Christmas Came Early for these Kids!

By ship, truck and boat, these children in remote Papua New Guinea have received their early Christmas presents… reading books!

At the moment, it seems as though all we hear about is people losing their jobs, a global pandemic and economic despair, so I wanted to share this good news story.

Earlier in the year, I started dreaming every night about Papua New Guinea. Since we had lived there before, I didn’t immediately take any notice of it but after 3 weeks of these dreams every night, I started to wonder if there was more to it.

I told my husband about the dreams and he asked me if I wanted to go back. I said, “No, but there must be a reason why this is happening.”

When we lived in PNG I saw a great need for books in schools as there were so few resources in almost every school there. At the time, I got in touch with an organization called Books4PNGkids who collect and ship books from Australia and send them to schools in PNG. Together, we were able to supply 10 schools on Lihir Island and Bougainville with books while I was there.

Since moving back from PNG in 2016, I have continued collecting reading books from Australian libraries and schools to send to PNG. I suddenly remembered that not long after we came back, I felt God put a place called Kavieng on my heart. I had never been to Kavieng in PNG before, but I knew of a friend of a friend who runs a resort there.

In 2017, I made contact with the resort and asked if there was a need for books in schools out there. They said definitely yes, but at the time, shipping was extremely difficult to arrange and after following many leads, I came to a dead end and we couldn’t physically get the books out there. Books4PNGkids also were not able to ship books there and had no reliable contact in place to receive the books from the port. I put it out of my mind and continued collecting books.

I hadn’t thought about Kavieng for 3 years but the dreams every night for 3 weeks brought it back to the front of my mind. I decided to call Heather who runs Books4PNGkids and just ask about Kavieng and if she was doing anything there yet.

As soon as I mentioned Kavieng, she said, “It’s so funny that you asked about that.” I asked why and she said, “We have only just been able to set up shipping and have established a reliable contact there.”

I said, “Wow, how long have you had a contact set up in Kavieng?”

Heather answered, “Only 3 weeks.”

I was so amazed and excited that God had involved me in this process! I got in contact again with the resort and they not only listed some schools that they could deliver the books to, but got in touch with their own contacts from the neighbouring islands and they are all onboard with delivering books all across the region.

So far, we have 43 schools on the list to supply books to and these photos are of the first school, Nusalik Elementary, receiving their books from the first shipment.

God cares so much for each of these children that even amidst a pandemic, he gave a lady in Australia dreams to remind her of them, so that she could find a way to get books to them and show these children that they matter to Him.

Mark 10:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”