CBHC - Reaching the Most Remote

Matthew Galman is the director of Community Based Health Care for Nazarene Health Ministries here in PNG.  The primary goal of CBHC is to educate communities on how best to care for themselves in day-to-day living, including using clean water, disposing of human and other waste material in a safe way and other basics for maintaining good health along with a healthy dose of evangelism!  A couple of weeks ago on June 1^st Matthew and a few others traveled out to Yifki/Hewa, a very remote area of PNG, in order to provide teaching.  Below are some excerpts from a letter Matthew wrote highlighting his trip.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The Hewa, in Enga province, remains one of the most remote jungle tribes in Papua New Guinea. It has absolutely no form of basic services, such as health and education.  Infant and maternal mortality rate in this area is very high. People die from simple curable and preventable illnesses.

The saddest of all, is the ongoing murder of women due to sorcery related accusations.  Due to lack of education, people have been left in the dark still, in this 21^st century. I have been told that if someone dies, immediately they would accuse a woman and or the evil spirits living in trees, in the ground or in the river.  If a baby dies during childbirth or before reaching the age of five, the fathers and the sons believe the mother is a witch and should be killed. All the men in the community will torture and eventually kill her. They have been practicing this for generations.

 John 8:12 tells us that Jesus is the light of the world. I see that there is a certain darkness that is as black as night in PNG. It is the animistic practices and the belief in sorcery and witchcraft that leads to  the slaughtering of innocent lives. It is therefore a stronghold of the evil one that continues to keep people in bondage and suffering. 

I praise God for an opportunity for us to be able to reach out to the Hewa people. Luke 4:18 says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed”. Our week of CBHC training was a real blessing. We taught them the real causes of diseases, illnesses, sufferings and deaths. That it is not the evil spirits or witchcraft. It is the germs (bacteria, viruses, fungus etc.)  We spent time talking about personal and community health and hygiene like hand washing, proper disposal of waste, clean and safe drinking water, nutrition, proper ventilation in family homes and more. At the end of our training session, we led the community for the first time to work together to build two toilets along with simple hand washing stations (tippy taps).

In 2012 Mathew made his first trip into Hewa with Dr. Allen Sawyer, an OB/Gyn from the US.  At that time much effort was put into teaching about safe labor and delivery practices. Matthew was impressed to find out that three women out of the many that attended have continued to save the lives of mothers and babies during childbirth. They are now the village birth attendants!

Matthew closed his letter with the following Prayer Requests/Points.  Please do remember Matthew and the work of CBHC as they minister to many of PNG’s rural and remote communities.  

Prayer points. 
1. Pray that CBHC will be able to return to the Hewa as planned April 4-11^th 2016. Pray for money for plane tickets for not only one trip but a couple of trips back in 2016. This will allow more time for CBHC to really help the people address the root causes of disease along with the evil that has led to the murdering of innocent women.

2.  Pray for the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to reach throughout the jungle and for the continued translation efforts of the New Tribes missionaries in Hewa.  Pray also for the new converts who are taking the word to other tribes. Pray for Gods protection on the missionaries.

3. Pray for the intervention of the government in these areas of darkness. Pray that law and order will be enforced and that there will be no more killings. Pray that basic health and education services will be provided by the government. 

4. Pray for MAF PNG. Without them, it would be nearly impossible to reach out to the Hewa tribe.