Sir Silas Atopare: His Ddestiny in God’s Hands

Does God still speak to us in visions? He did to Sir Silas Atopare. Signs editor Lee Dunstan tells of the event.

As the representative of the Queen in Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Governor-General, Sir Silas Atopare, presides over the country’s constitution—a job, he concedes, that’s not always easy. He alludes to the most recent election as an example, with accusations of vote rigging and ballot-box fraud. These issues require the wisdom of Solomon and patience of Job.

However, he claims he has a distinct advantage, for he is convinced that God, in whom he firmly believes and trusts, reserved him for this role, at this specific time. That gives him confidence to perform his official role with confidence.

His story begins in his home village of Kabiufa, near the town of Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands Province. His father, Atopare, as a clan leader, once owned the land upon which the Seventh-day Adventists built the Kabiufa school complex.

Atopare wanted to send eight-year-old Silas to the primary school; however, he sent him to a boarding school instead. While playing in a swollen river near the school, Silas was swept away during a flood toward rapids about a kilometre downstream.

Just as he was approaching them, exhausted and doomed to drown, Silas felt a hand “from above” pick him up and place him on the river bank, where he fell unconscious. This was the first of what Sir Silas acknowledges as supernatural interventions in his life.

He was rushed to hospital, where he soon recovered. Atopare decided to send Silas to the nearby Kabiufa school, where he could keep a closer eye on him. He continued his education there into high school.

Silas transferred to the Seventh-day Adventist Jones Missionary College (present day Kambubu High School), along the coast from Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, where he spent two more years. But midway, he caught hepatitis and was again taken to hospital. His case was so bad, doctors said he would not live more than six weeks.

“So I prayed,” says Sir Silas. “I prayed, ‘God, if you see my future isn’t good, then, please, forgive my sins. Write my name in the Book of Life, then put me to rest. . . . But if you have a purpose for me to serve you, then let this sickness pass’”—a prayer he repeated daily for five weeks until the end was in sight.

Toward the end of the six weeks, he was examined by a doctor who noticed a big difference in his condition. He said, “A miracle has happened to you, Silas, and you’re going to go back to school!”

“As I reflected on my near-death experience in the river, I realised that perhaps God did have a purpose for me, although I expected it might be as a pastor or to serve in some church-related way.”

Following graduation, with a qualification in tropical highlands agriculture, Silas worked for the government before going into the coffee industry. Then, as PNG received independence (1975), he considered a career in politics. At the time of the first parliamentary elections, Silas, at age 25, successfully contested the Goroka Open seat. In Parliament he served as Minister of Works and Supply. However, in the election of 1982, he was defeated and returned to Kabiufa.

“I was being bombarded with problems, personal and economic,” he recalls. “I needed counsel, and I also prayed.”
Close to despair, he sought advice from an old Seventh-day Adventist minister, Pastor Kala. He couldn’t have anticipated what happened next.

“It was September 27, 1985, about 2 pm. Pastor Kala took me to a quiet place. First I prayed. Then I knelt down and he placed his hand on my head. He prayed about my problems and then asked God about my future. As he did—and I was unaware of it at that moment—an angel appeared, telling him, ‘Pastor, this man you are praying for, the Lord God has already appointed him to become the seventh Governor-General of the nation of PNG. Tell him not to worry about his problems; they will be cared for by the Lord.’

“In the vision, the old pastor was shown Port Moresby and the places where I would live and work. He saw inside parliament and saw me sitting on the Speaker’s chair, which he’d never seen in real life. Then he saw someone come and ‘crown’ me Governor-General.

“Then he was back in simple prayer mode. He finished his prayer by acknowledging God in a very powerful way, which then made me realise that something significant had happened during his prayer, so I waited for him to tell me.

“‘Come,’ said the old pastor, placing his hand on my shoulder. ‘You are not a simple man, Silas. In fact, you’re going to become a great man, for the Lord has a great future mapped out for you.’
“‘What is it?’ I asked, a little startled.
“‘You’re going to become the seventh Governor-General of PNG. This is what the Lord says.’
“I said, ‘Old man, it can’t be . . .’
“‘Why not?’ he asked me.

“‘Normally, for a person to become the Governor-General, they have to be close to the ruling political party. I’m not part of a party; I’m finished with politics. That’s not going to work,’ I protested.
“‘No, you are wrong,’ he answered. ‘You don’t question God. You just have to wait for the time to come; He has already ordained you.’”

Silas went home and told his family about the amazing revelation. About three months later, the old pastor retired, but before he left the highlands for his home village in Papua, Silas spoke to him again.
“‘Son,’ the old pastor told me, ‘don’t forget what God has saved for you. You will be the seventh Governor-General, but you have to wait.’”

At the time, PNG was part way through the term of the third Governor-General, each of whom serve six-year terms.
Silas quickly calculated the terms of the next three Governors-General.
“Old man, that’s going to be 18 years!”
“‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘and even if I die before then, you have to hold on.’”

As Silas observed his pressing problems disappearing, he sensed there must be truth in the old man’s predictions. He was soon appointed as a commissioner of the national airline then went on to serve in a number of official positions, including chairman of the Goroka Town Authority and the Goroka Hospital Board.

And so the years passed. He was working in the Highlands as general secretary of the Coffee Industry Corporation as the 1997 election loomed.

“A lot of my friends came asking if I would stand as an MP. I told them no, I would be standing for the position of Governor-General. I was preparing myself for the role. I was confident that the Lord had earmarked it for me. I’d seen Him take care of my many problems years earlier, and I knew that this was the predicted time.”

Others weren’t so convinced, and some scorned him. But by now, invested as Sir Silas and well qualified for the role, he put together a CV and sent it to the country’s 109 national parliamentarians.

“That was the extent of my lobbying,” says Sir Silas, “except that when I received the phone call to say that the submissions were in the hands of the parliamentarians, I went down on my knees and prayed.”

The morning of the parliamentary vote—November 15, 1997—a confidant Sir Silas went to work as usual. At 10 o’clock, he paused to listen to the national news. “The newsreader announced that parliament had a short list of four names for the position, which would be decided at 3 o’clock that afternoon. He then read the names. Mine was not mentioned.

“A friend came in and said, ‘Silas, you’re not in the contest; you’re not on the short list.’
“‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘I’ve seen enough examples of how the Lord has led me to know that He’s appointed me. This news is at 10 o’clock; the decision will not be taken until three. That’s plenty of time for Him to intervene.’
“At 3 o’clock, I tuned into the news once again. The newsreader said there had been some ‘big changes’ with respect to the candidates: the current Governor-General hadn’t been able to secure the numbers, so another candidate—Silas Atopare—had been included.

“I felt the hair on my neck rise,” says Sir Silas. “My colleagues crowded into my office. I said, ‘What did I tell you? I told you what would happen, and this is what is happening now. You can see that the Lord has made the decision already; we’ve just got to wait out the formalities.’”

No-one said anything, neither did anyone leave. They waited tensely for the result of the parliamentary ballot, a three-step elimination process. In the first round, Sir Silas took 39 votes and moved into the second. Forty-five votes, and he was into the final ballot. In the final round Sir Silas took 55 of the 109 votes.

“My friends in the office cheered. But, before anything else, I took them down on their knees—they were mostly spiritual people of different denominations—and we prayed. Then I went home to my family. A couple of days later, we flew to Port Moresby, where an official welcoming party met me.

“Greeting them one by one, I came to the acting secretary, the former official secretary to the outgoing Governor-General. He introduced himself and as he shook my hand, said, ‘Excellency, I too am a Seventh-day Adventist.’
“Then would you have known an old Seventh-day Adventist minister called Pastor Kala, who comes from somewhere here?”
“Yes, yes,” he assured me.
“Is he still living?”
“Yes, he’s still alive.”
“How far away is his home?”
“About 100 kilometres,” he said.
“Then, as my official secretary, my first instruction to you is to bring him here before 9 am tomorrow when I go to the swearing-in.”

The next morning, Pastor Kala came to the hotel room.
“There’s nothing to say except that we must go down on our knees before God,” he said, after greeting Sir Silas.
The two knelt, and Pastor Kala prayed.

After the swearing-in at Parliament House, in which Pastor Kala saw in reality what he’d witnessed previously in vision, Sir Silas returned to the official residence. He begged the pastor to stay in Port Moresby and pray for and with him. But the old pastor returned to his village where he experienced another vision.

In it an angel told him to go back to Port Moresby. “You’re not going to die yet,” said the angel. “You’ve got to go to the Governor-General’s office every day and pray for him.”
So the old man returned.

“And he’s still here,” Sir Silas says with a smile. “He’s part of this institution now; he’s even on the payroll. His job is to come each day and pray with me.”

Sir Silas acknowledges the place of God in his life over the years, “In particular, in helping me uphold the constitution,” he says. “It’s a hard job at times. I have to stand very firm on the constitution and ensure that no-one violates it.

“I believe the Lord placed me here to pray for this nation. Every morning, before sunrise, I pray that the Lord will hold it together. I present its problems to Him. . . . He answers those prayers.
“God called me to this position; He brought me here for this time.”

Articles of interest: