OUR CALL TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Rick Schworer

This whole thing started when I was 18 years old, and my dad had just moved us back to Idaho after having served in two different churches during my High School years. Right about the time I was getting comfortable with my surroundings and friend group I was informed by my parents that we were going to Papua New Guinea for two years.  I was not happy with this at all!  But it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I wasn’t some backslidden rebellious teenager when I moved to PNG, but I was pretty lukewarm.  I loved the Lord, but also loved a lot of other things too.  God used moving to PNG to refocus me on Him, and I took full advantage of the opportunities provided.  I made it my goal to better understand the Bible, learn to preach and teach in Melanesian Tok Pisin, and to have as many adventures as possible in doing so.  

I was in the right place for that.  Over the next two years I simply did as much as I could as I knew the clock was ticking before I’d have to go back to the states.  I traveled to different towns and villages to preach in churches, on the street, and in High Schools.  I did translation work, won souls, and even played basketball for the city I lived in.  Over the course of my two years I fell in love with the word, the Lord, the people of PNG, and work of missions.

Then I went back to the States to go to Bible Institute, at 20 years old, with the only real desire in my heart being to get back on the plane and go back to PNG. 

It is interesting to me that while I was in PNG as a young man, I was regularly teaching the Bible and I felt impressed to teach about Revelation.  I remember I read Revelation all in one sitting and I noticed that it didn’t all line up with itself.  It seemed very confusing to me.  I studied it out and began to talk to another missionary and he said, “Well, it’s not chronological.  There are four accounts.”  It was that conversation that caused me to delve into harmonizing Revelation and prompted my writing Roadmap Through Revelation in 2008-2010.

I continued to write books until 2015 when I had to take a break from working on the third book in the Thy Kingdom Come trilogy.  Due to the recession of 2008 I had been working several jobs while continuing to teach Bible institute and I wanted to make sure that I focused on my family while not at work.  I had paused writing, but I had not stopped thinking about Papua New Guinea.

During Mission’s Conferences we would hear the preachers say, “Is your heart willing?  Would you tell the Lord, ‘Here am I, send me.”? We were in the opposite situation.  We would ask the Lord, “Why not us?”  Truly we were in the state of “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”  Our hearts wanted a clear “Yes” or “No.”

But in 2018 things started changing.  I got a new job and our Bible Institute was changing their schedule which freed up some extra time to finally finish up the Thy Kingdom Come book series.  That was the last thing I felt needed to be done before I could move forward to any new thing the Lord would have.

There was a sense of something different that year.  Our whole family could feel it.  During our 2019 mission’s conference there was this message out of John 5 called “A Man In Bethesda.”  The same night there was a tribute to a veteran missionary to PNG.  The preacher said, “Maybe your Bethesda is PNG.”  

No one in our family looked at each other.  It was like we just couldn’t share what we were thinking.  Maybe we didn’t want to influence each other.  Maybe we didn’t want to stop God’s own voice by interrupting it with ours.  But we were in silence.  That is until we got in the car.  

Suddenly all our kids said, “Well, that settles it.  We’re going to Papua New Guinea to be missionaries.”  

At that point I began the process of figuring out what I needed to do to confirm God’s leading.  This led us to pursue a trip to visit PNG.  

God has always met our financial needs but never really given us more.  Therefore, in 2020 when God handed us just the amount we needed for tickets to PNG we were elated.  We purchased the tickets and then within a week the entire world closed down due to COVID and we were not able to get our money back for over a year (and it also took the intervention of our banking institution).

We tried to go in 2020 and the doors closed.

We tried in 2021 but we still weren’t able to get all our money back at that point.  The doors were still closed.

In 2022 we could see the world opening up.  Visas weren’t requiring so many restrictions and we had finally put some money aside to purchase tickets. Then our furnace and A/C broke in the hottest week of the year.  ALL of our savings had to be used.  Here we were again.  STUCK!  

In November at our Mission’s Conference there was a message entitled “Called to a Land of Affliction.”  It shared the story of Joseph being imprisoned for 13 years and forgotten. It just felt too relatable.  It had been 13 years since our surrender to “not go” to PNG and 3 years since He spoke to our whole family “to go.” 

I prayed, Lord, if you don’t make a way, I am going to consider this your answer.  I will close off this portion of my heart and never ask you about it again.

Then when we absolutely needed to purchase tickets to make sure our visas would be ready, without us telling anyone of our need, several things happened and “just in time” we had all the money we needed to go.  God had opened the doors.

Within a few days of being there, our Daily Bible Reading calendar passage happened upon John 5.  This was the same passage from 2019 where God spoke to our whole family about PNG.  But not wanting to make a life long decision based upon a possible coincidence, we waited upon the Lord for further clarity.

Also, within a few days of being in PNG, God would wake me up in the night and He would ask, “Would you come to PNG even if …?”  Every time I resolved the question, God would give another question.  “What about ….?”  This seemed to be a nightly occurrence.

All the questions seemed to be answered except one, “What about Melissa?”

I was concerned about Melissa.  The lack of protein in the Highlands and the change in oxygen at such a high elevation were affecting her health and energy levels.  On top of that, she was trying to figure out what was causing her lungs to close up and also cause laryngitis.  (It was determined that something in the cabin where we were staying was the cause.)  During this innate spiritual battle of a call to missions, she felt sick and out of place and it seemed the devil was focusing all his attacks upon her. My normally cheerful, happy wife was struggling.  

Meanwhile, God was allowing me the complete opposite experience.  I was having a great time preaching and leading people to the Lord.  God had given me a reprieve from any personal difficulties that would distract from this time of prayer and fellowship with Him.

As I was pondering the question, “What about Melissa?” she said God was using all these challenges to remove any romanticism of the mission’s field.  He allowed her to be hit in her weakest areas and asked, “Even if you have to suffer, would you obey me?”

As the trip progressed Melissa said John 10 was one of our daily Bible passages. Feeling worn and weary the words in verse 24 popped out as her prayer to the Lord, “How long dost thou make us to doubt? … Tell us plainly.” and then the following verse hit her: “Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not:” and she said it felt like the wind got knocked out of her. At that moment, Melissa knew what God wanted us to do, but she didn’t want to influence me in any way and kept praying.

She told me later that she felt the Lord say to her, “You know, Melissa, you could tell your husband that this is too much and you don’t feel like you could do it. He would protect you and never ask you to come back.”  She prayed, “Lord, You and I both know that physically I can endure what is going on here, but if I told Rick that I didn’t want to come back, I would sit in a comfortable pew the rest of my life knowing that I was out of Your will.”

Melissa didn’t know that my final question was about her. She called me aside and said, “Rick, I just want you to know that if you need an excuse to leave and never come back, I could be it, but I am letting you know that I will be fine.  Do whatever the Lord tells you either way.”  It was what I needed to know and then God was silent.

A few days later Melissa had been asked to do a devotion for the girls at the school.  While she was teaching, I was praying. “Lord, if you want me to serve here as a missionary, please show me.” I had prayed this prayer many times before but this time God broke His silence, interrupted me and said, “You can stop asking that now.  The answer is yes.”  

I knew that if I told Melissa, our lives would never be the same, but I also knew I had to tell her right then.  She came back from the school and I called her over.  Before I had a chance to tell her what God had been telling me, she told me how she had been so shy and nervous to do the devotional and that she mentioned it to Pathsaida (one of the girls there).  But in her thick accent Pathsaida calmly said to Melissa, “The Lord will be your confidence.”

As Melissa told me that story, it was as if God confirmed, “Don’t be afraid, Rick.  I will be your confidence.”  I told Melissa everything the Lord had said.  

HE would be our confidence and He still is.