A Pocketful of Purpose
By Robyn & Stefanie Tommy (DPG Day 26)
It has been a busy year at Lifehope School in New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea. After almost 12 months of hard work, we have come to the end of a project constructing a second set of three classrooms. With the building officially opened and given over to the teachers and students to use, we have been reflecting on the story of Lifehope School. We couldn’t have done this work on our own, but only with God’s guidance and provision, and the help of the community here and others we have met along the way.
Lately, God has been encouraging me (Stefanie) with an image. In life, we are blessed with relationships; friendships, people that we work with, connections. And as we journey through our lives, we collect these friendships like colourful pieces of glass washed up on the beach, which we put in our pockets.
Some of these people we walk with for a lifetime. They are good role models—reliable and faithful. They walk alongside us, mentoring and encouraging us in life’s journey as a strong, steady foundation—or like a big, thick, solid piece of brown glass.
Some people we meet through work, church, conferences, or mutual friends and—although we don’t spend a lot of time with them—we connect because of a shared interest or common goal. An everyday piece of smooth, green glass.
But occasionally, we are blessed to cross paths with people who are real treasures. They might only be in our lives for a short season, but they shine brightly for Christ and leave a profound impact. They are like glistening pieces of ruby red glass.
Each relationship has a unique colour and shape, and God has a purpose for it.
We continue to collect these relationships like gems, and our pockets get full, so we start putting them into a coffee jar on the shelf, where we can admire them and keep them safe. We don’t want to lose them, every piece significant in its own way.
When we get married, we combine our special pieces into an even bigger jar. I will never know all of the people whom God used to impact my husband’s life, and he hasn’t met a lot of the people who have influenced my life. But each one is special, because God has used them, and they form the foundation of the life and work He has for our family.
Since Lifehope School was established, we have been trying for ten years to get the school registered and recognised by the Education Department in PNG. In the beginning, we pushed hard, filling in forms, sending people from the village to go for us to the education office in town (two hours away) while we were still in Australia. But we never seemed to make any progress; the correct officer was not there when they went, or the requirements kept changing, and more papers had to be brought back and re-signed.
It was frustrating and discouraging. When we moved to PNG full-time at the start of 2024, we thought we’d be able to get it sorted out in a couple of months. It didn’t happen. Our enthusiasm for this chore of chasing registration evaporated, so we handed that responsibility back to God to hold onto for a while. We tried to live by the motto we encourage our teachers with: “We do what we can, and we trust God for what we can’t”. For more than a year, we have just been concentrating on infrastructure projects and spending time with our teachers.
Recently though, we have seen the wheels of progress in our registration starting to gain momentum. Not because we have been straining forward, but it’s as though God has been picking out some of the relationship gems that we had stored in our life jar and is now arranging them into a precise pattern, crafting a beautiful mosaic of helpers around us and Lifehope School.
As well as the amazing help we get from home in Australia for the building projects, we’d like to share a chain of some of the important “pieces” that God has been setting around us here locally.
As a teenager, Robyn moved to Rabaul to look for a job and stayed with a young pastor. For three years, he lived with Pastor Alois, attended church with him, became a believer, and was baptised there. In 2017, this same man helped us to negotiate with his clan members to buy the land where Lifehope is situated.
In 2004, Robyn joined OM (Operation Mobilisation). He wanted to go to India, but God redirected him to Sri Lanka. There, Robyn met Gabby Markus, also from PNG, and since then, their relationship has grown despite each of them moving to serve in different countries. Now, Gabby is back in PNG working with OM in Port Moresby. With Gabby’s assistance, we have been able to purchase specially designed students’ desks, thereby advancing our registration by demonstrating to the education officials that we are providing a quality classroom environment.
Thirty years ago, while visiting an extremely remote village, Robyn met another young pastor, and they became friends while fishing. Now, Pastor Joe is a senior pastor, Regional Supervisor of Four Square Gospel Church, and a board member of the Four Square Education Agency. With his help this year, Lifehope School has been able to affiliate with this education agency, and we are so thankful that they are now taking responsibility for some of the registration obligations in Kavieng, the provincial capital.
And lastly, one of Robyn’s faithful supporters while he was overseas with OM was Jonah Salot. They lost contact for 15 years, but last year, we found out that he had become the District School’s Inspector in our area, and he visited Lifehope in June, enabling them to reconnect and start working together in a new way.
So, when the path seems unclear and the work feels hard, it’s important to remember that we are not alone. As God gave Joshua victory in the battle against Amalek through Moses’ raised hands and the support of his friends, it is the same for us. God is with us all the way. At the right time and in the right places, He is bringing His people together to work for His glory.