Gideon, is that you?” I asked in surprise as I greeted him at the recent camp meeting at May River station. I hadn’t seen him in 20 years! Gideon is from the village of Nimo, located along a little creek that flows into the upper May River. When I last saw him, he wasn’t a believer. I have a picture of him smoking tobacco and looking miserable as he stands in front of his village.
You wouldn’t know it now, but back in the 1970s before Papua New Guinea had gained its independence from Australia, Gideon was a wild young man and served time in prison for murder. His father had selected three girls for him to marry, but before the bride prices were paid, Australian police arrested Gideon. They took him to a prison in a different part of PNG, far from friends and family, where he didn’t even speak the language. So he became the first of his people to learn Tok Pisin.
Gideon was gone so long that his family thought he had died. He lost his wives and his land. However, one blessing came to Gideon during his incarceration—he got to attend school, and he became the first of his tribe to learn to read.
Gideon returned to Nimo after his release a changed man. He married one wife and now has 12 children and many grandchildren. Because of his experience in the world outside the jungle, he began teaching his people the Tok Pisin language and eventually became a village leader.
When I met Gideon at camp meeting, I immediately noticed the smile on his face and the absence of tobacco-smoke odor on his clothes, and I realized that he was now a Seventh-day Adventist Christian! He carried his Bible with him everywhere he went, and I often saw him in prayer.
On the second day of camp meeting, Edie and I both came down with malaria and stayed home in bed with high fevers, chills, headaches and fatigue. Gideon came to visit us. He opened his Bible, placed one finger on a text and his other hand on my head and began to pray for our sicknesses to go away. He was such an encouragement! I hadn’t anticipated that a bushman would give me a lesson on how to pray for the sick during my first month at May River.
Gideon pleaded with me to help him share Jesus with the rest of his small language group. After the baptism at camp meeting, there was a small new congregation of baptized Seventh-day Adventists at Nimo. But Gideon isn’t content with only a few believers. He wants more—lots more!
