Miracles in Papua

They lost everything-but found a legacy that would outlast them.

Henk Lit grew up in colonial Java, an atheist hardened by loss and survival. He endured the Japanese occupation, the terror of war, and the upheaval of revolution that forced his family to abandon their successful business and flee to Papua. Alongside his wife Johanna, he arrived in Manokwari with nothing and struggling with malaria.

It was there, in the midst of sickness and struggle, that everything changed. Baptized in the sea and healed of malaria he had carried since his youth, Henk's life took a turn he never imagined. Together, he and Johanna began walking with the Hatam people-teaching, baptizing, discipling, and sharing the God who had changed them.

Their story was not without pain: poverty, rejection, and the heavy cost of starting over. Yet in the cracks of hardship came miracles-rivers subsiding, healings, faith rising-and the birth of a Hatam church that would one day send out its own missionaries and receive God's Word in their own language.

Miracles in Papua is the true story of Henk and Johanna Lit, told by their grandson Tim Lit from family manuscripts and missionary archives. It is both a testimony of ordinary believers transformed by grace, and a glimpse of how God weaves many lives together to shape a people for Himself.