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The
following account of Canadian MAF teacher
Marianne Vanderboom originally appeared in
the September 2003 edition of Life Link.
NABIRE, Indonesia - Canadian teacher Marianne Vanderboom left a
life she knew well to spend a year in one of the most remote parts of the
world, where she knew life would be more difficult.
Born and raised in Burlington, Ontario, and educated at a teacher’s
college close by, Marianne taught for nine years at the same Christian
school she attended as a child.
But on the day furloughing pilot Clarence Togeretz and his wife Jeanette
visited her school to tell the children about Mission Aviation Fellowship,
Marianne knew God was calling her out of her comfort zone – and into
missionary service.
Clarence and Jeanette told about missionaries and national pastors who
live deep inside the jungles of Indonesia’s Papua province on New Guinea
Island, reaching many who have never heard the Gospel.
In this part of the world, MAF flights save Christian workers countless
hours of difficult and sometimes dangerous travel across vast swampland
and mountainous terrain.
Marianne was disheartened to learn that the Togeretzes and two other
families who live at the MAF flight base at Nabire, on Papua’s
northeastern coast, had not been able to find a teacher for their
children.
“I knew instantly I had to go and help out. I fought with the Lord about
it for over a week, but I knew what He was telling me to do,” she recalls.
Now as she looks back at the school year she was able to spend at Nabire,
Marianne reflects: “I learned a lot – about the Lord, about people, and
the world in general. Most important was that I learned I can trust the
Lord.”
Marianne encourages more Canadian teachers to serve with MAF around the
world, but offers one caution:
“If you’re going into mission work overseas to look for adventure, don’t
do it. You’ll be miserable. But if the Lord is asking you to go, you’d
better go!”
Marianne had only six children in her class at Nabire, compared with 24
back home in Burlington, but here she also faced the task of teaching five
different grades each day.
Her capable teaching assistant was Annie Douglass, an American who grew up
in Kenya as the daughter of missionaries.
“The six children were already good friends with each other, and close as
a group,” Marianne says.
“We were like a family. Each one worked at his, or her, own pace. I
facilitated. We got started one month late but we managed to complete a
10-month curriculum in nine months.”
Missionaries serving for a short term overseas have to make a quick
transition to a new culture, with its unique sounds and smells.
“Nabire was definitely not a quiet country retreat, but a noisy, smelly
place to live ...
“On hot days, there was the odor of fish and open sewers. At the pasar
(market), the iron smell of blood pervaded the meat section.
“Radios were set to three notches past deafening. You’d hear the calls of
‘Hello, meester, I love you!’ and the cadence songs of the military as
they jogged by.”
Marianne says any hardships related to overseas service tended to revolve
around such things as missing family and friends, feeling singled out as a
white person in a different culture, and constantly encountering insects
no matter how much you cleaned your house.
Sunday worship in an unknown language was also difficult, even though
people were always warm and welcoming – and Clarence Togeretz gladly
translated the sermons for her.
At the same time, the language difficulty allowed Marianne to experience
firsthand that a smile is universal, and love for God can be communicated
without words.
“As a result of my year in Indonesia, I have learned to follow God
wherever He leads. God is a faithful father who always equips us to do the
task he has called us to do,” says Marianne.
“Although not directly involved in reaching the unreached for Christ, I
was helping make that possible by freeing others to do their jobs more
effectively. That was a good feeling.”
The Nabire school is one of the satellite schools of Hillcrest
International School, started by Christian and Missionary Alliance in
1958. Today, the main school at Sentani has close to 200 children
enrolled.
| 
a day in the life of... an
MAF teacher
