It was 11:53 pm. The moonless sky was pitch-black with clouds. Unseen mosquitoes buzzed near my ear, and a very small fire was trying to burn about 20 yards away. A short, elderly man scurried about, picking up little pieces of trash from the area near his house. I watched as he paced, tears welling up on the bottoms of my eyelids. That’s when I heard him lightly singing a tune I’ve never heard. I just had to know what he was singing.

That short elderly man was Elijah, a man that got saved about three years ago, here in Kotidanga. When he got saved, he was very sick. The Lord had directed Pastor James, my dad (Missionary John Allen), and me to all three independently witness to him in the same week. Elijah moved to the coast last year, and has not been back here since. His severe asthma just doesn’t aggravate him in the lowlands. He built a house in the swampy area of Titikaini, and repeatedly sent requests for us to send preachers to his area. His plea: “The people here really need the Gospel. Please send a preacher.”

This past weekend, we made a survey trip to visit the Kamea villages of Titikaini. Missionaries Andrew Schellenberger and Jason Ottosen accompanied me along with two of our Kamea preachers, Tony Tinandi and Konos Manus. We stayed at Elijah’s house, and we hiked to the surrounding villages. Elijah had told us the truth–there are a lot of villages in that area, and there are only three churches, all Seventh-Day Adventist. No Catholic churches. No Lutheran churches. No Charismatic churches. No Baptist churches.

As we […]

Today’s church service was a little different from normal. We had two pastors from the Ihu area preach this morning–one in Sunday School, the other during the morning’s main service.

As church services came to an end, Pastor James was giving an invitation and I began to hear people praying around me. Many times, our people will pray in quiet audible tones. And that’s when it struck me–I was praying in Pidgin from my heart, but Pastor Jerry was praying next to me in Orokolo. Preacher Jack was on my other side, praying in the Kamea language, and Ricky was praying behind me in Gadsup language.

How many lanugages were represented today? After church I took a look around and began asking that question. I came up with nine languages represented in our congregation of about 180 people.

Most of the people were Kamea, since we live right in the heart of Kamea-land; but Baimiri is from Akoye and that is her heart-language. Pastors Jerry, Murphy, and Maisa (who are visiting for the Pastor’s School this week) are all Orokolo men. (What a manly language it is, too!) Pastor David is from Baimuru and he has two heart languages, one from his dad and one from his mom–Koriki and Eare. Pastor Jorim is from Kaintiba and he speaks Hamtai. Ricky and his wife are from Asarunka in the Eastern Highlands Province and they speak Gadsup. Of course, Tok Pisin (aka Pidgin) is the trade language, and all of the missionaries speak English, especially the large number of them that we have here from Wyoming. (We almost have more people here from Wyoming than Wyoming has people living in it!)

This morning’s church service gave […]