The Siar people are taking God’s Word to another people group.

Several years ago when Lane Sanford and Chris Lujan stepped off the boat and onto the island where the Siar people live, they were greeted by an excited group of people who were waiting for them.

In fact, the Siars had been waiting for a very long time. They wrote to the New Tribes Mission leadership team in Papua New Guinea asking for a missionary to come live with them. The leaders told them that there was no one to send. So the Siars began to wait patiently for the missionaries to come. They had seen changes in the lives of other people groups where missionaries lived and wanted that transformation for themselves.

When Chris and Lane and their families moved into the village, the Siars realised that there was much work to be done. They needed to help the missionaries learn the culture and language in order to hear the message Chris and Lane had promised. As relationships grew and the missionaries became comfortable in the language, five Siar men, Amos, Bernard, Sali, Toiya and Tande, helped the missionaries translate God’s Word into final teaching lessons.

In August 2011, Amos and Sali trusted Christ as their Saviour and continued in their role of helping Chris and Lane translate God’s Word.

In October of that year, Chris and Lane completed the Creation to Christ lessons and a church was born among the Siar people. They did not yet understand what God was going to do in their lives. “As the church grew in their understanding and experience with the Lord they started to gain a deeper understanding of God, His life, His desire, His work, their new identity in Christ and also His worldview,” wrote Chris.