By: Rev. Msgr. Tomas Gonzales, MSP

Msgr. Tomas Gonzales is from Baliuag, Bulacan and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Manila. Having serves in Tondo & Pasay and later as Pastor in Alabang and Sta. Cruz, he volunteered as a Missionary to Papua New Guinea as an associate member of the Mission Society of the Philippines. (MSP). Here he tells us about some of his travails and joys in Papua New Guinea.

My first mission posting in 1990 was among the coastal tribes of Leitre at the North Western corner of Papua New Guinea.I was the second mission established in the Diocese of Vanimo. The people are peace loving and friendly and considered the most cooperative in the diocese. For two years I lived in their midst with three MCST Filipino Sisters.

No Priest
Towards the end of 1992, the bishop asked me to take care of the Mission at Utai, which lies on the southern side of the Bewani Mountains directly to the south of Leitre. Utai is deep in the bush of the Papua New Guinea rainforest. The people are aboriginals and hence more warlike and nomadic than those on the coast. The shortage of priest meant that the Mission was without a resident priest for eight years. Despite the good grass airstrip, Utai is regarded as a difficult and isolated Mission station. There is no roads, no electricity, not even a decent house or a convento!

A Plain Missionary
In this area the people live in small village groups long distances apart. Some villages are two or three days walk from Utai. The mission has an airstrip (the mission plane provides our daily way out) a community school, an Aid Post, Church and houses for the teacher and nurses, mostly constructed from bush materials. I live in a very poor room, which was formerly the aid post. I cook my own food and I wash my own clothes.

Empathy
In my one year stay in the area, I have learned to live and work with these people of a different race and culture, developing that empathy and adaptability which is required of a missionary. As a missionary priest, many demands are placed upon me.

Reluctant Midwifes!
My priestly and apostolic work requires physical endurance and good health to manage foot patrols to remote villages at other times, I am required to be a “jack of all trades” for it is often very difficult to find anybody to do the ordinary jobs of repair and maintenance on buildings and machinery. Wherever radios or watches are not functioning, people come to me. Once, when there was no nurse at the station, I was forced to attend a woman who gave birth – my goodness! What did know of midwifery?

Hunter Gatherers
Most challenging for me is the specific work I came to do to bring the Good News to people who are animists and nomadic. Everyday they look for food from sago palm trees and root crops in the forest; they search for wild pigs or cassowary with bow and arrow; they fish in the many rivers flowing through their ancestral lands. Families travel together with their hunting dogs, and they stay in one place for a day, weeks, or for months.

Close to Nature
I have discovered that the priest’s effectiveness depends on working with the people by training and forming Lay Leaders, Catechists, Church Leaders and Prayer Leaders. I must remember their strong bond with nature. For these leaders, the call to leave their church work to hunt, fish and wander is very, very strong. It is their life. If I go to visit the village unannounced, it will be virtually empty. Everyone will be in the bush.

Gold Rush
In the middle if last year, a new serious problem came to my people: a gold rush. In June 1993, Matei a man with three wives (this is common here) and eight children, came to me with small penicillin bottle full of small stones. Immediately, I identified them as gold nuggets. I helped him sell the gold in town and that bottle fetched him almost a thousand dollars. Faced with such a huge amount of money, he did not know what to do it. I taught him how to deposit the money to the bank and buy the food and clothing which needed, that opened the minds of all the people. In the days followed, there was a gold rush. Everybody went deep into the mountain to look for the precious gold nuggets.

 Fire Went Out!
With the search of gold suddenly becoming important, problems began to develop. Matie’s children could already do gold panning, so they were prevented from going to school. Many other children already enrolled in our school, were left to fend themselves. Their parents had gone seeking for gold. Twice the school children returned to their home village for the weekend, only to find themselves all alone! They manage to find food but were unable to cook because the fire which is continuously kept alight in the village had been left to burn out. On several occasions, our mission school has feed children for they were hungry.
Not only are the children affected. Ignas went to look for gold with his son and a neighbor. Late in the afternoon, he was forced to stop because he was so tired and hungry and the sun’s heat so strong. He asked his son to cut the shoots of a palm to eat, but when the palm tree had been felled, Ignas had lapsed into unconsciousness. Failing to revive him, the two companions made a sling and carried Ignas on their shoulders back to their village. The walk of two days. Ignas, still unconscious, seemed closed to death. They could not bring him down to the mission aid post, still another three hours walk, because their legs were swollen from carrying Ignas. There was no one at the village helped them. Although Ignas finally regained consciousness he had developed bed sores and his physical condition had deteriorated. Finally he was carried to a camp near the mission. When I heard about him, I walked to see him and gave him the last sacraments. After several days more, Ignas was died. I fell full sadness for Ignas and all our people.  

Everything Neglected
The responsibilities of the whole community are being neglected. Usually groups of people cut the grass around the aid post, school and mission area but not now. Construction of school buildings and teachers houses are normally done by the voluntary help of the villagers but no longer. Far away in the mountains, searching for gold the people are no longer bothering to come for Mass.

Looking for a New Way
A new way to reach my scattered people must be found. Such is the price of gold. Utai will never be the same again. The simplicity and lifestyle of the people will be changed. Perhaps their beautiful vast forests are also in danger. I pray the “I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me,”