A reigniting of relationships

Helicopters crashing onto your hotel roof. Speedboat rides for hours on the open sea. A village welcome party wielding spears. A bridge washed away, leaving no access to the airport. A trip to the very end of 180 miles of rough roads. A last-minute helicopter ride to get out of town.

These aren’t what you might expect from a companion synod visit to another country. But Papua New Guinea is always full of surprises, and a trip by ELCA synod representatives for a recent consultation left an impression on participants and hosts alike.

The consultation brought together 14 representatives from the Central States, North Carolina, North/West Lower Michigan and Virginia synods and their counterparts from four districts of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG). There were presentations, discussions and activities on accompaniment, leadership and evangelism, and various aspects of migration, economic, racial, gender and environmental justice.

The companion synod program connects Lutheran churches throughout the world with ELCA synods and congregations. These relationships nurture and strengthen one another for life and ministry through prayer, study, communication, sharing of resources and exchange of visitors.

The companion synod program connects Lutheran churches throughout the world with ELCA synods and congregations.

“The program was a reigniting of relationships after four years of absence due to the COVID pandemic,” said Yasam Aiwara, president of the ELCPNG Yabim District, of this year’s consultation. “It was a get-together, and I was at a loss for words [at getting] to meet again.”

As representatives of the synods and districts gathered on the campus of Martin Luther Seminary in Lae, a key element of their time together was learning different expressions of accompaniment values. Participants found that expressing words in other languages can bring new insights. For example, in the pidgin language Tok Pisin, “mutuality” is wok wantaim (“walk together”), “vulnerability” is pelim pen (“feeling pain”) and “empowerment” is strongim wanpela (“you and me, we’ve got power”).

It’s at a local level of engagement that synod representatives can connect further with their respective ELCPNG district, exploring together the themes established at the joint consultation and diving deeper into the life of the church.

The North Carolina Synod group visited the Yabim District. “Our discussion had exciting topics that focused on strengthening the exchange of pastors, youth outreach, women’s fellowship outreach, institutional visits, and exchanges and scholarship sponsorship,” Aiwara said.

Aiwara noted that the ELCA group was composed of younger synod leaders. “The meeting as a two-church-bodies meeting was really an eye-opener and [gave] me a picture that we need one another to carry out the gospel in our lives and in our proclamation,” he said.

“What accompaniment is all about”

“There is one song that you will hear, for certain, if you visit among the Lutherans of Papua New Guinea,” said Michael Church, a pastor of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Warrenton, Va. “It begins, ‘Long marimari bilong God, i salim Jesus,’ which in the Tok Pisin language means, ‘In the mercy of God, Jesus came.’ I cannot say how often I heard it—sung or simply repeated in my head—as we traveled with our new friends.”

The Virginia Synod delegation visited the New Guinea Islands District, located on two islands, New Britain and New Ireland. There, hosts spoke of their ambivalence toward the palm oil industry. “They told us how, on one hand, plantations provide the most reliable source of jobs and even housing that most people have ever experienced,” Church said. “On the other hand, the work is difficult—12-hour shifts, six days per week—and the pay is meager, even by local standards. Do they help the people survive or trap them in lives of poverty and exploitation?”

Accompaniment, in this instance, meant talking about this moral conundrum as they “bumped along the worst roads known to humankind,” he said. “We are joined not only by doctrinal confessions but also by our shared desire for a better world.”

At the end of this visit, Wanda Childs, pastor of the Floyd-Willis (Va.) Lutheran Parish, spoke of what it meant for new life to emerge in the relationship. “The service ended with a joyous planting of a coconut seed to commemorate our visit to this special place in the mountains,” she said.

“We are joined not only by doctrinal confessions but also by our shared desire for a better world.”

Aiwara had a similar experience. “Our journey of togetherness to proclaim the gospel has challenged old and young pastors and laypeople to be together as a family, community and organization, to live with a difference in this chaotic world,” he said. “There must be a preparedness to meet the challenges of the future.”

Meanwhile, the North/West Lower Michigan Synod visitors traveled 180 miles west of the capital, Port Moresby, to the literal end of the road. When residents asked, “Why did you come?,” the visitors answered that they had been invited. Upon listening further, they realized that the question was actually “Why did two people, all the way from America, take the time to come here?”

“We were the first of any member of the ELCA to ever visit,” said David Hueter, pastor of St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Cheboygan, Mich. “But then, this is what accompaniment is all about … walking with, listening to and learning from one another. The road was rough. … I wasn’t thrilled with all the cockroaches in our lodging. … But it was about the people and our experience together. That was worth it!”

John Pelk of the Papua District emphasized the importance of meetings that connected the U.S. visitors with the district’s executive pastors. And, he said, spending time together over their two-day journey to the far west made for “a very good trip. It was good having them after many years since our last meeting.”

All in a day’s work

As for the spear-wielding villagers, they were part of welcome rituals. What could have appeared at first to be a confrontation turned into a procession. Speedboat rides are a normal part of traveling between Papua New Guinea’s coastal areas, and the Central States Synod group spent four hours on the open sea to reach their companion, the Kote District. It’s a familiar trip to many who have traveled between Lae and Finschhafen, a mission post dating back to 1886.

The helicopter? The day before the ELCA delegation arrived, a chopper had crashed onto the roof of the hotel where they would stay. The washed-away bridge? Half the delegation missed their flight home when a rain-swollen river washed away a bridge span for the only road leading to the airport. Only an emergency helicopter ride to the airport the next day allowed them to return to the United States.

All in 10-days’ work in companion synod relationships.

Read more about: