A Bilum Full of Rocks

Easter Youth Camp in Famo

My mouth was dry. Over a hundred pairs of brown eyes were trained on me. I felt like my skin glowed white and my blonde hair might as well be a neon light. I looked in each face. What could I possibly have to say to this group of young people? Me. A white girl from another country who grew up in a city instead of a village and who could only observe and imagine some of the struggles they faced every day. I had prayed before coming to Famo about what I should speak about if I was asked to speak at the youth convention. The pastor had asked me to share my testimony. A dozen thoughts had clamored in my mind as I walked up to the front of the blue and white tent and grasped the microphone in my hand. I licked my lips, smiled and found my friend Rhona's face in the crowd. She smiled and lifted her eyebrows in a very Papua New Guinean signal of encouragement. I set down my little notebook where I had jotted my thoughts as I had prayed about what to say and I took a deep breath.

What would I want to hear if I were in their place? Then, I knew what I needed to say and began to launch into a message poured into me by the Holy Spirit as I spoke. I shared how my parents came to Christ from two very different backgrounds, wild and religious. I shared about how I had grown up going to church but only following religion as a culture and not following Jesus in a personal relationship. I told the story of the father in the Bible who had two sons; a respectful, responsible, rule-following son and a rebellious, reckless, rule-breaking son. How Jesus told this story to share the truth with outright sinners and religious sinners alike. Jesus wanted to share that God loves us and wants relationship with us but we often only want God's stuff and not himself. We try different ways of getting it: demanding it outright and squandering what we get, or perhaps trying to check all of the boxes and abide by all the rules to get what's “rightfully ours” for all our hard work. In the end, they were both equally lost and in need of reconciliation with the father.

I went on to explain that I had tried, like the first son in the story, to keep all of the rules and make God happy by keeping all of the rules but that it was like I was trying to fill a bilum (a woven bag) full of rocks (all of the rules) and carry it with me wherever I went. Soon the bilum got heavy and began to bruise me. Eventually I was feeling like I was being crushed by the rules and I couldn't carry their weight anymore. I told them that all of us are like one of the two sons – wild or responsible – but we all only want God's stuff. But God wants a personal relationship with us that will change us and give us freedom, joy and purpose. I urged them to ask Jesus for that personal relationship and ask God to take their bilum full of rocks or the shame of their wild life and exchange it with His Holy Spirit to help them live the lives God meant them to live.

Later several leaders, chaperones and pastors came to me to tell me how the message had spoken to the youth that were with them. I marveled, thinking about how I had not even known what I was going to say before I stepped in front of the crowd that afternoon. I had prayed and asked God to speak to these young people through me. He had taken my bilum full of rocks and transformed them into the bread these hungry souls had needed. I thanked God for His work and for using me to bless those I so desperately wanted to bless but hadn't known how until He showed me.