The church of the broken Axial

I had a friend and a colleague who had been a Missionary in Papua New Guinea. He is retired now but a few years ago he shared this story with me. Papua New Guinea is a rough place to travel around in. There are mostly no roads, only trails cut by hand where you must travel by foot or 4WD. The place is mountainous and to go anywhere is difficult.

On this particular day that this story took place, four ministers were heading up into the highlands in a 4wd. They came down a steep hill and into a creek bed, intending to go up other the other side. Just as they were coming out of the creek, they broke an axial in the back wheel. However, they were prepared for such things and carried a spare axial in the back of the 4WD.

They Jacked up car, removed the wheel and began to work on the axial. Word got out to local natives and a crowd began to gather around the vehicle to watch. They got the old axial out, but could not get the new one in. They tried everything. An hour or two went by but they had no success. By this time a large crowd of local villagers had gathered. Finally, one of them said, “why don’t we pray?”

They knelt and prayed in a circle, using the Pigeon English language. Then they got up to try one more time. The axial slotted straight into place without effort. They packed up and drove on.

Sometime later, Pr. Ritchie Way, the Pastor who shared this with me, said he was in the office at Port Moresby when a message came to him of a request for a Pastor to visit a village in the highlands who had witnessed what they considered to be a miracle that day. They were visited, the gospel message was preached, and a church in the village was begun. It became affectionately called, amongst the pastoral fraternity, “The Church Off The Broken Axial.” It is highly probable that this whole event was a divine appointment. When we have problems, do we pray about them, or struggle on with our own efforts?