Some years ago I started sensing in my spirit that I was meant to go to Papua New Guinea.
I didn't tell anyone. But after a church-service one Sunday, as we were walking through the corridor to go to the lift to leave the building, one of our Pastors spontaneously laid hands on me: he said he saw a vision of Papua New Guinea, and he said to me, "I feel like you're meant to go there".
Then after quite some time, and having possibly missed at least one opportunity to go, one Sunday night I felt led to go and stand in a particular part of the auditorium. There I noticed someone who rarely visits our church. We greeted each other, and he happened to mention that he was going with a team to Papua New Guinea.
I checked my bank account, and I found - and this wasn't a regular thing - but someone who I wasn't in regular contact with had deposited some money into my account.
On top of an amount of money which I already had in the account, it amounted to enough to buy a return plane ticket but only as far as Port Moresby, not enough to also buy the domestic flights to and from the island where the team was going for a crusade.
I wondered whether I should at least book the international flights anyway, and just trust that the money for the domestic flights would also be provided in time: but my mind started imagining the scenario if I only made it as far as Port Moresby (where accommodation costs can be exorbitant, and it isn't recommended that you're on the streets after dark), so I hesitated. And the team was flying early the next morning.
As a friend dropped me home from church that night, I told my friend everything. My friend told me that it had so happened that they just received a back-payment at work and my friend had already decided to give a percentage of it to missions. So my friend offered it to me.
When I got inside and got online, I found that due to my hesitancy in booking the international flights at the moment when I originally wondered whether I should have, the fare had gone up a bit. But still I now had enough to cover all the flights including the domestic ones, plus enough for accommodation during the one-week crusade (so I was informed) but not enough to buy meals.
I opened my Bible, and it fell open at a passage which described people gladly receiving the apostles' visit and contributing to them out of what they had. I felt like I could 'see' it happening to me. I could see the ministry that would unfold for me there. I even felt a message burn inside me for them. It's like faith was forming inside me. I booked the flights.
It was too late at night for me to phone the Pastor/team-leader to say I was coming, because they would all have been in bed because they had an early flight the next morning. But at about 5a.m. I phoned the Pastor and told him I'd been able to book flights. He said they'd pick me up in 10 minutes.
My own household were still asleep and didn't even know what I was doing, until I phoned them after we'd gone through Customs!
"How long will you be away?"
"Well, the crusade goes for a week..."
"You might end-up staying longer."
I thought of the names of some Papua New Guinean pastors belonging to our denomination, who I'd read about in missionary magazines when I was a child. One of the Pastors had been a leading Evangelist in the nation; another had died, and I felt a desire to encourage his family, if ever I would get to see them. I didn't have any contact details though.
Nearly 10,000 people attended the open-air crusade, in a town with a population of only about 5,000. The island is about as far away in the Pacific Ocean from the capital Port Moresby as Sydney is from the Gold Coast. People had come from all over the island. On the Sunday our team split up and ministered in different churches.
The day before the team was due to come back to Australia, I began to feel in my spirit that I should stay.
I asked the Lord to confirm it through the Pastor who had invited me to be part of the team.
I came out of my room, and the Pastor was sitting at a breakfast table right in front of my door.
He looked at me and said, "So, are you staying?"
The problem was, I didn't have enough money to stay.
A young person from a local church there visited me at our accommodation, and talked to me about staying.
We talked about how after David defeated Goliath, the rest of Israel then finished off the job.
"If you stay, you will have many spiritual sons in this place," I felt the Lord say in my heart.
I went to the airport with the team, still grappling with it in my mind. But I just couldn't leave.
When I saw their plane going down the runway, it was a bit of a sinking feeling!
The town was like a ghost-town. Everyone was staying indoors after the crusade, or had already left for their villages. All the excitement had simmered sown. And I didn't even really know where I was going to stay at night. But at least I'd decided to stay.
Right at that moment I got a text message from someone in Sydney. From someone who I hadn't seen for years and who didn't know anything about what I was doing lately but who interceded for me and often had the word of the Lord for me.
"I can see you've stepped-out on a path God has for you. Stay on it. And you will have many spiritual sons".
When the locals saw that I was staying, they were thrilled.
One Pastor invited me to minister in his denomination, and offered to arrange accommodation for me, but I didn't feel quite right about it in my spirit.
Some time later another Pastor when he realised I was staying, decided to continue with nightly meetings in his church, and invited me to be the minister. And I felt right about it.
It even turned out that the family of the pastor whose name I'd read about in my childhood and who had died, belonged to this church. So I was able to meet them and encourage them. It felt very special.
And I learned that the church was the mother-church of our denomination in PNG, and had been founded by the very missionary who had later became our Pastor in Ipswich. So it really felt like I'd stumbled upon family.
I learned that the church had suffered a split over doctrine leaving much of the congregation and building in disarray for eight years, and had only recently started up again. So it felt like a timely visit.
We'd been given two-month visas upon arrival. I ended-up being involved in 61 meetings and outreaches in 59 days. In nightly meetings in the church for 12 days; in every department of the church; home meetings; youth meetings; in their school; in their regional Pastors' meetings; and in daughter-churches in remote villages; in one village we shared the gospel with every house, people received Jesus with tears.
People who got saved or filled with the Spirit during the crusade were able to be assimilated into church; others who hadn't attended the crusade came and got filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues and saw visions and prophesied; many experienced joy in the Holy Spirit.
One young person who came and who received the Spirit and spoke in tongues, called me 'daddy'.
Church members gave me accommodation, delicious food, and money. And a couple of friends in Australia, once they knew I was staying, also put some money in my account.
One Saturday we got everyone together and repainted the church-building. The painting-skills I learned just before going to Papua New Guinea came in handy.
When someone saw the painting going on, he donated electrical work and new lights.
And the ladies started donating new decorations for the stage.
It's like every aspect of the church was receiving a renewal.
After several weeks I began to feel it was time to go. While I was thinking about it, that same young man who had visited me at my accommodation when I was feeling I should stay, came again, and we talked heart to heart.
But there were still two things in my spirit to do. One, was I'd seen a 'vision' of a volcano. I thought I'd like to see a volcano: I hadn't seen a live one since my childhood in Japan. I knew there was a volcano on another island, but it would require another flight. I really wasn't sure what to do with that vision.
I asked the local pastor what he thought. He said, "Somehow I feel I should tell you that you shouldn't do anything to try to go there".
But it felt like my time in PNG was incomplete.
The second, was I still desired to meet the pastor who was a national Evangelist, whose name I'd known since childhood.
Before I flew, I visited a family who had accommodated me and fed me a lot, and gave them an envelope with money in it.
But the next day they came to the airport when I was leaving, and gave it all back to me. Church members had all gotten up early to come to the airport and wave me off. And asking me to come back again. My new family.
Little did I know, the flight to Port Moresby included a stopover in another island, the very island where the volcano was. We even flew right by it. I saw into its crater, with the smoke coming out. Someone said later it was just God's way of letting me know I was completing my task.
In Moresby I had five hours to wait before the flight back to Brisbane. Church members on the island arranged for some relatives of theirs to pick me up and spend that time with me. I mentioned the name of the Pastor to them - who'd been a leading Evangelist - who I still desired to see.
They knew his name and drove me to his church, but he wasn't there. But one of his associate pastors phoned him, and he invited me to come and meet him, at a certain shopping centre for lunch.
So we went there, meeting this wonderful man of God whom I'd heard about since my childhood. And all I wanted to do was confirm our love for him.
While we were sitting at the table meeting, I glanced to my side, and I noticed two Pastors, pastors from Australia whom we both knew, in the same food court, at the same time.
And so each of us talked together. Not only was it a thrill for me, but it was such a Divine appointment for each of them. I immediately understood God's reason for it all, but I won't go into that now. It felt like such a profound moment.
With everything I felt I had to do and could still do, now done, I was in the departure lounge, waiting to board, when I got another text message. From the same person in Sydney. Who still didn't know anything about me going to PNG, and staying, and now being about to leave.
"I feel like the Lord wants you to hear, 'Thank you - and well done'."
No comments:
Post a Comment