'Priceless' backpacks journey to Papua New Guinea

Monday, December 3, 2012

Chimbu/Eastern Highlands District, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea's Chimbu/Eastern Highlands District is covered with vast, dense tropical mountain ranges, deep valleys, and large river systems. Much of the district is made up of land so rugged that no vehicles have ever travelled on it. Almost half a million people live there between 5,000 and 7,500 feet above sea level, but in a land where the sound of an engine or a phone ringing has never been heard, how can these residents be reached with the message of Jesus Christ?

District Superintendent Enoch Thomas uses the JESUS Film backpack as a tool for evangelism and church planting. He travels by public bus for hours — right to the end of dirt roads — and then hikes with his 50-pound JESUS Film backpack to places that few men from the outside world have ever seen. He meets people in the remote jungle whose lives are filled with pain and heartache and he shares the good news of Jesus Christ as they gather to watch Luke’s rendition of the greatest story ever told.

Thomas also works with pastors and evangelists to reignite the fire for Christ wherever it begins to dim. Using massive, old fashion camp-meeting tents, evangelism is constantly pushing the frontiers deeper into new, unreached areas.

Community Based Health Care, part of Nazarene Health Ministries in Papua New Guinea, also uses a JESUS Film backpack. The ministry reaches out to some of the most remote villages of Papua New Guinea with physical, social, and spiritual transformation. Workers have had great success using the JESUS film to reach lost souls.

Melanesia Field Strategy Coordinator Harmon Schmelzenbach believes that this new backpack is priceless. Until the backpack was created, it took four to six men to carry enough equipment to show the film to a crowd of any size.

"It has been found to have the best results in the most remote, most rugged, and most primitive of our areas," he said.
--Church of the Nazarene Asia-Pacific

 

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