Pastor's Blog
Story of God as Told by Yoxu Posted 1.21.2010Greg Melendes left this week for six weeks in Papau New Guinea (PNG). Here is another story of a follower of Jesus in PNG. As you read it, remember to pray for Greg as he travels to continue the work in Waxe and Wenin.
To missionary kids, their stateside aunt, uncles, cousins and grandparents are family members seen every fifth year of life, if even that often. God graciously fills the gaps in some very special ways. For us, he did so with Yoxumambis, or Baba. It’s hard to say how old Yoxu is now, easily in her 60s, which means she has lived longer than most women in PNG cultures.
Over the years we watched Yoxu take tiny Aubrey across the river in her canoe, knowing she was in the best of hands. Like many grandchildren, she had sleepovers at Baba’s—and whenever Aubrey was sick, Baba was right there awaiting regular updates. Not only was she dear to Aubrey as her village grandmother, she was dear to us. So much so that when we moved to the airstrip in 1996, one of our first duties was to build her a mother-in-law’s house in our backyard!
Yoxu regularly attended the first evangelistic outreach in 1986, but was not in that first group of believers. It was through her son Kletus that she came to understand and believe the gospel, and once she did she took her stand alongside those who were ridiculed for believing the gvsvxajoxu, or white man’s, talk..
For all the bonds built over the years, it is Yoxu’s role in the Wenim church that is most precious to us. Every service, whether weekday or Sunday, morning or afternoon, she and other widows can be found in their regular pew—a canoe plank in the back row, right side. Like most of her generation, reading was never a learned skill, but listening was. One morning, I intentionally tried to infuse into the gospel a false teaching which had made its way upriver. Apologizing for originally omitting this key element of the gospel, I tried to get her to accept the upgraded version as true. She would hear nothing of it, literally ‘giving her backside to me’—mongus oxusaya an—as a sign of her rejection. Before long, the entire “widows’ pew” had given me the same!
While these widows can’t read and seldom contribute in the service, maybe like those in other cultures whose only real constant is the Lord, they do know how to pray. At the end of services Yoxu will often curl her shoulders together, shut out the dogs, chickens and crying babies and sit before Her Lord in prayer, taking us all with her. I have rarely heard clearer or more sincere prayers from the lips of pastor, missionary or seminary professor. We have few regrets when it comes to our years with the Waxe, but I regret having never recorded some of those prayers.
Yoxu was part of our family but it has not been being part of our family that has seen her through the ten years since our departure from Wenim. No, it has been her understanding that she is part of His family—that she is truly a daughter of the King.
Go Back
