About Papua New Guinea

"Jesus Christ...gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify
for Himself His special people, zealous for good works" (Titus 2:13b-14 NKJV

God has purposed from all eternity to have His own special people who have been called out of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation of this world. A people purchased by the blood of His lamb and transferred into the kingdom of His dear son, who are filled with His Spirit, submitted to their King Jesus Christ bringing glory to His name! This is the eternal passion and vision of God's heart that will never dim. Our God is holy and there is none like Him. To Him be all praise and glory.

The work in PNG at this time centers around the Bulu tribe. They are about a thousand people who live on West New Britain Island. Their language is one among over 800 languages spoken in PNG. They have their own religion that has been blended with some Biblical influence. God has been at work in their hearts to bring them to the savior and is raising up laborers to minister in this area of His vineyard.

This is God's work and all involved are His workers. We are all to be yielded tools in His hands that He can use to do His work. We are not fulfilling our own dream or seeking to establish "our" church. "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil.2:13NKJV) God is willing to advance His kingdom amongst the Bulu people and has chosen some to be used in the process. God is so gracious to use us at all and we are blessed and privileged to be in His service.

The Schones

God's Dealing with Us Over Foreign Missions

I'd like to share the story of how God is calling us to the Bulu people of Papua New Guinea. I'll start by telling a little history of our dealing with the Lord about foreign missions and then I'll bring the story together about Papua New Guinea.

My wife has had a burden for doing foreign mission work ever since she was just a child. She used to try to prepare to be a missionary by taking cold showers and sleeping on the floor. I guess you could say she was a little bit determined. Yet before we were married God began to deal with her heart about missions. He was asking her to surrender her dream of being a foreign missionary. God wanted her to be completely surrendered.

The Lord began to disciple me and change my heart at age 15. I often played soccer with a lot of Hispanic people and I really enjoyed their culture and language. At age 17 my parents began to do some missionary work in Fiji. I had the privilege of going there 5 times and actually I was baptized by a Fijian pastor in Fiji. Getting to meet the people of a 3rd world country was exciting to me and I believe God began to do a work in my heart for such people. I studied Spanish in college and thought that I might be able to use it doing mission work in Mexico or South America. Similarly to my wife, God called me to lay down my dreams of how I was going to serve Him. So God was telling me to simply lay down my life to Him and receive of Him how I was to be His servant.

A Dream Kendra Had

Once we were married we began to really seek the Lord as to how He wants to use us. Foreign missions kept coming to my heart. We both did not want to do anything that was not God's leading, so we laid it before the Lord and laid our hearts before the Lord to get our directives from Him. During this time my wife had a dream from the Lord.

8/13/07 am

"... I woke remembering all the details very clearly. First, I felt as if I was watching something take place in the past. A man... about 24 yrs. old...had a huge heart for missions and brought a ministry team with him on a trip out to a tribe...This missionary man walked into their village and started to try to share the gospel. The men mocked him severely and seemed very cynical. The women seemed sad and oppressed. They took this missionary and tied him up to a frame, stretching his arms out in the position of a cross and started to strip his flesh off. ...This live form of cannibalism sickened me and I cried out for mercy for him but no one seemed to even know I was there. The whole time they were eating him alive, he was preaching the love of Christ...When I was sure that he was dead, they untied him and threw his body into the grass behind the village. Three days later I saw the chief standing on the edge of the cliff looking towards the horizon repenting to the God he didn't know for killing this man and asking for another chance to know the truth. I saw that behind the village, the crumpled bloodied form of the missionary was still alive and he was whispering with all the strength he had, 'I'll tell you the gospel.' ...Later I found myself in the village, in a more physical way instead of just watching events unfold as I had been before. Tyler and I were walking into the village and death and misery were evident everywhere...Death was very feared.

At the end of the dream, I heard: 'This is the Bulu people.' I saw how to spell it too: B U L U"

(I shortened the dream for the sake of many details)

Neither of us had ever heard of such a people so we decided to do some research. We eventually found the Bulu people in Papua New Guinea.

My Travel to the Bulus

Just over a year after the dream I decided to take a trip to visit the Bulu people in order to scout out the situation and to gain God's further leading. Many questions and thoughts were going through our heads. What are the Bulus like? Are there any Christians there? Have there been any other missionaries there? Were the people friendly? Has God really called us to go some 7,000 miles across the sea and live amongst these people? Would they want us to come? So, my intentions for my trip were to pray through everything and survey the territory and see what God would show me while being there.

I had connected with a missionary family (the Wiebes) who are serving in the Bola tribe, which is the neighboring tribe to the Bulus. They have been there for about 15 years and they just completed the printing of the Bible in the Bola language. They invited me to stay with them for a few days and helped me get up into the village.

We finally arrived at the village of Bulu Daba where I was greeted by many curious eyes. Brent stayed for about twenty minutes and then said farewell. It's a little out of my comfort zone to just drop myself into the middle of the jungle but God is so faithful and He gave me the courage and strength. Two English speaking Bulu men (Tamana Vini and Sydney) were my interpreters. They were very hospitable and kind to me.

The first night in the village was amazing. They started singing around dark and they had a few fires lit in one area of the village. They were commemorating the departed spirit of a girl who had died one week before. The singing was beautiful. They harmonized and sang with a lot of gusto. A group of about 30 were sitting on the ground just below a house's porch, and they were singing partially to console the mother of the deceased girl, who was on the porch mourning and wailing during the singing. It was quite a mix of emotions. The girl who died was buried some 50 ft away and they had some candles or something over by the grave. From what I understand, traditionally they would sing their tribal songs in this ceremony but they replaced them with many catholic songs. They sang like this all the way till sunrise.

There also was a makeshift hut with a fence that they made and Sydney told me not to go into the hut or else his father would have to pay the family some money. I think many from the village will come into the hut in order to show respect to the spirit and the family and they pay some money. Almost everything in their culture is bound by customs. They have all sorts of ceremonies that people do for different aspects of life. For example: If a boy catches his first fish then he takes a public bath and they rub this white stuff from a tree's bark all over him or if a woman has a baby then the husband has to pay the woman's family. It's this way for every baby. He has been blessed by the woman so he must pay her family. It seems that almost every aspect of life is bound together in this way. It creates a very communal group. They have a tight bond but it is not the bond of perfection which binds the church of God together.

It felt very strange to be in the middle of such an atmosphere. Everyone was curious and wanted to know why I was there in their village. So I shared the story of my wife's dream and of our praying to come to them. I didn't want to say that I was there to do this or that because I didn't really know at that time what God was wanting for us. I wanted to leave the ball in their court, so I told them everything and I wanted to see what there reaction was. Just after my story the men began to discuss all of this amongst themselves and kinda left me out of everything. Then after some time of discussion they told me that they think that God sent me to them and that they want a Bible in their own language. They related the dream to a legend they have and they believe that we are supposed to come to them. They were very excited and amazed at my story.

I also stayed in another Bulu village and they had the same response as the first village about the dream. They also had a council meeting with their governmental representative when I was there. They had me retell the story in this meeting and then this proceeded by Bulu men standing up with exclamations of how privileged they were that God cared for them and exhorting their people to let us come live with them. At the end of the meeting, the governmental representative told me to tell my people that they were happy to have us come and that they would build us a house.

The evening before I left was very special. The people took an offering and sent me away with probably an equivalent of a month's wages. They were very grateful that I came and they want us to return. It was hard to say goodbye to them. As I was leaving an older man came up to me and shook my hand. Then, while continuing to hold my hand, proceeded to ask me if I was coming back to his people. I said "maybe". I didn't want to leave any promises with anyone because I was not sure about the will of the Lord at that time. He replied, "Don't say maybe" and then he proceeded to tell me about some other men who visited to do a language survey for a possible Bible translation but that they never returned. I hadn't met this man until then and I can still clearly see his face in my mind. He looked at me with such longing and desire. Please come back he was saying Don't just visit and then leave. There are definitely some souls in those jungles who are longing for the Lord.