PNG Photo Journey 10: Children of Kerema

The Children of Kerema

For our final PNG Photo Journey I am focusing on the beautiful children of Kerema. It was spending time with former child soldiers in Uganda and impoverished Zambian AIDS orphans on a World Vision trip (with John & Nancy Tobey) where I heard God's call to serve in His mission to the world. My family grew in enthusiasm for this work too, and wanted to participate rather than always waiting at home when I took these overseas missions trips.

It's literally a prayer fulfilled to find ourselves in some distant land contributing to the expansion of God's great kingdom. Now we are living a life of service doing surprising things like sharing children's sermons in Papua New Guinea. God loves these children even more than we do. Let me introduce you to some of the Papuan children we met in Kerema.

"Why so serious?" True story: we found that occasionally we scared the very young because they had never seen a white person before. This little guy wasn't scared so much as studious. Perhaps he has a bright future as a doctor.

It was beautiful to see how the Papua children took loving care of one another. Families in PNG can often be quite large and parents often raise other children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS or other devastations.

My friend Adrian shot this photo while I was taking some video. Poor little kid ran away after that, which may have been another scary white man sighting experience.

When Papuan children smile, they give it all they got. You can witness a few of those big, big smiles here.


The children of Kerema are very affectionate with one another and it's not uncommon to see even older boys and girls holding hands or embracing.

You've reached the end of our PNG photo journey! Thanks for taking the time to see how the Lord blessed our experience in this great, exotic land. There is no doubt that God loves all the little children of the world, including these very special Papuan children. Say a prayer for them that their cultural move into modernity doesn't destroy their inherent family values and that they would continue to grow in the love of their Father in Heaven who cares for them enough to send His son to the cross for them.


Our next post is likely to be an official newsletter about our experience amongst Aborigines of Australia, the conclusion of our training in Perth, and our big move to Thailand in two weeks!