Pastor helps in Papua New Guinea

One night more than 30 years ago in the Kobon village north of Mt. Hagen in Papua New Guinea, a man asked for Costa Mesa pastor John Davies’ help with a sick woman in the next village.

“It was a walk of about two miles. It was totally dark, but he had a little hurricane lantern. There was no moon. And as we’re walking we bump into two guys with axes,” Davies recalled. “He talked with them and managed to explain to me that these were actually witch doctors who had left the sick person and said ‘she’s going to die, we’re going home.’”

Davies gave the woman a shot of penicillin, but it proved fruitless. She died a few days later. When he turned and looked for the man to take him back to his village, the man was gone. Davies had to make the trek alone.

“So I’m sort of feeling my way along, and then as I’m going along there’s this little glint. Just a little glint of metal. It’s these two witch doctors on their way back. I felt a chill up my spine,” Davies said.

Fortunately for Davies, the men said hello and went their own way. It was one of the scariest moments of Davies’ 35 years of missionary work in Papua New Guinea.

Today, he wouldn’t be so scared to walk through the forests on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea.

Because of his and his wife’s missionary work for the past 35 years, there are 1,000 Kobon children learning the Gospel and literacy in their language in 30 schools in the Madang province.

Today, while homes and schools mostly consist of straw and timber from the forest, changes are coming. Just ask the students at Christ Lutheran School in Costa Mesa.

The school celebrated its most successful fundraising year for the Kobon people Wednesday, presenting Davies with a $4,702 check for a new Kobon school with an iron roof, a teacher’s salary for a year and school supplies. An iron roof in Papua New Guinea could potentially last 35 to 50 years, Davies said. It would also spare school materials from water damage from leaking thatched-roofs.

“It was just something nice, and it’s a blessing some kids get to go to school,” said eighth-grader Sara Garvey, the students’ spiritual life director at Christ Lutheran School.

Davies, who will leave for Papua New Guinea Sunday, has known the Kobon for most of his life. He and his wife, Maila, began their mission there in 1972. The couple met in a mission school in England.

They live in Costa Mesa and have cut their annual trips to Papua New Guinea to six- and nine-month stints.

“The last time I was there they said, ‘Oh John, you have to be buried here,” Davies said, laughing. “I’d be honored. That’s where we spent the bulk of our lives. That’s where our kids spent most of their lives. It’s really home. It’s where we belong.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.