International Teaching in Papau New Guinea by Dan Himes
I grew up in Davenport, Iowa. I became a Baha’i in 1962 and met my wife Fay there at a Feast in 1965. We were both relatively new Baha’is, she having become a Baha’i in early 1963. We ultimately had three children, Shamin, Darius, and David. In 1970, with two very young children, we answered the call to pioneer and left for Papua, New Guinea. We returned to Iowa in the last of 1973, David was born in 1974, and we were actively involved in the Iowa Baha’i community until 1991, when we moved to Arizona. This story is a slightly-revised email I sent to family members in 2018, when news of the House of Worship to be built in Papua, New Guinea brought back memories of a teaching trip that took place in 1971, during the family’s time there.
To my Dear & Wonderful Family,
Well, with this announcement I’ve been a complete basket case this morning! Not only is the House of Worship beautiful in its own right, but the analogy of weaving the various cultural patterns together to create a unity of composition is so perfect for one of the most diversified and divergent places on earth – an island with over 700 cultural groups! The House of Worship symbolizes this spiritual, cultural and physical unity perfectly.
Why this hit me so emotionally, I don’t know. Of course Mom and I were there and contributed to the growth of the Baha’i community, but we were there only 3 years. Other pioneers can talk about their experiences, but I don’t seem to be able to. So I had to write this to you all just to help put it into the context of our lives.
After arriving on the Island a couple of days before Christmas, 1970, with 2 little ones in tow (Darius was 6 months, and Shamin had just turned 4), we got settled and I went to work. Early that year we learned that a teaching trip had been planned for the Mountain Brown district – the whole district was comprised of 3 villages! So I decided to go to see how teaching was done here.
Found out that this teaching trip involved a plane ride into a nearby village (or “airport”) followed by a canoe trip upriver (poling upriver in a dugout canoe), and that followed by a couple of hours hike into the Mountain Brown village. This was a regularly scheduled, commercial plane ride – twice a week on Monday and Thursday. We went up on Monday, and if we weren’t back to the “airport” on Thursday, we would have to wait until the following Monday to get back to Moresby. So we took the plane on Monday – this was David and Sue Podger, John Mills, and myself, and I believe a couple of local youth from the village who worked in town.
It was a short plane ride, about 20 minutes, in a small, twin engine craft that seated 10-12 people at most. Suddenly I saw that we were circling a small open area that someone indicated was our “airport.” The pilot indicated he had to circle before landing to be sure there were no logs, pigs, or people on the runway, and to be sure he could come in low enough that he had room to stop before plowing into the bamboo shacks at the end of the runway! We landed uneventfully, thank goodness – my introduction to airplane rides within the island of New Guinea!
The next step was to pole, in the canoes, upriver for quite a way. It was not yet monsoon season, but we did not make enough progress that afternoon to beat the rain. After all, this was a tropical rain forest, so you have to expect rain. So it rained.. I literally saw the river rise 3 feet in the next couple of hours! It became obvious to the youth with us that we were not going to make it to the village that night – the river was too high and moving to swiftly. So we found a break along the bank and had to bed down for the night! Someone found a way to get a little fire started so we had a campfire and lay down on oil-cloth covers on the ground for the night.
The next day the river had gone down, then we hiked into the village, where we were warmly greeted.
The important part of this story is the meeting we had that night. The other pioneers had been to this village before, especially Sue Podger, who knew one of the local languages and had been invited by some of the local youth whom they had been in contact with. So the whole village gathered under the main “house” in the center of the village. Then Sue said some things about the Faith to them, and asked for questions. There were a number of questions, but then there was consultation among the villagers. The result of the consultation was that they would all become Baha’is! The rest of the evening was spent getting names and “Xs” on cards so that everyone could become part of this new community! The decision they made was in complete unity – they didn’t want anyone to be left out! We found out later they actually signed up some of their villagers that were still in town working who could not attend – but that was their culture, to do things together!
So, when I read in the article that some women from Mount Brown were there and sang a song about how their forefathers became Baha’is, I completely lost it because I was there! The honor must go to these pioneers who cultivated this relationship! I was privileged to just have witnessed the event!
Everything in that article struck a chord with me. The village of Madina is quite close to Port Moresby – we visited it several times. And the people – we knew Rodney Hancock and Violet Hoencke, a Knight of Baha’u’llah (one who went to her pioneering position during the Ten Year Crusade).
And one other point – NEVER diminish in anyway the contribution of your mother – not that any have. Without her constant support and eager participation we certainly could not have made the commitment to go pioneering as a young family. I can only admire her strength of character. May we all have that strength as we meet life’s challenges.
Dad