Deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, rosewood trees tower 50 or 60 feet above the damp, fern-covered forest floor, their thick buttress roots rising from the ground and merging with the massive trunks.

A landowner friend of ours donated some trees to us to help us build our house. One of the trees was a 36-inch-diameter rosewood located in the bush about 45 minutes from our house. With our chainsaw, my friend, Duaba, cut through the buttress roots one at a time. When all but one of its roots were severed, the tree still stubbornly stood tall. Then a loud pop echoed through the forest as the first fiber gave way. There were more pops and then a growing roar as the tree leaned and its top hurtled downward through branches of its neighbors, taking down smaller trees and vines and landing with a crash.

A week later, we got a group of Gogodala men together to help run the portable sawmill and cut the tree into boards. As fast as the planks came off the mill, our helpers stacked them neatly with spacers so they could dry and season.

A few months later, more than 50 men and women from Kotale showed up to carry the heavy boards through the dense forest about a mile to the nearest waterfront where they could be loaded into canoes and transported across the water to the building site.

The rough-sawn timbers had grayed unattractively from months of exposure to sun and rain. But as I fed each ugly board past the whirling blades of the planer, it was transformed. From beneath the chainsaw marks and the weathering emerged a beautiful, smooth, reddish-grained surface.

Our mission to the Gogodala is like a tree. Under the hand of the Almighty Craftsman, this tree will be cut down, milled, planed, cut to shape, joined together with other pieces, sanded and lacquered until it becomes useful in His kingdom and beautiful in His eyes.

Everybody is a work in progress. I think of Mapame, a village outcast who used to smoke marijuana, steal from people’s gardens and beat his wife. But I have seen a change in Mapame. About three months ago, he started attending our church. He built a house for his family and planted a garden so they could have food. I see him carrying his children in his arms. He smiles and waves to me whenever I walk past his house. His wife seems happier, too.

One by one, the buttress roots of Mapame’s old habits have been cut through, and he has submitted his rough exterior to the trimming blades of providence. When God looks at Mapame, He doesn’t see raw material; He sees the beautiful rosewood of a surrendered heart.

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