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Our Stories

THE GIVING PAGE

by | Aug 24, 2021 | What CRMF Does

On July the 9th the one street town of Balimo was filled with expectations to receive visitors who were travelling in for various reasons. Rev. Dacky, Johnson and I were met by Pastor Sam of ECPNG Page Local Church at the airport.

After a short ride from the airstrip, we warmly welcome by the chairman and the vice chairman with a small group of Sunday school children with balloons and flower laces for us at Page Local Church.

During the welcome reception and light lunch, we were told that the other expected visitors (political) did not arrive as planned.

The chairman of the local Church and our wonderful host for the three weeks shared that it was ironical that a large crowd waited for their visitors who did not turn up but our little group received their visitors who were going to make such an impact as never being experienced before. Thus, a poem of arrival was birthed – “Our visitors came but theirs did not, our plane came but theirs did not, our training is on and they are still waiting!”
Most of Western Province is made up of water, lagoons and lakes; resulting in communities built on bigger land mass with water all around them. Page Point is one such community with current settlers whose parents were medical orderlies and mission workers in the early days of overseas missionaries.

The fellowship started off by medical workers as ministry group ministering to the spiritual needs of the Balimo Hospital patients. This fellowship grew bigger and could not continue in the hospital premises and was eventually moved to its present location.

Because of its strategic location and the flexibility of the Pastor and his office bearers, it has become and place of worship for the Page Point community and the visitors that are passing through Balimo.
I had the privilege to preach the first Sunday for the congregation and the YWAM team that were doing COVID 19 patrols on the first Sunday. I was requested to preach again the second Sunday using power point slides.

I thank the Lord for the opportunity to use slides to preach as they have been taught during the week and to see it being used on a Sunday was a good lesson for them, they saw the potential of power point and its effectiveness to preach the Gospel.

I was later told that this was the first time that children did not move around during the sermon. It was a new experience for everybody and all glory to God for the presenting the Gospel in a new way. They all realized the importance of using the power point slides to preach to today’s generation.

This new experience was made possible because of unity among the leadership of the local church. To start off they deposited a significant amount of money to secure the basic computer course. When the course did not eventuate due to restrictions for MAF flights into Balimo, others who initially registered for the training withdrew.
When we actually arrived for the training a lot of people were actually surprised that we did eventually arrived for the training.
By that time the registrations were closed and the final list was being submitted. Only one exception was allowed for a missionary couple who were serving in West Papua to join in.

Secondly, the team went ahead to bought a new generator after I explained that due to a large number of participants and Covid 19 spacing regulation, I would be happy to teach a total of three classes. The night sessions had town power but the day classes would certainly need power from the generator. To the amazement of the leadership team, when the chairman went to ask the Asian Businessmen for the generator, he just let them have a brand-new generator with an agreement for payments to be done later at their own time.

I was given the honour to dedicate the new generator and was used for the Sunday worship service.

When the rest of equipment arrived on Tuesday, we were able to completed the setup of the training venue and were able to kick off the basic computing training.
The biggest surprise for the participants was that they were going to use laptops for training! All this time they were thinking they were going to be trained without computers use.

Most of them did not realise the idea of a mobile computer being brought right to their door step and that it was happening in their own community!
It was an eye opener for everyone and we are glad that Page Local Church and its office bearers did all the right decisions to bring the basic computer course to Balimo.
The graduation and the presentation of certificates was done on Friday as the rest of the country was observing Remembrance Day. The Master of Ceremony Mr Norie Kutika pointed out that it was indeed a good Remembrance Day for Page local Church to have hosted such a training.
It was indeed a joyous day as the day concluded with feasting and giving of gifts to the trainers, we gave training and they gave us gifts to remember this special occasion and it was all possible because the local church was willing to give to bring the basic computer training to Balimo.

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