Carving a Path for God's Word

As a pilot in Papua New Guinea, one of the cool things I get to do is airstrip survey—visiting and evaluating potential sites for new runways.

Let me try to put this in perspective: There is precious little flat ground in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, so almost every runway needs to be cut into the side of a mountain. Not such a daunting task with explosives and heavy machinery, right?

But imagine having only shovels and woven leaves between poles to carry dirt, and attempting to make a flat section of ground that measures roughly 30 meters (98 feet) wide and at least 450 meters (1,476 feet) long.

Tapmange was one such runway.

For the past 15 years the Yopno* people have worked to build this runway, primarily to bring the Word of God into their community. Some of the Yopno—which means “we put down”—call the runway gen tamo, meaning “place of the word.” Together the two phrases describe a people who chose to put down weapons, fighting and anger, replacing them with the Word.

How beautiful. This is a great lesson for me also to put all things down in favor of God’s amazingly powerful Word.

* Wes and LeeAnn Reed began language work with the Yopno people in 1983. On August 7, 2010, the Reeds and the Yopno celebrated the arrival of their New Testament and Psalms.

—James Nelson and his wife, Natalie, are Australians who arrived in Papua New Guinea in January 2009. James serves as a pilot, and Natalie works in the pathology lab at SIL Papua New Guinea’s clinic in Ukarumpa.