I have reached a mindset that my luggage is not important than my life.
During a recent travel from Seattle to Chicago with a transit in Charlotte in North Carolina, I did not even bother to ask the airport staff for my transit baggage, let alone care whether it would meet me at my final stop.
I was content with the idea of carrying a small backpack and a billum.
My job was to pray for a safe flight. Nothing else mattered.
If my luggage had failed to reach me at the last Contour flight, it would not matter at all. The contents were just clothes and shoes I had packed for a seminar in Seattle.
As I sat quietly at the departure lounge in Chicago on a chilly spring morning, my mind raced back to a fateful Sunday in Port Moresby where I heard about the teaching of “excess baggage” from a spiritual context.
That Sunday was a turning point for me.
I was a vagabond slowly drifting. My life was going downhill emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually.
And that sermon served a purpose to redirect my life. I remembered very well. Pastor Petrus Pukienei ministered that Sunday at the Tokarara Assemblies of God Family Worship Center and urged those who attended to be doers of the word.
He began by sharing a story of a flight from Wewak to Port Moresby where a passenger had to pay for excess baggage weight.
His story was an effort to highlight what excess luggage meant in a local context and how this metaphor was used to describe sin as a weight and hindrance that slow us down and easily trip us up.
“ We allow sin as excess baggage in our lives as referenced in Hebrews 12: 1.Imagine if every day and every week, we make an effort to take a stock of our lives, practice decluttering as a way to make room for things that bring us joy.’’
I was inspired while listening. This message resonated with me. I love to set personal goals and work towards achieving those goals.
However, on the spiritual front, I had failed to replicate this attitude.
This message was a challenge that I wanted to implement and see how far it could shape my newfound joy in pursuing a relationship with God.
I made a mental commitment and wrote down those ideas.
The sermon ended and the host of the day thank Pastor Petrus. I learned that he was the assistant pastor from Yangoru in East Sepik.
I was so excited and motivated to practice what I heard. I went back and took a stock take of my life and never look back.
I kept going back to church and was encouraged to band up with other young people and mothers to pray every Friday night.
By the time I knew Ps.Petrus was family to my lovely friend and sister, May Wanya, I was ecstatic.
While I worked on strengthening my faith, I learned to depend on God for everything.
In that space of time I received news to further my studies in the United States of America through a scholarship program.
I was incredibly grateful when Pastor Petrus and his family invited me for a dinner and fellowship at their family residence. We enjoyed a hearty meal of fresh garden food prepared and served with love.
They were like the first Yangoru family I ever bonded with given my reserved personality.
He encouraged me to pursue my faith In God and offered a fervent prayer of Lord’s travelling mercy, protection and blessing.
Those prayers were answered when I arrive in Amerika. I band up with a women’s prayer group at the Faith Community Church in Harrisonburg.I also met a family, Jim and Judy Ranck who became my guardian parents here at the FCC.
It is amazing sometimes when I go to church on Sundays, to find out that the songs that I have been listening to during the week were on the sing-along praise list.
It is like a dream come true. And I often thank God daily.
I didn’t know that the time I was sitting at the departure lounge in Charlotte waiting for my Contour flight with an affirmed belief that my luggage was less valuable than my life, was the the last time I would hear from Pastor Petrus.
He passed on unexpectedly.
My church family here prayed for his family, his lovely wife, susa Malu and son, Asher and for the church he pastored.
And I know his prayer of blessings and protection will continue even when he is gone.
Planter's Child Adventures 