Every time Andrew Little flies to a remote community in Papua New Guinea he has to decide what to take. Flying a light plane means every kilo has to be accounted for, and when you don’t know what you’ll be confronted with—a pregnant woman, a man needing medical attention—it’s hard to know how much space you’re going to need on the way back.

A “Bible box”

But there’s one piece of cargo Andrew tries to never leave behind. “I made a decision at some point to always take the Bible box,” he explains.

A metal box filled with solar rechargeable AudiBibles, pocket Bibles in English and Tok Pisin, Bible dictionaries and concordances, the “Bible box” weighs about 10 kilograms, but by the end of a trip, it’s often empty.

“If I land without it, people ask where it is. You can sell out of Bibles visiting a community one day and then go back a few weeks later and they still want more. There’s just this hunger to read and understand the Bible.”

Andrew is a pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) and he’s lived in PNG for three years with his wife providing air transport for people and much-needed resources in hard-to-reach places.

Papua New Guinea is 95 per cent Christian, having been exposed to the Gospel by missionaries since the mid-1800s. But while the faith of Papua New Guineans is strong, their knowledge of God and the Scriptures is limited. Isolation caused by the distance and rough terrain between communities means the Christians Andrew visits often haven’t had heard any Bible stories, let alone own a Bible.

“You’d be amazed at how little Bible people have heard,” says Andrew. “One day I sat down with a bunch of serious local Christians in a place where missionaries were based for years—a missionary-soaked area—and we just randomly chose a story from the Bible to read together. It happened to be the Good Samaritan, but about half of them had never heard that story before.”

Andrew flies into around 40 communities across PNG’s Western Province as part of his work with MAF, providing transport for medical emergencies, conferences, school children and to carry much-needed supplies. But the Bibles and resources he sells from the back of his plane are his most popular resource.

People purchasing Bibles in PNG.

“When you land, there’s people throwing money at you and before you know it the whole box is sold out all the time. Most days I take the box out it comes back empty at the end of the day.”

Rather than giving away the Bibles, MAF sells them at a subsidised rate. It’s found putting a price on the Bibles helps people to value them.

One of the best sellers in the Western Province where Andrew flies is a pocket English Bible. “If you’re a new Christian in Australia you might go down to a local Christian bookshop to get some resources, or you might look some things up on the internet. But they just don’t have those options here, so getting Bibles to them is key.”

Andrew says giving people Bibles is part of an on-going effort to equip them against false teaching, which he says is rife in PNG.

“What I really see God using MAF in the area to do is to strengthen and fortify this church. That’s the exciting thing for me. People are getting their hands on Scripture and are getting to know it.

“It’s incredible just having people hear the stories for the first time and learn more about Jesus. I know God will use that to really strengthen his people.”