Looking at the people and lifestyle of Papua New Guinea is a bit like stepping back in time — more than 80 percent of its 6 million people live in tiny rural villages, growing just enough food for their own families.
The Oceanic country north of Australia is incredibly diverse, with 850 indigenous languages and more than 1,000 traditional societies, and a rugged geography of high mountains and dense rain forests. It was an isolated world that beckoned to Cypress Springs residents Daniel and Virginia Rath, who “got serious” about Christianity in 1974.
“One thing that affected us was the Bible, the Word of God, which had suddenly opened up to us and became very important,” Daniel says. “It was so meaningful to us, and we found out there were thousands of languages in the world that didn’t have a single verse of the Bible.” “I told him I was not interested,” Virginia laughs. “Then I prayed and asked God, and said, ‘You have to show me this is the right thing to do.’”
Within a few years, she became convinced. With their two little girls and one duffel bag, the Raths lived in a jungle in southern Mexico with the Tzeltal tribe for several months, where they learned to hike, canoe and survive in the wilderness. “It was really wild. The training was a culture shock, and then it wasn’t so bad when we went to live there,” Virginia says.
“Though Mexico is not the same as Papua New Guinea, we were around people speaking a different language, with primitive houses, cooking with fires on the floor.” In Manginuna, a southern coastal village on the island of New Britain, the Raths lived in a wooden house with an aluminum roof, where they collected water to heat on the stove, and used a bucket to bathe.
“I often think that life can basically be simpler. You can do without a lot of things. We didn’t think we were suffering. It’s what you get used to,” Daniel says. The Raths’ duty was to learn to speak Tok Pisin (Melanesian Pidgin), the trade language used throughout two-thirds of the country, and then to speak Mengen, the language of Manginuna. But Mengen was a language that had not really been written.
The Raths had to create an alphabet and grammar rules, and write primers and children’s books, and ultimately, translate the New Testament. “It was challenging. Sometimes you go to sleep at night, and it’s not even English that goes through your mind,” Daniel says. Spiritually, the people they had come to minister to were engaged in ancestor worship.
They believed the spirits of their dead relatives lived amongst them, and made judgment calls on their behavior. If things were not working out in their lives, it was usually said that an ancestor was displeased. It was said that the head medicine man in Manginuna could perform sorcery and black magic, but he gave the Raths full access to his vegetable garden.
“He was like our village father, and he wanted to take care of the white family in his village,” Daniel says. “They have no reason to suspect you have ulterior motives. You’re learning their language, and it humbles you. You’re giving them literacy and the Word of God. If they see your heart’s in the right place, you’ll be accepted.” As the Raths taught the villagers to read, they absorbed the Papua New Guinean sense of time and hospitality.
“The pace of life is so relaxed. You didn’t have to rush to get anywhere,” Virginia says. “The people are extremely friendly. Their culture was such that if anybody is living with you, you had to take care of them. Nobody is allowed to be hungry. It’s a group-oriented culture.” The volcanic soil brought forth huge heads of cabbage, and tropical fare like pineapple, coconut, bananas, passion fruit, sugarcane and kaukau (a kind of sweet potato), which had all but replaced taro, the original staple crop that takes a long time to grow and harvest.
They imported rice, which they cooked with coconut milk. “We ate very well. The diet is mostly vegetarian because meat was hard to come by. Some might hunt wild pig, or go fishing in the coastal areas,” Daniel says. Once, a typhoon off the coast threatened Manginuna, causing waves that towered over their simple homes, and winds so fierce that coconut palms were bent in half. “Some children went outside with bush knives — machetes — and they were hitting the wind, trying to cut the wind, with their knife,” Virginia says.
“We asked, ‘What are you doing?’ It was a good time to talk about how we could trust God to protect us.” An annual feast celebrating the harvest caused men to dress up like an evil spirit, a uraesana, covered from head to toe in palm leaves, and they would dance around the village and make swishing noises, and teasingly chase the children inside their homes. As villagers converted to Christianity, they didn’t always completely leave behind their own traditions. Sometimes they covered their uraesana costumes with Christian symbols.
“More people were actually reading the Scripture in their language, and starting to understand more. Not everybody came to believe, but we’re still praying they will,” Virginia says.
The simple life
Papua New Guinea is the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, just south of the equator; the western half is part of Indonesia.
The eastern half was in German hands until World War I. Australia would ultimately occupy it for the British commonwealth. Because of the rugged terrain, most missionaries get around by airplane. Many of the country’s 578 short, rough airstrips are unpaved. The country was granted its independence from Australia in 1975.
When the Raths arrived in 1978, their children were very small: Rachel was 6, Melanie was 4, and Frank was 8 months old. They were 100 miles from the nearest hospital. The Raths learned to self-diagnose using what came to be their favorite book, Where There is No Doctor. “The kids got sick a couple of times. My son got malaria.
What do you do? You’re in the jungle. I had it a couple of times myself; it’s no fun. You douse yourself with water and rubbing alcohol. You pray a lot,” Daniel says. “My wife and I religiously read that book. You learn to diagnose yourself and hope you’re right — ‘Do I have the flu or malaria?’”
The Raths went on furlough every few years, and made sure their children experienced other Asian cities, such as Seoul, Korea. “For our children, their outlook is so different from living there, with missionaries from 10 or 15 different countries, making friends with international people,” Daniel says. “My son, especially, gravitates to people who are not American.”
“That was home to them,” Virginia says simply. “They have a real international outlook. It’s easy for them to eat different foods. They still have friends from 14 different countries.” The Raths have been back since 1996, when Frank graduated from high school, joining their daughters who had already returned to the States for college.
“I remember rows and rows of dog food. There’s more dog food in one store in the United States than there is people food in Papua New Guinea,” Daniel says. “I couldn’t help but think, ‘What a waste of food to feed animals.’” The Raths returned to Jacquinot Bay in 2004 for the dedication of the translated New Testament in Mengen, finally completed, which they had started.
Today, Virginia teaches kindergarten at Faith Christian Academy, where Daniel teaches sixth grade. Rachel and Frank live in Pennsylvania, and Melanie lives down the street; the Raths have seven grandchildren, and one more on the way. Daniel says they learned a lot in their 18 years in Papua New Guinea.
“Their needs are the same, their concerns are the same,” he says. “They gave me, hopefully, a generous spirit. They showed me how to share. As poor as they are, they’re giving you their food. “They gave me an increased desire to talk about God, a desire to see people’s lives change.”
