one Bill and David were riding on overturned almost killing them both. The doctors treated them as much as they could as they waited to be MedEvaced to Australia. Later, David Smith was visiting a village for meetings when he got Typhoid and due to complications he almost died while waiting for the mission plane to MedEvac him.
As we returned home for furlough in June 2008 we were spent. It had been a long, challenging term. We were settled into our furlough ministries when in October our youngest daughter Abi somehow contracted an infection on her face that turned into a very rare, very virulent form of Necrotizing Faciitis and almost died.
This may have been difficult and tragic for us to go through, for all of our PNG colleagues, but God is at work! Satan is trying hard to stop what is happening in Papua New Guinea. But not one of the families who have experienced these difficult circumstances was discouraged away from the ministry in PNG because of it. We all know that God is doing something great, if Satan is trying so hard to stop it, and we all want to be part of seeing what God is going to do!
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