The Bishop’s Lent Appeal 2008

HOSPICE IN ORO PROVINCE PNG

I do hope that you will support this appeal since within this Diocese Christ Church has its own special connection with Oro Province. I want to tell you something about that connection within the context of a story, a story which forms a significant part of my life journey.

I think it was in 1952 when I was nine years old and already a member of Christ Church choir that my mother was admitted to hospital for a minor operation. On the first evening of her stay in hospital my father began to read to my sister and I R M Ballantyne’s “The Coral Island” To this day I can recite the opening lines “Roving has always been, and still is, my ruling passion, the joy of my heart, the very sunshine of my existence”. I am not sure I fully understood those words at the time but they sank deep inside me (along with Ralph, Peterkin and Jack) and hibernated until some nine years later at my final interview for VSO in London they awoke. The awakening came with their final question – “IF we were to accept you would you accept a tropical posting?” Tropics meant only one thing to me – the coral islands of the Pacific - and my response was immediate. Yes.

Some months later in September 1962 I visited Canon Donald Nicolson at Coates hall because I was to be posted to the Anglican Mission in Papua New Guinea and he was Bishop Strong’s Commissariate in Scotland. It took over ten days of flying, and sailing before I finally arrived at Dogura, the Headquarters of the Anglican Church in New Guinea. Towards the end of the 19th century the Administrator, Sir William MacGregor had created zones of influence for the various Churches who wanted to send missionaries to the island. The Anglican Church was allocated the north east coast stretching from the little island of Samarai up I think to where Lae stands today. In 1891 the Reverends Albert MacLaren and Copland King landed on the coast near to where Dogura stands today.

Dogura is positioned on a raised beach about 200 feet up and with glorious views over the pacific to the north and jungle covered hills to the south. The cathedral is magnificent.

Above the High Altar there is a mural of Christ in majesty painted so that he is neither Papuan nor white. Many scenes are depicted and in addition some words. As one looks at the mural one can read to the right Equalau and to the left Oro Oro Oro. Equalau and Oro have a similar meaning which is not easily translated. They both proclaim a blend of “hello”, “greetings,” “hail” and “welcome”. Look carefully at the picture on Bishop Brian’s leaflet and you will see, written in flowers, “ORO”. The sisters welcome with this special warm and loving word those who hold a special place in the Kingdom – the destitute, the weak and the dying.

A short digression before taking you up to Oro province.

It is Christmas Eve, 1962. The Midnight Mass is over. The tropical moon sheds a silver light over the Cathedral, and a gentle breeze carries the noise of the dancing drums from the nearby village of Wamira. Two young men are clearing up the service sheet. I am one, the other is a Papuan teacher of about the same age destined one day to be a Bishop; Isaac Gadebo. We have cleared from the west door and have now arrived at the very steps of the altar. We look at each other and something passes between us. “How silently, how silently the wonderous gift is given.” In an instant too short to measure I know all men are brothers and Isaac learns his vocation. “Equalau ivau” (greetings brother). Oro, Oro Oro!

A month later I am posted further north to a mission station called Eroro in the heart of Orokaivan territory and adjacent to Oro bay. Popondetta is the largest village, now a small township of some 28,000. I did not know it when I arrived but this place is sacred. From here was to come the first Papuan Bishop (George Ambo), here at nearby Gona were martyred by bayoneting the mission teacher and nurse, near here Bishop Strong was amongst the first to be shot at but the bullet lodged in his prayer book. This book – I have seen it myself- is at Wangarrata, Australia, in a simple frame underneath which is written “In remembrance of a deliverance”. Also nearby is Buna – “Bloody Buna” - the site of the main Japanese landings.

I came to know the Orokaivan shore line. Eroro was very close to the sea and from time to time we would stumble over “marsden matting” – long strips of steel used by the American marines later in the war to make roadways. Once when digging a latrine near one of our classrooms we found a boot with bones in it.

Just a mile or two down the track there was a hospital run by an awesome doctor – Dr Blanche Biggs. She is one of the New Guinea legends. Her hospital was a TB sanitorium. A true, sleeves-rolled-up, muscular Christian both loved and respected in equal measure.

I went down with TB on my return to Edinburgh and I was much prodded, poked and perforated as enthusiastic doctors studied what they thought might be a difficult strain to treat. To this end they kept me in the city hospital for thee months during which time I put on weight, became quite proficient at Bridge and totally recovered.

Canon Philip Nobel who was curate at Christ Church in the sixties went to Port Moresby and of course Bishop Doug Cameron also spent many years in PNG.

In 1980, accompanied now by Alison, I visited Oro province while on leave from the hospital at Port Moresby. I met the now grown up children I had once taught and they all commiserated with me because Alison had given me only one child! At Popondetta I visited the site of the martyrdom and felt strongly compelled to take off my sandals. “For the ground upon which you stand is Holy ground”

Now this once beautiful and relatively rich area is poor. It is devastated by AIDS and TB which so often constitutes the final chapter of that disease. The Church struggles. Many have deserted it. The remnant however are strong in their Faith for the blood of the martyrs was not wasted and some remember those whom stayed when many ran for the bush. Now these Sisters in dire poverty work out their vocation. They have nothing to give except their love. At least we can ensure their little house is waterproof and secure.

Remember them.

Howard Moody