I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing. Uladu’s strongest leader was leaving? How could this be? Teacher Josh Kiwa was needed here to help mentor and teach this new church. Though we had heard of him before, this was our first time meeting him, and he told us he was leaving.
Josh is a Gogodala Adventist who left the area to earn a degree in education, taught in the PNG Highlands for 15 years, and then came back to serve his people. For a few years, he was the headmaster (principal) of the school in Uladu. This was an incredible blessing to the new, growing church there. Josh is a natural leader, and with his background in education, he is a great Bible teacher. The Lord brought him to Uladu at a critical time, just as the group was really starting to blossom and grow and needed an additional leader to help guide them.
However, because of jealousy on the part of some of the leaders at the main village church (they didn’t like having an Adventist leading in their school), we found out that he was being transferred out. My first reaction was sadness at the loss of a good leader. But later I found out that Josh was being moved from Uladu to Kebane village—where another new Adventist church is being formed. Over the last year, God has used a young man to start and grow an Adventist group in Kebane village. So the Lord was moving Josh from one new Adventist group to another. God’s hand was in all of this. We are in awe of His amazing ways.
In our conversations with Josh, we discovered that not only does he love to teach in the church, but he also has evangelistic ambitions to preach in the wider community. Years ago, in the Highlands, he used his school generator to run his computer and projector and would travel around his area preaching evangelism sermons and teaching health principles. God blessed his work! But his equipment stopped working, as happens so often when living in a hot, humid environment.
Someone brought his projector to me to fix, but after a quick assessment, it was evident that there was nothing I could do to repair it. Later, I found out that he had been using the projector as a monitor to see what was on his computer because the screen on his laptop was broken. Even with all the technological issues, He continues to teach the best he can. His real desire, though, is to get back to his evangelistic preaching.
Please pray that God’s Spirit will bless Josh and his wife as they minister in Kebane. And praise God with us for His marvelous oversight of His work.
