Double celebrations for Wau Baptists

Faith, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday 20th September, 2012

THE Wau Baptist church in Morobe celebrated its golden jubilee on Independence Day after a week-long national pastors’ conference.   
Church members and pastors from surrounding areas in Wau-Bulolo, the highlands, Lae, Madang and Port Moresby attended the conference and joined in the celebrations at the church in Wau.
Two of the very long serving church workers, Pr Tani Tia and missionary Jim Blumme, who have served in the church for decades, were farewelled during the celebrations. 
Tia came to Wau after graduating from the Bible school in Goroka in 1975 and served as the pastor for 37 years. Blumme came to Wau as a missionary in 1971 after graduating from school in the United States and served as a missionary for 41 years.                  
Blumme said the Independent Baptist church was established in Wau by a former army chaplain Jim Moresely in 1962.
Moresely had served as a chaplain in the US army during World War II.
He saw the need for the establishment of a church after God spoke through him to return to Papua New Guinea and to establish a church.  
But he refused to come to PNG and went to the Philippines and carried out missionary work there but he became ill and went back to the US for medical treatment.   
God renewed his call for him to return to PNG so he came, arrived in Lae and went up to Wau and looked around for a piece of land and was shown land at Nami, where he built his first church.
From there, he found a piece of vacant land at the present site and built a church.
“I came after I graduated from Bible college in the US and helped to strengthen the work of the church and built the first Bible college in Wau and trained many pastors and missionaries over the years who were now pastoring churches around the country, Pacific island nations and overseas,” Blumme said.  
“Time has now come for me to retire from missionary work due to my wife’s ill health and to return to the US.  
“I would like to thank everyone in Wau and PNG for your friendship and kindness during our 41 years of doing missionary work and to contribute towards the development of the nation,” he said.