Helwin Johnny:
Nov. 1995 – Sept. 2020
I met Helwin in 2014 when I lived in Mawan. He was a polite boy who loved his mama, his papa, his siblings and literally everyone. It has always been a joy to be around him.
What I didn’t know then, and only recently learned was that he had seizures. I don’t know if they were brought on by bad malaria or something else, but recently his parents, along with my village mama and I took him to the doctor here in Madang to see what could be done. When he had seizures, he didn’t do what I saw my mom do with grand mal seizures, his seizures were petit mal. He just stopped. Everything stopped.
We were working out a treatment plan for him, when one evening while he was sitting near the cooking fire, he had a seizure, and fell face first into the fire. It took some time before he got out of the haus sik after skin grafts and a lot of pain. He felt healed from that one.
Then, one day recently, my wasmama called to say that he had died.
Such a loss!
Such a sweet boy, who took Robbie around Mawan and surrounding areas, who loved his family and friends deeply and – most importantly – he loved God.
His big brother was holding devotions at his place and Helwin wanted to read the Scripture that night. It was Romans 12.
He read it.
4 hours later he was gone.
Gone… Finished… No more breath… No more laughs… Final.
Oh Helwin. My heart breaks for my family. This crushed them. If you’ve been with me since the beginning (2014), then you’ll remember Joel’s death. It too was devastating.
It has been since about 2015 that I myself have driven to Mawan. I think I have driven it exactly twice, ha-ha! It’s intimidating to me. But I couldn’t be in the office while they had so much pain. I needed to be with my family. So I borrowed the PBT land cruiser and some gracious and wonderful Papua New Guineans to go with me. Josephine, Jackson (Lois’ husband), Twila (her daughter), Nason (a boy who lives with them) and Pastor Markut, my mamas’ sister’s husband all graciously agreed to go with me.
One of the first to come to me where I was instructed to sit and rest from the drive, was this sweet little girl shown here. She just leaned into me as I sat there. I loved it. Then I was told that she is my original Baby Sharon!!! Oh my heart!
Here she is pictured with her sister Suzy!
After we rested from the trip, Mama took me to the haus krai where they had Helwin’s coffin. His mama had sat at the head of it since they came back from the morgue. God bless her. I held her. I held the other mamas. It was hard.
Then God gave me my happy place. Sharon and Suzy have a new little sister named Yayas!
Oh my goodness, right?? The other baby girl on my lap belongs to Lillian, another sweet kid I met in 2014. She married a pastor. Look at these babies!! I hollered for Josephine to come snap us – then I panicked – oh my goodness, did I just mess up culturally by being loud in the house of mourning?! I looked hurriedly at Helwin’s mama and apologized for my outburst. Yikes. She smiled through her beautiful tears and said that she was “so happy to hear my joy and my laughter in Mawan again.” My heart grew.
We spent time there with her and so many people. Then we went back to mama’s place where they had spent quite some time preparing all of this food [see photos below] it was wonderful!! Yams, taro, tulip (greens), bananas and yummy pork!! We really enjoyed it! I wish I’d taken a picture of my plate. You’d be jealous! … of course the dogs get their (stolen) portion.
The dogs get their portion when they can
As we sat there, I heard what I thought was a song being sung. Jackson shared that it was Helwin’s mama wailing her people’s wailing song. It was beautiful and heart-wrenching at the same time. A mama isn’t supposed to bury her child… and yet, there has been Joel, Baby JJ, (countless newborns, including our beautiful Baby Jeni and her two siblings) and now Helwin. The morning I was crafting this update, my sweet friend called me to tell me that her nephew – that we have been praying for, who was finally off drugs – but apparently too depressed to live another day – took his life. She is broken. Their whole family is broken. And she has malaria and pneumonia. She is so sick and so broken. Please pray. Life sure seems harsh lately.
I want to end this update on a high note. I absolutely loved showing the kids Photos of Robbie with them and Helwin in 2018.
Oh my goodness was she excited to see her Robbie!!!
It doesn’t take but a second for one child to become a dozen when they see a camera or pictures! They are so funny. I printed and laminated one of these for each one of them. My wasmama will get them next week and distribute them.
Here is mama, Shelo (her #2 daughter), and mama’s sister, Kwait
(your buddy/right arm when you were in Mawan, Ali & Marianne!!)
The sweet lady in the photo above, came at me like she knew me. We hugged tight. Then mama told me that she was the wife of their new pastor. We had never met! She is adorable!
She made this awesome money pouch out of the bags we get milk in.
All of the young able-bodied men were on the other side of the water digging the hole. I didn’t get to see them.
Next time…
I told mama that now I know I can drive there. I just need some people with me both ways and a boatload of confidence, ha-ha! But seriously, look at this sky from our trip back to town — It is endless beauty out there where nothing has been spoiled.
Pastor Markut and his wife Carol Jackson Josephine Nason
Pictured above are my faithful riders from the trip. I’m so grateful for the friendships that the Lord has given me here. The riders are Josephine, Nason, Jackson and Pastor Markut. Twila was with us, but I failed to get a picture of her in Mawan. So here she is with her mama in our PBT office the next day.
Prayer points this time are:
• Safety in and around town
• Continued good health
Below is a song I recorded one morning at our PBTPNG office before prayer time.
I’ve added a slideshow to accompany the song.
Note: We daily stop what we are doing around 8:30 AM to gather in the front office to sing and pray together. This day I happened to have my phone so I recorded us singing “Litimapim Nem Bilong Jisas Krais” (Praise the name of Jesus Christ) because I thought we sounded particularly good. I thought you might like to hear it.
Sharon, this is lovely. Thanks so much for allowing us to share this experience with you!