In 1957, David Walker, a 26-year-old Australian brother living in Port Moresby, heard that people in the neighboring Manu Manu village and in the Gabadi region were interested in the truth. David left his job, started special pioneering, and spent a year preaching in the region, working alone in service the whole time. Others later built on his efforts, and now Manu Manu has a congregation and a Kingdom Hall.

In the meantime, while preaching at Koki market in Port Moresby, Don Fielder met several fishermen interested in the truth. The men came from Hula, a coastal village about 60 miles [100 km] to the east. To help them and their families further, Don, along with Athol (Dap) Robson and some interested Hula people, set sail for Hula in Don’s new 26-foot [8 m] twin-hull canoe. They stayed in Hula for three days and established a small study group there.

Soon afterward, Don moved to Hula as a special pioneer, taking his wife, Shirley, and their two-year-old daughter, Debbie, with him. “We built a small hut and began preaching in the five villages in the area,” relates Don. “This involved walking a circuit of about eight miles [12 km] every day. It was physically taxing but spiritually refreshing, as we started many Bible studies and soon had eight new publishers working along with us.”

Don and Shirley’s preaching aroused the ire of the local United Church minister, who pressured their landlord to order their hut off his land. “When people from a nearby village heard about this, they were very angry because they did not want us to leave,” says Don. “About 20 of them helped us to move our hut​—foundations and all—​to a new plot of land owned by their village.”

The irate clergyman refused to give up. He lobbied the Port Moresby authorities to ban the Fielders from locating their hut anywhere in the district. “Rather than leave our assignment,” says Don, “we asked Alf Green, a skilled carpenter, to salvage wood from our hut and build a small room on our twin-hull canoe. We then anchored the canoe in a mangrove swamp near the mouth of a nearby river. There, among swarming mosquitoes and lurking crocodiles, we lived, while pioneering, for the next two and a half years.” When their second daughter, Vicki, was born, the Fielders returned to Port Moresby.

Soon afterward, two young Australians, Jim Smith and Lionel Dingle, were assigned to Kerema as special pioneers. They immediately set to work learning Tairuma, the local language. “We said each word in Motu, and our Bible students told us the corresponding Tairuma word, which we wrote down,” explains Jim. “In this way we built up a small vocabulary and memorized a simple Bible presentation. The local people were amazed to hear us speaking their language, as no other Europeans in the district could do so. After three months we were conducting weekly meetings in Tairuma on both sides of Kerema Bay.”

CONFRONTING A CARGO CULT

In 1960, two other Australian special pioneers, Stephen Blundy and Allen Hosking, moved to Savaiviri, a village about 30 miles [50 km] east of Kerema. After living in a tent for three months, Stephen and Allen moved into a small bush house on a coconut plantation surrounded by a vast swamp.

Savaiviri was a renowned cargo-cult stronghold. How did this cult begin? During World War II, the locals marveled at the vast wealth, or cargo, that accompanied foreign soldiers. Then the war ended, and the soldiers packed up and left. Some villagers reasoned that since the cargo had come from over the horizon​—the direction of the spirit world—​their dead ancestors must have been sending it to them but that the soldiers had been intercepting it. To alert the spirits to their need, the people engaged in mock military drills and built sturdy wharves to prepare for the glorious day when a flood of new cargo would arrive.

Before long, Stephen and Allen were studying with some 250 cargo-cult members, including its leader and some of his “twelve apostles.” “Many of these people came into the truth,” relates Stephen. “Indeed, the local government patrol officer later told us that our preaching was instrumental in bringing the Savaiviri cargo cult to an end.”