I picked at the dried mud cradling my feet, flakes crumbling under my fingernails as chunks of dirt cracked off and fell to the soggy ground. The wind whispered by my face giving sweet relief to the sun’s heat that was trying to beat through intermittent clouds, but neither the wind nor the sun dried my tears. The groan of wood as I shifted my weight for the hundredth time reminded me how quickly this bench had been constructed. The wood wasn’t supposed to be for this. It was supposed to be for my friend’s house. In fact, this whole situation wasn’t supposed to be happening. Our teammates were supposed to allocate to this village and start whittling away at the New Testament with the translation team… the whole translation team… while their house was being constructed. Instead, here we all sat on wood that should be their flooring, honoring a man that should still be alive.

Cancer is here, too. It’s here in Papua New Guinea with all its thoughtless destruction. The crude box holding Nikolas’ body was draped with a loud orange blanket. Too loud and too orange for my western eyes. People trickled in from near and far to come give their respects, to be angry, to be sad, to say goodbye. Because all those same reactions happen in a remote Papua New Guinean village. We are all human and death is death everywhere.

Many of our national coworkers we only know in a town context. They come, they work, they go back to the village, over and over. Nikolas had such a warm face. He was able to coax Ray before she was walking to give him smiles, even though she rarely smiled at Papua New Guineans. I always felt a quiet safeness about him and she clearly felt it too. But we didn’t know who Nikolas was in the village, not really. Was he the gentle and mild mannered man we always saw? The community came to his side at the end and they all whispered or wailed or cried out the same thing: peacemaker. He was our peacemaker.

Nikolas comes from a volatile area, yet he was consistently found standing between opposing sides calling for everyone to come together. The very stand of the peacemaker is full of heartache in a world so determined to hate, but he ran his race faithfully.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Matthew 5:9

I tensed as my husband stood to speak for the second time at the funeral. The gathering felt tighter and more emotional as the morning wore on. The first time Brian spoke many people were still making their way to the hamlet. Shortly afterwards we saw an elderly man slowly make his way across the field, stopping occasionally to lean on his walking stick and weep, hand rubbing his eyes. He came to the side of the coffin, wailed in a haunting singsong voice, quieted, and moved on. No one cried or wailed with this man, but instead looked at the ground silently allowing him to mourn. This was the way of it. Waves of communal grief, but often the group standing silently while one or two newcomers mourned publicly. After the old man came a wrinkled but forceful old woman with a young man by her side. We could hear them coming before we could see them. She was shouting and angry. He was repeating her words, emphasizing her points by yelling at the crowd. It was the hate and vengeance that killed Nikolas. He spent his life trying to bind the communities together, but instead they killed him with their inability to forgive. This was their belief and it was their opportunity to shame the community. They did. A leader quietly took Brian aside after this incident and asked him to preach his sermon again commenting, “Say exactly the same thing you said before. More people are here, and more people need to hear it.”

So I prayed and Brian spoke. He spoke about peace. He spoke about God’s love. He spoke about the importance of Bible translation to Nikolas, and the importance of Bible translation to the community. He spoke of the need for young men to step up and be what Nikolas was, both as a peacemaker and as a leader in the community. He spoke of the freedom Nikolas felt when he faced death because he knew his Savior. He spoke of God’s forgiveness.

Seeds were planted, and then we tumbled into the helicopter for home. We are praying for the Pioneer Bible team we left behind that will be planting and watering seeds daily, laboring unto the Lord. It’s so often confusing to grapple with the reality of bad things happening, especially events that seem to interrupt the advancement of God’s kingdom. The cancer, the fighting, the selfishness, the griping, the brokenness, but in the end we always see God’s hand moving and directing. In that we can move forward free of worry and with hearts of joy knowing that Nikolas persevered to the end and is called blessed, a son of God.