PNG/Bougainville

Last December, a Youth camp was held at Paika hosted by the Low Range Ecclesia in Bougainville. Bro Kevin Nason, a senior member of the ecclesia, writes, “It was very challenging. The hosting ecclesia did not have the required facilities to accommodate the program, no hall, no safe drinking and cooking water supply, no local food supply source for the local ecclesia to subsidize the food supply.” The young muscles were kept busy carting water during the camp.

Recently the South Australian Regional Committee gave its support to construct a new meeting hall at Paika. Piping water to the vicinity of the new hall was considered essential for ecclesial use and the operation of the associated Heritage College. This is now under way. Unfortunately, a nearby stream is unsuitable because of contamination from upstream gold mining operations. Good water has had to be obtained from a hill side spring some distance away. Installation of a robust pipeline is now well under way.

The Youth programme started with a few but soon grew to 53 attending, including older people from the community. Kevin writes, “One very surprising thing that caused us to continue with the main study every evening was the demand from the community members who were so keen to learn lessons from the real ‘life experiences of Joseph’ … The crystal clear responses of our youth, as well as the community members, indicated to us that there is a great hunger and thirst for the spiritual manna within the community …”