Missionaries Teach God’s Word to Remote Tribe in Papua New Guinea
People seeking to retreat from modern civilization might consider a trip to Papua New Guinea.
About 80 percent of the people live in remote areas in this Southwest Pacific country dominated by beaches, coral reefs, and active volcanoes. Many residents form tribes in mountainous regions in a nation where hundreds of languages are spoken.
For more than five years, Mississippi College graduate Jessi George and her husband, John, served as missionaries bringing Christianity to the Hewa people in Papua New Guinea.
Thousands of miles away from home, their work teaching God’s word to a tribe with no Bible in their language remains incredibly challenging. Hewa people believe if evil spirits are killed, they will live forever, Jessi says. “Everything they do revolves around appeasing spirits in order to keep themselves alive and happy.”
These beliefs, she says, reflect the experiences of the tribe- from ordinary activities such as personal hygiene, cooking and gardening, as well as the stresses of birth and death.
A 2004 MC graduate, Jessi and her husband, John, do much more than devote time to Bible lessons.
“Probably our biggest ministry after translating and teaching the Bible is evacuating women and children who have been marked as possessed to other villages where there are established churches who do not practice witch killing.”
There are plenty of heartaches associated with their missionary work in a country of 7 million residents not far from Australia and the Pacific Ocean. That’s when people turn away after hearing God’s word. It can lead to suicides for some young men, and needless deaths for sick infants who should have been hospitalized.
Jessi, 35, points to successes when men who previously went on killing raids, “put down their axes, bows and arrows and pick up the Sword of the Spirit and begin preaching against the practice of killing innocent women and children.”
Joining their parents in the mission field are the couple’s three daughters, Lucy, 10, Mattie, 8, and Mia, 6.
The family recently returned to Central Mississippi and it’s led to some adjustments.
“We love modern civilization like Internet and pizza delivery. But sometimes, large stores, large churches and well, large everything can be overwhelming when we are used to our small limited goods culture,” Jessi says. “Traffic lights are interesting when you haven’t seen one in several years.”
More than a decade ago, Jessi George was a Christian Studies major and Spanish minor at Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College. Mission work overseas tugged on her heart on the Clinton campus. Initially, they leaned toward orphan care in South America.
She discovered the New Tribes Mission, the organization that today sponsors their family’s missionary service. “We learned there are so many people groups without God’s Word in their language,” says the Montgomery, Alabama native. “I couldn’t imagine a life without Scripture.”
Jessi felt burdened to ensure that doors would be open for as many people to learn and grow from the Bible, just like she did.
Staying in the Magnolia State for a few weeks allows the George family to reunite with loved ones during the Christmas holidays. A graduate of Richland High and Mississippi State University, John, 34, grew up in Florence. The family is temporarily housed in Brandon.
At the end of January, the George family will journey back to Papua New Guinea to continue serving as Christian missionaries seeking to change lives.
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