Bert Smit, director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in the United Kingdom (ADRA-UK), program officer Pansi Katenga, and three other ADRA team members were held at gunpoint by armed robbers on March 1 while visiting Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea (PNG) to monitor adult literacy education programs there.

The robbers ambushed the ADRA minibus the group was traveling in following a visit to the Jesus Centre Halfway House training center. The driver of the minibus was dragged out and forced to lie on the ground. The rest of the team was then forced out of the van and robbed of video and camera equipment, a laptop computer, credit cards and money. The robbers also took Katenga’s Malawian passport, which contained her United Kingdom work permit.

The team members immediately reported the incident to the police, who said such attacks are often linked to gang rape and revenge attacks for HIV and AIDS. They told the team they had been “lucky.”

The group was particularly concerned about Katenga’s stolen passport, so church members and leaders immediately put the wantok system into action. Wantok (meaning one talk in Tok Pisin, the local language) links people to their native language and tribe. A person’s wantok includes people they treat like family. Today the system goes beyond just language and tribe barriers to include both geographical and religious relationships. So wantok pressure was put on the community to act because this incident affected the Adventist Church as a whole entity.

Adventist churches met to pray. Community leaders spread the word that all the group wanted back was the passport. Within 24 hours the credit cards were returned. Within 48 hours Katenga’s passport was also returned. No other items have so far been returned, but the team members said they praised God for making it possible to travel again.

The ADRA-UK group later learned that some of the men involved in the ambush had formerly attended an Adventist church and regretted betraying their wantok. The police told the team that if the minivan they had been driving in had visibly carried the ADRA logo, the robbery probably wouldn’t have occurred because of the agency’s good reputation in the region.

Although they admit to being shaken by the event, Smit and Katenga say they are still very positive about the work ADRA-UK is doing in PNG. The adult literacy project the group was monitoring was first organized in June 2006. The project strives to empower local civil society organizations to offer literacy and income-generation training. Currently, the project has spawned some 16 literacy programs and trained hundreds of teachers who have taught approximately 26,000 adults to read and write. 

Although the team left PNG earlier than planned, they say they are still positive about the ADRA-supported projects. “While this experience has been a shock, I am not put off,” Katenga said. “Someday I will be back.”