The freight manager made himself clear: “You can’t take six goats on the plane!” Not to be deterred, the stewardship ambassador replied, “But we have to, it’s God’s work.”
After much negotiation, a special timber crate was constructed, and the goats got their boarding passes.
Every year, more than one million precious souls around the world call the Seventh-day Adventist Church “my church” for the first time, and the 2024 PNG for Christ harvest program played a big part in that worldwide growth. However, for many new members, becoming an Adventist is far from easy.
They choose to leave behind their essential incomes such as pig farming, selling marijuana or betel nut or even a regular wage as the pastor of another denomination.
Retaining these dedicated new converts is a number one priority for the Church in Papua New Guinea, and the Eastern Highlands Simbu Mission (EHSM) has pioneered a unique and effective method of member retention.
Life Skills Camps
Practical stewardship, in the form of life skills trainings, are taking the EHSM by storm and they’ve even launched it into other missions including Morobe, South-West Papua and Bougainville. From October 6–20, Pastor Mathew Kamo, the EHSM stewardship director, organised 18, one-week, life skills training camps attended by more than 15,000 people.
The life skills programs, which also attract at-risk young people, revolve around the acronym GATE—God first, Agriculture, Trades and Entrepreneurship, and are often accompanied by health education and outreach, including the 10,000 Toes diabetes prevention activities.
With hearts overflowing with God’s love, skilled church members generously give their time and resources to teach new believers more than 25 different life skills, including income generation from:
• Rice • Tomatoes • Citrus
• Grapes • Mushrooms • Cocoa
• Sweet potato • Tapioca flour
• Vanilla • Baking • Sewing
• Goats • Poultry • Fish
• Cattle • Cooking • Packaged meals
• Mechanics • Solar electrical
• Plumbing • Carpentry
• Brick making • Literature sales
• Bookkeeping • Business registration
• Small business skills
The camps include morning and evening spiritual messages for new believers, explanations about God’s tithe and offerings, and testimonies from beneficiaries of past trainings about how they have been blessed by God in their new-found faith and skills.
FAITH Gardens
A powerful part of the program was visits by pastors Joanis Fezamo (EHSM president) and James Kiangua (EHSM general secretary) who shared stories of their own personal commitment to growing healthy foods for their families.
With fast-rising food costs in the shops, the pastors outlined the need for every household to have a FAITH garden. The acronym stands for Food Always In The Home and is a powerful reminder of God’s call for us to care for our families. Pastor Fezamo gifted ready-to-plant rice and wheat seeds from his own family’s FAITH garden to each of the camps and encouraged them to multiply the harvest.
The EHSM’s practical stewardship activities are testament to the members’ love for their neighbours and many onlookers are seeing that they are Christ’s disciples because of their love for one another. Eyewitnesses are describing it as a beautiful re-creation of the early church’s sharing of their faith, love and resources in Acts 2:44-47.
Many who are not yet Adventists are also attending the life skills camps and are being introduced to the love of God through His people. The camps, originally aimed at new member retention, have become an effective outreach in themselves.
Tim McTernan, the minstry innovations and marketing leader for the South Pacific Division, is making a documentary about the PNG life skills camps. It will be released to the world Church in early 2025 to encourage others to retain new members through practical stewardship.
So, what happened to those six, high-flying goats? They landed safely in Bougainville where they were used to teach a life skill to new Adventists, and have just given birth to their first kids!
Julian Archer is the stewardship director of the South Pacific Division.
