Manna

 

 

Names used are not the people’s real names. This is a true story though.

 

Oh no! I was a young Christian and had just completed my short-term Bible College course. The head of the College had just announced, ‘Ask God where He wants you to go.’ Meaning, which country to do missionary work.

I was horrified. I had no feeling of being called anywhere. I was happy living in Brisbane, doing evangelistic work, and relief teaching which I loved. I had a boyfriend/cum fiancé. Was I meant to go somewhere different?

I must be. That man always seemed to know what God wanted. Christianity was new for me and I sometimes found things like this puzzling. I thought of my sister and her husband doing missionary work in New Ireland (PNG) and had vaguely  heard someone say they wanted a teacher there … so I applied and was accepted as one of their missionary group. If it didn’t work out, I told myself, I could always have a tropical beach holiday with my sister and her husband and then come home.

Little did I know what God had in store for me. (See earlier blogs about PNG)

 

 

So the hot humid days this last summer reminded me of that year I spent teaching in Papua New Guinea …

Vivid technicolour images nudge my memory. A nostalgic mix of wonder, awe and thankfulness fills my mind …

I remember how excited I was at first. I’ve got a job! Everyone in our missionary team is rejoicing. We’ve prayed for ages for an opening to reach those young schoolboys before they leave and go on to university or a city job. At last the door has opened, with the last-minute failure of a teacher to return.

‘You’ll be teaching English to the boys in the high school,’ I’ve been told.

I remember the interview. Bill sitting opposite me, his brown hair flipping in the fan’s breeze as he looked through my references. Satisfied, he looked up and asked me, ‘Can you start teaching on Monday? Move in Friday?’

   Could I?!  Then, ‘I’ll show you around the grounds a bit. Give you a look at your house.’

   Down a narrow path, edged with hibiscus and croton bushes. It was hot. I remember my initial horror at the intense heat. The air heavy and moist. It may be hard work teaching in this heat.

   My first glimpse of my humble house-to-be. Bill pauses near a little fibro ‘Government house’, one of the many on these grounds, and points. ‘That’s your house!’

   It’s very plain. And all those louvres from top to bottom, all along two sides. Necessary to let the air cool the inside, I suppose.

   I was just thinking I’d buy some simple food with the little money I had left after Bible College – food to last until my first payment arrived, when Bill crashed reality into my day dreams with, ‘You’ll have to put curtains up along the two sides with louvres, of course. Otherwise you’d be on candid camera at night.’

   I nod, pretending cheerfulness. That’s a lot of louvres. A lot of curtains. They cost money. My stomach knots up.

   We head back.

Despite my concern, I’m fascinated by this place. Just across the road is the jungle – silent, dark and mysterious. Narrow tracks wind into it, leading, I will later find, to part-hidden native houses nestling in a quiet, secret-filled world. The dense foliage exudes dim green light and the strange sweet smell of rotting leaves. Its tangible silence is broken only by faint twitters and rustles. The occasional blood-curdling squawk of a jungle bird.

‘See you on Friday, ready to teach on Monday,’ Bill farewells me. I hang on hard to the hope I’ll be paid on Monday, as he indicated. The government driver whizzes me back through the patch of dense jungle, past the coconut plantations to the town and the missionary headquarters.

A friend and I find some pretty green material in the Chinese shop. I run the curtains up on a sewing machine at the missionary house, trying to ignore the niggle inside me about the hole the material has made in my meagre savings. Only enough left to buy a few days’ food. Oh well, God will provide. Somehow. And I don’t need to eat much.

On Friday morning one of the men drives me out to the school and helps put up the curtains. I’m pleased – proud, actually – with the result.

 

There are several teachers in other government houses but my first night alone in a flimsy little house in the jungle is scary. At ten to nine I light my hurricane lantern, ready … then at nine o’clock the generator sputters to a stop and the outside world is plunged into darkness and silence. An almost tangible dark cloak swallows the thin-walled fibro house, lit only by yellow lamplight. For just a few seconds, a wave of sheer terror assaults me. God has brought me here, I remind myself. He will look after me.

   Still, I wake at every creak or rustle, imagining noises at the door and shadowy shapes in the small chinks between the curtains. And I’m hungry.

   On Saturday morning I wake to the humid heat of the tropics. I remember measuring the mince and veggies I’ve bought into meals for each day until pay day. Vegetables are cheap at the local market so I have plenty.

   On Monday Bill tells me my salary payment has been delayed.

   ‘Too much paperwork,’ he explains. ‘New teacher. Sorry, Jeanette.’

    I walk my heavy-feeling body over to the little house – ‘my house’ – dragging myself, weak and tired with inadequate protein in me. The air is heavy and moist on my skin and there’s no breeze to cool me. Everything shimmers in the heat.

Inside, I am screaming, I’m hungry. I underestimated the energy I’d need teaching in the tropics. What will I have for tea? There are a couple of rubbery carrots and a clump of frozen peas. A tiny tin of baked beans. That might do ...

I turn on my fan so it blasts onto me as I stretch out on the narrow bed. Heavy, humid air rests over me like a damp wool blanket.

I hope my blood sugar isn’t going too low. I have hypoglycaemia which I’ve always controlled by diet – and I’m feeling shaky and light-headed.

 I remember thinking, If things became really desperate, I could find a way to contact the mission house but they’re busy and they don’t have money to spare either. I didn’t tell them how little money I had left.

Father, I pray, could you provide some more protein for dinner tonight?

I doze in the sticky air.

A loud knock at the door wakes me. My head swims as I stand up and run a

  comb through my hair.     

     ‘Coming,’ I call.

A brown-haired girl about my age stands there, smiling, holding a big white enamel dish covered in pale-coloured flesh, a bit like prawns. She hands it to me.

‘It’s crayfish. Ross and a mate went catching them and got too many. Do you like them? Not everyone does.’

A smile stretches my tired face. ‘I’ll love them,’ I assure her as I thank her. ‘I’ve never had them before.’

With a pile of peas beside them, they taste wonderful and supply me with good protein for several meals until I can buy meat and veggies.

To me they taste like manna from heaven.

 

 

Have you ever wondered where your next meal would come from? I’d love to hear about it.