Whatever You Do for the Least of These...

"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me," Jesus said in Matthew 25:40.

Fine words. But do we actually believe them? Or do we recite them like poetry—clean and distant—while stepping over the suffering at our feet? Who are the least today? 

That depends on who you ask. But to me, it’s crystal clear:

They are the ones whose humanity has been erased.

They are the ones whose lives are worth less than timber, copper, and gold.

They are the Papuans—dying not just from bullets, but from our silence.

People ask me why I keep writing about Papua, as if it's some obsession.

Let me ask you this: 

Who else is talking about them?

Do you hear their names on the news?

Do they trend on your feed?

Or are they just one more forgotten people, crushed beneath the machinery of progress?

Here’s the bitter irony:

You might be sitting on Papua right now.

That sleek, blond-wood park bench?

It could have been carved from a Papuan forest—one of the last untouched lungs of our planet.

Ripped out by corporations with chainsaws and contracts, while the world sits back and smiles at its “eco-friendly” surroundings.

But while the trees fall, something worse happens:

The Papuans fall faster.

Shot. Tortured. Burned out of their villages.

And the world yawns.

Back in 2010, French journalist Patrick Pesnot called it like it is. 

He said the Papuans are:

“Victims of the greed of big Anglo-Saxon companies who dig for gold and copper, poisoning their land forever. Victims of soldiers who act as bodyguards for industry. Victims of a system bent on wiping out their civilization, their beliefs… their souls.”

Let that sink in.

We’re not just watching a people lose their land.

We’re watching a people have their soul ripped out—while we do nothing.

So tell me: 

If not the Papuans, who suffers more today?

Who else has lost 500,000 lives under brutal occupation?

Who else is being hunted like animals in their own forests?

And still—we sleep.

So I pray, not with gentle hands but with clenched fists and a burning heart:

O God—You who crafted the Papuans in Your image, who calls them by name—are You watching? Are You weeping? Or are You waiting on us to act? Tear open the heavens if You must, but do not let this go on. Free them. Fight for them. Restore them. Before there’s nothing left but smoke and silence.

Note:

West Papua declared independence in 1961—but was robbed of it by Indonesia in a staged referendum called the “Act of Free Choice.” What a joke. A choice made by 1,026 handpicked men under the threat of death. Since then, 500,000 Papuans have been killed. The rest? Living under occupation. Hunted. Displaced. Erased.

And what do we call that? Peace? Or just colonialism 2.0? Wake up!