Report from Serurei - Straightening the skewed paths
After a seven hour drive through picturesque ranges of remote mountainous ridges and rugged contours, over rickety bridges and under fallen trees barely offering any allowance through its debris, the team finally arrived at a tribal village called Poh 'Sop'.
As one of four tribes compositing the population of that area, the Poh Sop tribe is a community tucked deep within the Arfak mountains in an exceptionally cool climate around 7,700 feet above sea level and neighbouring the town of Manokwari. The village is surrounded by two lakes with the peculiar names of Male Lake and Female Lake.
57 years ago American missionaries first brought the Gospel to the tribes of the Arfak mountains, and whilst the Christian faith has stayed among the people since then, the isolation of rural Papua and the passage of time has allowed their centuries spanning paradigms to slowly twist their Christian beliefs over the decades; becoming intertwined with tribal superstition and witchcraft.
Thus when Suzette arrived with her team in a convoy of Toyotas, she met a society that, while they would still confess themselves to be Christian, still live what Suzette calls a 'skewed' lifestyle.
Once again Suzette made history by being the first women ever to be allowed to preach to the Arfak mountain tribes. But such an honour, however, did not pacify the culture-rattling message that she had prepared, to shake their misconstrued beliefs that was leading them astray from the true path of the Lord.
Over two days Suzette combined the morning seminars with the evening crusades into one meeting that was held during the morning only, since the weather in the afternoons proved too unpredictable to make any evening plan feasible.
During the meetings, Suzette dramatised her sermons so that the people would understand that their way of life was not the same as the Lord's way of life. One could see how Suzette's messages resonated within the hearts of the listeners, as Suzette spoke against the fighting, the witchcraft, the sexual immorality, the lying and the corruption that was very present among them.
On the last day, Suzette challenged the people to bring out their witchcraft charms and fetishes to burn in front of the assembly. While some ran away when Suzette confronted them on this, still others, including the leader of the local churches himself, brought their charms and their omens forth to be burnt.
The team also gave the people MegaVoices with 280 hours of teaching on them, as well as John Bevere's book 'Relentless' as a free gift. Suzette wrote that it was 'heart moving' to see the gratitude expressed for Suzette's gift by the people; "it was as if I have just given them a bag of gold" she remarked. It was also mentioned that the free book was "a God-given blessing to the leaders that could read."
Over the five days that the team spent in the Serurei district, they stayed in an old missionary home built from corrugated iron. With a group of almost 25 people packed into a humble space of about 80 square meters, to say that they "lived in close fellowship" would be putting it lightly. The team slept together on hard floors and ate their food cooked with kerosene stoves. Electricity was only available for five hours every evening provided by diesel generators.
1.5 1,500 kilograms of rice was also brought along to feed the people coming from the other tribes to attend Suzette's meetings.
Despite the challenges faced when Suzette was met with faith-skewing cultural traditions that surround the tribes, she still knew that "God is stronger." Suzette also knew that is was important foremost to help the people correct their lifestyle and keep on the straight path before the Lord.
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