Pastor Kopen Yanda, a warrior of God

By MOHAMMAD BASHIR  (National Newpaper, September 2008)

THIS is a story of a fearless warrior of God who broke new grounds and spread the good news for the Apostolic Ministries in some of the most dangerous places in the Highlands.
To honour his contribution, a tribute will be paid to indigenous pioneer, Pastor Kopen Yanda on Saturday 6 September, 2008.
Well past his nineties and retired, Yanda was a fearless and charismatic preacher of the word of God.
From Wabag in Enga province, this illiterate and colonial trained policeman in the 1950’s, traveled the world including Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Solomon Island, Yugoslavia, Rome, Canada, Israel and Germany.
The Apostolic Church was born in Wales, in 1904, in what is known as the “Great Walsh Revival”.
Fifty years after the Walsh Revival, the Apostolic Movement reached the shores of PNG by missionaries from Australian and New Zealand, in 1954.
When the first missionaries reached PNG, they proceeded into the interiors of the Highlands and settled in Mamale Village of Laiagam District.
Yanda was one of first nationals that was their point of contact and introduced into the Apostolic Ministry.
PrYanda was born to Tunduman Yanda, a Yangolepan from the Yanairin Kia tribe of Wabag and Nepeam, a Taliap woman from the Apulin tribe of Upper Lagaip in the Enga province.
His birth at his grandmother’s Yakyal village was miraculous. His pregnant mother was busy working in her kaukau garden when the baby dropped out of her womb unnoticed and rolled to the bottom of the kaukau mound. The tiny baby’s cry attracted her attention, she discover that he was covered in top soil.
She picked him up, cleaned him and named him Kunis after the name of the place he was born.
When baby Kunis was taken to his father’s place he was renamed Kopen by his father’s people and has since been known by that name.
He lived the complete life of a Engan young man, initiated in his teens and abstaining completely from women till he got married in his mid 30’s.
Yanda came to know a colonial policeman from Aitape named Angon who took him under his guide and became an interpreter for a while before his guardian arranged for him to go for police training in Goroka.
One Sunday morning Yanda riding his bicycle ended up in this grass hut Church run by missionary Harry Rear.
Yanda responded to an altar call by Pastor Harry and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
He decided to go underground with his new found experience until after a decade when a revival broke out in 1972. He realized his secret prayer actually developed as a result of this attempt to hide his new experience.
Yanda left the police and moved to the mission station at Mamale to serve the Lord full time.
On a church visit to Melbourne, Australia the Lord prophetically confirmed his call to serve him and was the first national to be ordained as Pastor.
After the church was established in Western Enga he started to move into Wabag, Wapnamanda and Mt Hagen.
This move annoyed the missionaries because he was moving outside of zoned boundaries into Lutheran territory and to make matters worse the missionaries sent their children to Amaipyaka, a Lutheran church run school in the boarder of Wabag and Wapnamanda.
Despite this off-footing with the mission he pushed ahead on to Mt Hagen, establishing the church there which was the beginning of the Pentecostal Movement in the Western Highlands province in the early 1970’s.
When PNG gained Self Government in 1973, missionaries fled PNG in fear of what might happen at Independence so Pastor Yanda quickly gathered his surviving local Pastors to firm their stand in God.
By Independence a local PNG board was already in place with the First PNG Council members Pastor Kopen Yanda as Chairman, Pastor Torp Male as Deputy, Pastor Maskil Yopo as Secretary and members by Prophet Arenda, Pastor Piuk Lasala, Pastor Parakisan, Pastor Paul Wanoko, Pastor Kakio Piokole, Pastor Mara Lawaipa, Pastor Kigipa Mogele, and Pastor Tainde among others.
The Apostolic Church was finally given autonomy in 1980 by the Joint Apostolic Mission Board of Australia and New Zealand.
Pastor Yanda went on to Port Moresby in the early 1970’s and established the first work with the Kopiago people living at Six mile and the Sogeri plantations.
In his search for land he bought some flour balls and took it over to an ant hill on a savannah grass land at Waigani and in thanking the Lord for his food made claim over that piece of land where he rested his feet.
He won that land through a land board meeting and the first town church was built in Port Moresby.
He went on to establish churches in Mendi, Lae and finally Bougainville before he was replaced as the Chairman of the Apostolic Church in the earliest part of 80’s.
The Apostolic Ministry in PNG is coming together this Saturday to honour and pay tribute to the man they like to term as the “General of God” in the Apostolic Movement.
Yanda in his mid nineties resides at Mandan block in the Western Highland province.