We Don't Want to Hear!

Three Wantakian elders and a deacon.

 “We already know that talk! No thanks!”

Jack Crabtree, a church planter in the Wantakian people group of Papua New Guinea, tells the story: "This time last year we hiked to a nearby village and asked them if they’d be interested in learning to read and hearing God’s talk in their own language. Many people were interested, but the leaders of the village shut everything down. Many of the believers in the village where we work are related to people in Aasi and feel a huge burden for their friends and relatives to hear the gospel. We’ve been praying for them and for doors to open all this past year.

“Well, about two months ago, one of the leaders of Aasi was trying to get back to his village but got caught in a massive rainstorm. There was a garden house nearby, so he ducked inside. The family welcomed him to sit close to the fire, and as he warmed himself, he heard them speaking about God’s word – in his own language. He said, ‘Is this the talk you all came to our village with last year?’ One of the believers said, ‘Yes, this is God’s talk, and we always encourage each other with it. This is what we want to bring to your village.’

Kodiak in the sky, former LongRanger on the ground.  Ethnos360 Aviation has served Wantakia since 2015.

“As the family continued teaching, the man listened a bit longer and said, ‘Last year I was one of the ones who told you all not to bring this talk to our village. I thought I already knew it, but this is a different talk! I’ve never heard anything like it before! Will you all come to my house and teach me and my family?’

“Since then, Bible teachers from Pinji have been hiking over to Aasi every week to teach God’s word to this family group! Recently, this same man told the believers, ‘Teachers shouldn’t hike to the students; the students should come to the teachers. We’re going to start hiking to Pinji each week to keep hearing God’s Talk.’

“So he and his family have been hiking here every Friday night to hear God’s Word,” said Jack’s teammates BJ and Jill Sanders.

It was a few years back when the Wantakians first heard God’s Grand Story, wrote the Sanders. “In 2020, while the world was in chaos, we were able to teach the Wantakians chronologically through the Bible. Each lesson we taught, we saw eyes opening and lightbulbs turning on. Before, they were taught to appease spirits so that their gardens would grow well, so that they wouldn’t get sick, and so that they would have a good life. When they compared their stories, like creation, to surrounding tribes, they were not the same stories. And they lived in confusion and fear. Constant fear.

“Lesson after lesson, their eyes were opened to God’s Story in the Bible. It all made sense! One guy stood up and told us, ‘Now I know the truth. God sent his only Son to take our payment for our sin, and we can be joined with him. The veil is torn and we have a direct road to Him.’ And then he starts crying: ‘What if you wouldn’t have come to tell us … we’d all continue to live in fear and darkness and separation.’”

If you have given to Missionary Flight Sponsorship, you have had a hand in the Wantakians hearing God’s Word by helping provide aviation service to the church planting team working there. Ethnos360 Aviation has sustained them so they could do the long and hard work of bringing the Truth to the Wantakians. Thank God that this people group doesn’t need to “live in fear and darkness and separation.” Thank you for consistently, faithfully supporting Ethnos360 Aviation to provide flight service to church planters in Papua New Guinea – and Brazil, Asia-Pacific and the Philippines.