My name is Sineina Gela and I come from the Milne Bay Province in the southeastern part of Papua New Guinea. I was the third born into a family of seven children. My parents come from two different language groups, so I grew up speaking both of these languages. Most of my childhood was spent in a typical coastal village setting. My father held education in high regard and therefore made sure that all of his children attended school, even though it was a 30-45 minute walk each way. The decision (made by the school board) for me to attend a government-sponsored boarding high school meant that I left home at a young age. As my second year at the high school drew to a close, my father decided that I should go to a secretarial school to learn a skill and get work so I could help him with the payment of school fees for my siblings. Since there were no schools for such training in the Province, this meant I had go to the big city of Port Moresby, which was even further away from home. After a year’s training, I took a job as part of the personal staff for the Minister of Forestry. I fulfilled my father’s wish to help with school fees for my younger brothers and sisters, but it was not easy living in a girl’s hostel in a big city. I had my share of searching and trying to find meaning in life, and I watched as, one by one, all of my friends married and left the hostel.

When I was a child, my parents took us to church and I remember them praying for us, but none of this had much meaning at the time; it was simply the right thing to do. Years later, when I was at the hostel, a Catholic nun came to share with the girls about God. I didn’t realize it then, but the Lord was beginning to draw me to Him. I made a personal commitment to the Lord in July 1978 at a Sunday service, and I have not turned back since.

Committing myself to the Lord made me want to do something different with my life. Though I was young, I was earning good money and had big responsibilities in the workplace.  However, I felt somewhat dissatisfied with it all.  At the time, I thought that missions was something done by foreigners. When I worked for the Government minister for Transport and Civil Aviation, I would see a great deal of correspondence from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). Nothing in the name of ‘SIL’ said anything obvious about their Christian missionary work, and I wanted to work with a Christian organization. MAF’s name revealed more of their purpose so I was drawn toward them and considered making application to work with them, but God had other plans. At the time I had made a commitment to the Lord, my preacher was none other than David Gela, and though I did not realize it at the time, he would later become my husband. David and I got married in 1980 and immediately moved to Ukarumpa to head up the work of BTA. Our son Joshua joined our family in 1988. Joshua recently completed a degree in Mechanical Engineering at PNG’s University of Technology and is looking to the Lord for direction regarding his future career, possibly in the aviation industry. We are so grateful that he loves and walks with the Lord.

As the saying goes in the Pacific, “where the canoe goes, the outrigger goes.”  The Lord answers prayer in mysterious and wonderful ways. The answer to the prayer I prayed silently while working in the Government office came through marriage. David was already involved in the Bible translation ministry. He had helped with the translation of his Nakanai New Testament and, while a student at the University, he served on the Advisory Council to SIL (SILAC), which later developed into what is now BTA. As I look back, my secretarial training, though originally for the purpose of helping pay my siblings’ school fees, has been used of the Lord to help develop and establish BTA. Praise His Name.

After serving with BTA for a number of years, David felt the need for further training, so he applied to Fuller Seminary in California, USA. We took two years off from our work at BTA, and leaving meant we were also leaving the payroll. We had to trust the Lord to provide for tuition and other expenses in a foreign land. It was frightening, but I remember praying and asking the Lord to guide us. We were reading through the book of Exodus during this time and one morning the Lord spoke to us through Exodus 14:15.  It was as if God was telling us, stop praying and crying out, and move forward!   We decided to trust the Lord for all our needs and move forward. However, even before we made that decision, the Lord had already begun to raise up people to come alongside us and support us. It has been almost thirty years since we took that step of faith and we have never looked back. God has proved His faithfulness to us over and over again in providing for all our needs, giving us a world-wide family, and much, much more.

I believe in the Word of God and its power to transform lives. I believe that the Lord speaks to us in our heart languages.  Having grown up speaking multiple languages, and then being immersed in an English-speaking educational world, I had not thought about it this way before, but now I realize that God values my life in its entirety, including the language and people group that He placed me in. I believe that it is true for all of the people of Papua New Guinea, and that God’s Word speaks the loudest and clearest in the language He has infused into the heart of each person.

I am where and who I am today because of Jesus – God’s Living Word. The entrance of the Word into my life has brought light and life in the fullest sense of the words.  I am richer than ever because, in His grace and love, He has seen fit to make me a part of His wonderful plan.