Thievery is commonplace here. So, when I began planning the materials we would need for our new house, a friend suggested we purchase a used shipping container to put our things in and ship out to the site. The container could be offloaded at the house site and would provide a secure place to store our things while the house was being built.

When we went to Port Moresby to do our shopping, we looked into purchasing a used container. However, the only ones we could afford were rusted through and not structurally sound. We prayed about it and decided to forgo getting a container and just ship the materials on pallets.
Earlier in the year when the property was first donated for AFM’s use, we were given a statutory declaration filled out by Bobby Gali, the landowner, stating the terms of agreement and signed and sealed by a government official. The agreement had the land going back to the family after AFM finished its work. I conferred via email with our supervisor about it and came up with a suggested revision indicating the property would remain in AFM’s hands even after the project is finished. We knew this would test Bobby’s motives, but he didn’t even bat an eyelash. He promptly rewrote the document according to our desires, went to the government office and got it signed and sealed. As he was making the change, Bobby told me he hadn’t felt right about the old wording because of the issue of giving land to God and taking it back later. He preferred to give the land for perpetual mission work. Praise the Lord!

Since the cost of a decent container was prohibitive, I tried to think of other options. I remembered seeing a container on the bank of the river by our land in Kewa. It was used for storing blocks of rubber for selling. I decided to ask Bobby about it. He said it belonged to his uncle who lives in Port Moresby. I asked Bobby if he could contact his uncle to see if there was any possibility that we could use it. A few days later, Bobby told me his uncle had given permission for us to use the container. We only needed to get the key for it. But as the time approached for us to fly back to the village, we still had not received the key. I tried calling Bobby’s mobile phone but never got through. We didn’t know exactly where he lived, so we had no way of contacting him. The day before our cargo was to leave port, Laurie and I were at the wharf taking care of last-minute items going onto the barge when who should come out of the shipping office but Bobby! He told us his mobile phone had been stolen, and that’s why we hadn’t been able to make contact. He instructed us to pick up the key from his father in Balimo. Praise the Lord!
In spite of careful planning, it soon became apparent that the cost of shipping our building materials would put us over-budget. However, when we went into the shipping office to get the bill, the attendant generously charged us much less—thousands of dollars less—than the normal rate to help rectify a mistake they made last year when they shipped our fuel drums to the wrong place. In fact, the attendant kept looking for ways to save us more money. We could add whatever we wanted and not be charged any more money! Instead of going into the red, our house fund remained in the black. Praise the Lord! While the barge carrying our cargo crossed the Gulf of Papua, our family flew out to Balimo.
The barge arrived at Kewa on a Friday. We had a group of about 20 people to help unload. With no crane, forklift or tractor to assist unloading, muscle power was the order of the day. We faced quite a task. The centerpiece was 10 jumbo bags of gravel, each weighing about a ton. After three hours of shoveling gravel and pushing wheelbarrows, we had finished two of the ten bags. It was the middle of the afternoon on Friday, and I told the ship captain that we would not be doing any unloading on Sabbath. But there was no way we could finish unloading the remaining bags before sundown. The captain told me he had some cargo to take upriver to Awaba and offered to come back on Sunday or Monday. “That’s fine,” I said. “We’ll meet you here again.”

Later, as I thought about the enormity of the task still remaining, I was overwhelmed with feelings of helplessness. Even if we could get all those people to come out again and work as hard as they had today, it would still take several days to get the job done. “Lord,” I prayed, “I need Your help. Please send help.”

Normally, two cargo ships service the Port Moresby-Balimo route, and they each have cranes for offloading cargo. However, both ships were being chartered by private companies at the time, so a tugboat and barge with no crane were used instead. Sabbath evening, I got word that another cargo ship had stopped at Kewa and wanted to remove the container to put it closer to the village, but because the container was full, they had left it and gone upriver to collect other containers. They wanted to meet me at Kewa on Monday. “Sounds like trouble,” I thought, so I prayed again.

On Monday morning, a group of guys and I got into the dinghy and headed across the lagoon and down the creek to the river heading to Kewa. Rounding the bend in the river, we saw the Kikori Chief, a large cargo ship, docked beside our container. As we pulled up to dock in front of the ship, a man on shore frantically waved his arms, signaling us to move away quickly. We moved just in time as the giant ship’s engines roared to life and it pulled away from the bank and rumbled down the river.

Circling back to the landing, we tied up the dinghy and climbed the riverbank. I could hardly believe the sight that met my eyes. Not only was our container still there, but next to it were our remaining eight bags of gravel! The Kikori Chief had picked up the bags from the barge upriver, brought them down and unloaded them with its crane. God had sent help just at the right time.

I believe God used these events to remind us that He is in control, and it is in His plan for us to build a mission house in Kewa. The icing on the cake came when we heard another facet of the story. The day we were offloading, a barge worker, a rough-looking, betel-nut-chewing man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, walked up to an elderly Kewa man and charged him to be sure the people took good care of us, explaining that Adventists are doing a very good work throughout the country. It’s amazing whom God uses to speak for Him! We are in awe at God’s leading and provision.

“Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us” (Eph. 3:20).

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