Churches and literacy in PNG

Looking back at October, I see it as bookended by two big events, which highlight some of the kinds of work that we do in Papua New Guinea. In the first week of October, I travelled to the town of Madang to participate in a province-wide church conference. Over 100 church leaders from throughout Madang Province gathered that week at Holy Trinity Anglican Church. This was the first in a planned series of three conferences called “Hope for a Better Future.” This year’s theme was “Unity.” We heard messages from pastors on that theme, and presentations by a number of ministries and organizations active in Madang. Wednesday morning was set aside especially for the Bible translation agencies, and I made a short presentation about the history of our organization. I also challenged people to get involved in the work of bringing the Bible to the many vernacular languages of Madang. It’s exciting to see Papua New Guinean churches taking on the Bible translation roles that were once filled only by expatriate missionaries. What I was most encouraged by at the Hope conference was the sense of Madang churches wanting not just to talk but to actually do something. People wanted to put aside disagreements between churches in order to have a unified voice to speak into social justice issues throughout PNG.

The striking crucifix at the front of Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Madang

In the last week of October, I flew to Port Moresby to take part in meetings about the National Literacy Policy of Papua New Guinea. I was there with about 20 other people, representing various government departments, churches, and non-governmental organizations. Our purpose was to review the National Literacy Policy, originally drafted in 2000, begin revising the policy, and think through methods of implementing it. The policy focuses especially on Papua New Guineans who are outside of the formal school education system. There are over 400,000 school-age children in PNG who are not in school, and the National Literacy Policy seeks ways of reaching those children with basic functional literacy. It’s an enormous task, but it was really great to be working on it with such amazing people—people who share a passion for improving life for everyone in PNG. I was there because that group wants our organization to provide the training of literacy teachers and trainers for the whole country. The next meeting is scheduled for early 2015; thank you for praying for the people working on this policy, and the many thousands of people who might benefit from the literacy efforts.