By Stephen Michael Leach (on Facebook)
Several years ago here in PNG I knew a lovely girl who was vibrant, intelligent, educated and well on her way to becoming a successful career woman. Occasionally she would come sit in the studio audience with her friends while I was on air at FM Morobe and I'd see her every day on lunch break on the steps of Vela Rumana.
She began a relationship with an older married man in Lae and I watched as her life began to fall apart... everyone talked about her... whenever I would greet her in Foodmart I could feel the ever present watchful eyes of suspicion and judgment....
One "intercessor" pulled me aside one day after witnessing me greeting the girl and gave me a tongue lashing about how inappropriate it was for a young single Reverend with my skin color and position to be seen publicly talking to someone she considered a glorified K2 meri (prostitute).
I listened to that woman out of fear of offending the Church and destroying my reputation. I stopped going out of my way to greet this girl... I was no longer openly friendly in public least someone accuse me of flirting with her. A few months later I was catching a PMV from Madang to Lae and as we went around Madang town and I hung my head out of window yelling, "LAE! LAE! LAE!" like a legit boss crew... I saw this girl walking towards the bus from the market carrying her bags. I thought to myself, "oh no...." she saw me and smiled and for a moment I saw the girl she used to be.
She sat beside me all day on the bumpy and dust filled ride back to Swit Rainy Lae... We talked some and she tried to engage me in conversation but I was so fearful of what other people on the bus would think about us that I engaged her politely but I never really talked about anything in depth. We dropped her off at her home in Lae and I said, "lukim yu bihain Wantok" as she walked away.
A few days later I heard that she had discovered that she was pregnant with the child of that married man and that she had hung herself in her bedroom.
I MOURNED HER DEATH AND THE DEATH OF HER CHILD. I cried out to God and begged Him to forgive me for bowing to the pressure of Religion and Culture and shunning her for the sake of my own reputation. I begged God to forgive me for wasting An ENTIRE DAY SITTING NEXT TO HER ON THE BUS FROM MADANG when I could have been speaking LIFE over her spirit. It was and IS one of the most shameful moments of my ministry.
But I share it with you today because I do not want YOU to make the same mistake that I did all those years ago. God had sent me 10,000 miles across the world to her nation. He had placed me in her life. He had made a White boy from Virginia an honorary Boss Crew on a Madang PMV so that He could place me RIGHT NEXT TO HER while she was walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And I had bowed down to the religious spirits and the whispering tongues of gossip. In so doing I had betrayed my calling as a missionary.
For years I carried that all-consuming guilt and felt that the blood of her and her unborn child was on my "holy" white hands... When she died I fundamentally changed... I ceased caring what any of the judgmental religious people thought about me... I was going to reach and be friends with everyone whether they were approved by the Church or not.
Listen to me. Do not EVER shun a sinner just because RELIGION tells you to! Do not ever turn your back on a hurting soul just to keep your own name. Lift up JESUS and speak LIFE over the broken and the hurting... even if that means losing your reputation in the process.
This isn't about YOU it's all about JESUS.
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"INSPIRING PASSION"
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