Back in the 1960s, the Adventist Church built an airstrip in Ama, a remote community in the swamps of the Upper Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. Soon after the airstrip was completed, a missionary arrived with his picture roll and stories. People listened, and hearts were touched. But the missionary didn’t stay long.
Eagerly, the believers waited for another missionary to come and mentor them in their new faith. Year after year they waited. Nobody came. As believers grew old and died, their children took up the vigil. Surely someone would come!
In the 1990s, another missionary family arrived, but severe sickness drove them back to the States only six months later. Twenty more years passed as the people of Ama sent out request after request, begging for a missionary to come to them. In faith, they built a church out of bamboo, leaves and scrap roofing tin, ready for the missionary they knew God would send them.
In early 2012, John and Pam Lello and their daughters Abigail and Alissa arrived in Ama, brimming with plans for outreach and community education. A year and a half later, John lay dead at the base of a giant kwila tree, the victim of a freak lumber-cutting accident.
Today, like so many thousands of other unreached people groups around the world, the people of Ama still wait. What are they waiting for? They don’t really know, but they keenly feel its absence. Somewhere on the other side of the earth are people with a priceless treasure—a story of a God more powerful than the spirits they fear . . . a God who loves them? They can hardly make sense of it, but they are dying to know more. With broken hearts, they wait—as they have waited for 50 years.
Praise God, their wait is almost over! David and Edie Hicks are poised to launch to Ama as soon as their visas are granted. As they step onto enemy soil where other missionaries have retreated or perished, pray the power of Almighty God upon them!
