'Planim Pos' Training Comes to Mibu

Late last week, three teachers made the long journey from the highlands, down to Madang, across the sea, and up the mountain here to Mibu. Their purpose; they'd been asked to come put on a weeklong course called Planim Pos. Planim Pos is a teacher training course, specifically focused on teaching the gospel using Pidgin English. Pidgin English is the national trade language here in Papua New Guinea and is indispensible when communicating across language boundaries. While the work and ministry we do here in Mibu is all in the Mibu language, called 'Ma', it's become clear that having some skill and confidence in communicating the gospel in Pidgin English would open up some opportunities for them as they interact with their neighbors.

For example, there are a couple families from the coast who recently relocated up to one of the Mibu villages. Their purpose for moving up here was to be where the good news about Jesus is being taught so that they too might hear it. That's a problem when all the teaching is in the local vernacular, which they don't speak. We're hoping this course will prepare teachers to communicate the gospel as effectively as possible with those families.

When we started talking about the possibility of this course, we thought maybe we'd try a handful of students, maybe 15 or so, and see how it goes. The level of interest far exceeded this though! The number of people who registered for the course had to be whittled down to 45 just to keep in manageable! In addition, another 40-60 people audited the course! Which means they sat in on the teaching but just didn't get the included books, and weren't part of the practical exercises. The little building we met in was packed full, with people sitting around the outside, listening through the windows! I was blown away by the interest! People from 8 different villages and 3 different langauges were there. The village of Mibu was a bustling hive of workers, arranged ahead of time to host people and prepare food and take care of the needs of everyone there for the course.

As I sat through many of the sessions taught by these three PNG citizens I appreciated more and more the effectiveness and benefit of their teaching. Practically speaking they had such great material to exhort and encourage both new and experienced teachers in Mibu! Their years of Christian maturity brought many invaluable insights! They communicated it so perfectly and powerfully too! Many things were reiterations of themes we've taught here over the years. Yet there was an incalculable value added by hearing these things not from expats, but from other PNG citizens. These three teachers from the highlands related through their encouragement and exhortations in a way that us expats just won't ever be able to do! Watching and seeing the benefit of the interaction between the church in Mibu and the three visiting teachers affirmed in my mind the absolute essentialness of our strategy to be more and more inclusive of networking and interaction with other national leaders and church groups. This will be a key element in the longevity and health of the church as the role of the expat continues to shift to more hands-off, background kind of tasks and the church here in Mibu stands more firmly on their own feet.

Thank you so very much to everyone who prays for us and for the church here, and who provide the monthly finances for us to minister here, being a part of making things like this happen!