Interacting with the Patpatar
• Please do not give anything to the Patpatar people. If they ask you for something (and you’re able to understand what they want), please direct them to us, the missionaries. We don’t want to create a “welfare state” by handing out stuff all the time. We missionaries will have more insight into weighing when to give things out. If you want to leave something behind for the Patpatar people, leave it with us and we will decide how/when it gets given.
• Please be careful when interacting with Patpatar people of the opposite sex. Men and women generally interact very little. Women must be careful making eye contact with men, and even something like giving a firm handshake or conversing with a man alone can be seen as inappropriate. If a man offers to shake your hand, shake it very lightly. The same applies for men interacting with Patpatar women. It is okay to be friendly, but friendly in US culture can easily be misinterpreted in PNG culture when interacting with the opposite sex. If a Patpatar person of the opposite sex is being “friendly” with you (talking to you lots, sitting close, making a lot of eye contact), just be aloof. It’s better to seem rude than to encourage their behavior.
• Please feel free to be friendly and affectionate with Patpatar people of the same sex. Here it is quite typical for 2 men to hold hands! Don’t be alarmed – you’ve made a good friend if a guy tries to hold your hand! Smile, laugh, try to communicate, love their children, and just be friendly! Bring pictures of your family back home – they’ll love looking at them. Use the Pidgin phrases we’re including below to try interacting with them. If they offer you food, it’s okay to eat it. (You don’t have to eat it all, just try a bit and then pass the rest off to the crowd of kids hanging around. They’ll be happy that you tried their food, and you’ll be seen as generous for eating some and then sharing the rest.) If you are offered a non-food item as a gift, you could try offering to buy it. (A “free gift” is their way of coming and asking you for a favor later since you’re now indebted to them.) Or you can just plead ignorance and refuse the gift. “I don’t know” will be your best and most frequently used phrase! Remember above all that these are our future brothers and sisters in Christ. Just love them.
• Please do not say that you have come from our church to help us. Church is a very messy word here in PNG that communicates very different things than a body of believers. Just say that you are friends of ours from America. This will save us missionaries a lot of trouble.
• We have told the Patpatar that this is the work we’re coming to do: We are coming to learn their language, translate the Bible into their language, teach them the Bible in their language, and teach them to read and write in their language. While there will be other facets to our ministry over the years, this is what we tell them to avoid any possible confusion. (For instance, we are not coming to run a hospital or a school but this does not mean we won’t help them in that way at some point.) Please don’t inadvertently commit us to some other type of work!
