Battle of the Beasts!!

Papua new guinea is a land unlike any other land I have ever seen or experienced. It is a land from the ancient past, full of the most unique and incredible creatures I have seen on this earth. Many of you know that the rooster crows every morning at dawn, but here in PNG up on the mountains I found myself waking up to the shrill high pitched scream of thousands of insects singing a horrifying chorus, that would make your alarm clock sound like the voice of angels.

It took me days to finally catch one of these insects, and to my surprise it was an enormous nasty flying insect with wings the size of fingers. After careful examination I realized the source of the terrible noise came from it rubbing its wings together much like a cricket makes noise by rubbing its legs together. My friend Gibson took the creature, cooked it, and then ate it in front of my eyes. And that was the end of him... but the next morning there were hundreds more to take his place.

In only a few days I had already seen many different varieties of stick insects which are nearly twice as long as one of my hands and completely invisible among the dense foliage. The tail on the end of this beast is poisonous and while I was playing with it, he kept coiling it towards me like a scorpion ready to strike. But I am far too big for him to do me any damage. There are also many kinds of leaf like insects, which resemble grasshoppers but I really enjoyed the gigantic caterpillars which seemed to visit me on a daily basis. Many of the people are scared of these caterpillars because they believe they are poisonous, and maybe they are, but I seemed to have no trouble making friends with many during my trip here in Mount Hagen.

Besides many strange insects Papua new guinea is full of many different varieties of gigantic spiders. While we were all inside having tea and laughing into the late hours of the night, one terrifying huge hairy spider actually roped down from the ceiling onto one of the PNG natives that I was talking with. I can only describe it as the largest and hairiest spider I have seen yet with huge fangs. The spider latched onto his hand immediately and bit right through his skin and he literally had to shake it off with all of his strength because it refused to let go of him. After examining his wound I knew that he needed supernatural help, so I prayed over him and none of the venom seemed to take effect. But we all kept a close watch for any of his brothers, lest we had any more unexpected visitors.

The most terrifying of all the beasts that I met was a MASSIVE beetle with HUGE antennas and razor sharp pinching jaws that looked like they could chop off the tip of my finger. When I found him he was so angry that he began to rub his neck back and forth which produced a LOUD popping noise which basically told us that he wasn't very friendly. So I decided to put him in a jar, and lock off his oxygen so he would slow down a bit so I could take his picture. After leaving him in there for several hours, he didn't seem to slow down at all, in fact he was continually attacking the inside of the jar trying to escape. I got really anxious to take his picture so I decided to let him out, and boy was he ever angry. I only got to take this one picture because seconds later he shocked me by raising his massive shell and flying into the air. His wings and size were so huge that he was like a bird, and made a sickening fluttering noise as he took off towards the heavens never to be seen again.

We encountered all of these amazing creatures way up in the mountains here in Mount Hagen at the YYWAM Base. The most amazing creature that can be discovered is the one that can only be found in Jesus Christ. Through him we can become an entirely new creation, and during my stay my friend Gibson (the one who ate the bug) who lives at the base, began to ask me a lot of questions. And during our conversations, I told him about many of the things God has been doing in my life. But the one thing that really impacted him is when I told him that God wanted us to die, and for that to happen your old man had to be put to death. And I explained to him that baptism it is not just a symbol of Christ dying for you, but you are identifying yourself with Christ and you also have to die. And just a few days later I heard the incredible news that Gibson had decided to get baptized. So we all watched as several of the members of YYAM were baptized for the very first time in a small spring just behind the base. It reminded me that the same God that brought life to all of these creatures, wants to breathe new life into each one of us, but for that to happen each one of us has to first give up his own life, and follow him.

"Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" John 11:25

Jeremy Heemskerk